[Speech of Ralph Waldo Emerson at the annual banquet of the Manchester
Athenæum, Manchester, England, November, 1847. Sir Archibald Alison,
the historian, presided]
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--It is pleasant to me to meet this
great and brilliant company, and doubly pleasant to see the faces of so
many distinguished persons on this platform. But I have known all these
persons already. When I was at home, they were as near to me as they are
to you. The arguments of the League and its leader are known to all the
friends of free trade. The gaieties and genius, the political, the
social, the parietal wit of "Punch" go duly every fortnight to every boy
and girl in Boston and New York. Sir, when I came to sea, I found the
"History of Europe"[2] on the ship's cabin table, the property of the
captain;--a sort of programme or play-bill to tell the seafaring New
Englander what he shall find on landing here. And as for Dombey, sir,
there is no land where paper exists to print on, where it is not found;
no man who can read, that does not read it, and, if he cannot, he finds
some charitable pair of eyes that can, and hears it.
But these things are not for me to say; these compliments, though true,
would better come from one who felt and understood these merits more. I
am not here to exchange civilities with you, but rather to speak of that
which I am sure interests these gentlemen more than their own praises;
of that which is good in holidays and working-days, the same in one
century and in another century. That which lures a solitary American in
the woods with the wish to see England, is the moral peculiarity of the
Saxon race,--its commanding sense of right and wrong,--the love and
devotion to that,--this is the imperial trait, which arms them with the
sceptre of the globe. It is this which lies at the foundation of that
aristocratic character, which certainly wanders into strange vagaries,
so that its origin is often lost sight of, but which, if it should lose
this, would find itself paralyzed; and in trade, and in the mechanic's
shop, gives that honesty in performance, that thoroughness and solidity
of work, which is a national characteristic. This conscience is one
element, and the other is that loyal adhesion, that habit of friendship,
that homage of man to man, running through all classes,--the electing of
worthy persons to a certain fraternity, to acts of kindness and warm and
staunch support, from year to year, from youth to age,--which is alike
lovely and honorable to those who render and those who receive
it;--which stands in strong contrast with the superficial attachments of
other races, their excessive courtesy, and short-lived connection.
You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it be, I
have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates
real and not pretended joys; and I think it just, in this time of gloom
and commercial disaster, of affliction and beggary in these districts,
that on these very accounts I speak of, you should not fail to keep your
literary anniversary. I seem to hear you say that, for all that is come
and gone, yet we will not reduce by one chaplet or one oak-leaf the
braveries of our annual feast. For I must tell you, I was given to
understand in my childhood that the British island, from which my
forefathers came, was no lotus-garden, no paradise of serene sky and
roses and music and merriment all the year round, no, but a cold, foggy,
mournful country, where nothing grew well in the open air, but robust
men and virtuous women, and these of a wonderful fibre and endurance;
that their best parts were slowly revealed; their virtues did not come
out until they quarrelled; they did not strike twelve the first time;
good lovers, good haters, and you could know little about them till you
had seen them long, and little good of them till you had seen them in
action; that in prosperity they were moody and dumpish, but in adversity
they were grand.
Is it not true, sir, that the wise ancients did not praise the ship
parting with flying colors from the port, but only that brave sailor
which came back with torn sheets and battered sides, stript of her
banners, but having ridden out the storm? And so, gentlemen, I feel in
regard to this aged England, with the possessions, honors and trophies,
and also with the infirmities of a thousand years gathering around her,
irretrievably committed as she now is to many old customs which cannot
be suddenly changed; pressed upon by the transitions of trade, and new
and all incalculable modes, fabrics, arts, machines and competing
populations,--I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering
that she has seen dark days before; indeed, with a kind of instinct that
she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle
and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon. I see
her in her old age, not decrepit, but young, and still daring to believe
in her power of endurance and expansion. Seeing this, I say, All hail!
mother of nations, mother of heroes, with strength still equal to the
time; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the
mind and heart of mankind require in the present hour, and thus only
hospitable to the foreigner, and truly a home to the thoughtful and
generous who are born in the soil. So be it! so let it be! If it be not
so, if the courage of England goes with the chances of a commercial
crisis, I will go back to the capes of Massachusetts, and my own Indian
stream, and say to my countrymen, the old race are all gone, and the
elasticity and hope of mankind must henceforth remain on the Alleghany
ranges, or nowhere.
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