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 http://archive.org/details/cu31924092459456 
 
THE 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Volume One 
 
Edward Everett Hale in Later Years 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 * 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE, Jr. 
 
 VOLUME ONE 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 N ON-REFER T 
 
 SaHVAD • Q3S 
 
 BOSTON 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
 r 
 
 V 
 
n 
 
 . % 
 
 ' & 
 
 Copyright, IQ17, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Published, November, 1917 
 
 Ml^\2'\ 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY THE PLIMPTON PRESS, NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A. 
 PRINTED BY S. J. PARKStLL & CO., BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 M.Y father had in mind during his later years 
 some publication of his letters, and desired that they 
 should be edited by Mr. Edwin D. Mead, an old 
 friend with whom he had been closely associated in 
 their work for a Permanent High Tribunal. Mr. 
 Mead, therefore, undertook the task with the help 
 of several of my father's friends. Unfortunately, 
 however, after some years he found himself unable 
 to continue his work, and it was thought best that 
 it should be finished by me. It turned out that I 
 was not able to use the studies of Mr. Mead and his 
 fellow-workers, with one or two exceptions, and I 
 therefore found it necessary to plan the book anew 
 and carry it out myself. 
 
 The amount of material placed in my hands was 
 very great. There were thousands of letters, many 
 diaries and day-books covering almost the whole of 
 my father's life, a great number of sermons as well 
 as lectures and addresses, beside note-books, scrap- 
 books, common-place books, sketch-books, and other 
 such material. His printed writings, also, were 
 voluminous and had never been entirely collected, 
 nor even completely catalogued. It was not pos- 
 sible for me to examine and digest all this material 
 in the way I should have liked, nor could I, even, 
 select all that I could have wished. I have tried, 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 however, to bring out the personal character of the 
 man as it stood in my mind. To try to criticize 
 or estimate seemed no proper part of my work. 
 
 I could never have finished the undertaking with- 
 out the help of many of my father's friends. I 
 must mention particularly my dear sister, who was 
 always very near my father, but especially in his 
 last years. She has given me invaluable help 
 throughout, and has written the chapters describing 
 my father's trips to Texas and California. I am 
 also particularly in the debt of Miss Abby W. Clark, 
 who has herself written so well of my father's earlier 
 days, for her work in arranging the materials be- 
 fore they were given to me. Besides these, I should 
 give particular thanks to Rev. Christopher R. Eliot, 
 who wrote the chapter on Ten Times One, to Miss 
 Harriet E. Freeman, who placed at my disposal a 
 number of book§ of reminiscence and remark taken 
 down by her from my father in his later years, to 
 Mrs. William B. Weeden, who gave me many letters 
 written to her husband, one of my father's most 
 intimate friends, and to William H. McElroy, also 
 one of my father's intimates, who gave me a con- 
 siderable collection of material which he had got 
 together. 
 
 Edward E. Hale 
 
 Union College 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME ONE 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Preface v 
 
 I. Family Life, 1822-183 5 * 
 
 II. College Life, 1835-1839 16 
 
 III. After College, 1839-1841 52 
 
 IV. Trips and Excursions, 1 839-1 845 .... 87 
 V. Making Up His Mind, 1839-1846 . ... 121 
 
 VI. Early Sermon-writing .... . 149 
 
 VII. Ministry at Worcester, 1 846-1 847 . . . 164 
 
 VIII. Life at Worcester, 1846-1850 .... 180 
 
 IX. Literature, 183 3-1 850 193 
 
 X. Life in Worcester, 1 850-1 854 . . . . 212 
 
 XL Kansas and Nebraska, 1 850-1 856. . . . 242 
 
 XII. The Call to Boston, 1856 269 
 
 XIII. Ninety Days Worth of Europe, 1859 . . 293 
 
 XIV. The War, 1860-1863 319 
 
 XV. Literature, 1 856-1 865 345 
 
 XVI. The War, 1 863-1 865 362 
 
 XVII. Retrospect 383 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VOLUME ONE 
 
 Edward Everett Hale in Later Years . . Frontispiece 
 
 Birthplace of Edward Everett Hale 6 
 
 Harvard College about 1830 ... .... 18 
 
 Term-bill at Harvard, 1838 . 42 
 
 Church of the Unity at Worcester 152 
 
 Dr. Hale's church from 1845 to 1856. 
 
 Edward Everett Hale .... 258 
 
 From a daguerreotype taken in 1855. 
 Mrs. Hale and Her Daughter Ellen 298 
 
 From a daguerreotype taken in 1855. 
 
 Nathan Hale, Edward Everett Hale's Father . 308 
 
 Mrs. Nathan Hale, Edward Everett Hale's Mother 364 
 
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Volume One 
 
 • 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 FAMILY LIFE 
 
 1822-1835 
 
 VjNE of the earliest allusions to Edward Everett 
 Hale is to be found in a letter from his grandfather. 
 On May 14, 1822, the Rev. Enoch Hale of West- 
 hampton, Massachusetts, wrote to his son Nathan 
 in Boston: 
 
 "I rejoice with you, my dear son, in the increase 
 of your family. Every child added to your house- 
 hold increases care, responsibility, and obligation 
 to consider whose all things are. I have reason 
 gratefully to notice God's Providence, that all my 
 children, as far as I know, are continued, and all 
 favored with comfortable circumstances. Of their 
 children a larger proportion than is common are 
 alive." 
 
 The Nathan Hale to whom this letter was ad- 
 dressed, the son of the Westhampton minister, 
 had been educated at Williams College, and had 
 established himself in Boston, where at this time 
 he lived on Tremont Street in a house which later 
 made way for the present Parker House. He had 
 
2 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 come to Boston with a view to studying and prac- 
 ticing law, but although admitted to the bar, in 
 1 8 1 1 , he became more attracted by journalism, 
 and was now owner and editor of the Boston Daily 
 Advertiser. He had also become interested in en- 
 gineering, and somewhat after this time became 
 President of the Boston and Worcester Railroad, 
 and also Chairman of the first Board of Commis- 
 sioners for Internal Improvement in the State of 
 Massachusetts. He was a man of consideration 
 in the city, and was often called to public service, 
 either in legislature, convention, or public commis- 
 sion. 
 
 When Nathan Hale came to Boston from Exeter, 
 where he had been teaching mathematics in Exeter 
 Academy, he was returning to that part of New 
 England from which the family had originally 
 migrated. The first of the family to come to New 
 England was Robert Hale. He settled in Charles- 
 town in 1636 and lived there till his death. He 
 was a good representative New Englander, of some 
 position in Church and State, — he is called in the 
 records either Deacon or Ensign, — and apparently 
 of moderately comfortable circumstances throughout 
 his life. His son, John Hale, was educated for the 
 ministry, and was called to the church of Beverly, 
 which he served till his death. 
 
 He was succeeded in the old house at Beverly 
 by his eldest son, Robert, who became a man of 
 importance in the town. His fourth son, Samuel, 
 moved from Beverly farther along the coast to 
 Newbury, where he settled and lived. Richard, 
 
FAMILY LIFE 3 
 
 the son of Samuel, moved to Connecticut and set- 
 tled at Coventry, where the house in which he lived 
 may still be seen. Deacon Richard Hale of Cov- 
 entry had several children, of whom Nathan Hale, 
 captain in the Revolutionary Army, is the best 
 known. Enoch was the brother next older than 
 Nathan; the two boys had gone to Yale College 
 together, but after being graduated, Nathan began 
 to teach, while Enoch studied for the ministry and 
 shortly settled in Westhampton. 
 
 His son Nathan, already mentioned, having gone 
 to Boston, had married Sarah Preston Everett. 
 The Everetts, like the Hales, were representative 
 New Englanders. Richard Everett, the first in the 
 country, had been one of the original settlers of 
 Dedham; John Everett, also of Dedham, had 
 been father of another John, and he the father of 
 Ebenezer. Ebenezer Everett had been the father 
 of Oliver Everett, of Dorchester, and he the father 
 of Sarah Preston Everett, my father's mother, to 
 whom were written many of the letters in the 
 following pages. The Everetts had not wandered 
 as had the Hales; they all had lived at Dedham or 
 one of the other towns near Boston. Of the sons 
 of Oliver Everett were Alexander Hill Everett and 
 Edward Everett, both men of distinction. 
 
 Besides such ancestors as those mentioned, 
 Edward Everett Hale could have counted many 
 others who came between the first generation of 
 New Englanders and himself, all of much the same 
 kind, men and women of good local repute and 
 character, if rarely of great distinction, and with 
 
4 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 few exceptions all of one or another town in eastern 
 Massachusetts. His grandfather on the Everett 
 side, Alexander Hill, had married Mary Richey, a 
 lady of Scotch family; but otherwise all known 
 names in the genealogical table are of New Eng- 
 enders. 
 
 My father, in the fine old New England fashion, 
 was always deeply interested in these matters of 
 genealogy and descent. It used to be a family 
 custom, on Thanksgiving Day at dinner, to ex- 
 amine the children in the subject. The first ques- 
 tions were easy: "Ellen, what was your father's 
 name; Arthur, what was your mother's name?" 
 But it soon became more complicated, and such 
 questions as, "What was your father's mother's 
 father's mother's name?" became too hard for the 
 youthful mind. In an old Thanksgiving journal, 
 written by his mother apparently about 1858, 
 may be read: "Soon the company began to arrive, 
 the Misses Huse with their niece being first in the 
 field. Edward and Miss Eliza soon fell into a dis- 
 course upon some genealogical matters. She men- 
 tioned that the father of Alexander Hill died early 
 and that his widow married a Mr. Grey." All 
 such information my father eagerly collected, as 
 well as the more noteworthy facts about more 
 distinguished persons. One of his many sketches 
 of family history — more informal than some — he 
 wrote from England, May 18, 1873, to his son 
 Philip, at the time eight years old : 
 
 "We rode through the county of Kent from 
 London to Dover. I think you can find all these 
 
FAMILY LIFE 5 
 
 places on the map of England. Kent means a 
 corner, and they call it Kent because it was the 
 corner of England. Then the great town of Kent 
 was called the borough of Kent, because a borough 
 is a town. So this was called Kenterborough, 
 but it is always spelt Canterbury. This is just as 
 the Borough of Rocks where you live is spelt Rox- 
 bury. Well, you know almost all the white people 
 in the United States came from England or Ire- 
 land and from Germany, and I believe it was from 
 the borough in the corner, or Canterbury, that 
 Robert Hale came who was a good blacksmith who 
 lived at Charlestown, where Katy took you to see 
 the ships. Then his son went to Beverly, and his 
 son Samuel went to Newburyport, and his son 
 Richard went to Coventry, and his son Enoch went 
 to Westhampton, and his son Nathan went to 
 Boston, and his son Edward went to the Borough 
 of Rocks, which is called Roxbury; where his son 
 Philip will go I do not know, — but they all seem 
 to have had a disposition to live in a different place 
 from their father's." 
 
 Edward Everett Hale, born April 3, 1822, was 
 the fourth child of the family. His elder brother, 
 Nathan, his elder sisters, Lucretia and Sarah, and 
 himself made up the elder half of the children, fol- 
 lowed shortly by a later quartette of Alexander, 
 Charles, Susan, and Jane. 
 
 In earlier years, however, the older four consid- 
 ered themselves, aside from father and mother, the 
 representative persons of the family. Till the boys 
 went to college, they went about and acted together. 
 
6 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Of these years of childhood, my father has left 
 several accounts, one in particular in his book, 
 "A New England Boyhood." The characteristics 
 of Boston as the representative New England town 
 of that day; the incidents of his school life, first at 
 Miss Whitney's, then at Mr. Dowes', and finally 
 at the Boston Latin School; the amusements and 
 occupations of home life; the larger world of social 
 relations both in Boston and elsewhere in the neigh- 
 boring country, are there dealt with largely as 
 memory served him in later years, and are well 
 worth reading by those who would get his own 
 opinion of the influences which went to make up 
 his training and education. 
 
 He went at an early age to school. "At the 
 dame school of Miss Whitney, whither, less from a 
 precocious love of literature than from a desire of 
 imitating my elders, I went when I was hardly 
 two years, I passed most of four years. At Mr. 
 Dowes* school, which was the next step in my 
 education, I staid nearly four years. At the Pub- 
 lic Latin school where I was fitted for College, I 
 remained four years." 1 
 
 After his first beginning, at least, he was an ex- 
 cellent scholar, and at all times in his life to the 
 very end of it he loved learning better than almost 
 anything else. He remarks, however, of his school 
 life: "I may as well say, first as last, that school 
 was always a bore to me. I did not so much hate it 
 as dislike it, as a necessary nuisance." 2 Of the school' 
 
 1 From his "Class Life/' 1839. 
 
 2 "A New England Boyhood," p. 21. 
 
Birthplace of Edward Everett Hale 
 
 The bouse is at the extreme left at the corner of Tremont and 
 School Streets 
 
FAMILY LIFE 7 
 
 to which he went to prepare for the Boston Latin 
 School, he says: "I disliked it, as I disliked all schools; 
 but here, again, I regarded the whole arrangement 
 as one of those necessary nuisances which society 
 imposed upon the individual, and which the indi- 
 vidual would be foolish if he quarreled with it 
 when he did not have it in his power to abolish it." 
 Often in later life he spoke with approval of the 
 education of John Stuart Mill, which was gained 
 chiefly at the study table of his father, and in the 
 summer, at least, he used to give his own sons a 
 little experience of this sort of training. He prob- 
 ably thought that the best education was that 
 which a boy might gain (under ideal conditions) 
 from an intelligent family. But as he saw that 
 the necessities of social life interfered with the 
 ideal condition, he never tried to carry out his 
 theoretical ideal very fully. The case, however, 
 is more noteworthy as showing, at the very begin- 
 ning of his life, his characteristic determination in 
 favor of individualism, and his implicit under- 
 standing of the insufficiency (in spite of their neces- 
 sity) of the efforts of society to do in general what 
 the individual should do in particular. He was 
 through and through a descendant of the New 
 England pioneer : he respected the social frame- 
 work about him and deferred to it, but he depended 
 chiefly on himself. 
 
 One exercise his later recollection saw to be use- 
 ful, namely declamation. He did not like it, never 
 got a good mark in it either in school or in college, 
 but he later judged it to have been useful. "The 
 
8 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 exercise," he says, "did what it was meant to do; 
 that is, it taught us not to be afraid of an audience. 
 [This is something, it may be added, that family 
 or individual training cannot give.] I owe to the 
 public school, and to this now despised exercise of 
 declamation, that ease before an audience which 
 I share with most New Englanders. This is to 
 say that I owe to it the great pleasure of public 
 speaking when there is anything to say. I think 
 most public men will agree with me that this is one 
 of the most exquisite pleasures of life." 
 
 Other things also he got from school, but the 
 important thing in his earlier years was his home 
 life. His father and his mother had very definite 
 opinions on the subject of education, and with 
 ideas very like his own on the value of school train- 
 ing, they made every effort in an unobtrusive way 
 to have the family give each one of its members 
 everything that it could and ought. Besides the 
 particular effect of this on the different individuals, 
 a strong family feeling was thus aroused which 
 lasted through life. Home was made the real 
 center of life. Here the children were encouraged 
 to occupy themselves and to bring their friends. 
 Here were provided for them, not a stock of play- 
 things, but all sorts of materials for purposes of 
 manufacture, which in those days of the diffusion 
 of useful knowledge often served the purpose of 
 toys. He and his brother built various kinds of 
 locomotive engines, in imitation of the Boston and 
 Worcester Railroad, experimented in simple forms 
 of chemical processes which they found in "Harry 
 
FAMILY LIFE 9 
 
 and Lucy" or the "Boy's Own Book", or set up 
 a printing press with type from the Advertiser 
 office. 
 
 The accounts of these early years often seem a 
 little "as if the boys described were a sort of Robin- 
 son Crusoe and man Friday who lived alone in their 
 happy island." l There was, however, plenty of 
 social intercourse: Boston was in those days 
 rather a small city with an almost homogeneous 
 population. Though everybody did not by any 
 means know everybody else, yet there was so much 
 of common ancestry, common tradition, and com- 
 mon custom that there was plenty of life in com- 
 mon. Everyone went to church, children as soon 
 as it seemed probable that they would not make 
 a disturbance. Nathan Hale and his family went 
 to the Brattle Street Church, of which in earlier 
 years Dr. John G. Palfrey was minister and later 
 Dr. J. Kirkland Lothrop. 
 
 My father went as a matter of course to church 
 and to Sunday school. In later years he expressed 
 less disapproval of Sunday school than he did of 
 day school. 
 
 " A Sunday school then was a very different 
 thing from what it is now. Then you were ex- 
 pected to learn something and you did. For my 
 own part, I have often said, and I think it is true, 
 that fully one half of the important instruction 
 which I now have with regard to the Scripture 
 history of mankind, — with regard to the history 
 of the Jews, for instance, or the travels of Paul 
 
 1 "A New England Boyhood,' 7 p. 125. 
 
io EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 right and left, or anything else which can be called 
 the intellectual side of the Bible — was acquired 
 in Brattle Street Sunday school before I was thir- 
 teen years old." 
 
 Besides church, there were other forms of social 
 intercourse such as will be easily imagined, — 
 dancing school (my father was one of the first 
 pupils of Mr. Lorenzo Papanti), evening parties 
 for the young people, evening lectures to which 
 everybody went. With such means of social diver- 
 sions and communications, one would naturally 
 think of life as not absolutely a home affair; but 
 home and the family was the nucleus and indeed by 
 far the greater part. 
 
