[Speech of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, at the
breakfast given by the Century Club, New York City, November 2,
1878.]
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--The hospitality shown to me has
been no exception to that with which every Englishman meets in this
country, in the endless repetition of kind words and the overwhelming
pressure of genial entertainment which has been thrust upon me. That
famous Englishman, Dr. Johnson, when he went from England to Scotland,
which, at that time, was a more formidable undertaking than is a voyage
from England to America at the present time, met at a reception at St.
Andrew's a young professor who said, breaking the gloomy silence of the
occasion: "I trust you have not been disappointed!" And the famous
Englishman replied: "No; I was told that I should find men of rude
manners and savage tastes, and I have not been disappointed." So, too,
when I set out for your shores I was told that I should meet a kindly
welcome and the most friendly hospitality. I can only say, with Dr.
Johnson, I have not been disappointed.
But in my vivid though short experience of American life and manners, I
have experienced not only hospitality, but considerate and thoughtful
kindness, for which I must ever be grateful. I can find it in my heart
even to forgive the reporters who have left little of what I have said
or done unnoted, and when they have failed in this, have invented
fabulous histories of things which I never did and sayings which I never
uttered. Sometimes when I have been questioned as to my impressions and
views of America, I have been tempted to say with an Englishman who was
hard pressed by his constituents with absurd solicitations: "Gentlemen,
this is the humblest moment of my life, that you should take me for such
a fool as to answer all your questions." But I know their good
intentions and I forgive them freely.
The two months which I have spent on these shores seem to me two years
in actual work, or two centuries rather, for in them I have lived
through all American history. In Virginia I saw the era of the earliest
settlers, and I met John Smith and Pocahontas on the shores of the James
River. In Philadelphia I lived with William Penn, but in a splendor
which I fear would have shocked his simple soul. At Salem I encountered
the stern founders of Massachusetts; at Plymouth I watched the Mayflower
threading its way round the shoals and promontories of that intricate
bay. On Lake George and at Quebec I followed the struggle between the
English and the French for the possession of this great continent. At
Boston and Concord I followed the progress of the War of Independence.
At Mount Vernon I enjoyed the felicity of companionship with Washington
and his associates. I pause at this great name, and carry my
recollections no further. But you will understand how long and fruitful
an experience has thus been added to my life, during the few weeks in
which I have moved amongst the scenes of your eventful history.
And then, leaving the past for the present, a new field opens before me.
There are two impressions which are fixed upon my mind as to the leading
characteristics of the people among whom I have passed, as the almanac
informs me, but two short months. On the one hand I see that everything
seems to be fermenting and growing, changing, perplexing, bewildering.
In that memorable hour--memorable in the life of every man, memorable as
when he sees the first view of the Pyramids, or of the snow-clad range
of the Alps--in the hour when for the first time I stood before the
cataracts of Niagara, I seemed to see a vision of the fears and hopes of
America. It was midnight, the moon was full, and I saw from the
Suspension Bridge the ceaseless contortion, confusion, whirl, and chaos,
which burst forth in clouds of foam from that immense central chasm
which divides the American from the British dominion; and as I looked
on that ever-changing movement, and listened to that everlasting roar,
I saw an emblem of the devouring activity, and ceaseless, restless,
beating whirlpool of existence in the United States. But into the
moonlight sky there rose a cloud of spray twice as high as the Falls
themselves, silent, majestic, immovable. In that silver column,
glittering in the moonlight, I saw an image of the future of American
destiny, of the pillar of light which should emerge from the
distractions of the present--a likeness of the buoyancy and hopefulness
which characterize you both as individuals and as a nation.
You may remember Wordsworth's fine lines on "Yarrow Unvisited," "Yarrow
Visited," and "Yarrow Revisited." "America Unvisited"--that is now for
me a vision of the past; that fabulous America, in which, before they
come to your shores, Englishmen believe Pennsylvania to be the capital
of Massachusetts, and Chicago to be a few miles from New York--that has
now passed away from my mind forever. "America Visited"; this, with its
historic scenes and its endless suggestions of thought, has taken the
place of that fictitious region. Whether there will ever be an "America
Revisited" I cannot say; but if there should be, it will then be to me
not the land of the Pilgrim Fathers and Washington, so much as the land
of kindly homes, and enduring friendships, and happy recollections,
which have now endeared it to me. One feature of this visit I fear I
cannot hope to see repeated, yet one without which it could never have
been accomplished. My two friends, to whom such a pleasing reference has
been made by Dr. Adams, who have made the task easy for me which else
would have been impossible; who have lightened every anxiety; who have
watched over me with such vigilant care that I have not been allowed to
touch more than two dollars in the whole course of my journey--they,
perchance, may not share in "America Revisited." But if ever such should
be my own good fortune, I shall remember it as the land which I visited
with them; where, if at first they were welcomed to your homes for my
sake, I have often felt as the days rolled on that I was welcomed for
their sake. And you will remember them. When in after years you read at
the end of some elaborate essay on the history of music or on Biblical
geography the name of George Grove, you will recall with pleasure the
incessant questionings, the eager desire for knowledge, the wide and
varied capacity for all manner of instruction, which you experienced in
your conversations with him here. And when also hereafter there shall
reach to your shores the fame of the distinguished physician, Dr.
Harper, whether in England or in New Zealand, you will be the more
rejoiced because it will bring before you the memory of the youthful and
blooming student who inspected your hospitals with such keen
appreciation, so impartially sifting the good from the evil.
I part from you with the conviction that such bonds of kindly
intercourse will cement the union between the two countries even more
than the wonderful cable, on which it is popularly believed in England
that my friend and host, Mr. Cyrus Field, passes his mysterious
existence appearing and reappearing at one and the same moment in London
and in New York. Of that unbroken union there seemed to me a likeness,
when on the beautiful shores of Lake George, the Loch Katrine of
America, I saw a maple and an oak-tree growing together from the same
stem, perhaps from the same root--the brilliant fiery maple, the emblem
of America; the gnarled and twisted oak, the emblem of England. So may
the two nations always rise together, so different each from each, and
representing so distinct a future, yet each springing from the same
ancestral root, each bound together by the same healthful sap, and the
same vigorous growth.