No doubt there
were forces obviously tending to preserve the linguistic unity of the
two nations. There was the English Bible for one thing, and there was
the whole body of English literature. The Americans, it might have been
said, could scarcely be so foolish as deliberately to renounce their
spiritual birthright, or let it drift little by little away from them.
But, on the other hand, virulent and inveterate political enmity, had it
arisen, might quite conceivably have led the Americans to make it a
point of honour to differentiate their speech from ours, as many
Norwegians are at this moment making it a point of honour to
differentiate their language from the Danish, which was until of late
years the generally accepted medium of literary expression. In the
evolution of their literature, the Americans might purposely have
rejected our classical tradition, making their effort rather to depart
from than to adhere to it. Again, an observer in 1776 could not have
foreseen the practical annihilation, by steam and electricity, of that
barrier which then appeared so formidable--the Atlantic Ocean. He might
have foreseen the immense influx of men of every race and tongue into
the unpeopled West; but he could scarcely have anticipated with
confidence the ready absorption of all these alien elements (save one!)
into the dominant Anglo-Saxon polity.
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