 The first letter of my father's that remains is 
 dated October 6, 1831, at a time when he was nine 
 years old. It is not remarkable, but should be 
 given as the first of a very long series, some of 
 which will follow: 
 
 "Boston, October 6tb y 183 1 
 "Dear Father: 
 
 "Your departure was quite unexpected to me, 
 as I did not hear of it till about half past twelve 
 the same day. Nothing very important has hap- 
 pened at the Latin School about the headmaster; 
 Mr. Dillaway, having taken our (or Mr. Leverett's) 
 room and a Mr. Streatton taken Mr. Dillaway's. 
 This arrangement began Saturday and will last 
 till the eleventh of this month when (I suppose) 
 the new master will have been appointed. I heard 
 on Saturday that Messrs. Felton and Dillaway 
 
FAMILY LIFE n 
 
 were the candidates. Did you arrive at Worcester 
 safely and how long was your journey? Have 
 you felt your rheumatism much since you left? 
 Edward Webster l is now recovered from his sick- 
 ness and he attended school to-day, but there are 
 large sores round his mouth still. As it is general 
 muster 2 I am sorry that you are not at home to 
 see the show, though I suppose that you do not 
 care nearly sq much about it as I do myself. Last 
 night just as I was going to bed^ we heard the cry 
 of 'fire.' We looked out of the window and saw 
 the flames. The direction was as if it was a vessel 
 in the harbour, but I do not know whether it was 
 or not as I have not heard anything of it this morn- 
 ing. The time for fires has just about set in. Have 
 you had a pleasant journey? I cannot think of 
 anything to say but I still remain your affectionate 
 son, 
 
 "Edward E. Hale. 
 
 "P. S. Please excuse the writing." 
 
 The writing was good, much better than at 
 various later periods of his life. It was somewhat 
 helped by the paper having pencil lines ruled, 
 an assistance which he afterward abandoned, al- 
 
 1 The son of Daniel Webster and one of my father's early friends. There 
 are a number of early letters from him, written when he was in Washington. 
 
 2 Fall muster was the day when every member of the State Militia — 
 "every man who considered himself a man" says my father in "A New Eng- 
 land Boyhood" — "attended with his gun, cartridge box, belt, and primer." 
 Nathan Hale had been a member of the New England Guards, but being now 
 over forty-five was exempt from service in the militia, and was therefore able 
 to attend to railroad business at Worcester instead of going to general muster 
 and training on the Common afterwards. 
 
12 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 though all the time that I remember he did most 
 of his literary writing in blank books about six 
 inches by eight which had ruled lines. 
 
 Among other remains of this period are two or 
 three journals, generally of Election Day, but once 
 extended to a week, and a very interesting flower 
 calender begun in the summer of 1835 and carried 
 on for several years. In 1835, when he lived in 
 Boston, there is but a page of entries, but in 1837 
 and 1838, after he had gone to Cambridge to col- 
 lege, there is a record, very delightful to the flower 
 lover, of his first finding of the wild flowers as they 
 came along in the spring as well as of the planting 
 and growth in his garden near Divinity Hall, of 
 which mention will be found in the college journal. 
 Most curious of these records of early days, 
 however, are those of printing, journalism, and litera- 
 ture. "My father was editor of the Daily Adver- 
 tiser" he writes in "A New England Boyhood", 
 " and in that day this meant that he owned the whole 
 printing plant, engaged all the printers, and printed 
 his own newspaper. He never was a practical 
 printer, but with his taste for mechanics he under- 
 stood all the processes of the business. Not un- 
 naturally this grew into his establishing a book 
 office, which did as good work in its time as was 
 done anywhere. . . . All the arrangements for these 
 contrivances were, of course, interesting to his 
 sons. So, as I have said, we had type from the 
 printing office, and we all learned to set type and 
 to arrange it. When, in 1834, my brother went 
 to college I used to repair every day to the book 
 
FAMILY LIFE 13 
 
 office for my printing, and there learned the case 
 and all the processes of imposing scientifically." 
 Of course the children wrote and printed books 
 and newspapers. At a somewhat later time they 
 wrote a whole library. It still exists — the Frank- 
 lin Circulating Library — little booklets of perhaps 
 three or four inches square in which are printed 
 by hand youthful tales in many volumes. My 
 father's earliest book printing was of a poem on 
 "Jack and the Bean Stalk", written by his mother. 
 They also had newspapers both printed and writ- 
 ten. Of these, The Fly still exists, — rather a small 
 newspaper (four inches by four), doubtless on ac- 
 count of difficulty of manufacture. The written 
 newspapers were larger. The earliest is named 
 The Public Informer, a name with an unfavorable 
 significance that the children were doubtless un- 
 aware of. In their minds it was sufficient that the 
 newspaper really informed their family public. 
 The earliest recorded verse of my father's is an 
 "Address of the Carriers of the Public Informer to 
 their Patrons, January 1st, 1835", written during 
 the year that he was left rather to himself at home 
 by the departure of his brother Nathan for college, 
 where he joined him a year later. It has enough 
 curious interest to make it worth recording. 
 
14 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 OF THE CARRIERS OF THE 
 
 PUBLIC INFORMER 
 
 TO THEIR PATRONS 
 JANUARY 1ST I 83 5 
 
 Time has rolled on another year, 
 
 Since last we met our patrons dear; 
 
 We've brought your papers to your door 
 
 Through all the year of 'thirty-four; 
 
 Quick though it passed, in that short space, 
 
 Full many wonders have found place; 
 
 And we are almost forced to believe with you, 
 
 That fairy stories will at length come true. 
 
 First then, we find, that by steam-engine's power, 
 We now can move full eighteen miles an hour; 
 And what ten years ago, untrue would seem, 
 Is now accomplished perfectly by steam. 
 
 Another wonder, patrons, we have told, 
 How stern New England's sons though famed of old, 
 For moderation of their strong desires, 
 Have burned a convent down with raging fires. 
 The more we think, we wonder more and more 
 And hope these times of change will soon be o'er. 
 
 We also find these modern innovations, 
 Exerting force in all the foreign nations; 
 In one a rash adventurer says he'll try, 
 With a machine in liquid air to fly 
 Where'er he will; th' experiment he makes, 
 But lo! it fails, and this great bubble breaks. 
 
FAMILY LIFE 15 
 
 Once more: we find the spirit of the age, 
 In our own home when many parties rage, 
 No longer sturdy federalists are we, / 
 No longer Nat. Republicans we see, 
 Now we are Whigs ; and now we see revive, 
 The spirit of the Whigs of '75. 
 
 We know we do not bring near all the news, 
 But this we hope good patrons you'll excuse ; 
 As when in punctuality we fail 
 For oft we've brought you many a pleasant tale, 
 And conversations between A. & B., 
 With stories of their children C. and D. ; 
 One's journal which she's written when away, 
 A letter too to where one's sisters stay; 
 Sometimes a tale of lively fairy's wrong, 
 Now a translation, now a pleasant song, 
 We always do our best to entertain, 
 Always lament when we have tried in vain, 
 And if th' Informer does not what we mean 
 Pray do not on the Carriers vent your spleen. 
 
 And now kind patrons, no more will we say, 
 Except to hope that many a New Year's day, 
 May pass ere you with us shall disagree, 
 And hope that you will wish the same as we; 
 But before we leave you, patrons dear, 
 We wish you all a very happy new year. 
 
H 
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 COLLEGE LIFE 
 
 1835-1839 
 
 E had finished preparation for Harvard College 
 in 1835, when he was thirteen. 
 
 "I do not think that father would on that ac- 
 count have sent me to college so young, but both 
 my uncles, Edward and Alexander Everett, had 
 entered college younger than I was, so that the 
 traditions of the family went that way. Doctor 
 Andrew Peabody, who was, I think, eleven years 
 older than I, entered college when he was only 
 twelve. Father and mother were undoubtedly in- 
 fluenced by the warm attachment between me and 
 Nathan. I had missed him all through his Fresh- 
 man year, for he had entered in 1834 at the age of 
 fifteen. They probably knew that he had a good 
 influence on me, and they thought it would be 
 well for us to live in the same room." * 
 
 They lived in 22 Stoughton. 
 
 Later in life my father thought this arrangement 
 had been a mistake. It had certainly one result 
 which perhaps his father and mother had not 
 thought of. A boy brought up largely at home, 
 used to look for his interests and his pleasures in 
 
 1 This quotation and several following are from the account of his early 
 life written in 1892, and preserved in the Freeman MSS. 
 
 16 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 17 
 
 family life, will find it a great change to be plunged 
 into the college world and forced to touch elbows 
 with everybody. If he have a brother or relative, 
 he will turn to him and miss the rather wide con- 
 nection with strangers; my father wrote later: 
 
 "By rooming with my brother I was probably 
 saved some annoyances which would have wounded 
 a little boy. But on the other hand I lost at first 
 intimate acquaintance with my own class. Fresh- 
 men did not want to come into a Sophomore's 
 room. Indeed I can now recollect that in the early 
 months of my college life I knew several of Nathan's 
 classmates better than I knew many of my own. 
 The separation from my own class was the worse 
 for me, because, as I have said, I hated society." 
 
 There is not much record of his first year at col- 
 lege. In his Sophomore year he began to keep 
 rather a full diary, but there is, in his Freshman 
 year, only a journal of Artillery Election Day. His 
 chief friends were George Hayward and Samuel Long- 
 fellow, who, like him, roomed with upper classmen. 
 
 "Our tastes were similar, and the close intimacy 
 which then began has continued through life. 
 Longfellow and I were both fond of flowers, and 
 Cambridge was still good botanizing ground. This 
 brought us into close friendship with Watson of 
 Plymouth, who has also been a lifelong friend. 
 For the rest I do not recollect anybody whom I 
 knew in the Freshman year, except the old Latin 
 School set, that is, Washburn, Dawes, Brigham, 
 Capen and Vinsen. I was a great deal in their 
 rooms but they were never in mine." 
 
18 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 He has left a later record of his general dislike 
 of college life and especially of the "deadly home- 
 sickness at the end of my first day of college life." 
 
 "Nor," he goes on later, "did I ever wholly live 
 through the dissatisfaction with the place. I was 
 always counting the weeks until vacation. For- 
 tunately for me we then had three every year. 
 The truth was I was happier at home than I was 
 anywhere else. The first four weeks of a term 
 always seemed to me interminable. I doubt if 
 my college journal ever shows a week in which I 
 did not go home for an hour or two, besides the 
 regular Saturday holiday. We were also allowed 
 two Sundays in each term to spend at home and 
 we always claimed them." 
 
 It is true that his college journal records many 
 a walk in town, and doubtless true also that he en-, 
 joyed the family life more than his life in college. 
 But it should also be said that the journal records 
 very little in the way of dissatisfaction with mo- 
 notony, and on the other hand puts down a great 
 many things that were undoubtedly keenly interest- 
 ing to him. A year or so after graduation he had 
 still left a pleasing impression, at least of his later 
 years. He wrote to Samuel Longfellow, who was 
 about to move into his old room in Massachusetts, 
 that it was the place in which he had passed the 
 happiest times of his life. Probably both impres- 
 sions are well founded. In Freshman year things 
 would naturally have come hard on a boy so young 
 and so accustomed to a gay and lively family cir- 
 cle. But as he became used to college life, more 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 19 
 
 familiar with his opportunities, and more able to 
 occupy himself with things that really interested 
 him, he could not but have found life agreeable 
 and happy. 
 
 His later recollections of college studies were not 
 more favorable than those of college life. Others 
 have criticized the college system at about the 
 same time. There appears to have been little 
 done by the tutors and professors except setting 
 lessons and exercises and hearing or receiving 
 them. Still it is not clear ( in my father's case that 
 the system was not pretty good. We cannot say 
 how he might have done under one which we should 
 call better. To a boy of such wide-ranging inter- 
 ests, the larger scope of the elective system would 
 of course have been a great privilege. Still he 
 made good use of the limited course which he and 
 all his classmates had to take. Curiously enough, 
 the very things which nowadays we should think 
 would have been of interest to him — such things 
 as the lectures on German literature by Longfellow 
 or Astronomy by Lovering — these are the only 
 things in the course of study on which he comments 
 unfavorably. Ten weeks after he had graduated 
 he writes in his diary, "A model week" — and adds 
 a plan for work with the query: "Would it be 
 quite impossible to restore there something of 
 the magnificent effectiveness of the mechanical 
 old college life?" Mechanical it was, and as such 
 not delightful; but it was also efficient. He learned 
 much, and what he learned stayed by him. He 
 kept his classics and modern languages through 
 
20 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 life; he kept and improved the facility in writing 
 which he often ascribed largely to his work with 
 Professor E. T. Channing; he kept his interest in 
 the sciences, although he never pursued them much 
 farther. But besides this, and more important, 
 he developed under such teaching the self-reliance 
 and independence which was a marked element in 
 his character. He got his lessons as a matter of 
 course, and pursued in addition whatever else in- 
 terested him, like reading novels, studying history, 
 gardening, hunting for wild flowers, doing "philo- 
 sophical" experiments, and helping carry on the 
 different college activities in which he was con- 
 cerned. He was obviously one of the effective 
 men of the class; he was at different times sec- 
 retary of the I. O. H., the Harvard Union, the 
 Natural History Society, and the Davy Club, and he 
 appears now and then going about to get men to play 
 cricket or go sleigh-riding or such things. He was 
 also one of the "literary men", poet of his year in 
 the I. O. H., and class poet on graduation. As a 
 student, he had parts in the Sophomore, Junior, 
 and Senior exhibitions, won prizes for two Bowdoin 
 Dissertations, was one of the first eight in the Phi 
 Beta Kappa, and graduated second in the class. 
 In fact he was a good all-round man, as he wished 
 to be. 
 
 The extracts from his diary need little annota- 
 tion or comment. Most of the students men- 
 tioned were his classmates: Samuel Longfellow, 
 the brother of Professor Longfellow, George Hay- 
 ward, for many years afterward his family phy- 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 21 
 
 sician, Guild, Eliot, Donaldson, Meyer, Watson, 
 Dawes ; some are well-known names and some 
 hardly known at all, but at that time all were on 
 an equal footing as members of the class of '39. 
 
 "Jan. 9, 1837. Met Meyer at Farwell's, and 
 he agreed to join the German section, which Sam. 
 Guild and I were attempting to raise. Spoke 
 to Longfellow at dinner about the German, and 
 he said that he thought perhaps his brother, who 
 had just returned from Europe, would take it, so 
 he agreed to say nothing to Bokum till that was 
 settled. After French wrote Latin exercise. In 
 the evening went into Williams' rooms and got the 
 Oedipus. This lesson finished Oedipus Tyrannus. 
 Came home, finished exercise, got Horace and went 
 to bed." 
 
 "Jan. 10. Longfellow told me this morning 
 that he had not seen his brother, but the President 
 had told him that his election for the Prof ship 
 must be confirmed by the Senate as a part of the 
 board of overseers. They will meet on Thursday 
 and I suppose will settle it then. If Longfellow 
 will take the section, we had rather recite to him 
 than to Bokum." 
 
 "Jan. 16. After reciting to Channing today 
 walked down to the bridge with Donaldson, talk- 
 ing about the I. O. H., the interests of which he 
 has a good deal at heart. Came home and read 
 some in Rev. Mr. Emerson's 'Nature.' It is an 
 odd sort of book, but I like it better than most 
 everyone else seems to, though to be sure there is 
 
22 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 a good deal in it that I can't understand. In the 
 evening Nathan undertook to Animal Magnetize 
 me. I got horribly sleepy but I believe it was the 
 natural effect of sitting still five minutes without 
 speaking, and feeling his hands stroking me down 
 so." 
 
 "Feb. 23. All day Nathan was making experi- 
 ments in sound, which I inspected and assisted in. 
 In the afternoon finished woodcut, upon which 
 I put so much time that I did not get the lesson in 
 Mechanics in time to recite, and so had to say 
 'not prepared' which vexed me horribly, particu- 
 larly as it was my own fault. In the evening went 
 to Dawes' room to meet the rest of the Library 
 committee [of the L O. H.]. We decided on buy- 
 ing Pope's Homer, Ion, Clarence, Cooper's Sketches 
 of Switzerland 2 Part, Abercrombie's Intellectual 
 faculties, &c. &c." 
 
 "Mar. 3. Slept over prayers this morning and 
 did not get up till nearly breakfast time. First 
 time I have missed for a long time. Found at 
 breakfast that we had a miss in Greek, so that my 
 absence did not hurt me or anybody else, in respect 
 to that. The cause of the miss seems to be that 
 Felton * went in to the theatre last night with 
 Profs. Pierce and Longfellow, so that he could not 
 get up in time to give the 1st section an exercise, 
 and we had none in consequence." 
 
 "Mar. 14. After Latin went into the Library 
 and got out a volume of Moliere, returning a vol- 
 
 1 Felton, Pierce, and Longfellow were professors respectively of Greek, 
 Mathematics, and Modern Languages. 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 23 
 
 ume of Bisset. Went to Eustis' room and returned 
 his volume of Moliere. Bought some chalk and 
 saleratus at Deacon Brown's. Chemicals inter- 
 mingled with poem till dinner time." 
 
 The poem here mentioned was one he was writ- 
 ing for the I. O. H., called "Noise." It was a 
 satire written in ten-syllable lines, of a kind not 
 uncommon at the time. A few lines follow: 
 
 Do Harvard's groves ne'er ring with clamors loud? 
 Do shouts ne'er echo from her buildings proud ? 
 Say nought of sounds of wild hilarity, 
 Say nought of glee clubs or sodality, 
 Nought of debates for which we've often met, 
 Nought of soft flute or squeaking flageolet — 
 Are no examples in her halls descried 
 Of what rules old and young, rules all beside? 
 
 "Apr. 26. We recited in German for the first 
 time to Prof. Longfellow. The recitation, or rather 
 the exercise, for we had had no lesson set before, 
 was very easy. I think we shall like the study 
 very much. Played cricket in the evening." 
 
 "Apr. 27. After recitation today went to a 
 meeting which was called to know who wished 
 to join a singing class. About half college was 
 there. I did not sign my name but I think I shall 
 join. Played cricket till dinner time. 
 
