" GOOD-BYE, ENGLAND ! "
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—After reading Mr. J. Frederick Essary's " Good-bye, England ! " in your issue of February 5th, I, another American, am constrained to pour Oil on any waters that may still be tossing in that journalist's wake.
Now, perhaps more than formerly, the rule seems to be for Englishmen to cherish the animadversions of the American, if offered in a half-way decent spirit of condescension, as pearls of great material and social price. Such an attitude may be due to English fair-mindedness turned to self-mortification, to the glamour attaching to prtsent-day American " success," or to Britain's tense appreciation of international responSi; bility, but, whatever the reason, the AmeriCan iebriis to have all' the best of the dismisidon nowadays. Yankee-baiting is at a" heavy discount in your organs of considered opinion, whereas John-Bull-baiting by our authorities of high and low degree you more or less take lying down, or with the wry grin of one who is trying to like it. I know how all this must stick in the crops of true Britons and cause robust necks to swell. For in many ways, tangibly or intangibly, the older civilization always " has it over " the newer, and 'knows it.. The critic from " out west " will always bethe specimen under observation, however dimly he realizes it. Therefore, I would say to my English friends even now;" Be yourselves "—just as you have. allowed Mr. Essary, of Baltimore, to be himself. Big Cousin Jonathan must be patted the right way nowadays,' to be sure ; but the Englishman still has his historical setting. and. the' Lion his appointed den.
This may be carrying the argument a little high, as a scrutiny of Mr. Essary's benediction reveals a careful colour of urbanity. Be that as it may, the &hit he has put forth is decidedly unripe. When Mr. Essary left, he was still con- cerned about " getting on with the British," and he had got as far as the first formula of necessity, " Be a straightforward . . but unboastful American." That saying, albeit subtly paradoxical, is intimation enough that, given time, my countryman might have arrived at the more general formula, " Be a human being," which works well in almost any land. At that stage he would have found alien " man- nerisms " and " dialect " fading out into the less challenging entities known as national manners and speech.
Your gilded State coaches and palace rituals the author finds incompatible with democracy, yet somehow comparable to a Mystic Shriners' convention. Hasn't someone told him, or has he forgotten, that the State coach, the palace ritual, the wig, one and all embody the majesty, the stability, and, above all, the reality of constitutional government and established order ; whereas the Shriners' convention (and Flag-idolatry no less) represent the very lack of that richer symbolism ?
Unripeness, I fear, clings to Mr. Essary's valedictory from its initial tribute to the individualism and barbaric dis- comfort of London life to its closing apostrophe to English civilization, " as secure and splendid as any in the world to- day "—New York presumably being the speculum orbis of his maturest choice.
A final word about that crime at which Mr. Essary so darkly hints—the awful offence, the madness " of England presuming to frown at " us " while " we " were crowding the rules of war sixty-five years ago to crush some infamous un- named opponent. " We " and " us." Even horrification over a historical crime should not destroy one's sense of balance. After all, it takes two sides to make a war and provide a victory for one side to gloat and grumble over in perpetuity. It is, indeed, true that " we " fought " the fiercest civil war of all time, at a cost of a million lives," but not" all for a principle " ; there were at least two principles in the field, disputed with considerable asperity ; two peoples, now indissolubly united, but one of them still in possession of enough of its spirit to resent the opposite partisan's holy assumption and airing of all the ideals and all the damage. Robert Lee and Stonewell Jackson are dead ; the bare feet that followed them no longer bleed ; but their memory is not yet quite extinct.
So, let not England's pride wilt unduly under Mr. J. Frederick Essary's parting aspersions, or under his patronage either. An examination of his mental outlook may suggest that it is not necessarily so all-inclusive as to be devastating.—
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