The Road to England

“ The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the highroad that leads him to England.”— BOSWELL’S Johnson (A. D. 1763).

IT has often been a question in my mind whether I was personally helped or hindered by the fact of never having set foot on the shores of England until forty-eight years old. The very juvenile age at which young people now go there, and the fact that we generally regard this arrangement as a thing in itself desirable, are curiously in contrast with the time when early foreign travel was comparatively rare. In my own case, the postponement never, on the whole, seemed to be a distinct injury, since I cannot but think that the strictly American fibre was likely to be knit more strongly, at least in those days, for persons bred in their own country. The interval certainly gave time for measuring men and thoughts at home, for testing one’s self by different forms of action, and for accumulating knowledge which made the new experience more valuable. Undoubtedly, during such years of waiting, the eagerness of every American to see the home of his fathers grew stronger and stronger : and he was apt to share the feeling of Johnson’s imaginary Scotchman, though perhaps from a higher motive, that the noblest prospect he could see would be the highroad leading to England. The circumstance that, in this instance, his path was to be “ o’er the mountain waves,” in Campbell’s phrase, only increased the attraction.

Yet as a matter of fact the American began to walk on the road to England from the time when he first encountered English literature and Englishmen, even as transplanted to this continent. Of course, the knowledge of English literature traveled to us easily, and this all the more because the responsible literary authorities, even of American imprint, were then almost wholly English ; the leader among them, in my boyhood, being the weekly Albion, then published in New York. It is to be remembered, however, that the actual contact with such English authors, statesmen, or men of high social rank as visited this country was much easier in Boston and Cambridge than elsewhere, because the early Cunard steamers made Boston, not New York, their terminus. In the society of that city, and still more in the academical society of Cambridge, it was more common than now, very probably, to meet distinguished Englishmen. It was rare indeed to see the Harvard Commencement events pass by without visitors of this description. Englishwomen of rank, however, rarely came to America, nor do they abound even now. I think that the first titled Englishwoman whom I ever met was that very original and attractive young representative of this class, Lady Amberley, who visited this country about 1868, — daughter of Lord Stanley of Alderley, and wife of the young Lord Amberley, son and heir of Earl Russell. I had found it quite easy to overcome the vague American deference for the supposed authority of a title in case of the Englishmen of rank who had passed before my eyes, for I could not convince myself that their manners or bearing were superior to those of various gentlemen — Bostonians, Philadelphians, and Virginians — whom I had met. I may add that no later experience has ever removed this impression, while undoubtedly the Latin blood often exhibits to us, even in lower social grades, finer examples of courtesy than can easily be paralleled in the Germanic races.

Thus much for Englishmen of rank ; and as for women of the corresponding class, it is certain that Miss Burney’s and Miss Edgeworth’s novels had formed for us a very imperfect anticipation of such a type as Lady Amberley, a girlish wife of nineteen, as frank and simple as any American girl, and with much more active interest in real things than was to be found in most of the Newport dowagers who shook their heads over her heretical opinions. I had once the pleasure of driving her in a pony phaeton to White Hall, a former resilience of the English bishop, Berkeley, and the place where he wrote his Minute Philosopher. All the memories of Berkeley, I observed, did not absorb the boyish husband and wife so eagerly as the oldfashioned well-sweep that crowned the well; and they were never weary of pulling down the buckets. I took her, on the way, to call on La Farge and see his then recent designs from Browning ; being dismayed, however, to learn from her that although Browning was a great favorite socially at her father’s house in London, yet neither she nor her friends cared anything about his poetry. She talked with the greatest frankness about everything, being particularly interested in Vassar College, then the only example of its class; and she persistently asked all the young girls why they did not go there, until she was bluntly met at last by a young married woman as frank in speech as herself, though less enlightened, who assured her that no society girl would think of going to college, and that nobody went there except the daughters of “ mechanics and ministers.”