 "In the afternoon we had a miss in Mathematics. 
 After supper I went to walk to see if I could get 
 some anemones. Found that they were budded 
 but not blossomed. Played cricket till 7J p.m. 
 
24 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 and then went to I. 0. H. Both lecturers were 
 absent, but we had a tolerably good debate." 
 
 "May 17. After recitation in Latin today, I 
 found a request on my desk that I would go to 
 the President's study. Went and he informed me 
 that I was reported to the Faculty for wearing a 
 coat of an illegal color on Sunday. I had appeared 
 last Sunday in a dark brown one. Got Logic lesson 
 in the library, as we had no fuel to make a fire 
 withal." 
 
 "May 27. On going for the paper today, I met 
 the President's freshman who had a list of those 
 who had parts at the next exhibit., and was going 
 round to tell them to go to the President's study. 
 I was sent for among them. After breakfast I 
 went up and found my part was a Latin dialogue 
 with Longfellow." 
 
 For this dialogue he and Longfellow looked 
 about a good deal. After considering Coleridge's. 
 "Remorse", Addison's "Cato", Shakespeare's and 
 Racine's Classical plays, and a translation of Sopho- 
 cles, and also "Miriam" by Talfourd, they set- 
 tled on a passage in Glover's "Boadicea." 
 
 "July 17. Exhibition day. After breakfast 
 went to the bookstore to get some orders of exer- 
 cises for exhibition, but they were not out. Went 
 up in front of Hollis and shouted the names of 
 those who have parts at the next exhibition. Re- 
 turned to the bookstore and got some orders. 
 Walked to Craigie's woods with Longfellow and got 
 some flowers. At home almost all the time till 11 
 when with the various people who had collected* 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 25 
 
 viz: Mother, Father, Sarah, Lucretia, Aunt Lucy, 
 Uncle Edward, Aunt Charlotte, etc. etc., I went 
 down to the Chapel. Deposited them and went 
 back to black my pumps. Returned to the chapel 
 and robed. Got through speaking very well, un- 
 robed and went round to the other side of the 
 Chapel. The exhibition was not over till after 1 
 and the folks staid in my room till nearly 2 so I 
 lost my dinner. In the afternoon I was at home 
 most of the time for the entertainment of guests. 
 Nearly all the class came up in the course of the 
 afternoon. I went up into Bell's room, into Ellis' 
 and Longfellow's before prayers. Also walked over 
 to the Fosters to carry a bundle for Sarah. In 
 the evening at about 7J- started in a carryall with 
 Howard, Hayward, and Dawes, to go up to class 
 supper. We got up to the hotel (the Massasoit 
 house, in Waltham) by a little after 8, but we rode 
 on for a mile farther, so that we got out at the house 
 at about 8| p.m. There were cards in the reception 
 rooms wherewith those who wished played. At 
 about 9! we were ushered into the supper room 
 where there was a very good supper provided 
 whereof we ate and drank." 
 
 "July 18. At 5 minutes past 1, I and my carry- 
 all associates rose from the table, went down stairs 
 and ordered our horse and vehicle, No. 18. We 
 rode down as quickly as possible and got down by 
 20 minutes past 2 when I went to bed immediately. 
 Got up to prayers not feeling at all sleepy. On 
 communing with others I found that the last sup- 
 perians departed about 3 from the scene of action. . . . 
 
26 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "This was the last day of our Sophomore year. 
 During that year we have read the Alcestis of 
 Euripides, the Oedipodes Tyrannus and Coloneus 
 and the Antigone of Sophocles, besides the odes, 
 satires, and epistles of Horace. I with a section 
 of the class have read about half a dozen plays of 
 Racine, as many of Moliere, Fontaine's Fables 
 and have begun the study of German. We have 
 been over Whately's Logic and Rhetoric with 
 Prof. Channing and Farrar's Calculus and part of 
 his Mechanics with Prof. Pierce. I for one am 
 perfectly satisfied with my progress during the 
 year." 
 
 Aug. 31. He went out to Cambridge to hear 
 the Boylston and $. B. K. speaking. He records 
 his impression of Emerson's oration at the latter 
 occasion. "It was not very good, but very trans- 
 cendental." 
 
 "Sept. 18. At 11 a.m. went to Prof. Longfel- 
 low's first lecture on Goethe's Faust. The lectures 
 are to be extemporaneous translations of the Ger- 
 man with explanations; as he called it recitations 
 in which he recites and we hear. He made a long 
 introduction to the matter in hand, very flowery 
 and bombastical indeed, which appeared to me 
 very much out of taste. I believe however that 
 it was entirely extemporaneous and that he was 
 carried away by the current of his thoughts. In 
 fact he appears to say just what comes uppermost. 
 The regular translation and explanation part of the 
 lecture was very good." 
 
 "Sept. 22. Pretty busily engaged all day in 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 27 
 
 writing forensic. At 11 a.m. went to Prof. Long- 
 fellow's second lecture which I liked a good deal 
 better than the first. 
 
 "I was a good deal interested to know how dif- 
 ferent fellows would write, yet I found the forensic 
 reading stupid altho' this was our first time." 
 
 "Oct. 17. At 11 I went down to the Chapel 
 and staid there most of the time till the exhibition 
 was over. The performances were tolerable, per- 
 haps as good as usual at an exhibition, but noth- 
 ing more. I liked Jim Lowell's part better than 
 any of the others. It was different from the ordi- 
 nary routine of exhibitions; consisting of a com- 
 parison of the fate of Homer during his life and after 
 his death, giving a sketch of the way in which he 
 was obliged to beg from house to house, and then 
 contrasting it with his fame as the first epic poet 
 of the world. 
 
 "Staid at the Fosters till about 3, when I came 
 up into the yard and went with a number of other 
 fellows into Howard's room. He had a part today 
 and in conformity with established usage gave a 
 blow to the class. Almost all the class were up 
 there and staid till 3! when we adjourned to Sams. 
 Guild and Eliot's room where was another blow, 
 they also having had parts. I staid there till about 
 4 and then left them all singing and enjoying them- 
 selves, drinking etc., to go to the Fosters" [where 
 he had left his sisters with whom he went in to 
 Boston], 
 
 "Oct. 18. On conversing this morning with those 
 who had been present at prayers, I found that there 
 
28 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 had been considerable noise, and that one or two of 
 our class were drunk. We soon learned today 
 that the Faculty would take notice of this. They 
 held meetings in the morning and the afternoon, 
 the result of which was that in the early part of 
 
 the afternoon and were sent off till the 
 
 next commencement for intoxication, and and 
 
 till the end of the term, 'for entering the 
 
 Chapel arm in arm, stamping, apparently excited 
 by liquor.' They also sent for Sams. Guild and 
 Eliot and gave each of them a public for giving a 
 blow without leave of the government. This made 
 us very angry. Everybody acknowledged that 
 
 and were drunk and deserved their fate 
 
 accordingly, but it was universally agreed that 
 
 and were not, and that their punishment 
 
 like Guild and Eliot's was too severe. A class 
 meeting was called for 7 in the evening. I went 
 down but after organizing itself the meeting ad- 
 journed to procure a fuller attendance at 8|. At 
 this meeting nothing of importance was done. 
 There were only 36 present, hardly a majority of 
 the class, nevertheless it was voted a class meeting 
 and we proceeded to business. After one or two 
 preliminary resolutions, a resolution 'that the class 
 signify their disapprobation of the measures of 
 the Faculty by stamping in prayers tomorrow 
 morning' was put and negatived. A resolution 
 that we signify disapprobation by smashing proc- 
 tors' window was almost unanimously opposed. 
 After various ineffectual resolutions, to adjourn till 
 next Tuesday, sine die &c, it was voted to adjourn 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 29 
 
 till the moderator should call the meeting together 
 again." 
 
 "Oct. 19. On going to morning prayers found 
 a good many panes broken in Univ. window. There 
 was a good deal of noise in Dr. Ware's recitation 
 room, this morning, not at all connected with the 
 prevailing fuss but for nothing but fun, as we used 
 to say at school. There were one or two apples 
 and a lemon which were being thrown constantly 
 from one side of the room to the other, to the immi- 
 nent danger of the heads they happened to be 
 aimed at; and all this was done without attract- 
 ing Dr. Ware's particular notice, except once when 
 Ellis, who was reciting, made an allusion to the 
 circumstance. He spoke loud enough to be heard 
 all over the room, but so quick that Dr. Ware 
 could not understand him. He seemed to per- 
 ceive that Ellis had said something he ought not, 
 tho' he did not know what. Poor old man, he is 
 too old for such a situation. His eyesight is very 
 poor so that he can't even tell who is present and 
 who is absent. The other day when he called on 
 Haven, I thought he called me and recited, when 
 he called me, Haven recited. This has happened 
 twice, once by a mistake of each of us." 
 
 "Oct. 20. In the evening after supper I went 
 into Hayward's room where I staid till 8. About 
 7§ heard a tremendous explosion which I thought 
 was a pump blown up, as one or two were last term. 
 In the morning however, I found that either this, 
 or a later explosion which I did not hear, was made 
 by a torpedo put on the sill of one of the windows, 
 
30 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 of University. It smashed in the sash so as to 
 make four squares into one and broke several other 
 panes of glass." 
 
 "Oct. 21. The 4th vol. of Lockhart's Scott came 
 in the evening I pounced upon it and read con- 
 siderable in it. It is an admirable book. But 
 I never read much in it, without regretting the want 
 of a copyright act in this country for English au- 
 thors. I think if there had been one, Scott would 
 be alive now, for he appears as far as I can learn, 
 to have written himself to death. I wish I could 
 have seen him." 
 
 "Oct. 24. I finished 'Attila' [by G. P. R. James] 
 this evening. I like it very much, not the less for 
 not having the scene laid in France, according to 
 custom in James' novels." 
 
 "Oct. 26. I was very much surprised this even- 
 ing just before six to see Fullum x enter. He came 
 out to get information of the state of things here. 
 They had heard in town of last night's explosion, 
 and had supposed that there was a row going on 
 here. The fact is that there has been an explosion 
 or two almost every night since last Friday. Yes- 
 terday morning the President read us the vote of 
 the Faculty, that those suspected of explosions 
 should be Grand Juryized next December, if a 
 confession was not previously made. After this, 
 the exploders showed their contempt of it -by a 
 louder blow than ever, last night. It is reported 
 that there is to be a patrol tonight. The secret 
 of the exploders is very well kept. I doubt if the 
 
 1 Abel Fullum was and remained for many years the family factotum. 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 31 
 
 Faculty suspect one person any more than an- 
 other." 
 
 "Oct. 27. We had our last lecture in Prof. Long- 
 fellow's course in Faust today; that is the last 
 on the first part of Faust which is all which we are 
 obliged to attend. A volunteer section will have 
 lectures on the second part, but the whole cannot, 
 on account of the difference in books, all the edi- 
 tions not having the second part in them. I shall 
 not go. The lectures are tolerably interesting, but 
 not enough so to compensate for the time taken 
 up by them." 
 
 About this time he had a bad sore throat, and 
 had to stay at home for a week. 
 
 "Nov. 5. During the week I read the 4th vol- 
 ume of Lockhart's Scott. It is, as I have said some 
 half a dozen times of the other volumes, admirably 
 entertaining. Of all of whom I ever read I think 
 Scott is most to be envied, that is at the period of 
 this volume after his embarrassment with the Bal- 
 lantynes and before those with Constable. He 
 had as large an income as he could desire with the 
 gratification too of knowing that he was delighting 
 the world. He seems to have enjoyed himself as 
 far as we can judge from the letters. The book 
 has given me materials for a new order of architec- 
 ture in castles in the air and I never leave off read- 
 ing in it without framing some dozens." 
 
 "Nov. 13. Election day, in consequence of which 
 we had misses from all the instructors after Mr. 
 Bowen's recitation 8J in the morning. 
 
 "I ought to have observed above that Friday 
 
32 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 and Saturday last week news was received here of 
 a great Whig victory in the state of New York, 
 whereby the Whigs instead of being, as last year, in 
 a small minority, have a powerful majority in the 
 assembly. 
 
 "After prayers I went down to the town house 
 and got the returns of the election here. Everett 
 618, Morton, Jackson candidate 241. Whig gain 
 since last year of 217. This is doing very well." 
 
 "Nov. 20. I went to the library both before and 
 after this to get materials for a lecture which I in- 
 tend shall be on American Antiquities, dilating 
 principally on Dighton rock on which I consider 
 myself an fait. While I was in the Library, as I 
 afterwards learnt, Mrs. Jameson, the authoress, 
 was there. I had merely observed that there were 
 a couple of ladies there with Prof. Felton, and 
 that one of them looked rather lionish." 
 
 From a letter to Lucretia, November 23. "Con- 
 versation here, in our class, turns principally on 
 the approaching session of the Grand Jury when 
 we are to be arraigned. It has lately come out 
 that Francis, professor of ornamental carpentry 
 and repairs, is a member. At first it seemed a lit- 
 tle suspicious, for if the Faculty had chosen a man 
 to have on the jury, Francis would have been the 
 man, as he is not one of the government, but an 
 intelligent man and having very orthodox senti- 
 ments with respect to the students. But it soon 
 appeared that he was on the Grand Jury the be- 
 ginning of this month, before anything of this 
 matter happened. Rather odd, ain't it?" 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 33 
 
 "Nov. 24. Wrote some on a theme this morning. 
 It is 'Draw a Character of a Misanthrope.' Sketch- 
 ing character was never my forte. I don't like the 
 subject much. . . . After recitation in German I 
 went into town. I got in about 6 p.m. After I 
 had been at home for a few minutes I went to Uncle 
 Edward's to see a book he has, recently published 
 by the Danish Northern Antiquarian Society, 
 which contains copies of some of the Icelandic books 
 descriptive of the early voyages of the Northmen 
 to this country. It contains an hypothesis of Digh- 
 ton rock, viz. that it was left as a monument by 
 those Danes some time in the tenth century. I 
 staid at Uncle Edward's looking at this till 5*7. ..." 
 
 "Nov. 25. It was so very stormy today that I 
 did not attempt to go into town, and left the room 
 no oftener than necessary. I sent a note in by 
 Kebler to inform the intowners of the cause of my 
 absence. 
 
 "Read Vision of Don Roderick and finished 
 Rokeby today. Rokeby is excellent. I like it, I 
 think, as well as either of the other three poems. 
 The Don I don't like so well." [Some mention 
 of "Rokeby" occurs in his Bowdoin Prize Disserta- 
 tion written the next spring.] 
 
 "Nov. 29. At home almost all day. I went out 
 once or twice before dinner to get the luncheon, 
 but beside this stirred round but little. Nathan 
 read some of Ossian aloud this morning. I never 
 read much of it before, and he began to read this 
 for fun, but he read one or two poems. It is amus- 
 ing to hear, it must have been capital fun to 
 
34 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 McPherson to write it, with all the fudge about 
 lost passages, etc. etc." 
 
 At this time (December i-December n) he 
 was kept at home in town by another sore throat. 
 
 "Nathan, who has brought me the Cambridge 
 news, and George Hayward, who called on Satur- 
 day, have told me of an account given by Mr. 
 Quincy [the president of the college] in chapel of 
 a box of hand grenades and powder amounting 
 in all to twelve pounds, prepared in the cockloft 
 of Harvard Hall with a train to the door which 
 was discovered a year or two ago. The account is 
 now made public for the first time as a defence of 
 the Faculty for their conduct in appealing to the 
 Grand Jury for the preservation of order in col- 
 lege, intending to show what bad things had been 
 done and ought to be prevented. It appears 
 that X. of our class has confessed all he had to do 
 with the explosion on condition that he shall not 
 be dishonorably expelled. Y. unwilling to testify 
 has demanded leave to take up his connexions 
 which was refused, i.e. he cannot depart honor- 
 ably." 
 
 "Jan. 15, 1838. At 9J this morning I went 
 into the Library to find a piece to speak in Han- 
 sard's Parliamentary debates. Made ineffectual 
 search there almost all the time till 11, when I 
 went to Prof. Longfellow's introductory lecture on 
 Dante. Much to my delight, he rather advised 
 those who had not finished the Ital. course not to 
 attend till next year, which advice I shall follow. 
 
 "Jan. 18. Got the rest of piece, an extract 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 35 
 
 from Uncle Edward's Bloody Brook address and 
 at 12J rehearsed to Hildreth. . . . " 
 
 "Jan. 30. Just before the lecture I went into 
 Baker's room and borrowed an old botanical book 
 of his, 'Fuchsias de historia plantarum' or some 
 similar title printed about 1556, in hopes I might 
 find something odd enough to get a lecture out of 
 for the Nat. Hist. Soc. I was disappointed; the 
 book was a dry botanical catalogue with antique 
 wood cuts." 
 
 "Feb. 2. I should have mentioned at the begin- 
 ning of today's entry, but it slipped my mind at 
 the moment I was writing, that when we went to 
 prayers this morning we found the chapel in great 
 confusion, owing to the explosion of a bomb placed 
 in front of the pulpit. The windows were all 
 broken, almost every pane of glass being destroyed, 
 the front of the high platform on which the pulpit 
 stands was blown in, the plastering broken in sev- 
 eral places where pieces of the shell had entered, 
 woodwork of pews, window panes and seats hurt 
 in some places, the clock injured, part of the cur- 
 tain in side of the pulpit torn away, and a couple 
 of inscriptions in immense letters on the wall to 
 this effect 'A bone for old Quin to pick.' Nobody 
 appears to have any suspicion who did it, and 
 everybody manifests great indignation; it is going 
 rather too far for a joke." 
 
 "Feb. 5. There is a great deal of conversation 
 here today about a plan for holding a meeting of 
 all the undergraduates, that they may express 
 their disapproval of the blowup in the Chapel. 
 
