After All, I Had An Old World
Liking For Them In Their Rags.
They were endeared to me by certain
memories and associations which I cannot define.
But then what
would those Americans think of them - of them and of the country
which produced them? That was the reflection which troubled me. A
legion of women in rags clamorous for bread, protesting to heaven
that they are starving, importunate with voices and with hands,
surrounding the stranger when he puts his foot on the soil, so that
he cannot escape, does not afford to the cynical American who then
first visits us - and they all are cynical when they visit us - a bad
opportunity for his sarcasm. He can at any rate boast that he sees
nothing of that at home. I myself am fond of Irish beggars. It is
an acquired taste, which comes upon one as does that for smoked
whisky or Limerick tobacco. But I certainly did wish that there
were not so many of them at Queenstown.
I tell all this here not to the disgrace of Ireland - not for the
triumph of America. The Irishman or American who thinks rightly on
the subject will know that the state of each country has arisen from
its opportunities. Beggary does not prevail in new countries, and
but few old countries have managed to exist without it. As to
Ireland, we may rejoice to say that there is less of it now than
there was twenty years since. Things are mending there. But though
such excuses may be truly made - although an Englishman, when he sees
this squalor and poverty on the quays at Queenstown, consoles
himself with reflecting that the evil has been unavoidable, but will
perhaps soon be avoided - nevertheless he cannot but remember that
there is no such squalor and no such poverty in the land from which
he has returned. I claim no credit for the new country. I impute
no blame to the old country. But there is the fact. The Irishman
when he expatriates himself to one of those American States loses
much of that affectionate, confiding, master-worshiping nature which
makes him so good a fellow when at home. But he becomes more of a
man. He assumes a dignity which he never has known before. He
learns to regard his labor as his own property. That which he earns
he takes without thanks, but he desires to take no more than he
earns. To me personally, he has, perhaps, become less pleasant than
he was; - but to himself! It seems to me that such a man must feel
himself half a god, if he has the power of comparing what he is with
what he was.
It is right that all this should be acknowledged by us. When we
speak of America and of her institutions, we should remember that
she has given to our increasing population rights and privileges
which we could not give - which as an old country we probably can
never give. That self-asserting, obtrusive independence which so
often wounds us is, if viewed aright, but an outward sign of those
good things which a new country has produced for its people. Men
and women do not beg in the States; they do not offend you with
tattered rags; they do not complain to heaven of starvation; they do
not crouch to the ground for half-pence. If poor, they are not
abject in their poverty. They read and write. They walk like human
beings made in God's form. They know that they are men and women,
owing it to themselves and to the world that they should earn their
bread by their labor, but feeling that when earned it is their own.
If this be so, if it be acknowledged that it is so, should not such
knowledge in itself be sufficient testimony of the success of the
country and of her institutions?
END OF VOL. II.
End of North America, V. II by Anthony Trollope
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