I remember that she in turn gave me some admirable suggestions from her own point of view ; as, for instance, when I asked her whether the highest London society was not made more tame by the fact that all guests were necessarily determined by rank rather than by preference, and she answered that it was not so at all, pointing out the simple fact that the recognized aristocracy was on quite too large a scale to be included in any private drawing room, so that there had to be a selection, and this made it very easy to drop out the unavailable patricians, and bring in plebeians who were personally attractive. Young girls, for example, she said, who were staying as guests in great houses, and who had strong points in the way of beauty or music or conversation, might have an immensely successful social career, however unknown or humble their origin, while whole families of magnates would come from the more distant counties for the London season and entirely fail of actual success. “I know lots of dukes’ daughters,” she said casually, " who get no attention whatever.” There was really something quite delicious, to my republican ears, in thus sweeping, as it were, a débris of dukes’ daughters into this dustpan of indifference.

Perhaps the young speaker was herself not so much a type as a bit of eccentricity, yet she was an interesting and highminded one, and reinforced her equally independent but personally insignificant husband with potent strength. There was a story in Cambridge that when he had rashly trusted himself, one day, in a circle of bright people without her, and had suffered some repression, she drove out the next day alone to fight the battle over again with the accomplished host. “ Mr. —— she said impetuously, “ Amberley has been telling me what you were saying to him yesterday. Now you know that ’s all bosh.” This story gave some pleasure, I fear, to those previously disposed to take sides against her entertainer, and it suggests a somewhat similar bit of retaliation which occurred in case of another English visitor, also highly connected, but oppressively well informed, who once at a Philadelphia dinner table, when some suburban town in Pennsylvania was mentioned, remarked incidentally that its population was 3278. While the company sat dumb with admiration, a quiet man farther down at the table, who had hitherto been speechless, opened his lips to say : “ I think the gentleman is mistaken. The population is 3304.” An eminent Oxford professor told me, years after, that this incident, which soon got into the newspapers, might be said to have delighted two continents.

When I lived at Newport, Rhode Island, from 1864 to 1878, there was a constant procession of foreign visitors, varying in interest and often quite wanting in it. I remember one eminent literary man, who, in spite of all cautions to the contrary, appeared at a rather fashionable day reception in what would now be called a golf suit, of the loudest possible plaid, like that of the Scotch cousin in Punch who comes down thus dressed for church, to the terror of his genteel cousins. What was more, the visitor also wore a spyglass of great size, hung round his neck, all through the entertainment. Another highly connected Englishman, attending an evening reception given expressly for him, came into the parlor with his hat and umbrella in his hand, declining to be parted from them through the whole evening ; which suggested to a clever Newport lady the story of the showman who exhibited a picture of Daniel in the lions’ den, and pointed out that Daniel was to be distinguished from the lions by having a blue cotton umbrella under his arm. In this case, the lady remarked that the conditions were reversed, since it was the lion that carried the umbrella.

One also saw at Newport many foreigners of distinction and positive interest, especially at the house of Mr. George Bancroft, where I remember seeing the Emperor of Brazil, traveling as Dom Pedro, with his wife, she having with her a little lady in waiting who felt it her duty to go about and whisper to the other guests not to forget that her Imperial Majesty was a Bourbon. When I paused to recall what that name had signified through centuries of despotism and gloom, it was startling to think that I was sitting on the same sofa chatting peacefully with one of its last representatives. A more interesting visitor was Thomas Hughes, still dear to the schoolboy heart, whom I took up on the cliffs for a stroll, which he has kindly commemorated in his published journal, but which was saddened to me by the fact that as we stood together beside the Spouting Rock, and he, despite caution, went too near, a sudden jet of salt water deluged his only white duck suit from top to toe, and he was driven hastily back to the house. I recall with pleasure, also, a visit to Newport by the young Baron Mackay, now Lord Reay, whom I took with me, at his request, to see a public grammar school, where he talked to the children with such simplicity and frankness as to win their hearts, and to prefigure his fine career as chairman of the London school board, lord rector of St. Andrews University, president of University College, and governor of Bombay.

