第21章 THE SKETCH BOOK(4)

Short-sighted and injudicious, however, as the conduct of Englandmay be in this system of aspersion, recrimination on our part would beequally ill-judged. I speak not of a prompt and spirited vindicationof our country, nor the keenest castigation of her slanderers- but Iallude to a disposition to retaliate in kind; to retort sarcasm, andinspire prejudice; which seems to be spreading widely among ourwriters. Let us guard particularly against such a temper, for it woulddouble the evil instead of redressing the wrong. Nothing is so easyand inviting as the retort of abuse and sarcasm; but it is a paltryand an unprofitable contest. It is the alternative of a morbid mind,fretted into petulance, rather than warmed into indignation. IfEngland is willing to permit the mean jealousies of trade, or therancorous animosities of politics, to deprave the integrity of herpress, and poison the fountain of public opinion, let us beware of herexample. She may deem it her interest to diffuse error, and engenderantipathy, for the purpose of checking emigration; we have nopurpose of the kind to serve. Neither have we any spirit of nationaljealousy to gratify, for as yet, in all our rivalships with England,we are the rising and the gaining party. There can be no end toanswer, therefore, but the gratification of resentment- a merespirit of retaliation; and even that is impotent. Our retorts arenever republished in England; they fall short, therefore, of theiraim; but they foster a querulous and peevish temper among our writers;they sour the sweet flow of our early literature, and sow thorns andbrambles among its blossoms. What is still worse, they circulatethrough our own country, and, as far as they have effect, excitevirulent national prejudices. This last is the evil most especially tobe deprecated. Governed, as we are, entirely by public opinion, theutmost care should be taken to preserve the purity of the public mind.

Knowledge is power, and truth is knowledge; whoever, therefore,knowingly propagates a prejudice, willfully saps the foundation of hiscountry's strength.

The members of a republic, above all other men, should be candid anddispassionate. They are, individually, portions of the sovereignmind and sovereign will, and should be enabled to come to allquestions of national concern with calm and unbiased judgments. Fromthe peculiar nature of our relations with England, we must have morefrequent questions of a difficult and delicate character with her thanwith any other nation; questions that affect the most acute andexcitable feelings; and as, in the adjusting of these, our nationalmeasures must ultimately be determined by popular sentiment, we cannotbe too anxiously attentive to purify it from all latent passion orprepossession.

Opening, too, as we do, an asylum for strangers from every portionof the earth, we should receive all with impartiality. It should beour pride to exhibit an example of one nation, at least, destituteof national antipathies, and exercising not merely the overt acts ofhospitality, but those more rare and noble courtesies which springfrom the liberality of opinion.

What have we to do with national prejudices? They are the inveteratediseases of old countries, contracted in rude and ignorant ages,when nations knew but little of each other, and looked beyond theirown boundaries with distrust and hostility. We, on the contrary,have sprung into national existence in an enlightened andphilosophic age, when the different parts of the habitable world,and the various branches of the human family, have beenindefatigably studied and made known to each other; and we foregothe advantages of our birth, if we do not shake off the nationalprejudices, as we would the local superstitions of the old world.

But above all let us not be influenced by any angry feelings, so faras to shut our eyes to the perception of what is really excellentand amiable in the English character. We are a young people,necessarily an imitative one, and must take our examples and models,in a great degree, from the existing nations of Europe. There is nocountry more worthy of our study than England. The spirit of herconstitution is most analogous to ours. The manners of her people-their intellectual activity- their freedom of opinion- their habits ofthinking on those subjects which concern the dearest interests andmost sacred charities of private life, are all congenial to theAmerican character; and, in fact, are all intrinsically excellent; forit is in the moral feeling of the people that the deep foundationsof British prosperity are laid; and however the superstructure maybe time-worn, or overrun by abuses, there must be something solid inthe basis, admirable in the materials, and stable in the structureof an edifice, that so long has towered unshaken amidst the tempestsof the world.

Let it be the pride of our writers, therefore, discarding allfeelings of irritation, and disdaining to retaliate the illiberalityof British authors, to speak of the English nation withoutprejudice, and with determined candor. While they rebuke theindiscriminating bigotry with which some of our countrymen admireand imitate every thing English, merely because it is English, letthem frankly point out what is really worthy of approbation. We maythus place England before us as a perpetual volume of reference,wherein are recorded sound deductions from ages of experience; andwhile we avoid the errors and absurdities which may have crept intothe page, we may draw thence golden maxims of practical wisdom,wherewith to strengthen and to embellish our national character.

THE END

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1819-20