ENGLAND, MOTHER OF NATIONS

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON


Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:--It is pleasant to me to meet this great and
brilliant company, and doubly pleasant to see the faces of so many
distinguished persons on this platform. But I have known all these
persons already. When I was at home, they were as near to me as they are
to you. The arguments of the League and its leader are known to all
friends of free trade. The gaieties and genius, the political, the
social, the parietal wit of "Punch" go duly every fortnight to every boy
and girl in Boston and New York. Sir, when I came to sea, I found the
"History of Europe" on the ship's cabin table, the property of the
captain;--a sort of program or play-bill to tell the seafaring New
Englander what he shall find on landing here. And as for Dombey, sir,
there is no land where paper exists to print on, where it is not found;
no man who can read, that does not read it, and, if he can not, he finds
some charitable pair of eyes that can, and hears it.

But these things are not for me to say; these compliments tho true,
would better come from one who felt and understood these merits more. I
am not here to exchange civilities with you, but rather to speak on that
which I am sure interests these gentlemen more than their own praises;
of that which is good in holidays and working-days, the same in one
century and in another century. That which lures a solitary American in
the woods with the wish to see England, is the moral peculiarity of the
Saxon race,--its commanding sense of right and wrong,--the love and
devotion to that,--this is the imperial trait, which arms them with the