Chapter IX

AT THE STRATFORD MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN PRESENTATION.

The memorial fountain presented to Stratford-on-Avon by Mr. George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, was inaugurated Monday, October 17, 1887. Mr. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL sent the following letter:

I should more deeply regret my inability to be present at
the interesting ceremonial of the 17th were it not that my
countrymen will be more fitly and adequately represented
there by their accomplished Minister, Mr. Phelps. The
occasion is certainly a most interesting one. The monument
which you accept to-day in behalf of your townsmen
commemorates at once the most marvellous of Englishmen
and the jubilee year of the august lady whose name is
honored wherever the language is spoken, of which he was
the greatest master. No symbol could more aptly serve this
double purpose than a fountain, for surely no poet ever
poured forth so broad a river of speech as he, whether he
was the author of the “Novum Organum” also or not. Nor
could the purity of her character and example be better
typified than by the current that shall flow forever from
the sources opened here to-day. It was Washington Irving
who first embodied in his delightful English the emotion
which Stratford-on-Avon awakes in the heart of the pilgrim,
and especially of the American pilgrim, who visits it.
I am glad to think that this memorial should be the gift
of an American and thus serve to recall the kindred blood
of two great nations, joint heirs of the same noble
language and of the genius that has given it a cosmopolitan
significance. I am glad of it because it is one of the
multiplying signs that those two nations are beginning to
think more and more of the things in which they sympathize
and less and less of those in which they differ. A common
language is not indeed, the surest bond of amity, for this
enables each country to understand whatever unpleasant
thing the other may chance to say about it.

As I am one of those who believe that an honest friendship
between England and America is a most desirable thing,
I trust that we shall on both sides think it equally
desirable in our intercourse one with another to make our
mother tongue search her coffers round for the polished
rather than the sharp-cornered epithets she has stored
there. Let us by all means speak the truth to each other,
for there is no one else who can speak it to either of us
with such a fraternal instinct for the weak point of the
other; but let us do it in such wise as to show that it is
the truth we love and not the discomfort we can inflict
by means of it. Let us say agreeable things to each other
and of each other whenever we conscientiously can. My
friend, Mr. Childs, has said one of these agreeable things
in a very solid and durable way. A common literature and a
common respect for certain qualities of character and ways
of thinking supply a neutral ground where we may meet in
the assurance that we shall find something amiable in each
other, and from being less than kind become more than kin.

In old maps the line which outlined British possessions in
America included the greater part of what is now territory
of the United States. The possessions of the American in
England are laid down on no map, yet he holds them in
memory and imagination by a title such as no conquest ever
established and no revolution can ever overthrow. The
dust that is sacred to you is sacred to him. The annals
which Shakspeare makes walk before us in flesh and blood
are his no less than yours. These are the ties which we
recognize, and are glad to recognize, on occasions like
this. They will be yearly drawn closer as science goes on
with her work of abolishing time and space, and thus render
more easy that peaceful commerce ’twixt dividable shores
which is so potent to clear away whatever is exclusive in
nationality or savors of barbarism in patriotism.

I remain, dear Mr. Mayor,
Faithfully yours,
J. R. LOWELL.