Читать книгу The Pan-Angles - Sinclair Kennedy - Страница 6

If an intelligent traveller from Mars were to tour the earth to-day he would jot down in his note-book that New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, the British Isles, and the United States were all inhabited by the same sort of people. Their language, their forms of government, their ways of thinking and of conducting the various departments of life would lead him to think so. And he would be right. The English-speaking traveller, denied the point of view of an outsider, is prone to take the likenesses for granted and to dwell on the differences, using his own local group as a yard-stick to measure the rest. Beneath his criticism, however, he is conscious that in these countries he is at home in the same sense that he is an alien in all others. Whichever of the seven he may be from, he finds in each of the other six, men he can hardly tell from himself, and realizes that in his own political unit, whose oneness he never questions, there are communities with natures more dissimilar than are the natures of these seven nations. No knowledge of history is needed for either him or the Martian to conclude that while they use different names to designate this part or that, {22} they are speaking always of one people and one civilization.

Of what stuffs the English-speaking people were fashioned has already been explained. England, when colonization began, held the germ of the future Pan-Angles. Within two centuries Scotland and Ireland were united with England and Wales under one government, and the English language and English ideals penetrated further and further into those once Celtic strongholds. Welsh, Scots, and Irish brought their contributions to our development. They wrote English poems and English books. They officered the army and built battleships. They made and administered laws, and furnished prime ministers for the British Isles. Like the Englanders they too migrated to the new Pan-Angle lands, seeking religious or political liberty in some cases, but oftenest seeking the means of a more satisfactory life. These they have found. By this blending of all British Isles stocks came new vitality to the Pan-Angles.

Three centuries ago this diffusion of Britishers began, and it continues to-day in far greater numbers than then.[22–1] Nor have they come less to the United States since it became independent of Great Britain.[22–2] {23} A French student divides the American people into two groups: those whose ancestors were in the United States previous to 1830, and hence almost totally British, and those descended from persons immigrating since that time. The former, according to his computation, comprises more than one-half of the present population of the United States. And of the latter, one-third at least are likewise of British stock. A total of two-thirds, or perhaps even of three-fourths, of the American people to-day are, he concludes, the descendants of Britishers.[23–1] The Irish he considers an important element. Of the result of the mingled immigrations of the Irish and other Celts with the Scandinavians and Germans, an American student says: "When we remember that it was the crossing of the Germanic and the Celtic stocks that produced the English race itself, we are obliged to assume that the future American people will be substantially the same human stuff that created the English common law, founded parliamentary institutions, established American self-government, and framed the Constitution of the United States."[23–2] Of all Pan-Angles a tremendous majority are of British descent. Of all Pan-Angles outside the British Isles a majority are still of British descent; and theirs has been the influence that has made six new nations vastly alike, and like, also, to the Mother Country.

In some instances, notably in Canada and in South Africa, the Pan-Angles found on their {24} arrival other peoples, sprung from European stocks, firmly rooted to the land. Descendants of these first settlers still form communities apart, in which one hears English less often than French or Taal, as the case may be; much as one finds communities in the British Isles where only a form of Celtic is spoken. In other places, too, as in New York and London, are little foreign nuclei engaged in some particular trade, where a man can live and earn his wage and know no English. These are, however, the remarked exceptions.

British blood, moreover, has not in the meantime been stagnant. Through these centuries, as from earliest history, it has been constantly enriched and invigorated by admixtures from the continent of Europe. To the British Isles, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, and the United States, non-British peoples have come. Even New Zealand and Australia, almost purely British as they are, have their French and German settlements respectively. In the British Isles the reception and absorption of foreign stocks has been unspectacular. Individuals, or from time to time groups, seeking the larger tolerance of England, have taken up an abode there. One has but to observe and listen in the streets to be convinced that foreign invaders, though with no hostile intent, still land on British soil. Outside the British Isles, this replenishing of the British stock by "foreign" immigrants often presents features that are spectacular—especially where the bulk of the foreigners now arrive—in the United States and Canada.[24–1]

{25}

The immigrant often comes with no ability to speak English or to understand the habits of mind and forms of government of those who do. He may never have been proudly conscious of any nationality. But in an amazingly brief length of time, we find him taking his place among his Pan-Angle fellows and conducting himself as one of them. In one generation he is transformed into a Pan-Angle.

