AMERICAN SOCIETY AND ITS CRITICS.

IP Mr. Lowell has any spare time, between the kindness of his English friends and the abuse of his Irish compatriots, he can hardly devote it to a better purpose than to write another essay like his famous one "On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners." Some one, at any rate, must step forward to vin- dicate American Society from the charges which have been brought against it during the past few months. It is not often that a call has to be made for volunteers to defend anything American. the power of prompt repartee and the desire to use it are supposed to be special Transatlantic characteristics. It is now, however, three months since Mr. Matthew Arnold's bril- liant "Word About America" appeared in the Nineteenth esniunt, and not a single voice has come across to us in reply. The subject arose first out of the opportunities for severe criticism of America which were afforded by the disgraceful Guiteau trial,—opportunities that were seized by every news- paper in England. Then came Mr. Arnold's article. That was followed by the success of the American novel, "Democracy," exhibiting the political corruption at Washington ; and in july two magazine articles kept the hall rolling,—one, a re- view of "Democracy," in the Fortnightly ; the other, a long

account of "American Society in American Fiction," in the Edinbwrgh Review.

Mr. Arnold'a article is brilliant, but unfair, and in its origin recalls the fable of the "Frogs seeking a King." When dis- coursing of civilisation and democracy, it has been his custom to draw his favourable illustrations from France. For this cus- tom, he tells us, he has been reproached by certain American

correspondents, who ask why he does not come to them for the illustration of his theories, why he does not avail himself of the one great Republican nation of the earth. His atti- tude towards this inquiry was for a long time that of King Log towards the frogs,—he took no notice of it ; he has now adopted the rede of King Stork, and in reply to the gracious invitation of these American writers, he has proceeded to show them that their civilisation falls far short of what is necessary to illustrate his theories,—has devoured them, as it were. As we might expect, his attack is much more trenchant than the ordinary outcry against American vulgarism, and calls for very adroit and extended reply, if, indeed, some of it admits of reply at all. It matters little to him that America can show a much larger proportion of persons who have all the necessaries

and some of the luxuries of life, than any other nation ; he promptly admits that collective humanity has there a chance or

nobler development than elsewhere ; he is even only slightly disturbed by Mr. Bright's gorgeous eulogy of the American middle class. With the old tricks of fence he seeks to show that America does not exhibit in a sufficient degree "the ideal of well-being, of civilisation, of humanisation." Into this mysterious

field of social metaphysics we do not propose to enter ; as we have said, let Mr. Lowell, whose hand is as light and whose blade is as keen as Mr. Arnold's, do battle for his own land. Since, however, we have waited in vain for a better zhampion, there are a few points of unfairness to which we must call' attention. We purposely pass over Mr. Arnold's habitual literary

manceuvre in ringing the changes on a few apt quotations ; his masking of his ideas under the indistinct personalities of Striker, Murdstone, and Quinion ; and his threadbare, but apparently indispensable treatment of the questions of Nonconformity and secondary education. These are openings of which Mr. Lowell will doubtless avail himself, should he honour us by following our suggestion.

With an entire superfluity of confidence, Mr. Arnold informs us that he has never been in America, and it is to this lack that. several of his mistakes are to be traced. In the first place, he

—in common with the writer in the Edinburgh Review—accepts the novels of Mr. Henry James as trustworthy accounts of American society. But Mr. James has been wittily defined as "an Englishman who had the misfortune to be born in America "—a definition which has found much favour—and no, one can spend half-an-hour with him without discovering that he is an Englishman in manners, thoughts, and sympathies; and that the resemblance to the Prince of Wales, which is popularly and correctly ascribed to him, rests on a basis of temperament. Now, however much these things may be to Mr. James's per-

sonal advantage, it is evident that they do not fit him to be a sympathetic depicter of American society, au inference which turns to fact in the mind of any one who, unlike Mr. .Arnold, is familiar with both the descriptive novels and the society described. Again, Mr. Arnold's praise of the New York Nation is richly merited ; but how should he know, not having been in America, that this admirable newspaper has several remarkable and bitter prejudices, and that among these are a devotion to many English customs, and a corresponding hatred of opposed American ones P—a fact well known to its native readers. Consequently, he swallows without an effort the astounding statement of the Nation, that in America" not one man. in a hundred thousand has either the manners or the cultivation of a gentleman, or changes his shirt more than once a week, or eats with a fork." The population of the United States is about fifty millions ; according to the above proportion, therefore, there are between the Atlantic and the Pacific just five hundred happy individuals up to the Nation's very mei:lest standard I Setting aside this retort, however, as mere casuistry, the following letter to the editor, with the editorial comment, which has just appeared in the Nation, confirms our previous statement, and shows upon what a frail staff Mr. Arnold has been leaning :—

" Sia,—I have a friend who is in the habit of saying that when the Nation has exhausted every other form of invective, it ends by accus- ing a man of having no sense of humour. Does not Mr. Matthew Arnold call for this last resort by way of castigation, when he takes the Nation's statement, that not one man in a hundred thousand in America changes his shirt more than once a week or eats with a fork, as a piece of statistical information 2" To which the editor of the Nation replies, "We think he does. The statement was a hyper- bolical illustration, and as applicable to England as America."

