Fifth Series, Volume XLIX. } No. 2125.- March 14, 1885. From Beginning, Vol. OLXIV. 643 . . CONTENTS. I. A WORD MORE ABOUT AMERICA. Ву Matthew Arnold, . Nineteenth Century, Ву Chambers' Journal, Cornhill Magazine, IV. PLAIN FRANCES MOWBRAY, Blackwood's Magazine, V. GAINSBOROUGH, National Review, . VI. JANE AUSTEN AT HOME, Fortnightly Review, VII. THE UPPER ENGADINE IN WINTER, Fortnightly Review, Contemporary Review, . Spectator, Spectator, . . . 658 666 674 680 685 690 . 700 702 TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For Eight DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGB will be punctually forwarded a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office monev-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register, Jetters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. CHARLES GORDON. | The roses blush along my ivied wall, (“We trusted it had been he who should have delivered Where wealth's keen hunt has yet forborne Israel.") to tread; Great soul, that scorned ignoble ease, And nothing but God's clouds can draw a pall Still lit with faith's undying flame, Between me and his temple overhead. The northern skies vie with the vaunted south, And genius ever prompt to seize War's swift occasions as they came, Wherever nature has but air for breath, And answer from the one Creator's mouth We hoped he could not fail to save ; That life immortal has no space for death. We hoped, - but under alien skies, HERMAN C. MERIVALE. Far off, within his bloody grave, Eastbourne. Spectator. Struck by the traitor steel he lies. Is this the end ? Forbid the ght! The servant follows still the Lord; For each hath death the victory wrought, ON A RING-PLOVER FOUND DEAD IN With him the cross, with thee the sword. TYREE. The Saviour dies, betrayed, alone, August, 1884 His Israel unredeemed; but still IN a hollow of the dunes Grows to a mightier world-wide throne Its wings were closed in rest, The felon Cross on Calvary's hill. And the forets of the eyebright Stood guard around its breast. The glorious light and sun Were on it where it lay, The echo of thy deathless praise And the sound of ocean murmurs Passed o'er it from the bay. No more its easy pinions Would gleam along the sand, No more in glancing courses Sweep all the pleasant land. Would mingle with the surf; Once nimble on the turf. No ruffle marred its plumage, No struggle stretched its head; Breeze-haunted by a tune articulate It lay in perfect slumber, The happiest of the dead. So could I wish that Death Would make his lair for me Thy simple secret to the poisoned earth. Among the list’ning pastures And margins of the sea. Tell her of One, who made the sun and air Good Words. ARGYLL A refuge for the pent-up toiler's heart, So that from him, still through his pain and care, The touch of freedom never might depart: Tell her that where his open spaces lie, FROM NATURE TO MAN. Still Heaven-reflected for the eye to scan, TIME was when Nature's every mystic mood Though more and more man's greed the space Poured round my heart a flood of eager joy; deny, When pageantry of sunsets moved the boy Lives yet his message to the self of man. More than high ventures of the great and good; When trellised shadows in the vernal wood, The gloom is ours; his the late lights that And little peeping flowers, so sweet and coy, shine Were simple happiness without alloy, Serenely on thy modest petals yet, And whispered to me things I understood. And frame with glory oak and eglantine, But now the strange sad weight of human woe, Where'er rude man his stamp delays to set. And all the bitterness of human wrong, Still through the undying beauty of thy frame Press on my saddened spirit as I go, On wings of music ride unwritten words, And stir the pulsings of a graver song: And restful spirits find all lands the same Dread inysteries of life and death I scan, Where blooms the lovely life of flowers and And all my soul is only full of man. birds. Spectator. W. WALSHAM BEDFORD. From The Nineteenth Century. should for my part expect to find there A WORD MORE ABOUT AMERICA. rather such and such other things, which WHEN I was at Chicago last year, I was I mentioned. I said that of aristocracy, asked whether Lord Coleridge would not as we know it here, I should expect to write a book about America. I ventured find, of course, in the United States the 10 answer confidently for hiin that he total absence; that our lower class I would do nothing of the kind. Not at should expect to fiod absent in a great deChicago only, but almost wherever I went, gree, while my old familiar friend, the I was asked whether I myself did not io- middle class, I should expect to fiod in full tend to write a book about America. For possession of the land. And then betakoneself one can answer yet more confi- ing myself to those playful phrases which dently than for one's friends, and I always a little relieve, perhaps, the tedium of replied that most assuredly 1 had no such grave disquisitions of this sort, I said intention. To write a book about Amero ihat I imagined one would just have in ica, on the strength of having made merely America our Philistines, with our aris. such a tour there as mine was, and with tocracy quite left out and our populace no suller equipment of preparatory stud. very nearly. ies and of local observations than I pos- An acute and singularly candid Ameri. sess, would seem to me an impertinence. can, whose name I will on no account be It is now a long while since I read M. tray to his countrymen, read these obser. de Tocqueville's famous work on democ. vations of mine, and he made a remark racy in America._I have the highest re- upon them to me which struck me a good spect for M. de Tocqueville; but my re deal. Yes, he said, you are right, and membrance of his book is that it deals your supposition is just. In general, what too much in abstractions for my taste, and you would find over there would be the that it is written, moreover, in a style Philistines, as you call them, without your which many French writers adopt, but aristocracy and without your populace. which I find tryiog – a style cut ioto short Only this, too, I say at the same time: paragraphs and wearing an air of rigorous you would find over there something be. scientific deduction without the reality. sides, something more, something which Very likely, however, I do M. de Tocque. you do not bring out, which you cannot ville injustice. My debility in high spec- know and bring out, perhaps, without actuulation is well known, and I mean to at-| ally visiting the United States, but which tempt his book on democracy again when you would recognize if you saw it. I have seen America once more, and when My friend was a true prophet. When I years may have brought to me, perhaps, saw the United States I recognized that more of the philosophic mind. Mean. the general account which I had hazarded while, however, it will be evident how of them was, indeed, not erroneous, but serious a matter I thiok it to write a worthy that it required to have something added book about the United States, when I am to supplemeot it. I should not like either not entirely satisfied with even M. de my frieods in America or my countrymen Tocqueville's. here at home to think that my “ Word But before I went to America, and when about America" gave my full and final I had no expectation of ever going there, thoughts respecting the people of the I published, under the title of “A Word United States. The new and modifying about America,” pot indeed a book, but a impressions brought by experience I shall few modest remarks on what I thought communicate, as I did my original expeccivilization in the United States might tations, with all good faith, and as simply probably be like. I had before me a Bos- and plainly as possible. Perhaps when I ton newspaper article which said that if I have yet again visited America, have seen ever visited America I should find there the great West, and have had a second such and such things; and taking this reading of M. de Tocqueville's classical article for my text I observed, that from work on democracy, my mind may be en. all I had read and all I could judge, 1 larged and my present impressions still further modified by new ideas. If so, I claimers suppose, and that the merit of promise to make my confession duly; not the Americans was not that of oppressed indeed to make it, even then, in a book men rising against tyrants, but rather of about America, but to make it in a brief sensible young people getting rid of stu. “ Last Word” on that great subject - a pid and overweening guardians who misword, like its predecessors, of open-heart. understood and misınanaged them. ed and free conversation with the readers All this let us concede, if we will; but of this review. in conceding it let us not lose sight of the really important point, which is this: that I suppose I am not by nature disposed their institutions do in fact suit the people to think so much as most people do of of the United States so well, and that “institutions." The Americans think and from this suitableness they do derive so talk very much of their “ institutions;” 1 much actual benefit. As one watches the am by nature inclined to call all this sort play of their institutions, the image sug. of thing machinery, and to regard rather gests itself to one's mind of a man in a men and their characters. But the more suit of clothes which fits him to perfec. I saw of America, the more I found my- tion, leaving all his movements unimpeded self led to treat “institutions" with in- and easy. It is loose where it ought to creased respect. Until I went to the be loose, and it sits close where its sitting Uoited States I had never seen a people close is an advantage. The central gove with institutions which seemed expressly ernment of the United States keeps in its and thoroughly suited to it. I had not own hands those functions which, if the properly appreciated the benefits proceed nation is to have real unity, ought to be ing from this cause. kept there; those functions it takes to Sir Heory Maine, in an admirable essay itself and no others. The State governwhich, though not signed, betrays him ments and the municipal governments for its author by its rare and character provide people with the fullest liberty of istic qualities of mind and style — Sir managing their own affairs, and afford, Heory Maine in the Quarterly Review besides, a constant and invaluable school adopts and often reiterates a phrase of M. of practical experience. This wooderful Scherer, to the effect that “democracy is suit of clothes, again (to recur to our only a form of government.” He holds image), is found also to adapt itself natup to ridicule a sentence of Mr. Bancroft's urally to the wearer's growth, and to history, in which the American democracy admit of all enlargements as they succesis told that its ascent to power “proceeded sively arise. I speak of the state of things as uniformly and majestically as the laws sioce the suppression of slavery, of the of being, and was as certain as the decrees state of things which meets a spectator's of eternity." Let us be willing to give eye at the present time in America. There Sir Henry Maine his way, and to allow no are points io which the institutions of the magnificent claim of this kind on behalt United States may call forth criticism. of the American democracy. Let us treat | One observer may think that it would be as not more solid the assertion in the well if the president's term of office were Declaration of Independence, that “all longer, if his ministers sate in Congress men are created equal, are endowed by or must possess the confidence of Con. their Creator with certain inalienable gress. Another observer may say that rights, among them life, liberty, and the the marriage laws for the whole nation pursuit of happiness.” Let us concede ought to be fixed by Congress, and not to that these natural rights are a figmeot; vary at the will of the legislatures of the that chance and circumstance, as much as several States. I myself was much struck deliberate foresight and design, have with the inconvenience of not allowing a brought the United States into their pres. man to sit in Congress except for his own ent dition, that moreover he British district; a man like Wendell Phillips was rule which they threw off was not the thus excluded, because Boston would not rule oí oppressors and tyrants which de. I return him. It is as if Mr. Bright could a have no other constituency open to him if half a dozen politicians whom in England Rochdale would not send him to Parlia. we should pronounce to be members of ment. But all these are really questions Parliament of the highest class, in bearing, of machinery (to use my owo term), and manners, tone of feeling, intelligence, in. ought not so to engage our attention as to formation. I discovered that in truth the prevent our seeing that the capital fact as practice, so common in America, of call. to the institutions of the United States is ing a politician" thief," does not mean this: their suitableness to the American so very much more than is meant in En. people, and their natural and easy working. gland when we have heard Lord BeaconsIf we are not to be allowed to say, with field called “a liar” and Mr. Gladstone Mr. Beecher, that this people has “ "a madman.” It means, that the speaker genius for the organization of States," disagrees with the politician in question then at all events we must admit that in and dislikes him. Not that I assent, on its own organization it has enjoyed the the other hand, to the thick-and-thin Amer. most signal good fortune. ican patriots, who will tell you that there is Yes; what is called, in the jargon of the no more corruption in the politics and ad. publicists, the political problem and the ministration of the United States than in social problem, the people of the United those of England. I believe there is more, States does appear to me to have solved, and that the tone of both is lower there ; or fortune has solved it for them, with un- and this from a cause on which I shall deniable success. Against invasion and have to touch bereafter. But the corrupconquest from without they are impreg. tion is exaggerated; it is not the wide and nably strong. As to domestic concerns, deep disease it is often represented; it is the first thing to remember is, that the such that the good elements in the nation people over there is at bottom the same may, and I believe will, perfectly work it people as ourselves, a people with a strong off ; and even now the truth of what I sense. for conduct. But there is said to have been saying as to the suitableness be great corruption among their politi. and successful working of American insti. cians and in the public service, in muni- tutions is not really in the least affected cipal administration, and in the adminis- by it. tration of justice. Sir Lepel Griffin would Furthermore, American society is not lead us to think that the administration in danger from revolution. Here, again, of justice, in particular, is so thoroughly I do not mean that the United States are corrupt, that a man with a lawsuit has exempt from the operation of every one of only to provide his lawyer with the neces. the causes such a cause as the division sary funds for bribing the officials, and he between rich and poor, for jostance can make sure of winning his suit. The which may lead to revolution. But I Americans themselves use such strong mean that comparatively with the old language in describing the corruption countries of Europe they are free from prevalent amongst them that they cannot the danger of revolution; and I believe be surprised if strangers believe them. that the good elements in them will make For myself, I had heard and read so much a way for them to escape out of what they to the discredit of American political lise, really have of this danger also, to escape how all the best men kept aloof from it, in the future as well as now - the future and those who gave themselves to it were for which some observers aonounce this unworthy, that I ended by supposing that danger as so certain and so formidable. the thing must actually be so, and the Lord Macaulay predicted that the United good Americans must be looked for else. States must come in time to just the same where than in politics. Then I had the state of things which we witness in En. pleasure of dining with Mr. Bancroft in gland; that the cities would fill up and the Washington; and however he may, in Sir lands become occupied, and then, he said, Henry Maine's opinion, overlaud the pre- the division between rich and poor would established harmony of American democ- establish itself on the same scale as with racy, he had at any rate invited to meet me l us, and be just as embarrassing. He for. |
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