This process of assimilation was formerly unconscious on the part of the receiving nations. Now, as the task has grown more stupendous, special machineries in the way of day and night schools and settlement clubs and classes have been devised in the larger centres, and are maintained at the expense of the public. The immigrant, safely arrived, finds himself still outside the unyielding wall of the English language. He cannot ask for food or work. Even those from his former country talk English together, and jeer at his ignorance. By hard experience and whatever help is offered, he qualifies himself in this first requisite. With his English he acquires much else. He learns words which express ideas peculiar to Pan-Angle psychology. From the words he progresses to the ideas themselves. Thus he learns somewhat of the theory of law and government, and of the aspirations and ideals, and of the expected privileges that have evolved with this language. The pride of the Pan-Angle comes over him, and a faith in those precepts of individual freedom of which he {26} had never dreamed, it may be, until he learned to read and talk of them in English. "An Englishman's house is his castle." Here is a promise of privacy perhaps unknown in the land he has quitted. "Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed." This is a long step from the doctrine of the Divine Right of kings. Thus with the language goes an atmosphere of many things that are not to be translated, historical heritages which the immigrant must substitute for those of his birth. As he practises the new tongue amid increased material and spiritual comforts, his perception quickens and he is already fairly started to become one of us. "I am an American," he cries; or "I am a Canadian": more noisily, perhaps, because his liberties are newer, but speaking none the less from the same fountains of pride that inspire—"I am an Englishman."

On the second generation the same force operates; the stubbornness of the English-speaking people for their language acts firmly as the Inquisition and gently as a blessing. They attend free schools, read only books written in English from the point of view of English-speaking people and on subjects interesting to such people. Non-Pan-Angle theories of government are non-existent; alien moral standards unheard of. The wall that once hedged the father out, hedges the children in. More often than not they cannot speak the tongue their parents were born to. With Ivanhoe and King Lear they are familiar; they quote Burns and Wordsworth and Longfellow; after local history they study that of England. The history and poets of their fathers' native lands are foreign {27} and unknown. If oratory be demanded, it is Burke or Lincoln who furnish the words and sentiments to young Hans and Pietro.[27–1]

This is a consideration of English-speaking whites, and as such is not concerned with the non-whites of various races and various and inconsistent degrees of subjection or citizenship, who dwell in Pan-Angle countries. The aborigines of the United States and Canada, of New Zealand and Australia, are now problems of the past, solved according to nature's rule of the survival of the fittest. They could not live and increase in the environment the white man was strong enough to throw about them. The negro, numbering almost four times the whites in South Africa[27–2] and one-eighth of the whites in America,[27–3] is a problem yet unsolved, for nature has not yet made it clear which, all things considered, is the most fit. He not only thrives in contact with whites, but with his low standard of living multiplies more rapidly. The Asiatic races are the problem of the future. In every quarter we see a determination that it shall not grow beyond its present incipient stage. All Pan-Angle nations may not be able to obtain, as Australia wishes to, an exclusively white population. {28} But each nation, whenever non-whites appear to endanger the success of white local self-government, are able to exclude from the privilege of the franchise any non-assimilable inhabitants. In each of these seven nations white local autonomy is recognized as necessary. The existence of these problems in no way modifies the definition of Pan-Angles as English-speaking whites who are the self-governing forces in the seven above-named nations.

