I Shall Be Accused Of Using Very Strong Language Against The
Newspaper Press Of America.
I can only say that I do not know how
to make that language too strong.
Of course there are newspapers as
to which the editors and writers may justly feel that my remarks, if
applied to them, are unmerited. In writing on such a subject, I can
only deal with the whole as a whole. During my stay in the country,
I did my best to make myself acquainted with the nature of its
newspapers, knowing in how great a degree its population depends on
them for its daily store of information; for newspapers in the
States of America have a much wider, or rather closer circulation,
than they do with us. Every man and almost every woman sees a
newspaper daily. They are very cheap, and are brought to every
man's hand, without trouble to himself, at every turn that he takes
in his day's work. It would be much for the advantage of the
country that they should be good of their kind; but, if I am able to
form any judgment on the matter, they are not good.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCLUSION.
In one of the earlier chapters of this volume - now some seven or
eight chapters past - I brought myself on my travels back to Boston.
It was not that my way homeward lay by that route, seeing that my
fate required me to sail from New York; but I could not leave the
country without revisiting my friends in Massachusetts. I have told
how I was there in the sleighing time, and how pleasant were the
mingled slush and frost of the snowy winter. In the morning the
streets would be hard and crisp and the stranger would surely fall
if he were not prepared to walk on glaciers. In the afternoon he
would be wading through rivers, and, if properly armed at all points
with India-rubber, would enjoy the rivers as he waded. But the air
would be always kindly, and the east wind there, if it was east as I
was told, had none of that power of dominion which makes us all so
submissive to its behests in London. For myself, I do not believe
that the real east wind blows elsewhere.
And when the snow went in Boston I went with it. The evening before
I left I watched them as they carted away the dirty uncouth blocks
which had been broken up with pickaxes in Washington Street, and was
melancholy as I reflected that I too should no longer be known in
the streets. My weeks in Boston had not been very many, but
nevertheless there were haunts there which I knew as though my feet
had trodden them for years. There were houses to which I could have
gone with my eyes blindfold; doors of which the latches were
familiar to my hands; faces which I knew so well that they had
ceased to put on for me the fictitious smiles of courtesy. Faces,
houses, doors, and haunts, - where are they now? For me they are as
though they had never been. They are among the things which one
would fain remember as one remembers a dream. Look back on it as a
vision and it is all pleasant; but if you realize your vision and
believe your dream to be a fact, all your pleasure is obliterated by
regret.
I know that I shall never again be at Boston, and that I have said
that about the Americans which would make me unwelcome as a guest if
I were there. It is in this that my regret consists; for this
reason that I would wish to remember so many social hours as though
they had been passed in sleep. They who will expect blessings from
me, will say among themselves that I have cursed them. As I read
the pages which I have written, I feel that words which I intended
for blessings when I prepared to utter them have gone nigh to turn
themselves into curses.
I have ever admired the United States as a nation. I have loved
their liberty, their prowess, their intelligence, and their
progress. I have sympathized with a people who themselves have had
no sympathy with passive security and inaction. I have felt
confidence in them, and have known, as it were, that their industry
must enable them to succeed as a people while their freedom would
insure to them success as a nation. With these convictions I went
among them wishing to write of them good words - words which might be
pleasant for them to read, while they might assist perhaps in
producing a true impression of them here at home. But among my good
words there are so many which are bitter, that I fear I shall have
failed in my object as regards them. And it seems to me, as I read
once more my own pages, that in saying evil things of my friends I
have used language stronger than I intended; whereas I have omitted
to express myself with emphasis when I have attempted to say good
things. Why need I have told of the mud of Washington, or have
exposed the nakedness of Cairo? Why did I speak with such eager
enmity of those poor women in the New York cars, who never injured
me, now that I think of it? Ladies of New York, as I write this,
the words which were written among you are printed and cannot be
expunged; but I tender to you my apologies from my home in England.
And that Van Wyck Committee - might I not have left those contractors
to be dealt with by their own Congress, seeing that that Congress
committee was by no means inclined to spare them? I might have kept
my pages free from gall, and have sent my sheets to the press unhurt
by the conviction that I was hurting those who had dealt kindly by
me!
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