It may be said in general that American strangers who had decent introductions were most kindly received, twentyfive years ago, in London. A little flavor of foreignness was not only borne patiently, but accepted as a merit; and indeed Lord Houghton told me that the early Americans, as Ticknor and Sumner, had been sometimes characterized as not having enough flavor of their own soil. I cannot forget, however, that Miss Kate Field, then living in London and having a decided circle of popularity of her own, used to declare that the English kindliness toward our fellow countrymen was strictly limited by selfishness ; that it must be a poor letter of introduction which would not bring forth an invitation to dinner. “ After that,” she said, “ if you do not make yourself agreeable, they will drop you like a hot potato.” From this calamity a very short stay is a sure preventive, and may work successful results, like Sam Weller’s brief love letter. At the time of which I write (1872) many cultivated Englishmen were meditating visits to America, and even lecturing tours, so that such men as Tyndall, Froude, and others were naturally inclined to make the acquaintance of those familiar with the field ; and authors, again, are always fancied to be kindly disposed to those who write literary criticisms for the press. It was also a period when two or three American writers were so enormously popular in England that I could at once command the ear of any Englishwoman by telling her that I had been a pupil of Longfellow, or of any Englishman by dropping out the fact that I had dined with Mark Twain in his own house and that he had said grace at table.

But even apart from these phantom ties I was constantly struck with the genuine spirit of hospitality among Englishmen toward Americans as such, even those with whose pursuits they might have almost nothing in common, and for whom they had not the least reason to put themselves out. I liked this none the less because it had definite limitations as to pecuniary obligations and the like, including everything in the nature of " treating ; ” all this being, in my opinion, a weak point in our more gushing or more self-conscious habit. I remember to have once been taken by a gentleman, on whom I had but the slightest claim, to the country house of another, on whom I had no claim whatever. The latter was not at all literary, and had not even the usual vague English interest in American affairs; yet he gave up his whole afternoon to drive me to Kenilworth, which he had seen a thousand times. But that for which I liked him best, and which afforded a wholly new experience, was that, as we entered the outer doorway, he, going first, looked back over his shoulder and said simply, “ They make you pay threepence for admission here,” and then added, speaking to the attendant, “ Here is my threepence.” After all the time and trouble he had given to his stranger guest, he yet left him to pay his own threepence, a thing which most Americans would not have dreamed of doing. It would have been the American notion of good breeding to save a guest from expense, as it was the English impulse to save him from the sense of obligation. I confess that I prefer the latter method.

On the other hand, I was much impressed with the English weakness constantly shown in the eagerness of even radical audiences to secure, if possible, a man of rank to take the chair at any public meeting; and also with the deference with which such hearers would listen to very poor or dull speaking if backed by a title, while they would promptly stamp down a man of their own rank, with a rudeness rarely paralleled in America, if he spoke a little too long or not clearly enough. This I noticed, for instance, at a large meeting in the Freemason’s Tavern (in 1878), at which I had been invited to speak in favor of opening picture galleries and museums on Sunday. Lord Rosebery and Lord Dunraven both argued acceptably, followed by the late Lord Dorchester, who spoke with the greatest difficulty and quite inaudibly, but received nevertheless a rapt attention, whereas a delegate from Manchester, who spoke far better and more to the point, was stamped down without mercy. In following him I was received and heard with the greatest cordiality as an American, while I said nothing to compare in value with what the man from Manchester had said. Again, it is held in England perfectly legitimate for a party to break up by force a meeting of the opposite party, whereas this is very rare with us, and always hurts the rioters. Much is said about the English love of fair play, but this instinct would really seem less strong among the English than among ourselves.

I had the great advantage, both in England and France, of being sent in 1878 as a delegate to some prison discipline meetings ; and although this was a subject with which I was somewhat unfamiliar, yet I went, fortunately, under the wing of the late Rev. Dr. E. C. Wines, whom I found everywhere to be treated with great deference as the recognized leader in that whole matter. I particularly enjoyed a meeting at the Social Science Rooms in London at which the late Lord Carnarvon presided. I became acquainted for the first time with the much more formal habits of English public meetings, as compared with ours, — the detailed proposing and seconding of everything, even of votes of thanks to chairmen and secretaries, always accompanied by speeches by the proposer and seconder. I noticed there, also, the marked difference between English and Irish public speaking, the latter exemplified by the late Lord O’Hagan, and remarkable in his case for its ease and flow.

