London: July 4, 1861.
On coming back from abroad ten days ago I received two letters
from you, one of which I had received by copy from my wife at Athens. Many
thanks for them; they were very interesting, and I hope you will not be
discouraged by my brief acknowledgments from writing further. I am still
invalided, and am to go abroad again the day after to-morrow. I have achieved a
good deal already, having seen Athens and Constantinople. I was half-tempted to
come over to pay you the visit you so kindly proposed, but I should have had to
return early in September, and I hope some year to spend a September on your
side. I have just made a call on a former acquaintance in America, Miss E. H.,
of Concord, who brought me a letter from Emerson moreover. She tells me that in
New England, she believes, people do not expect that the Southern States will
ever be brought back into the Union, and that it is not the object simply to
make them return; it being indeed hardly possible that the States, North and
South, should ever again live together in union, but that the war is rather in
vindication of the North and its rights, which have been trampled upon by the
South. Is this true, in your judgment? Certainly it does seem hardly
conceivable that South Carolina should ever return. On what terms then would
the North be willing to make peace, and what conditions would it require in
limine before entering upon the question of separation?
As for the feeling here, you must always expect statesmen to
be cold in their language, and the newspapers impertinent and often brutal.
Beyond this, I think people here had been led to suppose at the outset that the
Northern feeling was strong against civil war, (and so it was I suppose,) and
that the principle of separation was conceded; the indignation being merely at
the mode adopted for obtaining it. And the attack on Fort Sumter which caused
so sudden a revulsion of feeling with you was naturally attended with no such
change here. But coexisting with all this, I believe there is a great amount of
strong feeling in favour of the North.
Technically we are wrong, I suppose, and as a matter of
feeling, we are guilty of an outrage in recognising the South as a belligerent
power, but as a matter of convenience between your government and ours, I
suppose the thing is best as it is.
Miss H. will take to Emerson four photographs of Rowse's
picture of me; one for you: it may be better than nothing.
My nervous energy is pretty well spent for to-day, so I must
come to a stop. I have leave till November, and by that time I hope I shall be
strong again for another good spell of work.
Lord Campbell's death is rather the characteristic death of
the English political man. In the cabinet, on the bench, and at a dinner party,
busy, animated, and full of effort to-day, and in the early morning a vessel
has burst. It is a wonder they last so long. I shall resign if it proves much
of a strain to me to go on at this official work. Farewell.
SOURCE: Arthur Hugh Clough, Letters and Remains of
Arthur Hugh Clough, p. 316-7
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