on, in their administrative system and in their
army, which we have not.' The general conclusion which Arnold seems to
have drawn from his travels in Europe and America is that England was
far behind France in lucidity of ideas, and inferior to the United
States in straightforward political energy and the faculties of
national success. 'Heaven forbid that the English nation should become
like this (the French) nation; but Heaven forbid that it should remain
as it is. If it does, it will be beaten by America on its own line,
and by the Continental nations on the European line. I see this as
plain as I see the paper before me.' Since this was written in 1865,
England has been perversely holding her own course, nor has she yet
fulfilled Arnold's melancholy foreboding, by which he was 'at times
overwhelmed with depression' that England was sinking into a sort of
greater Holland, 'for want of perceiving how the world is going and
must go, and preparing herself accordingly.'

On the other hand, his imaginative faculty comes out in his
speculation upon the probable changes in the development of the
American people that might follow their separation into different
groups, if the civil war between the Northern and Southern States
(which had just begun) should break up the Union.

'Climate and mixture of race will then be able fully to tell, and I
cannot help thinking that the more diversity of nation there is on
the American continent, the more chance there is of one nation
developing itself with grandeur and richness. It has been so in
Europe. What should we all be if we had not one another to check us
and to be learned from? Imagine an English Europe. How frightfully
_borne_ and dull! Or a French Europe either, for that matter.'

The suggestion is, perhaps, more fanciful than profound; for history
does not repeat itself; and, in fact, the result of breaking up South
America into a dozen political groups has not yet produced any very
satisfactory development of national character. Much more than
political subdivision goes to the creation of a new Europe;
nevertheless Arnold is probably right in supposing that uniformity of
institutions and a somewhat monotonous level of social conditions over
a vast area, may have depressed and stunted the free and diversified
growth of North American civilisation.

The literary criticism to be found in these letters shows a fastidious
and delicate taste t