The language Pan-Angles speak grew out of the Germanic tongues of the Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Jutes. Our most common and familiar words have been in uninterrupted use since the days of those invaders.[28–1] To this Teutonic basis was added the French of the Northmen called Normans. A proclamation of 1258 is sometimes called the first specimen of English,[28–2] but its resemblance to modern speech is not for the uninstructed to discern. Through the thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen hundreds English took on a form more intelligible to us of to-day. In the latter part of the fifteen hundreds a great poet and playwright employed it so effectively that his diction and style became a standard.[28–3] From the same epoch dates the translation of the Bible and its popular use. "The English version of the Bible remains the noblest example of the English tongue, while its perpetual use made it from the {29} instant of its appearance the standard of our language."[29–1]

Thus it came about that in the Mayflower and other early emigrant ships was carried to the new countries an English of authenticated stamp. The standards then recognized are still recognized. This was, however, the English of books and education. Each shire of England in its own speech bore witness to its past. Kent and Yorkshire often could not understand each other, and words used in one were unknown to the other. The emigrating Englander carried with him accordingly, besides the English as established for educated men, the common dialect of his neighbourhood. In the colonies these differences tended to vanish under the influence of the press, free schools, and easy methods of travel; though occasionally in a word, or here and there a pronunciation, the delighted etymologist sees the ghost of some local English usage, as in the old Devon still spoken in Newfoundland.[29–2] In England these local variations of speech have persisted longer, and still puzzle the unaccustomed ear. In America there still exist words and expressions which when they left England were in good usage, but which have there since been dropped. Though the dictionaries of to-day call it an Americanism, Shakespeare wrote: "Better far, I guess, That we do make our entrance several ways."[29–3]

{30}

The variety and interest of the English language does not lie alone in these historical survivals. It has been, and still is, constantly enriched from outside itself. In the colonies and dependencies, and in foreign lands as well, the English language has come in contact with practically all the tongues of the earth. From these it has helped itself according to need or fancy. The result gives locally a strong dash of colour which inevitably tends to tinge the whole. Ranch, trek, amok, portage, taboo, tomahawk, coolie—have long since ceased to serve limited communities, and stand acknowledged in our dictionaries besides words of Saxon and Norman pedigrees. Spruit, kai, bilabong—if not lost altogether will come to the same dignity. Whether the new word is taken from another language or coined from English roots as local slang, the story of a growth in usage is the same. The "tramp" and "sun-downer" may consort together in any library with a "creeper," a "tenderfoot," and a "new chum." In language usages we have no authority but our own desires.

Such is our language, a living thing growing in parts, dying in parts, and ever ready to adapt itself to local needs. It is, moreover, uniform, as nearly as any living tongue can be uniform. The peculiarities of speech observed in different localities are enough to furnish picturesque touches for a novel and humour to the stage, but never [30–1] {31} enough to make even the slightest barrier between any two regions. Even so it is a matter largely of pronunciation and inflection. The writer who would suggest the twangs and drawls, and indicate the r's that are rolled or ignored, and the h's insecure in position, has hard work with tortured spelling to accomplish his end. To the art of printing and all the publishing, useful and otherwise, it has made possible; to popular education and the reading it stimulates, we owe a uniform written language. Had the colonists gone forth and builded their nations prior to the days of type and presses and cheap books, the Kansan and Tasmanian might have been to-day as linguistically remote from each other as both are now from the Anglo-Saxons of Bede's days. Instead, though they may "labor" or "labour" according to fancy, and each have his preference about going to "jail" or to "gaol," they are able to pool their literatures and draw from a common fund. To increasingly comfortable and rapid means of transportation, whether of the tourist, the British bagman or American drummer or the job hunter, we are indebted for our homogeneous speech. And in that common speech lies possibly the strongest tie between Pan-Angles and the one that makes all others potent.

Every Pan-Angle is in instant communication with every other Pan-Angle wherever he may meet him. Through books, newspapers, and magazines written in his mother tongue, he may be in constant touch with the doings of the whole Pan-Angle world. American youths study Geikie's Geology in their schools; New Zealanders buy {32} and read the Atlantic Monthly; and the Century Dictionary is in use at Oxford. Men like Lord Bryce and Admiral Mahan write on matters vital to the existence of Pan-Angle civilization; and attention and esteem are theirs from every thoughtful English-speaking man. Through the pulpit, the lecture platform, and the stage, the people of each nation daily form first-hand acquaintance with the representatives of each of the other six—no bar of translation or interpretation standing between. Of the popular authors and novelists, one-half of their readers probably hardly know which are American, which Britannic. Thus our common language produces a continuous interchange of thought which makes for mental unity and keeps us one people.

