Phaethon | Page 3

business."
"And they have a few indigenous authors too: you must have read the
'Biglow Papers,' and the 'Fable for Critics,' and last but not least, 'Uncle
Tom's Cabin'?"
"Yes; and I have had far less fear for Americans since I read that book;
for it showed me that there was right healthy power, artistic as well as
intellectual, among them, even now-ready, when their present borrowed
peacocks' feathers have fallen off, to come forth and prove that the
Yankee Eagle is a right gallant bird, if he will but trust to his own
natural plumage."
"And they have a few statesmen also."
"But they are curt, plain-spoken, practical-in everything antipodal to
the knot of hapless men, who, unable from some defect or morbidity to
help on the real movement of their nation, are fain to get their bread
with tongue and pen, by retailing to 'silly women,' 'ever learning and
never coming to the knowledge of the truth,' second-hand German
eclecticisms, now exploded even in the country where they arose, and
the very froth and scum of the Medea's caldron, in which the disjecta
membra of old Calvinism are pitiably seething."

"Ah! It has been always the plan, you know, in England, as well as in
America, courteously to avoid taking up a German theory till the
Germans had quite done with it, and thrown it away for something new.
But what are we to say of those who are trying to introduce into
England these very Americanised Germanisms, as the only teaching
which can suit the needs of the old world?"
"We will, if we are in a vulgar humour, apply to them a certain old
proverb about teaching one's grandmother a certain simple operation on
the egg of the domestic fowl; but we will no less take shame to
ourselves, as sons of Alma Mater, that such nonsense can get even a
day's hearing, either among the daughters of Manchester manufacturers,
or among London working men. Had we taught them what we were
taught in the schools, Templeton-"
"Alas, my friend, we must ourselves have learnt it first. I have no right
to throw stones at the poor Professor, for I could not answer him."
"Do not suppose that I can either. All I say is-mankind has not lived in
vain. Least of all has it lived in vain during the last eighteen hundred
years. It has gained something of eternal truth in every age, and that
which it has gained is as fresh and young now as ever; and I will not
throw away the bird in the hand for any number of birds in the bush."
"Especially when you suspect most of them to be only wooden
pheasants, set up to delude poachers. Well, you are far more of a
Philister and a Conservative than I thought you."
"The New is coming, I doubt not; but it must grow organically out of
the Old-not root the old up, and stick itself full-grown into the place
thereof, like a French tree of liberty-sure of much the same fate. Other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid already, in spiritual
things or in physical; as the Professor and his school will surely find."
"You recollect to whom the Bible applies that text?"
"I do."

"And yet you say you cannot answer the Professor?"
"I do not care to do so. There are certain root-truths which I know,
because they have been discovered and settled for ages; and instead of
accepting the challenge of every I-know-not-whom to re- examine them,
and begin the world's work all over again, I will test his theories by
them; and if they fail to coincide, I will hear no more speech about the
details of the branches and flowers, for I shall know the root is rotten."
"But he, too, acknowledged certain of those root-truths," said
Templeton, who seemed to have a lingering sympathy with my victim;
"he insisted most strongly, and spoke, you will not deny, eloquently
and nobly on the Unity of the Deity."
"On the non-Trinity of it, rather; for I will not degrade the word 'Him,'
by applying it here. But, tell me honestly-c'est le timbre qui fait la
musique-did his 'Unity of the Deity' sound in your English Bible-bred
heart at all like that ancient, human, personal 'Hear, O Israel! the Lord
thy God is one Lord'?"
"Much more like 'The Something our Nothing is one Something.'"
"May we not suspect, then, that his notion of the 'Unity of the Deity'
does not quite coincide with the foundation already laid, whosesoever
else may?"
"You are assuming rather hastily."
"Perhaps I may prove also, some day or other. Do you think, moreover,
that the theory which he so boldly started, when his nerves and his
manners were