But most remarkable of all, and surpassing in spontaneous oratory anything I ever heard in England, was the speech, at this meeting, of Cardinal Manning, a man whose whole bearing made him, as my friend Conway said, “ the very evolution of an ecclesiastic.” Even the shape of his head showed the development of his function ; he had the noble brow and thin ascetic jaw, from which everything not belonging to the upper realms of thought and action seemed to have been visibly pared away ; his mouth had singular mobility ; his voice was in the last degree winning and persuasive; his tones had nothing in them specifically English, but might have been those of a highly cultivated American, or Frenchman, or Italian, or even German. I felt as if I had for the first time met. a man of the world, in the highest sense, — and even of all worlds. His knowledge of the subject seemed greater than that of any other speaker; his convictions were wholly large and humane, and he urged them with a gentle and controlling courtesy that disarmed opposition. In reading his memoirs, long after, I recognized the limitations which came from such a temperament and breeding ; but all his wonderful career of influence in England existed by implication in that one speech at the Prison Congress. If I were looking for reasons in favor of the Roman Catholic Church, its strongest argument, in my opinion, would be its power to develop and promote to high office one such man. The individual who stands next to him in my personal experience, and perhaps even as his superior, is a French priest I once met by chance in one of the great Continental cathedrals, and whose very name I do not know ; but who impressed and charmed me so profoundly by his face, manner, and voice, it has seemed to me ever since that if I waked up to find myself betrayed into a great crime, I should wish to cross the ocean to confess it to him.

In meeting the Englishman whom I had perhaps most desired to encounter, — Mr. Gladstone, — I had a curious illustration of the uncertain quality of a letter of introduction. On one’s first visit to a foreign country one collects these with a curious interest, as if each were a magic key to open a realm of unbounded promise ; but he may live to find that there is much difference in the keys. I was offered a letter to Mr. Gladstone from an English clergyman, an Oxford doctor of divinity, not now living, who had resided for some time in this country as a very successful tutor or coach for college students. He had written, when in England, a pamphlet in support of Gladstone, at some important crisis, and in his letter of introduction recalled himself to the great man’s memory by this good deed. On arriving in London I sent out my letters with my card in the usual way, and that to Mr. Gladstone was the only one which remained unanswered. This state of things continuing for many days, it crossed my mind that I had heard a vague rumor at home to the effect that the clergyman had left England under a cloud, and mentioning the matter to Sir John Rose, whom I had met in America and whom I knew to be on intimate terms with Mr. Gladstone, the matter was soon set right, and the obstacle turned out to have been just what I supposed. After all, however, I had but a brief interview with Mr. Gladstone, by his own appointment, on which occasion, as I find by my notebook, I was struck with his being in voice and appearance more like an American than most Englishmen I had seen. He was surprisingly well acquainted with our leading American authors, and came near to conceding, so I fancied, that the outcome of our civil war had been quite unlike what he had expected. He showed great pleasure in the fact that Edward Everett had sent his son to the English Cambridge, and expressed earnest hope that this would become more common for American youth. It was pleasant to carry him the first information that his Juventus Mundi had been reprinted in this country, a thing which seemed to please him exceedingly. I find recorded of him in my brief diary : “ A fine, wise, keen face; a voice like Emerson’s without the hesitancy.” My visit to London being very hurried, it was necessary to decline an invitation to breakfast, and through a series of circumstances we did not meet again.

The radical side of London was more conspicuous then than now, and I should have been extremely sorry to have missed it. I wished particularly to hear Charles Bradlaugh, who was just at the height of his fame as a popular speaker. I was piloted to his hall by Mr. Odger, a prominent workingmen’s leader, a diminutive, sturdily built man, who ploughed his way before me through the Sundayevening crowd like a bluff little English tug making the way for a clumsier craft. The place of meeting was a low and dingy hall, crowded with people who listened with great enthusiasm to an address on Jehovah. Bradlaugh seemed to me one of the natural orators, like Beecher, a man of commanding appearance and fine voice, and without mere sensationalism or the pursuit of antagonism for its own sake ; in all these points quite surpassing Colonel Ingersoll, with whom he has been often compared. I never shall forget the impressiveness of one passage in which he described a shipwrecked mother, stranded upon a rock in the ocean during a rising tide, and continually lifting her baby higher and higher, still praying to her God to preserve her child, until the moment when the pitiless waves submerged them both. I imagined that it would be almost impossible to paint a picture from the agnostic point of view which would be more powerful with an audience. He came to lunch with me a few days later, and I found in his talk that vigor and power of adaptation which made his career in Parliament so remarkable. I saw him also in frequent attendance at the trial of Mrs. Annie Besant, an occasion which presented the strange combination of a contest for the custody of a child between a Christian father and an atheistic or agnostic mother, the case being up for determination before a Jewish judge.