Through this world-wide interchange of thought we see not only each other, but ourselves, from the point of view of each other. Family criticism is often harsh when most friendly; and among ourselves we speak our minds freely, whether it be tolls, boundaries, or table manners under discussion. Frank opinions are sometimes resented. "I do not talk through my nose," says the American. "Nor do I use my a's like a cockney," retorts the Australian. "I have no accent," rejoins the Englander with an unmistakable drawl. "Look at your police and your yellow press," say six of us, and the American stands ashamed. "Look at the abject misery of your poor and the waste of your fertile lands," and the Englander winces. "Look at your defenceless condition," and Newfoundlanders, Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, and South Africans all admit the indictment. {33} Mutual criticism is accordingly not without profit. In each other's virtues and failings we find models and warnings, for our ideals are in the main the same, and to no foreign opinion are we so sensitive as to the opinion of other members of our own family.

In Pan-Angle nations there are to-day more people speaking English than have ever before in the world's history spoken one tongue.[33–1] But even outside of those seven nations, English ranks as the world language, the one most useful for commerce, travel, or education. Some maintain that it is the richest language known. On a computation of words that may perhaps be so.[33–2] Others claim it is easy to learn. No one calls it easy to spell. Some say English-speaking people cannot learn other languages; others say they will not. The story is {34} told of a man for many years the only British resident on 1500 miles of Arabian coast. He knew less than a dozen words of Arabic. "How do you carry on your trade?" someone asked. "Oh," he replied, "the beggars have got to learn English."[34–1] Similar is Mr. Dooley's promise to the Filipinos: "An' we'll larn ye our language, because 'tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn oursilves yours."

That the wide knowledge of its language is a source of advantage to a nation, Benjamin Franklin pointed out in a letter to Noah Webster in 1789: "The Latin language, long the vehicle used in distributing knowledge among the different nations of Europe, is daily more and more neglected; and one of the modern tongues, viz. the French, seems in point of universality to have supplied its place. It is spoken in all the courts of Europe; and most of the literati, those even who do not speak it, have acquired knowledge enough of it to enable them easily to read the books that are written in it. This gives a considerable advantage to that nation; it enables its authors to inculcate and spread throughout other nations such sentiments and opinions on important points as are most conducive to its interests, or which may contribute to its reputation by promoting the common interests of mankind. It is perhaps owing to its being written in French, that Voltaire's treatise on 'Toleration' has had so sudden and so great an effect on the bigotry of Europe, as almost entirely to disarm it. The general use of the French language has likewise a very advantageous effect on the profits of {35} the bookselling branch of commerce, … And at present there is no capital town in Europe without a French bookseller's shop corresponding with Paris.

"Our English bids fair to obtain the second place. The great body of excellent printed sermons in our language, and the freedom of our writings on political subjects, have induced a number of divines of differents sects and nations, as well as gentlemen concerned in public affairs, to study it; so far at least as to read it. And if we were to endeavor the facilitating its progress, the study of our tongue might become much more general."[35–1]

By 1856 the use of our language had progressed so that Emerson thought it "destined to be the universal language of men."[35–2]

That we who talk English go about with an assumption of superiority, there is abundant testimony. In 1676 an English ship visited Mauritius, then a possession of Holland. A modern historian quotes from the records of the Dutch Governor: "This breed imagine the Hollanders are of a lower stock, naturally inferior, who ought always to be humbly and servilely at their disposal."[35–3] A Bostonian, who sailed from his home port for Liverpool on news of the ratification of the treaty of Ghent, mentions a British army officer with whom he chatted in London in 1815: "The colonel complimented the American troops in a curious manner by observing that they were brave {36} and it was not to be wondered at since they were 'descendants of Englishmen.' It required all my gravity to make an acknowledging bow for this compliment I frequently found that the bravery displayed by the Americans in the last war was accounted for from this source."[36–1] "They [the Scots] are bumptious, very bumptious," says Goldwin Smith. "They try to force their Burns down our throats."[36–2] "Do not, above all things," counsels an official circular addressed to British emigrants to Canada, "try to impress on your Canadian employer how much better we do things in England, for it will only make him dislike you and perhaps not care to keep you in his employ. Canadians, too, often resent criticism of their country or its methods, but you should remember that they have been working in Canada long before you were born, and that they are more likely than a stranger like yourself to know what suits that country best."[36–3] The American Ambassador, speaking in London in 1913, said "he was asked almost every day by the kindly people whom he met—and he could not too strongly emphasize the word 'kindly' since he had come to England—how they were getting on in the United States assimilating the endless hordes of people from all lands who came to their shores. He did not wish {37} to boast. He was a humble man from the humblest of countries. (Laughter.) But he was delighted to assure them that the Anglo-Saxon, or British, race, who settled the United States first, shaped its destinies, directed its energies, according to their conscience, against their own Motherland, and developed themselves and the great territory which they subdued, to this day, no matter how many men came from how many lands, still ruled it and led it. (Cheers.) And there was no time in sight when that would have changed. Every President of the United States had been of English or Scottish blood dominantly. Out of 121 mayors of cities only 11 per cent. had names which showed that they or their predecessors came from countries other than the United Kingdom. Only 14 per cent. of the representative men who took part in the government of the United States in the House of Representatives or the Senate bore foreign names, which left 86 per cent. who came from the United Kingdom. The Anglo-Saxon was quite as much the leader of men in the great Republic as he was in the great United Kingdom. That was not a boast; it was a natural phenomenon. It was destiny, and they could not help it if they would. Americans deserved no particular praise for it. They believed, just as Englishmen believed, that they were born to rule the world."[37–1] "That complacency which never deserts a true-born Englishman"[37–2] speaks wherever a Pan-Angle voice is raised. {38} Foreign testimony on this point in our character is unanimous, but no foreigner can demonstrate so vividly the arrogance of our self-satisfaction as do we in our every act and attitude. Moreover, what do most of us care about what foreigners think? Was it not Dr. Johnson who said, "All foreigners are mostly fools"?[38–1]

As Pan-Angles we are, in short, the cream of the earth. As Britishers, Americans or Australians we are the cream of the cream. As Englanders, Missourians, or Queenslanders we are something even more superlative. As Londoners, St. Louisans, or Brisbanians—words fail to express the height of our self-approval. The Englander says little on the subject but, like the calm ungainsayable fog of his habitat, simply is. If called from his high estate to pass judgment, he characterizes the rest of the world as "beastly peculiar." "Colonials," in this term he lumps also the inhabitants of the United States, are to him unfortunates, having "jolly rotten luck to live way off out there." The American, more nervously pitched, raises his voice and talks long about his bigness. "You call that a river?" he indicates the Thames. "Why, if we had a damp streak like that in one of our fields in Iowa, we'd tile it just to keep from getting our feet wet crossing." The Australian, conscious that little attention has been paid him as yet, and conscious too that his "potentialities" are really great, {39} aggressively balances a chip for the inspection of critics. His sheep, his harbour, his apples, his stars—woe to anyone who fails to acquiesce in their paramount excellence! "And after all," he sighs, returned from the other fair places of the earth, "after all, there is only one Sydney."

Such are our local prides, or such at least do they appear in their most blatant types. "The habit of brag runs through all classes"[39–1] wherever we live. Those of us who observe the good form of appearing tolerably meek-minded, are perhaps at heart no more so. Why, then, do we smile tolerantly at all the world and take no offence at each other. Because each is confident of his own place in the sun, and confident too that the Pan-Angles, although he may not use that term, by virtue of these very local prides, are one in their desire and determination to maintain their civilization against all others who are not of our language and our ways.

An American was one day asked by a cutlery salesman from Birmingham (England), "Are you not humiliated by having no national language?" "We have one," was the prompt reply; "it is English." So would have spoken a Canadian or a Newfoundlander, a South African, a New Zealander, or an Australian. That is one of our prides. Our language is ours. It reflects our many-rooted origins, our varied and severally branched histories, our constantly converging growths. It binds us to the ideals of our kind. Its very name takes us in imagination to the infancy of our race, where {40} from subservience to the wills of others the individual emerged. "The English have given importance to individuals, a principal end and fruit of every society. Every man is allowed and encouraged to be what he is, and is guarded in the indulgence of his whim. 'Magna Charta,' said Rushworth, 'is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.' By this general activity and by this sacredness of individuals, they have in seven hundred years evolved the principles of freedom. It is the land of patriots, martyrs, sages and bards, and if the ocean out of which it emerged should wash it away, it will be remembered as an island famous for immortal laws, for the announcement of original right which make the stone tables of liberty."[40–1] To acknowledge the relation of America to the land of these struggles and their earliest successes can never be humiliating. England's past belongs to us all, and to-day England is one of us. There, was cradled the individualism of our Teuton forbears that has grown into a civilizing world-wide domination. We all have helped to nurture and shield it. We are as seven guardians whose harmony is secured not only because they are one in aim and method but because being one in language they are bound into understanding.

The Pan-Angle enjoys the highest standard of living known to any comparable number of people in the world, either formerly or to-day. If civilization depends on the margin of wealth above mere {41} means of existence, Pan-Angles are the most civilized of the races.

Given a hypothetical community possessed only of such material resources that all the energies of every member must be used to provide food and protection from the elements, and there is presented the lowest possible standard of living. Anything lower would mean starvation, exposure, and death. Add but ever so little to those resources, so that some few, still fed and sheltered, may employ their energies in other ways, and they may become scientists and prolong the lives of their fellows and teach them more productive methods of food getting; they may become artists and poets for the delight and recreation of the rest; they may devise laws and systems of government to regulate labour and control wealth; and may develop certain instinctive cravings into hopeful religions. The community has now taken its first steps toward what we call civilization. Add further to the resources, increase the amount of energy that can be spent in channels other than the maintenance of life, and there is developed a complex organism, with churches and schools, music and literature, steam transportation, electric machinery, and contrivances of many other sorts to make life comfortable, enjoyable, and inspiring. Between this hypothetical primitive community and civilization as the Pan-Angles understand it are many stages, some of them occupied to-day by our neighbours whose material resources have not increased to the extent of ours. Now, of all the world, the people having most time and strength {42} after their physical necessities are secured are the Pan-Angles.

The per capita wealth and the per capita land holdings of the Pan-Angles are greater than those of any other comparable number of people. Their diet is more generous, more costly, and more varied. Their apparel is more expensive, and their housing more capacious and more comfortable. They are able to support a greater number of instructors and entertainers in their writers, artists, and musicians. Hardly an act of their lives, hardly an article they use, but has some embellishment not strictly necessary to life and utility. With all this the Pan-Angles, so much have they beyond the mere means of existence, furnish lavishly the pleasures of the so-called "higher life" to their own souls. They study philosophies and ponder the rights of man; they support the weak and economically useless with the proceeds of their own labour. They send of their wealth to other civilizations, as missionary reports testify, trying to contribute to their welfare. And with all this spending, they still have at their disposal such resources that they increase in numbers from generation to generation, and each generation has more than the generation before.

The reason for this high standard of living is not far to seek. We have all this because we have been strong enough to take land, the source of food and shelter, the basis of all life and wealth. The Teutons came and took England; the Normans came and took England; and Pan-Angles since have taken land in every continent and throughout the seas: from the bleak coast {43} and rich shore-fisheries of the Labrador to the fertile plains of the Missouri and the grassy ranges of Otago. In Canada and the United States for years land was the prize that the country offered to pioneers, giving thousands of acres in parcels of one hundred and sixty as long as they lasted. From their land and sea-coast holdings, the Pan-Angles have taken the yield of fish and grain and meat; and those who laboured in getting food produced enough for themselves and for their fellows who were working in other ways. Besides food, these lands provided many other of the essentials of the standard of living we desire.