Again, a alight acquaintance with America would have saved Mr. Arnold from promulgating the following piece of nonsense : "An American of reputation as a man of science tells me that he lives in a town of a hundred thousand people, of whom there are not fifty who do not imagine the first chapters of Genesis to be exact history." This statement is on a par with Mr. Hussey Vivian's delightful prescription of a Sovereign of the British type, and a House of Lords, as the two things needful to make America perfect.

The unfairness of which we have spoken is exhibited by Mr. Arnold'e dexterous adoption of a double position,—that of the familiar Mr. Facing-both-ways. His whole article is in spirit an impeachment of American civilisation,—he pokes fun at it, he scolds it, he denounces it; yet all the while he keeps assuring us that he is not really assailing the civilisation of America, but is merely "holding a friendly conversation with American lovers of the humane life." So, on the one hand, he quotes a Boston newspaper, the New York Nation, the Atlantic Monthly, and Mr. Lowell ; while, on the other hand,he takes his description of American home life from a town somewhere in the Far West, "not far from Denver," in order, as he tells us, "that it might be evident I was not meaning to describe American civilisation, and that Americans might at once be able to say with perfect truth that American civilisation is something totally different ;" and for a description of an individual whom he has chosen as typical of certain features of American life, he copies a disgust- ing passage from the Australian Batkurat Sentinel. This, we venture to submit, is hardly an ingenuous proceeding. Mr. Arnold is either bringing forward certain charges against American society, or he is not. If he is, the most ordinary fair- ness requires him to take his examples from the civilised part of America, chiefly the Eastern States, and not from the out- skirts of the Union. If he is not, why should he write this " word " of sixteen pages, with all these quotations calculated to throw discredit upon American life ? We have a sincere admiration for Mr. Arnold's scholarship and a profound respect for his taste, and we thankfully acknowledge the many good influences which he has brought to bear upon the thoughtful people of our age ; but to see him in this role of Mr. Facing- both-ways tends to convince us of the truth of a remark made by Emerson several years ago, viz., that Jr, Arnold was growing too discursive, and that his sweetness and light were becoming as heavy as lead. He has now furnished another example of Emer- son's sarcastic statement that "when he speaks directly of the Americans, the islander forgets his philosophy, and remembers his disparaging anecdotes."

The very clever and successful novel "Democracy" is an unfair book, not because it gives false descriptions of American politics, but because it implies that there is no other politics in America than that described in its pages. Amidst all the struggle for offices with their accompanying spoils, there are many upright and courageous men, as well as many who do not hesitate to "play pranks with the interests of forty millions of people." The American record testifies to much high-minded legislation, as well as to much intrigue and knavery. There is even something to be said in mitigation of the horrors of the Guiteau trial. American law has been denounced and ridiculed for the lengths to which it permitted the discussion of the question of Guiteau's insanity to be carried, yet, on the testimony of Dr. Maudsley, it is from America that the first examples of rational treatment of the legal aspects of insanity have come.

The other attacks upon American society are like those with which we have grown familiar. We are told that it is "a community which can barely spare time for sleep and meals," and that its members have "their hats tipped at every angle except the right one, and their feet anywhere but on the floor." The present writer has probably suffered more than most people from the unpleasant habits of American society, its slang and its pompousness, its twang and its tobacco-juice. He has sat for half an hour with the President of the United States, during which time that an gust personage was chiefly occupied in. scrutinising his own boots ; he well remembers being invited to attend church with a Cabinet Minister, and on leaving the house finding the young son of the latter playing in the gutter, and hearing him salute his mother with the playful title of "old stick-in-the-mud ;" to say nothing of the fact that on entering the church the Cabinet Minister and his family filed into their pew, and left their guest standing in the aisle. But, on the other hand, he remembers, as typical incidents of his American life, that a busy stranger stopped in the street to draw a plan on the back of an envelope to guide him through an awkward town ; that when he left his purse at home, the first stranger he asked lent him money; that he has

seen more drunkards in London in six days than in America in six years ; and that it is next to impossible to distinguish an American gentleman from an English gentleman. So, notwith- standing a large experience of its unpleasant side, the writer is confident that America exhibits greater general kindness, more of the politeness which takes trouble and risks discomfort for others, greater regard for the feelings and rights of others,—in short, more of the old home sum spirit, than any of the three greatest countries of Europe. And what is this, after all, but "humanisation ?"

It is human to fall short of perfection, and we know what would happen to us if every man had his deserts. With regard to America, what is required of us all, from Mr. Matthew Arnold down to the most insignificant raconteur, is to discriminate, to have some experience before speaking, to remem. her our philosophy—especially our philosophy of history— and. to forget our disparaging anecdotes.