36 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 There was an attempt made by some of our class to 
 get up an idea that it was a plan of the Seniors to 
 pass resolutions disapproving of our row last term. 
 This did not succeed very well as it was evident 
 that it was not the case. A paper was circulated 
 to obtain the opinions of people, those in favor 
 of holding a meeting signing on one side and those 
 opposed to the plan signing on the other. I had 
 found it very difficult to make up my mind about 
 it; one minute I thought that disapproving the 
 meeting seemed like dodging the question and 
 this induced me to favor it ; another minute I 
 would think that it would establish a precedent of 
 expecting students to disavow, in all cases of dis- 
 order, and this made me dislike the project. It 
 so happened that I was in the former opinion when 
 Whitman called with the paper, so that I signed 
 in favor of one, for which I was afterwards a little 
 sorry, for I suppose nobody will believe any state- 
 ment of students asseverating that they do not 
 approve; that is, nobody who would think they 
 did approve. The meeting therefore can do no 
 good, and it may possibly by being made a prece- 
 dent, do some little harm. 
 
 "I finished, copied, and gave up to Dr. Beck 
 today, with my other Latin exercise, a Latin letter 
 which he had demanded, and which I began yes- 
 terday at home. I addressed it to John Smith 
 for want of a better name, mentioned in it my 
 trip to the House of Representatives last Saturday, 
 spoke of the prolixity of American legislators and 
 told the following story of Pres. John Adams which 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 37 
 
 I heard in Mr. Charles Adams' lecture before the 
 Historical Society. In writing to his wife Adams 
 was complaining of the tediousness and prolixity 
 of the proceedings of the Continental Congress 
 and said that he believed 'if any one should move 
 that two and two made four, we should debate it 
 for two days and bring up every argument, histori- 
 cal, logical, rhetorical, and mathematical, and then 
 should pass the motion unanimously in the affirma- 
 tive/ It made a good deal of laugh at the time, 
 being one of the very few things I have heard to 
 produce the least influence on the Historical au- 
 dience, who generally sit perfectly still, and mani- 
 fest as little emotion as so many paving stones." 
 
 "Feb. 6. We had the meeting of undergraduates 
 today at noon and passed two or three resolutions 
 expressing disapprobation and voted to publish 
 the resolutions in the Boston papers. . . . 
 
 "Our reading-room petition was rejected by the 
 Faculty. The President told me pretty much the 
 same as he did last night; — that there had been a 
 reading room some years ago which the govern- 
 ment were obliged to break up; that newspapers 
 were fascinating things 'even to us old men' and 
 that they would take young men away from their 
 studies. A very weak argument this: it amounts 
 to 'we like to read newspapers very much, so we 
 can't let you/ I had a little argument with him 
 but it did not do any good. He said he believed 
 no opposition was made to the rejection." 
 
 "Feb. 9. Wrote a forensic this afternoon on 
 the question of the expediency of directing early 
 
38 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 education to the profession the student intends to 
 follow. I opposed it on the ground that it pre- 
 vents the student from making his own choice, and 
 that he will be sure to dislike the profession his 
 parents choose ; that circumstances may prevent 
 the adoption of that profession, in which case he is 
 badly off; that no new department, arising from 
 improvements in science or art or any other change, 
 could be filled without previous notice; that the 
 man of general information is a more happy, en- 
 tertaining, and useful member of society than he 
 who is only skilled in one topic." 
 
 "Feb. 13. By the way, some people affirm that 
 Mr. Lovering is made Prof, of Nat. Phil. There 
 was a notice of the proceedings of the Overseers 
 in the paper the other day, but it did not say any- 
 thing about him so I believe as I hope that the 
 report is untrue. He is too young and undistin- 
 guished for a professor;" x 
 
 "Mar. 9. Wrote a forensic in the afternoon on 
 practicability of a Congress of nations. Nega- 
 tive ... At 7 went to Longfellow's room; he gave 
 me an invitation to the Davy Club." 
 
 "Apr. 5. We had an Icelandic grammar here 
 [at home] this morning which father received last 
 night from Burlington, Ft. It is very nearly printed 
 and the appearance of the book is quite a tempta- 
 tion to the study of the language. I am not sure 
 but that if I had any Icelandic book to read and 
 
 1 Subsequent notes by E. E. H.: "The report was true. He was chosen 
 Prof, for 3 years. March 27, 1838. And his long tenure of office was most 
 dignified. 1897." 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 39 
 
 any dictionary to read it with, I should study the 
 grammar." [This was by G. P. Marsh, afterwards 
 an excellent student of the English language.] 
 .v*" Apr. 8. Mr. William Swett, familiarly termed 
 B illy, preached today. We knew he was going 
 to preach and I for one was sorry and expected 
 to have a very stupid sermon. But I was very 
 agreeably disappointed. His voice is bad, but he 
 speaks very fluently, sensibly and with a kind of 
 independence of manner which is attractive. His 
 sermon in the morning was on the declining influ- 
 ence of the pulpit, which he ascribed to its having 
 had an undue influence in the days of the reforma- 
 tion, and to the frequent practice of introducing 
 foreign topics in preaching. He was rather severe 
 on Dr. Channing and other clergymen who cannot 
 mind their own business. 'Judea/ he said, 'has 
 given way to Texas, and anti-slavery and Canada 
 take the place of salvation.' In the afternoon he 
 preached a rather singular sermon on the rather 
 quaint text 'Study to be quiet and do your own 
 business/ He animadverted severely on people 
 who take such good care of other people's business 
 that they can't look after their own." 
 
 "Apr. 24. Finished Grahame's History of the 
 U.S. this morning; that is, the first part of it, ex- 
 tending to 1700. I believe this is all which is 
 published. We went to Mr. Lovering's first lec- 
 ture today. It was better than I had expected, 
 tho' still, I think, too flowery in style. The sub- 
 lime was strained so high as to be apt to verge on 
 the ridiculous. Played cricket between 12 and 1. 
 
40 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Wrote and gave up a Grk. exercise today. Played 
 cricket in the evening, after which I went up into 
 Hayward's room and staid till about 9 when we 
 adjourned to the oyster shop and eat some oysters. 
 Came home just at 10." 
 
 "May. 4. After recitation to Mr. Bokum I 
 went down to work on my garden. I was some- 
 what surprised on approaching it, to see Revere 
 and McCleary, two freshmen, working on it. 
 They appeared perfectly willing to give it up, sup- 
 posing there had been some mistake, which indeed 
 proved to be the case when we got Dall to the spot. 
 He assigned them another piece on which they 
 went to work very contentedly." 
 
 "May 19. An announcement made to me yes- 
 terday which I hardly believed then that I am 
 ' elected ' a member of $. B. K. was confirmed to- 
 day. I am glad of it, because it is considered an 
 honor, and gives some evidence of rank in college, 
 but the Society, I suppose, exists now little more 
 than in name; nothing is ever done by it, that is, 
 as a society, excepting as far as its Oration and 
 Poem go." 
 
 "May 29. Wrote some on my dissertation after 
 I got home. I have been working vigorously on 
 it for the last few days and flattered myself today 
 that I need write only ten pages more which in- 
 deed appeared a great plenty as it must be given 
 up by Friday. On looking at the subject, how- 
 ever, which I brought into town in vacation and 
 which I have not looked at since, I found that 
 while that read 'Supernatural Beings created by 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 41 
 
 Popular Superstition or Poets/ I have been writ- 
 ing on ' Superstitions created, &c/ which blunder 
 I knew would cancel from 6-12 pages of my work." 
 
 " June 6. After German recitation I walked 
 about a couple of miles on the Concord Turnpike 
 to a pond called Little Pond on the map where I 
 got, what I had hoped, ladies'-slippers." 
 
 "June 11. Went to garden after breakfast and 
 staid there an hour and a half, watered the whole 
 garden but was rather discouraged to find that 
 by the time I came away those parts which I had 
 watered first were nearly dry. At 10 we were 
 examined in chemistry, on account of which we 
 had no regular recitations all day. The examina- 
 tion was very ridiculous. The most ludicrous an- 
 swers were given to simple questions, but Dr. 
 Webster never made any corrections, thinking, I 
 suppose, that if he kept still the committee would 
 never discover the mistake." 
 
 "July 3. The President sent for me this morn- 
 ing and told me that my dissertation had been 
 awarded the second Bowdoin prize of 30 dollars. 
 A similar prize was awarded to Morison, none of 
 the dissertations of our class being thought worthy 
 a first prize. I was very agreeably disappointed." 
 
 "July 16. Exhibition. The President stopped 
 us after prayers and announced to us officially 
 that there would be no dancing or drinking 
 Tuesday afternoon. After prayers I went to my 
 garden where I staid till nearly 8. Came up, hur- 
 ried thro' my breakfast and went home, where I 
 found a notice requesting me to attend the Presi- 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 43 
 
 "After these performances we proceeded to the 
 dinner and entered the dinner hall after a short 
 delay in the chapel. We had a grand time at 
 dinner. There were 150 people and there were a 
 great many very good speeches. Judge Story pre- 
 sided. He was very brilliant and witty ; Uncle 
 Edward, Messrs Stetson, Richmond, Warren, Sal- 
 tonstall, Sprague, Mellen, Duncan, &c, &c. spoke 
 most of them very well." 
 
 " Sept. 3 . [The fall term opened on Sunday 
 with sermons morning and afternoon by Henry 
 Ware, Jr.] After prayers and supper went upon 
 the Delta to see the freshmen and sophomores 
 kick football; the sophomores beat of course. After 
 the other classes joined, I played in two games 
 and came home." 
 
 "Sept. 14. Wrote or rather finished a letter to 
 Mr. Silliman, Secretary of the Yale Nat. Hist. 
 Society, relating to an exchange of duplicates. 
 After carrying up theme I went to the poorhouse, 
 to see our old Goody who has had a stroke of palsy. 
 After this I went up to Watson's room to show him 
 a flower I had found on the way home. Gerardia 
 Maritima." 
 
 "Sept. 19. I wished to write a French letter 
 to the Directeur of the Jardin des Plantes and went 
 into Mr. Sales' room about 12 to see him about 
 it. He told me that if I would call at his house 
 any time in the evening he would help me write 
 it." 
 
 "Sept. 20. After prayers I went to Watson's 
 room, told him that I had got my letter done, and 
 
44 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 that there was a gentleman going to Paris who, 
 as Mr. Sales told me last night, would be willing to 
 take the package of plants and thus any difficulty 
 of getting them to M. le Directeur would be ob- 
 viated. So we picked out about a dozen plants, 
 for we only, wanted to send a few to show them 
 how we could preserve them, and then brought 
 them over here and packed them up." 
 
 "Oct. 3. Kicked football in the evening. We 
 had some very good games in the course of which 
 I tore one of my coat tails half off, tore one pant 
 three or four inches up from the foot, and ran 
 against some one so forcibly as to give me a pain 
 in my chest all the evening. In my case, unlike 
 Mr. Pepys's, these were things of some importance, 
 but I did not mind them." 
 
 ' " Oct. 16. Exhibition day. Aunt Charlotte, 
 Uncle Edward, and cousin Charlotte came in a 
 little before 10 and about J past the party from 
 home. The exhibition fortunately went off very 
 well. I did not dead, which gratified me and the 
 whole, short and sweet, was over before 1, when 
 all the invited guests came up here." 
 
 "Oct. 26. Theme this afternoon on the causes 
 and expediency of our custom of entering college 
 earlier than Europeans. I assigned as the cause 
 the want of labor and capital in the country; and 
 argued that the custom was a good one, because 
 one takes the world easier and learns its ways bet- 
 ter and more pleasantly when young than old, and 
 because life before entering college is nearly use- 
 less, while afterwards it is very important." 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 45 
 
 "Nov. 6. As I came back from the Bookstore 
 and Post office I called to see Mr. Eustis about 
 studying Hebrew with him." 
 
 'Nov. 8. While I was there (at the bookstore), 
 Channing came in and asked me if I should like 
 to be one of six or eight to watch for the meteoric 
 shower next Monday night. I told him I should 
 and went with him to his room to see the last num- 
 ber of Silliman's Journal which contains an ac- 
 count of the phenomenon as observed last year." 
 
 The watching for meteors holds an important 
 place in the Diary for the next week. There is a 
 full account in "A New England Boyhood." 
 
 "Nov. 20. After (evening) prayers I went to 
 Morison's room where the astronomical forces were 
 to collect, previously to an attack on Mr. Lover- 
 ing. We did not get ready for a start till 5 o'clock. 
 Mr. Lovering explained to us his fancy, as he 
 modestly called it very intelligibly. In the even- 
 ing went to a lecture at the Warren St. Chapel by 
 Uncle Edward on the Northmen. It was a short 
 abstract of the history of their discovery of this 
 country with a good deal about Dighton rock which 
 Uncle supposed to have been sculptured by the 
 natives, for various reasons, the principal of which 
 was the fact, which Mr. Catlin told him, that he 
 had seen thousands of such inscriptions in the Indian 
 countries, in tribes which had not, as well as those 
 which had, the use of instruments of steel." 
 
 "Nov. 25. The President requested "the mem- 
 bers of the seminary" to remain after prayers and 
 he then announced that two of the commons wait- 
 
46 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ers had been found insensible, having imprudently 
 slept last night with charcoal in the room. At 
 breakfast some one came from the kitchen to get 
 some of the Davy Club to go down stairs and see 
 the doctors about making oxygen for these men. 
 I went down and they said they wished to try the 
 effect of oxygen. With two or three others I came 
 into the Davy Club room and went to work. I 
 was there most all day, we made as much oxygen 
 as we could, getting the furnace going and using 
 an iron retort. The men were insensible all day." 
 QThere is a full account of this episode in "A New 
 England Boyhood. "] 
 
 "Dec. 25. Christmas. As I intended to go to 
 town early, I got up contrary to the usual custom, 
 before the second bell, and as an almost necessary 
 consequence, did not get to prayers. At break- 
 fast it appeared, on comparing notes, that the 
 bell did not toll so long as usual. I did not stay 
 at breakfast long, and about 20*8 set out for town, 
 where I arrived in time for a second breakfast. 
 We drew from our papers of wishes at breakfast 
 time. I got 'a well laden ship safe in harbor' al- 
 luding to the present standing joke about the ar- 
 rival of the ships of the different members of the 
 family. My ship just now being the projected 
 Latin School Mastership (no pun) and perhaps 
 as one telegraphed a plan in embryo for me to re- 
 port the legislative proceedings for the Advertiser 
 this winter. We began the custom of Christmas 
 wishes last year. It is a German custom, and con- 
 sists in writing out for each member of the family 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 47 
 
 three wishes, each on a separate slip of paper, which 
 are rolled up together and put under the pillow to 
 be slept upon Christmas eve and night. In the 
 morning one is drawn out, and that, whatever it is, 
 comes to pass in the course of next year. All that 
 we can remember of last year's have happened. I 
 don't remember mine." An account of the master- 
 ship in the Latin School will be found in the next 
 chapter, p. 57. 
 
 "Jan. 6, 1839. I read some of Wordsworth's 
 Excursion this morning and was disappointed in 
 liking it very much. It is certainly much better 
 than his minor pieces." 
 
 "Jan. 12. He [Mr. Parsons] expressed his ap- 
 probation of the plan [for reporting the legislative 
 proceeding], he seemed to want to see me to show 
 that he liked it, and he told me I could begin today 
 so having got the keys to the Advertiser s reporting 
 desk I went to the State House, but found both the 
 houses had adjourned. However I went to my 
 desk and made my preparations. I like the plan 
 very much. It will not be very hard work but will 
 bring pretty good pay, about two dollars a day. 
 I shall come in from Cambridge every day till 
 Thursday when the vacation will begin." 
 
 "Jan. 17. I walked into town. Went right up 
 to the State House and staid there reporting and 
 writing the proceedings of the House and college 
 overseers till after one." 
 
 The diary becomes much more sparse for a month 
 or two. 
 
 (( Jan. 30. Reporting at the House in the morn- 
 
48 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ing. A little debate about Seekonk R.R. reference 
 in which of course the House decided wrong. This 
 led my meditations to the subject of governments 
 and I came to the conclusion, not for the first time, 
 that the form of government of the State of Massa- 
 chusetts is a very poor one. Whenever the legis- 
 lature get together they do as much harm as they 
 can, and the only check to this is in the shortness 
 of the sessions. It seems ridiculous that because 
 the English government after fermenting away for 
 two or three hundred centuries settled down into 
 two bodies of legislators, a King and cabinet, and 
 turned out to be a pretty good government too, 
 that every other nation should copy it. Bolivar 
 in making the constitution for Bolivia or one of 
 those states of S. America deviated from the rule 
 and had three bodies. I should be tempted to have 
 only one of ten or fifteen, men. Now things are 
 not as they were when it was not possible to trust 
 much power to such a set without their abusing it. 
 The directors of a Bank or R. R. form something 
 the kind of government I should give my state, 
 annually eligible, and with a proper system of ex- 
 position of state affairs so there should be no out- 
 rageous secret proceedings." 
 
 "Apr. 2. I went to the A. A. $. room awhile 
 after supper and since then have been up here all 
 the time getting my verb for tomorrow's recitation, 
 reading some for my mathematical part at ex- 
 hibition 'Lunar Theory' and reading 'Chronicles 
 of the Canongate.' Scott does beat the field in 
 bookmaking. 'Fictitious narrative was his forte/ 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 49 
 
 "Tonight closes my seventeenth year. It closes 
 what is at least on a most extravagant supposi- 
 tion the fourth part of my life, the fourth too, 
 which passes the slowest. 1 
 
 "'On parent's knee a naked new-born Child 
 Weeping thou satst while all around thee smiled. 
 
 So live, that sinking to that long last sleep 
 Thou then may'st smile, while all around thee 
 weep/" 
 
 "May 12. Here is another fearful gap, but I 
 have been very busy with mathematical and Bow- 
 doin dissertations, so that as Sir Walter Scott 
 used to say, I have wished myself the hermit con- 
 fessor to the niece of prince Gorboduc, who never 
 saw pen or ink; much more have I been averse to 
 touching one voluntarily. Now however, Exhi- 
 bition and the Lunar Theory are over, and the 
 Bowdoin delivered to the -president is out of sight 
 and out of mind. . . . 
 