It is a constant attraction about London that the step from the associations of radicalism to those of royalty is always easy, and implies hardly more than the crossing of a park. So I felt, at least, when, on May 13, 1878, I found myself taking the breezy walk on a showery morning from Aldershot railway station to the Common, amid an irregular procession of carriages and pedestrians with that fringe of vagabond life, always more abundant and picturesque in England than among ourselves, consisting of gypsies, showmen, tinkers, peddlers, and donkeys. One of the habitual English showers came on. A crowd under dripping umbrellas soon loses all visible distinction of caste, and I drifted easily into a very favorable position, quite near the flagstaff beneath which the Majesty of England was to take its stand for a review of troops. In England, when it is sunshine men know it will soon rain ; and when it rains hard they know that the sun will promptly reappear. In this case the gleaming of light was presently brilliant ; umbrellas were lowered, raindrops glistened on horses’ manes and on officers’ plumes, and brightly against the intense green of English hills shone the scarlet regiments advancing to take their places. Her Majesty has the royal virtue of punctuality, and all eyes were turned toward a low straw wagon with two white ponies which came trotting along the line of spectators.

But now all eyes were turned in another direction, where they were riveted so long that the Queen herself became an object of secondary interest. Two soldiers had long stood ready at the flagstaff to hoist the great standard, and when the Queen was seen the signal for its raising was given. Up it went, flapping in the strong wind ; but so clumsily was the flag handled that it was wrapped around the staff, and not half of it blew out freely. The men twitched and tugged in vain ; and her Majesty drove by, apparently not noticing the mishap, but nodding and smiling good-naturedly to some of the ladies who sat in favored positions.

When she had gone by and had turned to drive past the line of troops opposite us, there was a subdued murmur of “ Lower the flag, and try it again.” An officer stepped forward to give orders, and down it came. Then it began to go up once more, this time blowing out clearly, until it reached half - mast and stopped. There was a general groan. Again twitching and pulling were tried in vain ; the halyard was plainly choked in the block. At last a soldier advanced to climb the flagstaff ; subdued cheers greeted him ; the Queen was now far away, driving down the long line of soldiers ; there was plenty of time. Up and up he went, and when he stopped, halfway, to rest, the cheering grew more outspoken. But more than halfway up he never got, and the cheering died into a muffled groan when the poor fellow, with a sheepish smile, slid slowly downward, downward, quite exhausted ; and the flag was still at half-mast, and the Queen was still advancing.

Then, after a pause and hurried consultation, came forward a cavalryman, and great was the relief when, on stripping off his coat, he showed the tattooed arms of a sailor. “ Bless him ! ” gasped a lady near me. “ There ’s but just time ! ” growled her husband. Up went the bold dragoon, not stopping even to take off his heavy boots; no applause met him till he had passed the point where his predecessor had stopped; then all seemed to take breath, and the murmur of triumph swelled. But as he went higher he went ominously slower ; and ten feet from the top, utterly powerless to climb an inch farther, he stuck helpless, an object of dismay to twenty thousand people. Stretching out his tired arm, bending and unbending it, as if to say, " If you only knew how I feel!" the poor victim of unavailing patriotism slid slowly down ; and there was the Queen now in full sight and rapidly approaching.

