But true Anglo-
Saxons, simply and sincerely rooted in the German nature, we are not
and cannot be; all we have accomplished by our onesidedness is to
blur and confuse the natural basis in ourselves altogether, and to
become something eccentric, unattractive, and inharmonious.
A man of exquisite intelligence and charming character, the late Mr.
Cobden, used to fancy that a better acquaintance with the United
States was the grand panacea for us; and once in a speech he bewailed
the inattention of our seats of learning to them, and seemed to think
that if our ingenuous youth at Oxford were taught a little less about
Ilissus, and a little more about Chicago, we should all be the better
for it. Chicago has its claims upon us, no doubt; but it is evident
that from the point of view to which I have been leading, a
stimulation of our Anglo-Saxonism, such as is intended by Mr.
Cobden's proposal, does not appear the thing most needful for us;
seeing our American brothers themselves have rather, like us, to try
and moderate the flame of Anglo-Saxonism in their own breasts, than
to ask us to clap the bellows to it in ours. So I am inclined to
beseech Oxford, instead of expiating her over-addiction to the
Ilissus by lectures on Chicago, to give us an expounder for a still
more remote-looking object than the Ilissus,--the Celtic languages
and literature.
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