 "After supper I walked up to Mt. Auburn with 
 Hayward and Watson. It was a lovely evening 
 and they walked on farther while I turned back 
 alone. I was beginning to think over my class 
 poem which I wanted to write. . . . When I had got 
 down here I sat in the window seat watching the 
 sunset and began to wax quite poetical under the 
 influence of the beautiful sky and evening and 
 the perfect stillness, when the bell of the church 
 
 1 An average life of 68 years; he lived nineteen years longer than he 
 calculated. 
 
SO EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 opposite began its dondindelondy for an evening 
 lecture." 
 
 "May 13. This evening I have been two hours 
 at the $. B. K. meeting for the choice of the six ad- 
 ditions from our class. This is the third meeting 
 we have had there being a fundamental point of 
 difference, one half the members wishing to follow 
 exclusively the Faculty list of the highest scholars 
 in the class and the other half refusing to do so." 
 QThey compromised.] 
 
 "July 12. Immediately after breakfast I car- 
 ried my Class Poem, the copying of which I finished 
 last night, to the President, for his approval. I 
 desire to be thankful that its done, and when the 
 curtain shall fall on the last act of the farce 
 
 And when this solemn mummery shall be o'er 
 Why then I'll be more thankful than before.'" 
 
 "It has convinced me what I knew perfectly well 
 before, that I am not, nor ever was, a poet or have 
 I ever had the least claim to the title. I believe 
 its only merits are its brevity, and that there is 
 nothing in it in strikingly bad taste. I have been 
 reading Childe Harold this evening, the third 
 Canto which I never read connectedly before. 
 There must be some pleasure in writing like that. 
 ... At 12 I got my MS. from the President. 
 He was pleased to say it was all very proper." 
 
 There are few entries concerning college life 
 after this, no account of Class Day or anything 
 special till August 7, when he went out to move 
 
COLLEGE LIFE 51 
 
 his things to Boston. There is not even any ac- 
 count of Commencement or $. B. K. Day." 
 
 " Aug. 30. Fullum came out to Cambridge 
 early this morning to move in the Commencement 
 entertainment relics, and to move Nathan's fur- 
 niture to his room. I got up and dressed, after 
 but few hours' sleep, for if I had begun in the 
 right place, the day's journal, beginning at 12 
 o'clock would have described my passage from 
 Lincoln's room to Hayes's with six or eight others, 
 then sitting till 3 o'clock this morning making night 
 pass merrily with our drinking, singing and laugh- 
 ing, as we sat together for the last time. That 
 circle I shall never meet again. We were, count- 
 ing as we sat, from my right : — - Pope, Walker, 
 Furness, Austin 2nd, Hayes, Eliot, Hayward, Rogers 
 and Lincoln, 10 including myself, altogether a 
 chance party, withal a very pleasant one, but such 
 as will be so separated that it will be a long time 
 before we are ever all together again." 
 
w 
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 AFTER COLLEGE 
 
 1839-1841 
 
 HEN he graduated from college my father had 
 his plans for the future definitely settled. He had 
 for some time decided upon the ministry as a 
 profession. We should not probe too deeply into 
 reasons and motives — there will be more to be 
 said on the matter later on — but he himself said 
 later that it had long been understood that he 
 should be a minister, and also that his choice had 
 been largely the result of the very great desire of 
 his mother. Yet, though he was to be a minister' 
 and therefore would naturally pursue the study 
 of theology, he did not wish to enter the Divinity 
 School at Cambridge ; he had decided to study 
 privately, and already in his Senior year at college 
 he had begun the study of Hebrew. He planned 
 to live at home for the years of his theological 
 study, and so he did for three years, at which time 
 he felt qualified to present himself as a candidate 
 for a license to preach, although it was not for four 
 years more that he was regularly ordained. Dur- 
 ing this time he planned to support himself by some 
 kind of work. Already in his Senior year he had 
 one or two opportunities, such as reporting for 
 the Advertiser. He had also several chances for a 
 
 52 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 53 
 
 more regular occupation. Of these, the first was 
 to act as reader to Mr. Prescott, the historian. 
 
 "Oct. 31, 1838. A few minutes before one, I 
 went into Dr. Bachi's room, as he had requested 
 me to do, when he saw me at recitation. He told 
 me he had wished to see me, to tell me that Mr. 
 W. H. Prescott had written to him asking his aid 
 in the selection of some member of the Senior class 
 to act as his reader for a year or two after graduat- 
 ing. His eyes have been so poor, that he has been 
 obliged to have some one to read to him whatever 
 he wished, and to write, etc. for him. He had 
 written a letter to Dr. Bachi stating the requisites, 
 the attendance of the reader five hours a day, the 
 knowledge to a certain extent of French and Span- 
 ish; and the compensation amounting to 350 dol- 
 lars a year. Dr. Bachi thus referred to, had been 
 kind enough to select me, and this was what he 
 wanted to see me about. He said my present ig- 
 norance of Spanish would present no obstacle, as 
 with my knowledge of Italian I could acquire all 
 I should want of this in the course of a term. I 
 told him that to me the plan was very agreeable, 
 that I should like the situation very much, but 
 that I could not give any definite answer without 
 first seeing and consulting with father. He said 
 he wanted to see Mr. Prescott tomorrow, but this 
 would be sufficient to tell him, if it was finally set- 
 tled upon, we could call on him Saturday. 
 
 "After dinner, I thought I should like to see 
 father as soon as possible, so having made an in- 
 effectual attempt to see Mr. Bowen that I might 
 
54 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 get excused from recitation, I set out at 2 to walk 
 into town. I got in about 3 and met father just 
 going out of the house. He turned back and after 
 listening to my story and to Mr. Prescott's letter 
 said he thought, as I did that it would be a very 
 pleasant and advantageous scheme, and he saw 
 no objections to it. He knew Mr. Simonds who 
 had been in Mr. Prescott's employ in the same situ- 
 ation and we set out to go and see him, stopping on 
 the way at the Water Commission room, and I at 
 the omnibus office to order it to call at 5 this after- 
 noon for me and Sarah. 
 
 "Mr. Simonds had lived four years with Mr. 
 Prescott in this situation as reader and liked it 
 very much. He drew a very brilliant picture of its 
 comforts and advantages, so I was much delighted. 
 
 "10' 5 the omnibus called, Sarah and I got in 
 and after being jolted about till six got out again 
 at the entrance to the avenue to Divinity Hall 
 and walked up to Dr. Palfrey's. Sarah was to 
 stay there, and I being invited to take tea, did. 
 
 "After tea I had some conversation with Dr. 
 Palfrey about this Mr. Prescott business and the 
 possibility of studying divinity at the same time. 
 He agreed with father and me, in thinking it a very 
 good situation, but said he would not advise me 
 to undertake to keep along with the studies of the 
 divinity school farther than in completing in two 
 years the studies of the first year there. He 
 thought it all important that my theological stud- 
 ies should be conducted with a view to entering 
 the divinity school eventually at an advanced 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 55 
 
 standing, thinking that there are some advan- 
 tages to be obtained by constant intercourse with 
 others in the same pursuit which no course of pri- 
 vate study could afford. And he pressed earnestly 
 his opinion of the decided inexpediency of at- 
 tempting more than one year of study in two with 
 Mr. Prescott. He had no doubt but that in two 
 years the studies of two years might be passed 
 over so as to obtain an admittance into the school, 
 but he was convinced that this could not be properly 
 effected, and not without a great sacrifice of time 
 and labor, perhaps of health of body and mind. I 
 was not very much surprised or disappointed at 
 this view of things though it had not presented 
 itself so forcibly before. During all the discussion 
 about the business I had kept the study of my 
 profession in view all the time and it had not oc- 
 curred to me that I should, if studying at all, be 
 obliged to study more slowly than if at the Divinity 
 School. But on a little reflection it seemed evi- 
 dent that if I spent five hours a day in Mr. Pres- 
 cott's study, however pleasantly or profitably the 
 time might pass, it would be a considerable deduc- 
 tion from the time available for labor, and a deduction 
 so great as to have great effect in a study requiring so 
 much time and exertion as that of theology. Nor 
 have I any need to hurry; at the longest computation 
 the study of my profession will be over by the time 
 I am twenty-one, which will be plentifully early/' 
 "Nov. 2, 1838. I met Dr. Bachi this morning 
 as I came home from reciting in Astronomy and 
 told him the decision to which I had arrived about 
 
56 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 the Prescott business. It was not, however, so 
 near a completion as I had supposed, for I learned 
 from him that Mr. Prescott had consulted the 
 president about some one for the purpose the same 
 day that he spoke to him, the president had men- 
 tioned to him Geo. Ware, and the matter had been 
 proposed to Ware. He now holds a situation in 
 the Latin School, but his family are desirous that 
 he should continue the study of the law in which 
 he had engaged before he took this office in the 
 Latin School, and unless deterred by the bond 
 of his engagement with Mr. Dixwell at the School 
 he would like to take the place with Mr. Prescott. 
 So it appeared to rest with him. If he took it, I 
 should not; if he did not, I should. 
 
 "There was to be an eclipse of the Pleiads to- 
 night or rather Saturday morning, and I thinking 
 I should like to see it, lay down in the afternoon 
 about z\ and slept till prayer time. We had no 
 theme or forensic. 
 
 "Nov. 3, 1838. When I came home I found 
 father and told him about the probable foundering 
 of my ship. He was sorry, as was I; he was not 
 very sorry, nor was I; he thought the proposed 
 situation a good one, so did I; he thought there 
 might have been, might be, a better, so did I. He 
 wanted me to go to the Washington Bank to get 
 some money, so I went. 
 
 "When I came back, in about 15 minutes, he 
 told me Mr. Quincy had been to see him while I 
 was gone, to propose another ship for me. Mr. 
 Dixwell had told Mr. Quincy that if he took away 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 57 
 
 Geo. Ware from the Latin School he must get 
 somebody else instead. So, Mr. Quincy proposed 
 me to him, and he professing himself satisfied, 
 Mr. Quincy came to see how I should like it. 
 
 "Well, I did not know. A little calculation 
 showed that the aggregate time required at the 
 Latin School was less than that at Mr. Prescott's, 
 for although the average daily labor at first sight 
 appears nearly six hours a day, at the Latin School, 
 all the vacations and half holidays deduct from the 
 account while, as Mr. Simonds told us the other 
 day, Mr. Prescott never gave any intermission 
 except on the most extraordinary occasions. On 
 the other hand the labor at Mr. Prescott's would 
 be much lighter than at School. The salary at the 
 Latin School is #600 the first year, #800 the second 
 and succeeding, at Mr. Prescott's $350 only, and 
 the necessity of living away from home at times, 
 as at Nahant in summer. Mr. Prescott's would 
 require the study of Spanish on purpose, at the 
 same time that I was studying Hebrew; the Latin 
 School would require no direct preparatory study; 
 on the other hand when I had fairly this Spanish 
 I should probably be better fitted for Mr. Prescott 
 than even for the Latin School. Such were the pros 
 and cons; nevertheless I did not decide all day 
 though leaning toward acceptance. The only ob- 
 ject of comparing it with the situation as reader 
 was, not that I could have that, for Geo. Ware 
 had accepted that, but as I had determined on tak- 
 ing that if I could get it, it was a good test of the 
 eligibility of this. 
 
58 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "In the afternoon I went to walk with Sarah. 
 We went to see the Mrs. Lenoni whom we went to 
 two or three weeks ago. 
 
 "I left Sarah in Beacon Street to call on Mrs. 
 Russell and went home myself, stopping at Uncle 
 Dr's on the way to have some wisdom teeth gums 
 cut. 
 
 "In the evening went with Lucretia to Boylston 
 Hall to a Signor De Begnis's concert. It was quite 
 good, very amusing." 
 
 "Nov. 5, 1838. I went before breakfast to see 
 the President. He wanted to see me about the 
 Latin School affair, and as he said it rested really, 
 entirely with me, for that Mr. Dixwell's recom- 
 mendation was omnipotent with the committee, 
 I told him I would accept it. This had been the 
 final result of my deliberations. In the course 
 of the conversation I said something about my 
 having had the situation with Mr. Prescott in view, 
 when he declared that that was the first moment 
 he knew anything about it, said he had not been 
 aware till then that I had known anything about 
 the Prescott business or had had the situation of- 
 fered, that when Mr. Dixwell told him that he 
 must have some one in Geo. Ware's place, he 
 mentioned me as a person whom he wished to serve 
 and whom he thought competent, without any 
 thought of recompense for disappointment in the 
 other matter, for that he did not know I had any 
 concern with that. This was new light to me and 
 of course very flattering. In the afternoon I saw 
 Mr. Bachi, and explained to him how the case 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 59 
 
 stands now, he told me that he saw the President 
 Saturday, and had a long conversation with him 
 about the Prescott matter, and my concern with 
 it. The stories did not tally very well; there was 
 very probably some misunderstanding in that con- 
 versation or misrecollection in one of the parties." 
 
 "Jan. 18, 1839. Reported at the House from 
 1 1 to 2 and in afternoon reporting Mr. Elliott 
 Cresson's Colonization speech from 3J to 4^. His 
 speech was one of the eloquent kind, that is all 
 flamdiddle which don't very well bear condensa- 
 tion. However I squeezed an hour's talking into 
 a page and a half of foolscap, that is not half a 
 column. Carried it down to the offices and staid 
 there till 5 o'clock. 
 
 "Went into Uncle Edward's in the evening and 
 borrowed Snow's Boston of him for father." 
 
 "July 3i> x 839. We got here [to Taunton] 
 about ten. I rode up from the Depot to the Bristol 
 County House, and having made the necessary- 
 inquiries found that my best course for the Dighton 
 Rock would be to take a private conveyance. So 
 I thought I would begin on my expedition as soon 
 as possible, and gave orders accordingly. I ate a 
 little luncheon, walked about the town a little and 
 by that time, 11 o'clock, a neat light covered buggy, 
 or four wheeled chaise, with a horse was ready for 
 me. 
 
 "I thought best to ride over to 'Dighton Four 
 Corners,' the village nearest the rock as directly 
 as possible, to ascertain there how soon would be 
 a fit time of tide to see the inscription, and then I 
 
60 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 could spend the between whiles in riding about to 
 see the country. 
 
 "I got to the river's side opposite the rock a lit- 
 tle after twelve. It was then nearly full tide; 
 the man of whom I made my inquiries said that 
 by three or half past the tide would be low enough 
 for me to see the inscription. I had and wished 
 nothing better to do in the interim than to ride 
 about and I accordingly asked him some questions 
 about the roads. He directed me to Somerset 
 whither I thought I should like to go and I left 
 him. 
 
 "I had hence a very pretty ride for some dis- 
 tance by the river's side riding towards the south. 
 Then in obedience to my directions with regard to 
 Somerset as this river road came to an end I turned 
 off on rather a hilly road to go there. Here I found 
 great store of blackberries. 
 
 "After riding on, as I thought rightly for some 
 time, and stopping at a private house, for taverns 
 there were none, to water my horse, I found the 
 road I was on appeared to be growing rather dubi- 
 ous, and I held solemn deliberation as to whether 
 I had better not turn back. I came to the con- 
 clusion however that it must soon come to an end, 
 and that when the road went up one side of a hill 
 it must go down the other so I kept on. I rode 
 on two or three miles farther the road growing nar- 
 rower and narrower, worse and worse, less and less 
 travelled all the way, till finally having got to the 
 top of the worst hill I ever had anything to do with 
 I found the road seemed growing worse beyond me, 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 61 
 
 and as there was a house, the first I had seen for 
 some miles I stopped to inquire into the circum- 
 stances of this road. 
 
 "The woman to whom I spoke expressed some 
 surprise that I had got so far without being 'cast 
 away' as she expressed it, said that the road was 
 never used now, that it never did go to Somerset, 
 attempted to explain what did, and when I ought 
 to have turned etc. and did not seem to have any- 
 very clear idea where this did go. She seemed 
 very well satisfied however that if I undertook to 
 go farther I should certainly be 'cast away/ a fact 
 which I did not doubt when she told me that the 
 part I had seen was much the best part of the road. 
 On the strength of this I turned back not sorry for 
 I had had a very pleasant ride. 
 
 "About 2 o'clock when I was within a mile of 
 'Dighton Four Corners' it began to rain, for the 
 first time in the day. I drove into the village im- 
 mediately and finding no tavern sheltered the horse 
 in a grocer's shed, and myself in a grocer's shop, 
 from the rain. 
 
 "Having staid there about half an hour the rain 
 stopped and I thought best to drive down to the 
 river, about a mile to see how the tide served. The 
 tide was not low enough and a most violent shower 
 recommenced and kept on for an hour or two with 
 little interruption, while the horse and buggy were 
 waiting in a shed ; I in a grocer's shop which seems 
 to be the point whence people start to cross the 
 river for 'the rock,' and the tide was falling. 
 
 "I had a very pleasant time however during my 
 
62 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 long wait. The man who kept the shop was very- 
 intelligent and I had some conversation with him 
 and was a good deal amused by the talk with and 
 proceedings of the people who came into the store; 
 it was a good view of human nature and national 
 character. This man told me, and seemed to have 
 no doubt of the truth of his asseveration, though 
 he acknowledged he had never seen the thing he 
 spoke of, that there was formerly another stone by 
 this with an inscription. I remember this is ex- 
 plicitly denied in the account of the rock in the 
 Am. Acad's trans. 
 
 "A little before 5 we started to cross the river, 
 we being the two boys who ferried me over and 
 myself. The wind was quite high and the water 
 rough, and the boys professed to think there would 
 be some difficulty in getting across, fearing that 
 they would get blown up the river. However we 
 got across very satisfactorily. 
 
 "The tide was nearly out and quite low enough 
 for us to see the whole inscription. The water 
 came up high enough however for the boat to be 
 drawn close to the rock so I could sit in the boat and 
 inspect the inscription of which 1 took a copy. It 
 is evidently of man's device ; there are two or three 
 distinct human figures and one of an animal to- 
 gether with sundry other marks, all of them also 
 so deeply and firmly cut as to make it almost evi- 
 dent to my eye at least that they were cut by a 
 tool of metal, not by stone. I must say however 
 that I do not think there is art enough in them for 
 the Northmen to have cut them. I should rather 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 63 
 
 think they were cut by Indians after the introduc- 
 tion of metal tools. Tools obtained from the 
 Northmen perhaps; as for the CXXXIII which 
 figures in the Danish antiquarians' account I am 
 sure that it is an exaggeration. I saw nothing 
 nearer it than OX. There is an inscription on the 
 North end of the rock made this or last year by 
 some wanderer who hoped to deceive future anti- 
 quarians, I suppose. H. & W. figure in it. The 
 rock, especially the inscribed face seems hard. I 
 should think the inscribed face was different from 
 the rest of which I have a specimen. It certainly 
 is in color, being reddish while that is grey. 
 
 "We recrossed the river without difficulty and 
 I returned to Taunton immediately. After supper 
 I walked out to see the town. On returning I fell 
 in with Williams, Junior, with whom I went to 
 walk again, and on returning talked with till after 
 nine." 
 
 "Aug. 8, 1839. Began on the volume of the 
 Annual Register for 18 18. Monday I read 18 16, 
 Tuesday 18 17. I mean to go through them all as 
 far as possible so as to obtain some knowledge of 
 the history of the last 25 years. Of course, there 
 is a great deal in each volume that I do not read." 
 
 " Sept. 9. 1 839. First day of school keeping. 
 At 8 this morning I started with Alexander for the 
 new 'sphere of duty.' I went up into Mr, Dix- 
 well's room, the large hall, where all the new boys 
 were collected, and there with Townsend, was ini- 
 tiated into these new Eleusinian mysteries. Mr. 
 Dixwell did not divide the divisions into their 
 
64 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 respective rooms this morning, so about half the 
 boys were in his room and half in Mr. Gardner's. 
 This morning we two new masters were employed 
 in examining applicants for admission etc. We 
 arranged with each other that I should have the 
 lowest room, i.e. the one on the ground floor. 
 
 "In the afternoon I went down there and Mr. 
 Dixwell sent down my boys to me; three divisions 
 in all; the third of the third class, rather better 
 than might be expected of a third division, but 
 still not much, the first of the fourth class, a crack 
 division and as far as I could see very deservedly 
 so, the fourth of the fourth, who seemed deter- 
 mined to make a new step and retrieve their repu- 
 tation which before has been nothing at all. I 
 heard two or three recitations this afternoon, and 
 so I could compare my opinions with those which 
 Mr. Dixwell gave me, sotto voce, of the whole 
 room. There are a great many very bright look- 
 ing boys, especially in the ist of the fourth. I be- 
 gan to feel my responsibility more but at the same 
 time my cares and fears less than I had done. 
 
 "After school I walked a mile toward the south 
 end and back. 
 
 "In the evening on father's proposition we got the 
 Horaces down stairs and read two odes round the table, 
 it is proposed to renew the exercise every evening. 
 
 "A little after eight I went out to buy a smelling 
 bottle for mother and then again to get some fruit. 
 After this I read about twenty pages in Madame 
 de Stael's Allemagne." 
 
 "Sept. 10, 1839. School again today, very sue- 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 65 
 
 cessfully. All the younger classes go at 11 except- 
 ing those boys who have not recited decently, 
 that is those who have 1 or o. I had one in this 
 category and had to stay with him till n§ o'clock 
 soon after which, however, I went home. 
 
 "The afternoon passed very well but I was a 
 good deal ennuye having nothing to do. Yester- 
 day's diary was one consequence, which accounts 
 for its being written on this loose sheet. 
 
 "After school I walked to Charlestown over the 
 Warren Bridge and back." 
 
 "Oct. 20, 1839. I staid to the Sunday School 
 and took a class; not that I have any more faith 
 than ever as to my qualifications as a teacher, or 
 in the beneficial effects of a Sunday School in such 
 a parish as ours, but because in the introduction 
 of the new system there is a dearth of men teachers 
 and as I think it ought to be tried I was willing to 
 give my hand." 
 
 "Oct. 24, 1839. In the afternoon I whipped the 
 first boy I have had occasion to. It was a bad 
 business, perfectly disgusting to me, but I found 
 it was absolutely necessary. The boy was de- 
 cidedly the worst boy in the room, and utterly 
 regardless of the ordinary machinery of marks, 
 etc. and having run up to ten marks in the first 
 three days in the week, I told him that for the next 
 offence he should be 'punished' as the phrase is. 
 And so he was." 
 
 The family life at home had by this time be- 
 come even more absorbing than it had been before; 
 the older four were grown up. Nathan and my 
 
66 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 father were now graduated from college and were 
 studying their professions; Sarah and Lucretia 
 were occupied like other young ladies of the day. 
 The house was the center of an interesting and 
 lively life. My grandfather was constantly oc- 
 cupied with such semi-public concerns as the news- 
 paper, the railroad, the water commission. My 
 grandmother had much of the literary disposition 
 and attainment of her brothers, Edward, till lately 
 the Governor of the State, and Alexander, editor of 
 the North American Review. Sarah and Lucretia 
 were lively and accomplished young women; the 
 latter became well-known as the author of "The 
 Peterkin Papers", the former died early. James 
 Lowell was a classmate and intimate friend of 
 Nathan's and was at this time making his begin- 
 nings in literature He was often at the house, as 
 was William W. Story, who was also of the class 
 of '38. William White and his sister Maria (after- 
 ward Mrs. Lowell) were members of the group, as 
 well as a number of others. The diary and letters 
 of these years show an animated life full of matters 
 of keen interest at the moment, if hardly worthy of 
 permanent record. 
 
 "Nov. 3. 1839. Mr. Lothrop has preached all 
 day, very well; in the morning on the text Be 
 careful for nothing, in the afternoon on Envy. 
 
 "I staid as usual to Sunday School, and there 
 accepted at Mr. Lothrop's request the office of 
 delegate to the meeting of the Boston Sunday 
 Schools which it appears are united by a kind of 
 Amphictyonic Council. I attempted to be modest at 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 67 
 
 accepting an office of such dignity, but was rather 
 snubbed by being told that all the older teachers 
 had had it a good many times, and by implication 
 I was given to understand that they were tired of it. 
 
 "I have been reading today some of Sparks's 
 Collections; some of Abauzit's writings and one of 
 Blackburne. Abaxjzit was a French divine, driven 
 from France in the Huguenot persecution at the close 
 of the 15th century. I like his writings particularly; 
 they contain strong, good sense and very conclusive 
 reasoning. In Blackburne on Confessions of Faith, 
 I found the rather singular fact that of sixteen Con- 
 fessions of Faith, comprised in the Corpus Confes- 
 sionum, printed at Geneva in 161 2, only six make 
 any allusion to the Providence of God, and eleven 
 of them take no notice of Resurrection from the 
 Dead. So much for Sectarianism vs. Christianity; 
 and for the test of the orthodoxy of ministers who 
 sign established confessions. 
 
 "I went tonight with sundry of the family to the 
 first of a course of lectures to be delivered by Mr. 
 Lothrop in the Church Vestry. This one I thought 
 admirable. It was the beginning of an answer to 
 the general question "What is Christianity?" and 
 consisted principally of argument and remark to 
 show that we ought not appeal too often to the 
 Old Testament or the Epistles, but making Christi- 
 anity the religion of Christ, draw our views from his 
 Gospel, which would be enough for its foundation 
 were the Old Testament rejected or blotted from 
 existence. The distinction of the authority of dif- 
 ferent parts of the Bible are especially urged." 
 
68 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "Nov. 4, 1839. I finished this evening my first 
 complete literary work. Carter had given Mother 
 some pictures and letter press which he wished made 
 up into picture books, and I asked leave to fix one 
 of them. She told me I might, and I went to work 
 accordingly, taking my share of the pictures and 
 about twenty pages of letter press, most of which 
 was a story I wrote for one of Mother's books last 
 year. With these I have made up a book of about 
 sixty pages, most of it written anew. I finished 
 it tonight. It will be published this fall under the 
 title of 'Jemmy's Journey.' " 
 
 "Nov. 15, 1839. ' Why,' says the commentator on 
 this sheet, discovered four thousand years hence on 
 the disinterment of Boston from its engulfment by 
 
 a convulsion of nature in the year ' why the 
 
 unknown journalist should write his notes for these 
 four days on a different sized sheet from his other 
 observations, and why there should be the blank there 
 is between Nov. 8 and 15, I am unable to divine. 
 It is barely possible, as has been suggested by a 
 friend to whose valuable hints I owe much, that the 
 Boston massacre of which we find no mention in 
 these singular papers, but which is noticed so often 
 in contemporary history, took place in the interim, 
 and that the excitement naturally produced by that 
 event prevented the journalist from giving the usual 
 brief daily space of time to his notes of the day. 
 This is merely hypothesis however and it ought 
 to be remarked in connection that Dr. Solander, in 
 his highly approved system of chronology, places 
 the massacre seventy or eighty years after this time/ 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 69 
 
 Diary discovered in the ruins of Boston kept during 
 the years 1837, 1838, 1839 etc. In ten volumes, with 
 a translation and notes, vol. 7 — p. H4. 
 
 "Know then, O Commentator who shall be in a 
 future age that no massacre caused this interruption, 
 but that on the nth of November, Monday last, 
 the annual election of state officers took place in this 
 goodly state of Massachusetts. That since that time 
 my evenings have been occupied in collecting returns 
 of the election, and adding them etc. etc. in aid to 
 my father, the conductor of an influential and widely 
 circulated daily newspaper. Occupied thus till late 
 in the evening, I have slept late in the morning, and 
 my journal book has been neglected. 
 
 "The cares of the election are over. Morton 
 leads Everett 237 votes in all the towns but five. 
 The election defeated by scattering votes will go to 
 the House. Editors, newscollectors, foremen, com- 
 positors, carmen, hotelkeepers, and reading room 
 men, may now rest unmolested for a twelve month 
 more, and I can put pen to paper again." 
 
 "Nov. 19, 1839. I have just been reading an 
 article in Blackwood for September on the French 
 Literature of the eighteenth century, and was sur- 
 prised and pleased, to find in its separate remarks 
 several ideas and statements, which I had put 
 into my last Bowdoin Dissertation, not supposing 
 them original to be sure, but at the same time with 
 no direct authority for them, not even for the state- 
 ments. One or two of my hypotheses are contra- 
 verted by the writer. 
 
 " Something in this article led me to think of how 
 
70 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 much labor and information I have wasted by begin- 
 ning books which I have never finished. I accord- 
 ingly made the resolution to attempt in future never 
 to have more than five on the tapis at once, which 
 I think I shall divide thus: . , 
 
 i 
 
 Professional 2 
 
 Information I 
 
 Languages I 
 
 Light reading i 
 
 Total S 
 
 "As nearly as I can compute I have now in progress, 
 viz.: ^ 
 
 Professional Gerard on Bib. 
 
 Crit., Priestley on Corruptions of 
 Christianity, Starks's Theological Col- 
 lections, Ware's Life of Priestley, 
 Tess's Sontag's Evangelia (Germ.) . 5 
 
 Information . . . Sparks's Washing- 
 ton, Murray on Drawing Maps, 
 Blackstone 3 
 
 Languages. . . . Mad. De Stael's 
 Germany 1 
 
 Light reading . . . Rogers' Columbus 1 
 
 This excluding magazines, of course 
 
 10 
 
 "I shall attempt to cut this amount down, by 
 finishing the two Priestleys as soon as possible and 
 beginning nothing in their place, by reading through 
 Sparks's Washington before I do any more of the 
 Construction of Charts or Blackstone, of which last 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 71 
 
 indeed I have not read a dozen pages since I left 
 college — I shall keep on Mad. De Stael and take 
 something in place of Rogers' as soon as I have done 
 that, which of course will be soon; I merely began 
 it Sunday night for the want of something else — 
 not something better, in the lighter line of literature. 
 Sontag's Evangelia I shall read in connection with 
 my professional, critical reading of the New Testa- 
 ment which I shall probably begin tomorrow. I 
 have nearly finished Gerard, shall finish it tomorrow, 
 but its place will be immediately supplied by LeClerc's 
 Ars Critica. Of course I don't count the New 
 Testament reading with the rest." 
 
 "Dec. 1, 1839. Mr. Lothrop preached in the morn- 
 ing, very well, on the text ' For they had knowledge 
 of them that they had been with Jesus.' 
 
 "I took a long nap before afternoon service. 
 
 "In the afternoon William Swett preached very 
 well on moral courage. 
 
 "In the evening I went with Mother and Lucretia 
 to the vestry and heard Mr. Lothrop's second lecture, 
 in answer to the question 'What is Christianity?' 
 He dwelt on the difference between the consideration 
 of Christianity as a revelation, and of incumbering 
 it with the speculations contained in creeds. The 
 three essentials as he laid them down, were the belief 
 
 1st that God is our father 
 
 2nd that mankind ought to live as brothers 
 
 3rd that the soul is immortal and accountable 
 and he maintained very satisfactorily that these 
 are the points to which most attention is paid in the 
 gospels." 
 
72 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "Dec. 27, 1839. It seems melancholy to think 
 how my time is annihilated by those abominable 
 diversions called evening parties — Three weeks 
 ago, I made a resolution to read four evenings in the 
 week, each evening a chapter in the New Testament 
 with commentaries, besides other reading of Hebrew, 
 Euripides's Alcestis, and Mad. De StaeL With one 
 exception I believe I have read every week-day 
 night I have been at home, and I have now read 
 five chapters. This evening it seemed almost a duty 
 to read something, and I went to work for two 
 hours — but Rakemann had a pianoforte concert 
 to which Lucretia and I went about 8J. If it had 
 not been for the string of parties that I cared little 
 or nothing for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 
 evening, I could have gone with a clean conscience, 
 as it was I did not die of remorse. The concert 
 was very good. Vide Daily Advertiser of Saturday 
 morning." 
 
 A few letters, mostly to his brother Nathan, do 
 something to fill out the record of these years. 
 
 "1840. 
 
 "Dear Nathan: I have got your money in the 
 state you see it, ingeniously contrived to avoid 
 postage as much as possible. The Quinnebaug 
 Bank is good, don't be gummed into thinking it is 
 not. 
 
 Yours in haste, Edward E. Hale." 
 
 TO NATHAN 
 
 "April 15, 1840. I have taken my first Daguerreo- 
 type, with almost perfect success. It is of the 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 73 
 
 church at the South End nearly opposite the head of 
 Orange St., [Mr. Mott's] and is quite equal to some 
 of the worst of Mr. Gourand's, which I think quite 
 encouraging for the first. It is very much like one 
 he had of Quincy market which I don't think you 
 have seen. It is perfectly distinct, and the faults 
 are such as are easily explained and remedied. 
 I stood to be taken in it, Francis opening and shutting 
 the camera, but unfortunately I stood against a dark 
 background so that nothing but my legs which come 
 against the white stone of the steps, and my face 
 and shirt bosom are visible. It was in the camera 
 twelve minutes apparently just the right time for the 
 light. 
 
 "The scheme for a family Daguerreotype class 
 is pretty much given up. I have hitched on J. J. 
 Dixwell's and we are to have the first lesson tomorrow. 
 
 "There is sundry news passing in the family of 
 which other scribes will inform you. I am dread- 
 fully tired and have just finished mending a glass 
 syphon which is in use for Daguerreotype distilling 
 by the agency of an alcohol blowpipe, and success- 
 fully. 
 
 "Tonight the Amphictyonic Council of the Sunday 
 School met. Queer and ridiculous. Since then I 
 have been to Dr. Jackson's to bring home Sarah. 
 
 "I only get over the page to say 
 
 "Good Night. Yrs. ever, Edward." 
 
 TO LUCRETIA 
 
 "Aug. 6, 1840. John King has been in this even- 
 ing and he announced that Mary and William Story 
 
74 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 are going with us on our X. Good, is it not? John 
 thinks he can't go, so I suppose Augusta will not, 
 tho' it is suggested that Wm. W. or Jim Lowell 
 would form an appropriate sixth in case she would. 
 Sarah had a letter from Nathan the night you went 
 away, from which it appeared that the reason he was 
 not at Springfield when mother and father were there, 
 was that, the Friday having finished his work in 
 that district, as he could not go into Berkshire before 
 Monday he concluded to pleasure himself by going 
 to Stafford Springs, once the Saratoga of N. England. 
 He describes it as the most horribly desolate place 
 that was ever seen, the hotel all but in ruins, the 
 bowling alley quite so, and the covering of the springs 
 much like that at Brighton. There were about 20 
 or 30 people there, regular Connecticut invalids, 
 most of whom being from Coventry knew Nathan 
 historically, and were very kind to him but were 
 albeit sad bores. They drank, really and without 
 exaggeration, twenty eight tumblers of water each 
 a day. Wm. White is now engaged in collecting a 
 story to back that. 
 
 "The Pulaskis left for P. tonight. You will 
 probably read this letter while whirling with one of 
 them in the giddy waltz, i.e. if you have such times 
 as you did at Springfield and Northampton. Wm. 
 Story and the Rangers went to New Bedford this 
 morning, we have very copious notes to the com- 
 missioned officers' ball there, being one to Sarah, one 
 to father and one to Nathan and his friends. None 
 of us will go. John King talks of it, so does William 
 White of whom my letter seems to be full. I have 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 75 
 
 not however seen him since you left. Page has begun 
 on Mama's picture; he began while she was at 
 Nantasket whence she has now returned. It begins, 
 they say to look quite like her. He and she are now 
 at Watertown, Mrs.Thaxter's likeness is being painted 
 also. The water party seems to have gone off very 
 well though Bill told Sarah that his time was not 
 quite so good as usual. I was sorry she could not 
 go. There was some talk the next day of my tak- 
 ing her to Susan Jackson's but I did not feel quite 
 competent to chaise sitting so long." 
 
 TO EDWARD EVERETT 1 
 
 "Jan. 1, 1 841. Our last intelligence from you was 
 received in your letters to Mr. Brooks and Uncle 
 Oliver from Florence. We were very sorry to hear 
 of your delays and their causes, and hope that these 
 letters may have brought the last accounts of that 
 kind. We received those letters by the Acadia 
 steam packet, she arrived here after a seventeen 
 days' passage, about a fortnight since, bringing 
 us the first news of the birth of the princess royal, 
 (poor thing) and the capture of Acre. I suppose 
 you hear and feel much more about the Oriental 
 War than we do even, though by the time you receive 
 this letter, it will probably be all over. 
 
 "Your letter to Uncle Oliver, after its arrival here, 
 went to Washington in its enclosure to Mr. Winthrop 
 who is now our Representative in Congress. Con- 
 gress is now in session though they have hardly got 
 to business. In the House parties are, from the few 
 
 1 At this time Minister to England. 
 
76 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 changes, and fillings of vacancies, even more closely 
 balanced than last year, the precise Administration 
 majority being I believe but five. Mr. Van Buren's 
 friends have thus far shown very little desire to make 
 use of their present strength in Congress, indeed 
 from appearances, I should say that the party was 
 not only dispirited, as it well may be, but on the 
 eve of dissolution. They have suffered Mr. Benton 
 to be outvoted two or three times in the Senate, in 
 his ridiculous schemes. There is, of course, a good 
 deal of talk about the new cabinet, though I believe 
 very little is really known. Almost all parties now 
 agree, that Mr. Webster will be Secretary of State, 
 more than this I suppose to be mere guess work. 
 The probability of his appointment gives our new 
 Legislature, which meets next week, two Senators 
 to choose. The candidates, however, are not at all 
 certainly designated. 
 
 "In Boston we are fairly entered on a very gay 
 ' season.' Last night was the first of the Assemblies, 
 revived on the plan of those two years ago. There 
 is much more disposition for large and showy parties 
 than there was last year, and the regeneration of the 
 Assemblies is the immediate consequence. I was 
 not there last night, but I am told by everybody that 
 it was quite a delightful party, everybody in good 
 spirits and everybody there. The musical fashion- 
 ables have been in a manner crazed by the re-arrival 
 of the Woods here, not quite so much crazed however 
 as they were once before; they are here still. 
 
 "We have had more snow thus far this winter than 
 I remember for four or five years. While I write 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 77 
 
 however, a warm south west wind and rain is going 
 on, which will soon make an end of the admirable 
 sleighing. We have had indeed very stormy weather 
 for the whole winter." 
 
 TO NATHAN 
 
 "March 25, 1841. I have undertaken to improve 
 the ennui of convalescence by writing, but now I 
 have the pen my hand feels so weak that maybe 
 I shall not get done. Mary, the serf, having felt 
 for a long time the inconveniences of our chamber, 
 undertook this morning instead of cleaning it up to 
 make a new one, an operation necessarily consuming 
 considerable time, and in consekens, tho' she is now 
 done, I am writing in the nursery, sitting in the large 
 easy chair, the only kind of chair that I do sit in 
 much, for I am still quite weak. I took advantage 
 of the lovely weather yesterday to walk to the bottom 
 of the street and back; the snowdrops and crocuses 
 are coming out in the little garden spots on Franklin 
 Place which have a warm exposure, so it seems 
 quite like spring there. I lay down most of the day 
 yesterday, horribly weak but otherwise quite well. 
 Today I am stronger, well in every point except 
 that my mouth tastes like Julius Caesar. 
 
 "We had yesterday here quite a gathering, Augusta 
 King and Mary Story spending the day with 
 Sarah, and Wms. White and Story coming in the 
 evening. Wm. White got home from Lowell yester- 
 day morning, having had quite a successful expedition 
 of which he spoke in very radiant terms. His sister 
 Maria is sick with the mumps, not very badly however. 
 
78 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 They played vingt-et-un in the evening with pretty 
 much the same results as the other night. W. W/s 
 singular good fortune carrying him through against 
 all competitors. Mary Story slept here and has 
 gone home this morning. 
 
 "Tuesday evening she and Sarah and Augusta 
 went to the theatre with John and W. W. S. to see 
 the pantomime of Dame Trot and her cat which they 
 represent as inconceivably funny and regular English 
 Christmas Pantomime with Harlequin & Columbine, 
 etc. Sarah's face was pretty badly swelled for the 
 occasion but as she had no pain she covered it with 
 a scarf and went without injury. There was a 
 violent storm here that night under cover of which 
 #10 or 20,000 of jewelry was stolen from the store 
 of Davis & Palmer, the men of whom we got the 
 Academy tickets, for the concerts. The robbery 
 was between j\ and 9 in the evening, as in fact you 
 will find by the papers. 
 
 "4^ p.m. Thus far I had written when I was 
 obliged to put by the pen and go to bed where 
 I napped for 3 consecutive hours and getting up 
 felt better and took my walk of down the street and 
 the reverse twice before dinner. You will have 
 noticed in what I have written the incoherencies and 
 irregularities of disease. My machine has been in 
 pretty bad order and is even now hardly wound up. 
 
 "We are hoping for a letter from you tonight; 
 W. A. W. in his sphere of duty of knowing everything 
 having ascertained that the mail comes down through 
 Shrewsbury today and goes up yesterday and to- 
 morrow. Indeed if you have not a multitude of 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 79 
 
 counsellors, we may see yourself tonight, in which 
 case the dead letter office will see this. Much good 
 may it do them! If the season were six weeks later 
 I should like to be with you. All my day dreams 
 since I have been sick have been on spring and the 
 country and nothing to do. The last clause you see 
 involves the reason that I don't wish to be in your 
 place. Everyone desires the warmest love to you. 
 Goodbye "Yrs. ever, 
 
 "E. E. H." 
 
 TO EDWARD EVERETT 
 
 "Sept. 22, 1 841. 
 
 "The political events which have been going on for 
 some weeks are singular for our country, and have, 
 of course, excited a great deal of interest. The view 
 father takes of the resignation of the cabinet and the 
 second veto, is, that as we have got Mr. Tyler for our 
 President, and cannot help it, it is the worst possible 
 policy to quarrel with him, and he therefore feels 
 quite satisfied with Mr. Webster's stay in the cabinet. 
 A good many of the New England and New York 
 papers, most of them indeed, take the same view. 
 Others are very much incensed with Mr. Tyler, do 
 not scruple to denounce him and to express surprise 
 at Mr. Webster's stay. It seems probable enough, 
 though we know little of the matter that Mr. W. 
 has acquired a pretty strong hold on Mr. Tyler and 
 has considerable influence with him, and that he will 
 have a similar influence with the new cabinet. You 
 will find the manifesto of the Whig members of 
 Congress in the Messenger. It has excited as little 
 
80 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 attention as such labored papers, appearing a day 
 or two after the height of excitement, generally do, 
 indeed it is said that more than half the Whig mem- 
 bers were absent, — among them the whole Massa- 
 chusetts delegation. Public feeling, I should think, 
 at least as far as the press shows it, of which we have, 
 you know, a full sample at our office, is becoming 
 much more calm than it was, and we seem to have 
 a right to look quite hopefully to the future. 
 
 "I have nothing to communicate of your business 
 in my hands, but to say that I have, waiting for a 
 suitable opportunity, a newspaper postmarked Mill- 
 edgeville, Geo., which I do not put up with this 
 bundle, having a low idea of the intelligence or value 
 of a correspondent who has not yet found out that 
 you are abroad, and wishing to make the parcel as 
 small as possible. I am afraid to enter into com- 
 petition with mother and Aunt Lucy, both of whom 
 will have communications in this express mail, 
 as to family matters, and hence my political crudities, 
 which I venture with the more confidence as you 
 seem to have had little newspaper intelligence 
 from home. I have been myself, the last five or 
 six weeks on a delightful excursion through New 
 Hampshire, Vermont, North-Eastern New York, and 
 Lower Canada in company with one of the gentle- 
 men engaged on the New Hampshire geological 
 survey, which I enjoyed extremely. It happened very 
 fortunately for me, that it was necessary to compare 
 the observations of the survey with the lime region 
 of New York, which includes Lakes George and 
 Champlain, and I consequently had a grand sight of 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 81 
 
 beautiful scenery which I enjoyed as much as the 
 most enthusiastic geologist of them all. My con- 
 nexion with the Latin School is at an end — ■ I 
 resigned at the end of the second year having obtained 
 all the good I could from it, (and, I believe, a great 
 deal too) and as much as I cared to of the worst 
 effects. So that I am not so mechanically restricted 
 by set hours as I have been, though I manage to 
 keep pretty busy. 
 
 "Remember me to my aunt and cousins and 
 believe me "Truly yours, 
 
 "Edward E. Hale." 
 
 TO LUCRETIA 
 
 "Ju!y*i$ y 1842, ... In the afternoon 1 went to 
 the top of Bunker Hill Monument with Dr. Palfrey. 
 I think the view from the top is the grandest, sub- 
 limest sight I ever saw. You have no large mass 
 around you as on the state house or on a moun- 
 tain to detract your attention from the prospect 
 or to injure it by introducing into your mind any 
 accurate estimate of size of different objects, by 
 comparison of them with such as you know. When 
 you come home I will explain to you what I mean. 
 I talk of going up with Sarah tomorrow, and if 
 it is not closed up next week you and I will go. 
 The view is very fine from the lookout windows but 
 not so fine as from the top itself. I am so glad it is 
 done. (Did that so make you think you had mis- 
 taken all along, and glance down to see if your letter 
 was from some womanine correspondent?) It is 
 very hot and I have not tried much to think of what 
 
82 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 the news is with other members of the home establish- 
 ment than myself. Sarah and Nathan went to ride 
 last night by moonlight — a perfectly delicious 
 night as this will be. Aunt Lucy is now in the field 
 downstairs or was at my latest advices. We are 
 all well, happy and hot, as my friend the little beggar 
 girl of the days when we were children said, We are 
 hotter than you be in Springfield, you know we be, 
 for for three days we have had no east wind though 
 there was a refreshing shower today. Give my 
 love to Margaret and Mary, and remember me to 
 everybody who careth for me. I was sorry that I 
 could not prolong my sojourn in Springfield longer, 
 and am sorrier now for I am afraid it is morally 
 wrong (or immorally wrong) (or perhaps immorally 
 right) to stay in town when you have it really 
 summer. No small portion of my time however, 
 is spent in the water or on the common. I read 
 " Forest Life" there for an hour or two on Wednesday 
 and found it very pleasant. The peasantry were 
 there also in great numbers, but they were civil and 
 did not abuse their privileges and I was glad I had 
 continued to them their freedom of the grounds. 
 I do not think of retrenching it at present, or till 
 all the babies whom I saw there have grown up to 
 men and women, when they will be \inable all to get 
 into the common together, and will have to sign for 
 their snatches of beauty and fresh air as for a Lowell 
 lecture. Good-bye, my dear. I have a slight hope 
 (a sort of paternal one) that you may be able to read 
 all this before you get home. Believe me as ever 
 your loving brother, " Edward." 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 83 
 
 TO EDWARD EVERETT 
 
 "Sept. 16, 1842. We are just entering on our 
 nine months winter — have had fires all day yester- 
 day and today, and it is only the very young and 
 poetical who have faith in an Indian summer yet to 
 come. At present we are luxuriating in east wind 
 and rain. Our family is collecting itself after its 
 summer rambles, — ■ Lucretia is now the only absentee, 
 she is on a visit to Mary Davis at Portland where 
 I left her a week since. We have had a very pleas- 
 ant though extremely short summer. I never knew 
 Boston so totally deserted as it has been. The few 
 of us who staid here had in consequence the great 
 consolation of having no summer party duty to do 
 and have lived as hermit-like as if we were in paradise. 
 I have envied you the enjoyment of a summer in 
 England. 
 
 " Our state legislature adjourned today having 
 redistricted the state for Congress without any very 
 bad gerrymandering I believe on either side. On 
 Wednesday we had a Whig Convention here at 
 Faneuil Hall, a very animated meeting, reminding me 
 of all the excitement of the Harrison canvass. They 
 nominated Mr. Clay and honest John Davis for 
 President and Governor. 
 
 "I write in haste, my dear Uncle, but I hope not 
 so incoherently that you do not understand my 
 lengthy business details. Believe me with much 
 love to Aunt Charlotte and my cousins — 
 "Very affectionately yours, 
 
 "Edward E. Hale. 
 
84 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "I saw in 'The Book of Precedence' the other day, 
 that the lady of a minister always ought to be ad- 
 dressed as 'Her Excellency.' So I must beg Aunt 
 Charlotte's pardon for having mentioned her so 
 irreverently as I have just above." 
 
 TO LUCRETIA 
 
 "Aug. 22, 1839: Just before tea, for I waited 
 tea for Nathan, 'Hyperion' Mr. Longfellow's new 
 book, came up, having been sent. I immediately 
 seized on it, and after a pause at tea time, resumed it. 
 Nathan had to go to make a call on Chas. W. Thomas, 
 the poet, you know, his travelling friend of last year, 
 of whom there is another story, which I may have time 
 to tell you elsewhere. Just before Nathan returned 
 I finished the first book of ' Hyperion' and began on 
 the second. He took the first and we finished our 
 volumes before going to bed about 12^ o'clock. 
 I think it is very good. There is no great story to 
 it: the hero is said to be, and is evidently I think, 
 Mr. Longfellow himself, and it is said, less probably, 
 I think, that the book is to describe his flirtation 
 with [substituted for 'rejection by'] Fanny Appleton. 
 There is very little story of any kind in it, never- 
 theless it is a very pleasant book." 
 
 TO EDWARD EVERETT 
 
 "June 28, 1 841. Since mother made up her bundle 
 for you to go by Mr. Shaw's ship, the sailing of the 
 vessel has been delayed, which gives me an oppor- 
 tunity to send a subsidiary package by way of post- 
 script, containing a letter for you which has arrived 
 
AFTER COLLEGE 85 
 
 within a day or two, an Eulogy on Gen. Harrison 
 also addressed to you, which I think best to send, 
 although you may think it intrinsically little worth. 
 If you will read it over about two hundred times, 
 with some slight variations in place, tone, audience, 
 and arrangement, you will have some faint idea of 
 the throngs of eulogies which the President's death 
 has called forth. In one of the Weekly Messengers 
 you will find a report, almost complete, of Mr. 
 Choate's, and with your knowledge of his style of 
 delivery, you will readily be able to imagine that 
 scene. Now that the shock, and really awful sen- 
 sation, excited by his sudden death is over, matters 
 and especially political matters take an old-fashioned 
 business routine. At the time, however, the general 
 feeling was very great, it could hardly be over- 
 estimated; there was a nearer approach to loyalty, 
 manifested than I had supposed our people capable 
 of. There was, indeed, quite enough to make any- 
 one thoughtful, and for more than a minute too. 
 
 "If the newspaper letter writers can be at all 
 trusted, and in this case they are perhaps plausible 
 in their accounts, President Tyler is opposed to 
 establishing a National Bank without the consent of 
 the States for separate branches; such is the scheme 
 proposed by Mr. Ewing to Congress, which also 
 places the central bank at Washington, more I sup- 
 pose as a tub to the Virginian whale of unconsti- 
 tutionality than for other purposes, tho' there are 
 other advantages strenuously urged. Father thinks, 
 however, as you will see by his leaders for the last 
 few days, that the restriction of the power of branch- 
 
86 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ing to State legislation would be very, ill judged — 
 Mr. Clay has taken the same ground in his bill 
 which he is now pressing in the Senate . It is easy to 
 imagine with what alacrity a Massachusetts legis- 
 lature would put on a tax of one or more per cent 
 on such a branch, and how readily other states would 
 follow suit. The new opposition, of course, throw 
 themselves directly counter to the Bank proposition 
 and declare that they will repeal the charter as soon 
 as they get the majority. But the newspapers will 
 explain all political matters to you much more clearly 
 than I can, indeed it would be no compliment for 
 me to say that you can guess in Florence as much 
 as I understand here — for matters of politics are 
 quite out of my line." 
 
D 
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 i 839-1 845 
 
 URING the summers of those years in which he 
 was reading theology and beginning his professional 
 life, my father took many trips about the country. 
 He was always fond of traveling and in "A New 
 England Boyhood" gives an account of the early 
 family excursions to Westhampton and Cape Ann 
 and elsewhere. During the years after his graduation 
 he visited a large part of New England. His father 
 was at this time President of the Boston & Worcester 
 Railroad, so that the family journeyed easily toward 
 the west. He took also various excursions, with the 
 result that he felt so well acquainted with New Eng- 
 land in general that he wrote a series of articles for 
 the Advertiser on the summer travel in the different 
 States. His letters during this period give quite 
 a complete record of such trips, for it was the family 
 custom to write home full accounts. Thus in 1840 
 he went to New York with his sister, Lucretia, and 
 William and Mary Story, and thence up the Hudson 
 to West Point and the Catskill Mountains. The 
 next summer he joined his friend and classmate, 
 William Channing, who was at this time a member 
 of the New Hampshire Geological Survey, in a trip 
 which in course of time took him over northern 
 
 87 
 
88 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 New Hampshire, across Vermont, to Lake George, 
 up into Canada, and back to New Hampshire again. 
 In the next years he took shorter trips to Stafford 
 Springs, Connecticut, to Saco, Maine, to Cape Cod, 
 and with his younger brothers to New York once 
 more, where they went over Lake George and Lake 
 Champlain. The next year he made another trip 
 with Channing, in the course of which they visited 
 the Schoharie Cave which had recently been dis- 
 covered, and Trenton Falls, which at that day was 
 a famous summer resort. In 1845, with Channing 
 once more, he made a trip to Maine, to ascend Mt. 
 Katahdin. He enjoyed these trips to the utmost. 
 They were sometimes taken with a horse and car- 
 riage or on horseback, but no part of them did he ever 
 enjoy so much as those which led him to walk and 
 climb in the White Mountains or in Maine. He 
 was so fond of climbing mountains in his early days 
 that he used to say the love of it seemed a sixth 
 sense, like his mother's love of flowers. 
 