The commander of her advanced guard had just reached the flagstaff as the poor cavalryman slunk back among his mates. “ Pull down that flag ! ” shouted the officer or somebody. Down it came, and her Majesty the Queen of England and Empress of India reviewed her troops without a flag over her head. I do not know how many Englishmen present recalled the fact that a somewhat similar mishap occurred when the flag of the ill - fated Charles I. was first raised at Nottingham, in 1642 ; indeed, I did not find a single one who remembered it; but it was at least a curious coincidence. There was, at the time of this review at Aldershot, quite a general impression that war with Russia was impending; and the more songs one sang about “ the meteor flag of England,” the more awkward it certainly was to have the meteor go down instead of up. But so far as England’s Queen was concerned, this annoying test only brought out her finer qualities. Her expression was, as all said, unusually bright and cheerful on that day ; she cast one light glance at the empty flagstaff, and from that moment seemed to ignore the whole matter. The effect was to make every one else ignore it, and all were soon absorbed in the brilliancy of the review.

That is, it was called very brilliant; and no doubt the predominant English scarlet is incomparably more effective to the eye than our sober blue. But the very perfection of the appointments made it all seem to me rather a play-soldier affair ; I had grown so accustomed to judging of soldiers by their look of actual service that a single company of bronzed and tattered men would have been a positive relief among these great regiments of smooth-faced boys. This involved no reproach to the young recruits, and did not affect the mere spectacle, but it impaired the moral interest. However, the drill and the marching were good, though there is a sort of heaviness about the British soldier when compared with the wonderful vigor and alertness of German infantry. As for the uniforms, the arms, the appointments, the horses, they were simply admirable. I do not believe that there ever was an army in finer material condition than those sixteen thousand men at Aldershot.

And all this brilliant display was subject to a woman; and when the final salute was paid, every gun was at " present arms ” for her, and in her honor the band played “ God save the Queen ! ” I find written in my journal : “ There was something of real majesty in her manner, as she stood up before her soldiers in acknowledgment of the salute. She is short, stout, with a rather heavy and not altogether a pleasing face ; but in spite of all this, she has a dignity of bearing which amounts almost to grace, and is the only personal charm that her subjects claim for her. Even this does not make her exactly popular, and at this very time I heard ungracious remarks in regard to the large Highlander, John Brown, her confidential servant, who, in gorgeous array, sat behind her Majesty, much more lofty and conspicuous than herself. But I am afraid it is true that England still prefers to be ruled by a queen ; and it is certain that the present sovereign will hold her prerogatives, such as they are, with a firm hand. I never find myself quite such a ruthless republican anywhere else as in England ; and yet there is a certain historic interest and satisfaction, after the long subordination of women, in thinking that the leading monarchy of the world still takes its orders from a woman’s hand.”

It has rarely happened in history that a single sovereign, by the mere prolongation of a peaceful reign, has so influenced human history as has been the case with Queen Victoria. It was everywhere distinctly recognized in England, in 1878, even among radicals, that this strong personal influence was sure to be exerted while she lived. I was struck with the remark made by one of the ablest women I met, the late Mrs. Augusta Webster, who pointed out to me that, in the existing state of public opinion, the British throne was a thing just suited to a woman. It was largely, she said, a position of ceremony ; the sovereign must reign without governing. And this would hardly be a dignified position for a man ; one occupying it must either seem rather insignificant, or else be tempted to acts of aggression in order to enhance his dignity, and this the people would not endure. An English army officer of high rank told me, in that same year, when I asked him if England would ever become a republic, that while the Queen lived it would be an absolute impossibility ; but that if she outlived the Prince of Wales, which was quite possible, and if there were then to be a disputed succession, or some young and imprudent sovereign were to ascend the throne, it would be difficult to predict the consequences. There is undoubtedly much less of visible republican feeling in England to - day than was the case twenty years ago ; but we must always remember, on the other hand, that the Emperor of Germany, with all his high-flown theories of absolutism, is Queen Victoria’s grandson ; that he has been claimed by some English journals as the rightful heir to the English crown ; and that, even if we set this heirship aside as wholly impossible, we do not know what influence his example might have upon that still untried cousin who may succeed him to the throne. I have never yet met an Englishman who would admit that the British people would tolerate for a month any assumptions like those habitually made by the present German Emperor. Great as might be the sacrifice implied in the adoption of a republic, I am persuaded that to the vast majority of Englishmen it would be the more palatable alternative, than to be ruled, I will not say by him personally, but by such traditions and standards as the German Emperor represents.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson.