ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA
by Washington Irving
"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousingherself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invinciblelocks: methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, andkindling her endazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam."MILTON ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.
IT IS with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literaryanimosity daily growing up between England and America. Greatcuriosity has been awakened of late with respect to the United States,and the London press has teemed with volumes of travels through theRepublic; but they seem intended to diffuse error rather thanknowledge; and so successful have they been, that, notwithstanding theconstant intercourse between the nations, there is no peopleconcerning whom the great mass of the British public have less pureinformation, or entertain more numerous prejudices.
English travellers are the best and the worst in the world. Where nomotives of pride or interest intervene, none can equal them forprofound and philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphicaldescriptions of external objects; but when either the interest orreputation of their own country comes in collision with that ofanother, they go to the opposite extreme, and forget their usualprobity and candor, in the indulgence of splenetic remark, and anilliberal spirit of ridicule.
Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, the more remotethe country described. I would place implicit confidence in anEnglishman's descriptions of the regions beyond the cataracts of theNile; of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea; of the interior ofIndia; or of any other tract which other travellers might be apt topicture out with the illusions of their fancies; but I wouldcautiously receive his account of his immediate neighbors, and ofthose nations with which he is in habits of most frequent intercourse.
However I might be disposed to trust his probity, I dare not trust hisprejudices.
It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited bythe worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophicalspirit and cultivated minds have been sent from England to ransack thepoles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners andcustoms of barbarous nations, with which she can have no permanentintercourse of profit or pleasure; it has been left to the broken-downtradesman, the scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, theManchester and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles respecting America.
From such sources she is content to receive her information respectinga country in a singular state of moral and physical development; acountry in which one of the greatest political experiments in thehistory of the world is now performing; and which presents the mostprofound and momentous studies to the statesman and the philosopher.
That such men should give prejudicial accounts of America is not amatter of surprise. The themes it offers for contemplation are toovast and elevated for their capacities. The national character isyet in a state of fermentation; it may have its frothiness andsediment, but its ingredients are sound and wholesome; it hasalready given proofs of powerful and generous qualities; and the wholepromises to settle down into something substantially excellent. Butthe causes which are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and itsdaily indications of admirable properties, are all lost upon thesepurblind observers; who are only affected by the little asperitiesincident to its present situation. They are capable of judging only ofthe surface of things; of those matters which come in contact withtheir private interests and personal gratifications. They miss some ofthe snug conveniences and petty comforts which belong to an old,highly-finished, and over-populous state of society; where the ranksof useful labor are crowded, and many earn a painful and servilesubsistence by studying the very caprices of appetite andself-indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are all-important inthe estimation of narrow minds; which either do not perceive, orwill not acknowledge, that they are more than counterbalanced among usby great and generally diffused blessings.
They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in some unreasonableexpectation of sudden gain. They may have pictured America tothemselves an El Dorado, where gold and silver abounded, and thenatives were lacking in sagacity; and where they were to becomestrangely and suddenly rich, in some unforeseen, but easy manner.
The same weakness of mind that indulges absurd expectations producespetulance in disappointment. Such persons become embittered againstthe country on finding that there, as everywhere else, a man mustsow before he can reap; must win wealth by industry and talent; andmust contend with the common difficulties of nature, and theshrewdness of an intelligent and enterprising people.
Perhaps, through mistaken, or ill-directed hospitality, or fromthe prompt disposition to cheer and countenance the stranger,prevalent among my countrymen, they may have been treated withunwonted respect in America; and having been accustomed all theirlives to consider themselves below the surface of good society, andbrought up in a servile feeling of inferiority, they become arroganton the common boon of civility: they attribute to the lowliness ofothers their own elevation; and underrate a society where there are noartificial distinctions, and where, by any chance, such individuals asthemselves can rise to consequence.