250 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[September 1, 1888. 



her as " otherwise well bred," though her breeding might 

 " otlierwise " do very well for Mr. Higginson.) This 

 fastidious American is troubled because the most eminent of 

 Englisli poets spoke of some bad verse as "rot," and 

 because Mr. James Payn wrote, " I hate people who ' stink ' 

 of money." * Quis tulerit Gracchos de sedifioii.e quercntes ? 

 The countrymen of Mark Twain, Bret Ilarte, Artemus 

 Ward, and a host of others who have written whole pages 

 of coarse buffoonery (but also much exquisite fooling), 

 speaking of a strong word or two from Englishmen is a 

 trifle too rich. Does Mr. Higginson imagine that because 

 Americans have fallen into a habit of regarding particular 

 words with disfavour which in England are used without 

 offence to express disfavour, Englishmen are to be called 

 coarse and offensive for using those words as of yore 1 

 Before he thus rebukes Englishmen, he should consider the 

 case of his own countrymen, who have taken into favour 

 and use freely certain words which in England have been 

 from time immemorial regarded as improper. [1 am simply 

 unable to mention these words, because they are never used 

 in polite society.] I take no exception to their being used 

 in America, where they have no unpleasant significance ; 

 but it is simply absurd for one who uses these words freely, 

 and hears the women of his family use them without 

 offence, to be angry with Englishmen for using in their 

 customary significance words which are not offensive to 

 English ears. 



Obviously the great fault of English manners with 

 Americans of Mr. Higginson's kind is what is regarded 

 as our thick-skinnedness. In reality an Englishman, 

 though he does not wince or flinch when an American 

 of the ruder sort tries to goad him to anger, feels the blow 

 as keenly as the most sensitive American. But our whole 

 system of training teaches us to take such blows as if we 

 felt them not, repaying them though in due time, and with 

 a serenity which suggests the mistaken notion that the 

 return blow has not been provoked. f In ninety-nine cases 

 out of a hundred, when one hears of British arrogance, he 

 may infer that it has been roused by non-British insolence. 



* " Oh, your niceties ; I know wliat tliey are," said Felix. " They 

 all go on your system of make-believo. ' Rottenness ' may suggest 

 what is unpleasant, so you'd better say ' sugar-plums,' or some- 

 thing else such a long way off the fact that nobody is obliged to 

 think of it. Those arc your roundabout euphuisms that dress up 

 swindling till it looks as well as honesty." Men like Mr. Higginson 

 would make English readers believe that all Americans are nastily 

 minded. This, however, would be unfair in the extreme. 



•f In October 1873 I landed at New York for a few hours (our 

 ship having arrived late) with three fellow-passengers and one of 

 the officers. At the Fifth Avenue Hotel we were looking round the 

 large hall in front of the office bureau, crowded .as usual with 

 Americans of all classes, from the loafer to the business man. We 

 were soon recognised as Englishmen (" blarsted Britishers," as the 

 polite American expression puts it), and a group of some twenty 

 Americans, any one of whom would have been grievously offended 

 if he had not been regarded as a gentleman, thought the oppor- 

 tunity a good one to divert the profuseness of their blasphemy from 

 things in general to things British, abusing above all the Royal 

 Family and especially the Queen, as a sure way of testing the thick- 

 skinnedness of the Britishers. Our serenity was not disturbed by 

 the cads, who seemed more moved by our silent contempt than they 

 would have been had wo met their rowdy ways by rowdy action. 

 Now it so happened that the very next day two of the I'owdies pre- 

 sented themselves to me — more Americano — on business, I do not 

 know whether they recognised me, as I did them. Anyhow, 

 they did not allow the occasion to pass without asking me how I 

 liked America. When I replied that I had been too short a time 

 ashore to form .an opinion, but that it seemed to rae the lower 

 classes swore abominably .and were exceedingly ill-mannered, they 

 both had grace enough to turn very red with wratli. I am satisticJ, 

 however, they described my comments afterwards as due to sheer 

 British arrogance, not to contempt and natural indignation at their 

 conduct overnight. 



SCIENCE SHAMED BY GREED OF GAIN. 



NGLISII science has had to be ashamed 

 occasionally of the ways of the scientific 

 mendicant, who, in the course of what he 

 calls the Physical P^ndowment of Research, 

 has made vain promises and idle boasts, 

 till Science has blushed for the ways of 

 those who use her name for their own pur- 

 poses. Science does not inquire her servants 

 to be wageless. As the exponent of religion is not thought 

 to shame religion by holding that the labourer, even in 

 religious fields, is worthy of his hire, so is it with those 

 who, working faithfully in the cau.se of Science, deem them- 

 selves entitled to just wages for their work, without which 

 indeed they might be obliged to turn for maintenance from 

 the work for which they are fit to law, medicine, religion, 

 or commerce. But Science requires that there shall be no 

 false pretences. The work done must be done zealously, 

 and must be worth the wages claimed. Promises which the 

 student of Science knows to be vain — such, for example, as 

 in old times the promise to read or rule the stars, or in our 

 own days to predict the world's weather from sunspots — 

 Science " cannot away with " ; and whether the wages asked 

 for worthless work be high or low, the pittance of a country 

 curate or such splendid incomes as our clamourers for 

 endowment have suggested as appropriate. Science regards all 

 such claims as discreditable if not dishonest. 



But it would seem that there are deeper depths than any 

 which Science had yet known. None of the advocates of 

 physical endowment have yet, so far as we know, actually 

 claimed money for making suggestions. None of them have 

 claimed a jn'ice for time given to the discussion of one of 

 their physical observatories, even when such time has been 

 their own ; and I should trust that even the most barefi\ced 

 among the mendicants of Science would not think of asking 

 such a, price for time not his own so used, time taken from 

 work in some well-salaried office. 



This achievement was reserved for an American scientist. 

 Mr. E. S. Holden, the same man who selected the respect- 

 able columns of the Atlantic Monthh/ to make false and 

 libellous personal charges against me, who abused me for 

 being led by the success of my first work, " Saturn and its 

 System " (a dismal failure commercially), to endeavour to 

 get money for literary work, as if that were dishonest, and 

 showed the nature of his purpose by blindly vituperating, 

 as if he had read it, a book of mine which was not published 

 till fourteen years later, this man — so zealous for purity of 

 purpose in scientific work, that he denounced honest work 

 because, as he supposed, it had been successful — has just 

 done that which I venture to predict will stand out in the 

 records of science as the most discreditable act of which any 

 man of science has yet been guilty. 



During the last twelve years, Mr. Ilolden has written 

 certain letters conveying suggestions in regard to the Lick 

 Observatory, which (most unfortunately for science) has 

 been placed in his charge instead of being entrusted to one 

 of the many skilful observers America possesses. He has 

 also made some few journeys of insjjection, the expenses of 

 which have in all cases been paid. The time thus em- 

 ployed has in reality belonged to others, since he has all the 

 while held highly salaried oflice, and latterly has been 

 president of the State University of California, to which 

 the Lick Observatory has been presented. 



In the meantime a host of better men, men who know 

 what telescopic work really is, have been ready with 

 valuable advice and assistance. I suppose what Mr. Burn- 

 ham, for example, has done in this way outvalues fifty-fold 

 anything which has been suggested by the man who at 



