Part 2 (1/2)
Do you know why the American wors.h.i.+ps the starry banner with a more intense pa.s.sion than even the Briton does his flag? I will tell you. It is because it is not the flag of a government which discriminates between her children, decreeing privilege to one and denying it to another, but the flag of the people which gives the same rights to all.
The British flag was born too soon to be close to the ma.s.ses. It came before their time, when they had little or no power. They were not consulted about it. Some conclave made it, as a pope is made, and handed it down to the nation. But the American flag bears in every fibre the warrant, ”_We the People_ in Congress a.s.sembled.” It is their own child, and how supremely it is beloved!
It is a significant fact that in no riot or local outbreak have soldiers of the United States, bearing the national flag, ever been a.s.saulted.
Militia troops have sometimes been stoned, but United States troops never. During the worst riot ever known in America, that in our own good city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, twenty-eight United States soldiers, all there were in the barracks, marched through the thousands of excited men unmolested. I really believe that had any man in the crowd dared to touch that flag, General Dix's famous order would have been promptly enforced by his companions. Major-General Hanc.o.c.k recently told me that he had never known United States soldiers to be attacked by citizens. He was in command of the troops during the riots in the coal regions in Pennsylvania some years ago, and whenever a body of his regulars appeared they were respected and peace reigned.
General Dix's order was, ”If any man attempts to pull down the flag shoot him on the spot.” So say we all of us. And it will be the same in Britain some day, ay and in Ireland too, when an end has been made of privilege and there is not a government and a people, but only a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. The day is not so far off either as some of you think, mark me.
But good-bye, London, and all the thoughts which crowd upon one when in your mighty whirl. You monster London, we are all glad to escape you!
But ere we ”gang awa'” shall we not note our visit to one we are proud to call our friend, and of whom Scotland is proud, Dr. Samuel Smiles, a writer of books indeed--books which influence his own generation much, and the younger generation more. Burns's wish was that he,
”For poor auld Scotland's sake, Some useful plan or book could make, Or sing a sang at least.”
Well, the Doctor has made several books that are books, and I have heard him sing a song, too, for the days of Auld Lang Syne. May he live long, and long may his devoted wife be spared to watch over him!
THURSDAY MORNING, June 16, 1881.
[Sidenote: _Brighton._]
We are off for Brighton. Mr. and Miss B. accompany us. Mr. and Mrs. K.
have run up to Paisley with the children, and Mr. and Mrs. G. have joined us in their place. The coach, horses, and servants went down during the night.
We had time to visit the unequalled aquarium and to do the parade before dinner. Miss F. and I stole off to make a much more interesting visit; we called upon William Black, whose acquaintance I had been fortunate enough to make in Rome, and whom I had told that I should some day imitate his ”Adventures of a Phaeton.” A week before we sailed from New York, I had dined with President Garfield at Secretary Blaine's in Was.h.i.+ngton. After dinner, conversation turned upon my proposed journey, and the President became much interested. ”It is the 'Adventures of a Phaeton' on a grand scale,” he remarked. ”By the way, has Black ever written any other story quite so good as that? I do not think he has.”
In this there was a general concurrence. He then said: ”But I am provoked with Black just now. A man who writes to entertain has no right to end a story as miserably as he has done that of 'MacLeod of Dare.'
Fiction should give us the bright side of existence. _Real life has tragedies enough of its own._”
A few weeks more and we were to have in his own case the most terrible proof of the words he had spoken so solemnly. I can never forget the sad, careworn expression of his face as he uttered them.
”But come it soon or come it fast, It is but death that comes at last.”
One might almost be willing to die if, as in Garfield's case, there should flash from his grave, at the touch of a mutual sorrow, to both divisions of the great English-speaking race, the knowledge that they are brothers. This discovery will bear good fruit in time.
”Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”
Garfield's life was not in vain. It tells its own story--this poor boy toiling upward to the proudest position on earth, the elected of fifty millions of freemen; a position compared with which that of king or kaiser is as nothing. Let other nations ask themselves where are _our_ Lincolns and Garfields? Ah, they grow not except where all men are born equal! The cold shade of aristocracy nips them in the bud.
[Sidenote: _William Black._]
Mr. Black came to see us off, but arrived at our starting-place a few minutes too late. A thousand pities! Had we only known that he intended to do us this honor, until high noon, ay, and till dewy eve, would we have waited. Just think of our start being graced by the author of ”The Adventures of a Phaeton,” and we privileged to give him three rousing cheers as our horn sounded! Though grieved to miss him, it was a consolation to know that he had come, and we felt that his spirit was with us and dwelt with us during the entire journey. Many a time the incidents of his charming story came back to us, but I am sorry to record, as a faithful chronicler, that we young people missed one of its most absorbing features--we had no lovers. At least, I am not apprized that any engagements were made upon the journey, although, for my part, I couldn't help falling in love just a tiny bit with the charming young ladies who delighted us with their company.
BRIGHTON, Friday Morning, June 17.
[Sidenote: _The Supreme Moment._]
Let us call the roll once more at the door of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, that our history may be complete: Mr. and Mrs. B., London; Mr. and Mrs.
T. G., Wolverhampton; Miss M. L., Dunfermline; Miss E. F., Liverpool; Mr. and Mrs. McC., Miss J. J., Miss A. F., Mr. B. F. V., Mr. H. P., Jr., Mr. G. F. McC., the Queen Dowager and the Scribe. These be the names of the new and delectable order of the Gay Charioteers, who mounted their coach at Brighton and began the long journey to the North Countrie on the day and date aforesaid. And here, O my good friends, let me say that until a man has stood at the door and seen his own four-in-hand drive up before him, the horses--four n.o.ble bays--champing the bits, their harness buckles glistening in the sun; the coach spick and span new and as glossy as a mirror, with the coachman on the box and the footman behind; and then, enchanted, has called to his friends, ”Come, look, there it is, just as I had pictured it!” and has then seen them mount to their places with beaming faces--until, as I say, he has had that experience, don't tell me that he has known the most exquisite sensation in life, for I know he hasn't. It was Izaak Walton, I believe, who when asked what he considered the most thrilling sensation in life, answered that he supposed it was the tug of a thirty-pound salmon. Well, that was not a bad guess. I have taken the largest trout of the season on bonnie Loch Leven, have been drawn over Spirit Lake in Iowa in my skiff for half an hour by a monster pickerel, and have played with the speckled beauties in Dead River. It is glorious; making a hundred thousand is nothing to it; but there's a thrill beyond that, my dear old quaint Izaak. I remember in one of my sweet strolls ”ayont the wood mill braes”