Matthew Arnold - Discourses in America

Of the three discourses in this volume, the second was originally given as the Rede Lecture at Cambridge, was recast for delivery in America, and is reprinted here as so recast. The first discourse, that on ‘Numbers,’ was originally given in New York. It was afterwards published in the Nineteenth Century , and I have to thank Mr. Knowles for kindly permitting me to reprint it now. The third discourse, that on ‘Emerson,’ was originally given in Emerson’s ‘own delightful town,’ Boston.

I am glad of every opportunity of thanking my American audiences for the unfailing attention and kindness with which they listened to a speaker who did not flatter them, who would have flattered them ill, but who yet felt, and in fact expressed, more esteem and admiration than his words were sometimes, at a hasty first hearing, supposed to convey. I cannot think that what I have said of Emerson will finally be accounted scant praise, although praise universal and unmixed it certainly is not. What high esteem I feel for the suitableness and easy play of American institutions I have had occasion, since my return home, to say publicly and emphatically. But nothing in the discourse on ‘Numbers’ was at variance with this high esteem, although a caution, certainly, was suggested. But then some caution or other, to be drawn from the inexhaustibly fruitful truth that moral causes govern the standing and the falling of States, who is there that can be said not to need?

All need it, we in this country need it, as indeed in the discourse on ‘Numbers’ I have by an express instance shown. Yet as regards us in this country at the present moment, I am tempted, I confess, to resort to the great truth in question, not for caution so much as for consolation. Our politics are ‘battles of the kites and the crows,’ of the Barbarians and the Philistines; each combatant striving to affirm himself still, while all the vital needs and instincts of our national growth demand, not that either of the combatants should be enabled to affirm himself, but that each should be transformed. Our aristocratical class, the Barbarians, have no perception of the real wants of the community at home. Our middle classes, the great Philistine power, have no perception of our real relations to the world abroad, no clue, apparently, for guidance, where-ever that attractive and ever-victorious rhetorician, who is the Minister of their choice, may take them, except the formula of that submissive animal which carried the prophet Balaam. Our affairs are in the condition which, from such parties to our politics, might be expected. Yet amid all the difficulties and mortifications which beset us, with the Barbarians impossible, with the Philistines determining our present course, with our rising politicians seeking only that the mind of the Populace, when the Populace arrives at power, may be found in harmony with the mind of Mr. Carvell Williams, which they flatter themselves they have fathomed; with the House of Lords a danger, and the House of Commons a scandal, and the general direction of affairs infelicitous as we see it, – one consolation remains to us, and that no slight or unworthy one. Infelicitous the general direction of our affairs may be; but the individual Englishman, whenever and wherever called upon to do his duty, does it almost invariably with the old energy, courage, virtue. And this is what we gain by having had, as a people, in the ground of our being, a firm faith in conduct; by having believed, more steadfastly and fervently than most, this great law that moral causes govern the standing and the falling of men and nations. The law gradually widens, indeed, so as to include light as well as honesty and energy; to make light, also, a moral cause. Unless we are transformed we cannot finally stand, and without more light we cannot be transformed. But in the trying hours through which before our transformation we have to pass, it may well console us to rest our thoughts upon our life’s law even as we have hitherto known it, and upon all which even in our present imperfect acception of it it has done for us.

There is a characteristic saying of Dr. Johnson: ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’ The saying is cynical, many will even call it brutal; yet it has in it something of plain, robust sense and truth. We do often see men passing themselves off as patriots who are in truth scoundrels; we meet with talk and proceedings laying claim to patriotism, which are these gentlemen’s last refuge. We may all of us agree in praying to be delivered from patriots and patriotism of this sort. Short of such, there is undoubtedly, sheltering itself under the fine name of patriotism, a good deal of self-flattery and self-delusion which is mischievous. ‘Things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why, then, should we desire to be deceived?’ In that uncompromising sentence of Bishop Butler’s is surely the right and salutary maxim for both individuals and nations.

Yet there is an honourable patriotism which we should satisfy if we can, and should seek to have on our side. At home I have said so much of the characters of our society and the prospects of our civilisation, that I can hardly escape the like topic elsewhere. Speaking in America, I cannot well avoid saying something about the prospects of society in the United States. It is a topic where one is apt to touch people’s patriotic feelings. No one will accuse me of having flattered the patriotism of that great country of English people on the other side of the Atlantic, amongst whom I was born. Here, so many miles from home, I begin to reflect with tender contrition, that perhaps I have not, – I will not say flattered the patriotism of my own countrymen enough, but regarded it enough. Perhaps that is one reason why I have produced so very little effect upon them. It was a fault of youth and inexperience. But it would be unpardonable to come in advanced life and repeat the same error here. You will not expect impossibilities of me. You will not expect me to say that things are not what, in my judgment, they are, and that the consequences of them will not be what they will be. I should make nothing of it; I should be a too palpable failure. But I confess that I should be glad if in what I say here I could engage American patriotism on my side, instead of rousing it against me. And it so happens that the paramount thoughts which your great country raises in my mind are really and truly of a kind to please, I think, any true American patriot, rather than to offend him.

The vast scale of things here, the extent of your country, your numbers, the rapidity of your increase, strike the imagination, and are a common topic for admiring remark. Our great orator, Mr. Bright, is never weary of telling us how many acres of land you have at your disposal, how many bushels of grain you produce, how many millions you are, how many more millions you will be presently, and what a capital thing this is for you. Now, though I do not always agree with Mr. Bright, I find myself agreeing with him here. I think your numbers afford a very real and important ground for satisfaction.

Not that your great numbers, or indeed great numbers of men anywhere, are likely to be all good, or even to have the majority good. ‘The majority are bad,’ said one of the wise men of Greece; but he was a pagan. Much to the same effect, however, is the famous sentence of the New Testament: ‘Many are called, few chosen,’ This appears a hard saying; frequent are the endeavours to elude it, to attenuate its severity. But turn it how you will, manipulate it as you will, the few, as Cardinal Newman well says, can never mean the many. Perhaps you will say that the majority