 Such trips or episodes in them stood out in his 
 mind through life. A year or two after he wrote in 
 his journal concerning a gentleman's country seat 
 near Philadelphia: " Bonaventura does not compare 
 itself with anything else. It stands out as Schoharie 
 Cave or the view from Katahdin — separate from 
 anything else you ever saw in your life." Long 
 afterward, when he was over eighty, he wrote about 
 something else: "The only other time when I knew 
 I was in the immediate presence of death was near 
 the upper crest of Mt. Katahdin. I was struggling 
 on in a dense fog when I started to see that with one 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 89 
 
 more step forward I should have lost my balance, 
 falling down a precipice I do not know how far." 
 The earliest records of such trips are generally to be 
 found in small notebooks which he carried in his 
 pocket at the time. The earliest of these which has 
 accounts of his mountain climbing is a small book 
 about two and a half inches by four. It contains 
 a journal which, like many other such works, gener- 
 ally says least when he was doing most. In the 
 following selections the slight and often fragmentary 
 extracts from the journal are supplemented by letters 
 of the time and the recollections of later life. 
 
 First is the rather bald record of quite an achieve- 
 ment. On the excursion with Channing he came 
 upon the White Mountains from the northwest. 
 There had been some talk of a mica ledge, and though 
 it does not seem to have been a necessary part of the 
 geologic work of the trip, they made up their minds 
 to try to find it. They went up Israel's River with 
 a guide, but after dinner he left them, and they went 
 oh alone with the idea of reaching the summit of 
 Mt. Washington. A little before sunset they found 
 themselves on the top not of Mt. Washington 
 but of Mt. Jefferson. They could see the other 
 summit, however, and by three hours' hard walking 
 made the top of Mt. Washington by nine o'clock. 
 The following is his record in a pocket note- 
 book: 
 
 "Sept. 3, 1 841. Cloudy in morning, clear in after- 
 noon — started about 9 for Kilkenny — Kelpie slow, 
 sick, and lazy. Ride up Ammonusuck — shingle 
 mill &c. — Whitefield &c. at 12J — lost our way — 
 
90 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 cross road — view of the mountains. Jefferson Mills 
 no tavern. Ride of three miles — I asked of a blind 
 widow the way — dined at a tavern without a sign — 
 six miles more and slept at another. Martin our 
 guide in prospectu to the mica ledge. 
 
 "Sept 4, 1 841. Raining and sun shining at inter- 
 vals through the day. Started at 6| through the 
 woods to go up the South Branch of Israel's River 
 with Martin for guide. Botanic practice. Seeds 
 of flowers — deer tracks, bear marks — large pine — 
 stopped at I2f to dine — bath — cold water — fire 
 to sit by — • Martin left us and we went on alone. 
 Up to South Branch with a vengeance — finished 
 the stream and climbed the forests — scrub-wood — 
 prospect — rain beneath us — above us — refuge 
 under scrub pines — ascend to summit of Mt. 
 Jefferson at 6 o'clock. Magnificent sunset — crossed 
 over to Washington, cold, tired, wet, hungry, and 
 faint. Rests as we went — Camp in the hut at 9 
 o'clock — fire — drying clothes and sleep." 
 
 "Sept. 5, 1 841. Walk down to breakfast — hun- 
 gry — wading streams — Notch road — Fabyans — 
 Luncheon — dinner. Naps." 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER 
 
 "September 6, 1841. I know, my dear Mother, that 
 the blank of the last four days has presented a signal 
 departure from the rule of a letter a day, or one every 
 other day which I am fond of laying down to the 
 family wanderers, when I am at home and which I 
 like to follow myself. You will see by my recoun- 
 tation of our journeyings since I wrote from Haver- 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 91 
 
 hill that I have a total absence of opportunity, mail 
 towns and mail roads to justify myself. 
 
 "First let me congratulate you on the return of 
 your birthday and Lucretia on that of hers, both 
 which I remembered and celebrated, with regret that 
 I could not celebrate in the time-hallowed manner 
 at home. Next to home, however, I was yesterday 
 in a place best adapted for all kinds of sublimity of 
 thought &c. &c, by being on the top of Mt. Washing- 
 ton, as you shall see. Last Thursday morning Dr. 
 Jackson left us for Littleton, with the understanding 
 that we were to follow immediately, as soon as our 
 broken wagon should return from the menders. 
 It did not return although anxiously expected, until 
 half past twelve o'clock, so we dined at Haverhill 
 and did not get to Littleton till late the next evening. 
 From Littleton we were to come to the White Moun- 
 tains (leaving the Dr. with William behind). There 
 were rumors of a ledge of mica in Randolph or Kil- 
 kenny, towns immediately adjacent to the mountain, 
 which Channing and the Dr. got up a desire to see. 
 We (C. & P.) were accordingly to seek for them on 
 one of the cloudy days of the excursion, thus giving 
 us an opportunity to select the finest weather for the 
 Notch and the mountain. Friday was cloudy when 
 we started from Littleton, so we directed our course 
 to Kilkenny intending to do up the mica and then 
 come round to the mountain houses. The road to 
 Kilkenny proved so intolerably bad and our horse so 
 tired, that we did not get to the tavern of the guide 
 to this wonderful ledge (who was a botanical physi- 
 cian and kept tavern without a sign, on the principle 
 
92 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 that good wine needs no bush) until evening. He had 
 told the Dr. of the existence of this ledge of mica 
 (which if half were true that was told of it, would 
 be to give it its due, valuable in the extreme) some 
 weeks ago, but on examination it appeared that all 
 he knew was, that 9 years ago Squire Odell, now of 
 Portland, when he sold him his farm, told him he 
 should find it by tracing up the south branch of 
 Israel's river. To the head of this south branch 
 was supposed to be about five miles, though he, 
 nor anyone else, so far as was known, had ever been 
 up. Mica hunting we started on Saturday morning, 
 at half past six with him for a guide, and up the south 
 branch we went, sometimes on one shore, sometimes 
 on the other, and sometimes in the middle, quite in 
 hunters' guise through a perfect wilderness. It was 
 a very beautiful stream through a very beautiful 
 forest. We kept on till half past 12, having advanced 
 at least six or seven miles, but yet with no mica 
 ledge and no head of Israel's River. This would be 
 as far as we would go if we returned to Kilkenny 
 that night, but Channing having still a desire to 
 settle the mica question and both of us to see the sun 
 rise and set from the peak of Mt. Washington, 
 where we knew there was a shanty which we could 
 sleep in without much discomfort, we resolved to go 
 on; so after all three of us discussing the luncheon 
 which his tender and thoughtful wife had provided, 
 we parted and he went home. Our only difficulty 
 was this, to be sure that we found the peak of Mt. 
 Washington, for from that we should have no 
 difficulty in descending early the next day to one of 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 93 
 
 these hotels and there we should sleep more com- 
 fortably than elsewhere. This was no easy task for 
 we were quite surrounded with woodlands, and only 
 occasionally got a glimpse of some mountain peak, 
 seeming high enough to be Mount Anything, and 
 farther than this we had no guide but the very 
 general ideas of our friend the botanical physician 
 as to the distance and bearing of the several peaks 
 from his house, from which we were now at consider- 
 able distance, though how much we did not know. 
 Our first duty was however to trace to its source 
 the South Branch of Israel's River and this we pro- 
 ceeded to do. It very soon took the character of 
 a mere mountain torrent descending very rapidly 
 with some exquisite cascades and running through 
 the richest of forests. We traced it up, climbing 
 very steeply, as you may suppose, till finally we got 
 to the very head where it took its origin in the side 
 of the mountain. When we had first seen it in the 
 morning it was twenty feet across, you may imagine 
 how singular it was to trace it up so to nothing. 
 Where it left us we were half way up one of the peaks, 
 which we imagined to our great satisfaction, from 
 all the evidence we had, must be Mt. Washington. 
 After we left the stream, we had, as you may suppose, 
 very difficult work in forcing our way through the 
 woods, the trees in which however grew smaller and 
 smaller, more and more stunted as we advanced 
 till they were mere scrub pines not more than five 
 feet high. When we had got to this level we were 
 a little damped by a sudden shower of rain, which 
 however we protected ourselves from as best we could 
 
94 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 by crawling in under the pines so that we did not get 
 very badly soaked. The view from here was grand, 
 we could see some fifty or a hundred mountain 
 peaks round us rising out of seas of cloud at all 
 possible different distances below, the wind constantly 
 changing their form and appearance, while occasion- 
 ally the thunder grumbled out from some of them 
 showing us how high we were above the rest of the 
 world. After the rain was over, we climbed on, 
 becoming more and more satisfied that we were on 
 Mt. Washington, occasionally entirely surrounded 
 by clouds, and occasionally left perfectly free with 
 one of these magnificent sights of the peaks around 
 us till we left all traces of shrubbery and indeed of 
 vegetation, and scrambled over masses of entirely 
 bare rock for about quarter of a mile till we reached 
 the peak where from the perfectly clear view of all 
 the surrounding eminences found we were on Mt. 
 Jefferson, and could see our friend Washington rising 
 a little higher than we were about a mile and a half 
 to measure in a direct line, to the south of us. This 
 was discouraging but the ridge of the high land 
 which would be our path over there seemed pretty 
 clear and easy and we resolved to make the passage 
 and were inspirited on starting by the most magnifi- 
 cent sight I ever saw or expect to see. For some time 
 it had been so cloudy that we had had but little sight 
 of the sun, but now, half an hour before setting, 
 it burst forth from the clouds making the most mag- 
 nificent rainbows on those which were nearest us, the 
 supports of which were very far below us, while all the 
 clouds round were of the most brilliant colors and hun- 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 95 
 
 dreds of mountain peaks loomed up through them and 
 took the brightest green from the sunshine. Of the 
 world as we generally understand it, we saw and could 
 see nothing, we seemed to be in a perfect cloud world, 
 and I never enjoyed anything so much. It amply re- 
 paid us for all the toil of the ascent. When we set 
 out for Washington, it was six o'clock, but we hoped to 
 arrive there before dark. As you will have anticipated 
 however, we found the way longer and harder than 
 it had looked. Night came on, clouds came up, and 
 we had to feel our way very carefully for fear of 
 coming too rapidly over some uncomfortable preci- 
 pices. We were too good engineers however, to 
 think of losing it, and at nine o'clock after a walk 
 the discomforts of which I cannot in the least de- 
 scribe, we saw looming through a thick cloud the little 
 shanty where we were to sleep. You may imagine how 
 gladly we entered it. It was an uncomfortable 
 place enough, but much better than nothing. It 
 proved to have a stove in it, and by splitting up some 
 of the boards of the seats with which it was sur- 
 rounded, we soon by the aid of our match boxes, 
 had a comfortable fire. Each of us arranged an 
 inclined board by its side, on which to sit or lie 
 down and by its side alternately drying our clothes, 
 which were soaked through, and sleeping, we passed 
 a very comfortable night. 
 
 "The morning however proved cloudy and drizzly, 
 we had no sight of sunrise or the world below and 
 were obliged to content ourselves with those glories 
 of the White Mountains which we had seen the day 
 before. Your provident spirit will have seen that 
 
96 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 we had no supplies the last night and no breakfast 
 this morning. The raspberries which we found and 
 ate in indefinite abundance hardly served to supply- 
 such important meals. I never felt with such force 
 your declaration that they did not do to make one's 
 whole supper on. 
 
 "We started accordingly at half past six to descend 
 to men and food. Crawford's path to the summit 
 is called only four miles and a half long; so having 
 carefully selected it, we started on a good pace hop- 
 ing to arrive by eight for our breakfast. 8 o'clock 
 passed — 9 — and still we were in the path on a 
 rapid walk. We satisfied ourselves that we must 
 be in Fabyan's which is nine miles long. This 
 would bring us down by half past nine. Ten 
 o'clock passed however, and still we walked. Eleven, 
 — and it was not till half past eleven that we arrived 
 here at Fabyan's house. Imagine how hungry and 
 tired we were! We immediately took a luncheon; 
 immediately after a dinner; immediately after I 
 went to bed and slept four hours. Then took tea, 
 went to bed again, and slept 1 1 hours, and this morn- 
 ing feel much better though still I am quite footsore 
 and very leg-stiff. 
 
 "My paper is quite gone, and we both abominate 
 crossing. We shall ride through the Notch today and 
 sleep at Crawford's. Tomorrow or next day, we shall 
 ride through the Franconia Notch and so to Haverhill 
 and by the end of the week I hope to be at home 
 again. I shall come home down the river through 
 Springfield. I should like therefore that if con- 
 venient you would have the railroad ticket there. 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 97 
 
 You had best direct thither after receiving this. 
 I shall call at the P. O. 
 
 "Good bye, my dear Mother. 
 
 "Believe me, 
 
 "Ever yours, 
 
 "Edward" 
 
 to lucretia 
 
 "Sept. 7, 1 841. I am very tired, but as I re- 
 member that you have two or three times waived 
 that plea, and opening your portfolio, have written 
 me a nice, long home letter, I do not feel privileged 
 to make it an excuse for not writing, but merely 
 enter it as a protest against charges of useless in- 
 coherency or repetition. The immediate cause of 
 my fatigue is the ascent of Mt. Washington which 
 I made today for the second time. I wrote to 
 mother yesterday an account of the manner in 
 which we went up and came down last Saturday 
 and Sunday; on that trip the weather was so cloudy 
 that we were not able to see the view from the sum- 
 mit of summits at all. So today we started again, 
 with every prospect of a fair day, at six in the 
 morning, on horseback, for a second ascent by 
 Crawford's road, which is now a bridle road up to 
 the very top. I do not know that I ever enjoyed 
 anything more than I did the ride up. Our party 
 consisted of four, besides the guide; Channing and 
 myself, a Dr. Morrison from Buenos Ayres (the 
 Bonus A-rees of the schools) and a retired sailor 
 whose name I do not know. I never saw anything 
 more picturesque than the appearance of our line 
 
98 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 of march; the path is necessarily winding and zig- 
 zag, and the appearance of the different horses in 
 different parts of it as they came in sight between 
 the trees and rocks was very like pictures we have 
 seen of passages of Sierras and Cordilleras, or like 
 the Forty Thieves at the theatre; so that we had 
 the elements of beauty in our own party, if the view 
 should disappoint us, which it did not. By this 
 route you ride about a mile and a half thro' thick 
 woodland, growing more and more scrubby as you 
 ascend, which you do very rapidly, and then come 
 out on the end of a range of mountains which leads 
 more or less gradually up to the summit giving 
 meanwhile several very fine points of view and a 
 great deal of fine mountain scenery in the different 
 passes which it crosses. The air today was clearer 
 than it has been known for a long time, I never 
 knew so transparent-looking a sky, there were 
 however as almost always, a good many floating 
 clouds, which considerably intercepted our pros- 
 pect, though they cleared off so, now in one direc- 
 tion and now in another, that before we left the 
 mountain we had a beautiful view on almost every 
 side. From the summit it was glorious. The 
 clouds which shut out our eastern view amply 
 compensated for it, they lay some thousands of 
 feet below us, with the sun shining brilliantly upon 
 them, so that they were perfectly white, and ex- 
 tending as they did as far as we could see, they 
 had the appearance of a frozen ocean. On the 
 other side we had beautiful glimpses of the sea of 
 mountains that extend south and west of Mt. 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 99 
 
 Washington. We staid there nearly two hours 
 and I enjoyed it extremely — Enter moralist. — 'No 
 pleasure is without its alloy/ No. My horse 
 cast one of his shoes on the top of the mountain 
 and consequently had the pleasure of bringing me 
 down a-la-tripod, and I the still greater pleasure 
 of riding him down, while he stumbled incessantly 
 and distressingly ovei as difficult a piece of road 
 as there is in the world. He was a sturdy little 
 Canadian pony and what with the contrast between 
 his size and mine, and especially the depth of the 
 path below the ordinary level, my feet frequently 
 dragged on the surface of the ground, while we were 
 all constantly obliged to lift our feet with agility 
 to prevent them from being abraded or unstir- 
 rupized by the stumps and rocks at the roadside. 
 We were four hours going up and five coming down, 
 so I have been today nine hours on horseback, 
 good enough excuse for being tired, particularly as 
 I am still rather stiff from our last as- and des-cent. 
 
 "By the way I was more taddit 1 after that than 
 I ever was in my life. A vision appeared to me 
 in the night watches in the shape of a command- 
 ing female figure who told me she presided over 
 fatigue, and that she had never seen anybody else 
 so weary and even had never been herself but twice, 
 once when seeing Niagara for the first time, and 
 once after a little summer party she had given for 
 some southern friends of hers, where she remem- 
 bered with gratitude that my mother and father, 
 myself and brothers and sisters were present, — with 
 
 1 tired; a coterie-word like consekens and one or two others. 
 
ioo EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 gratitude for she knew we had a stupid time; — I 
 admitted that we did, and the spirit retired looking 
 two ways at a time. Nevertheless I had a capital 
 time throughout that same rather hairbrained 
 mountain expedition and would try it again if I 
 had a full knowledge of its ills and blessings. 
 There are a great many remarkable things con- 
 nected with it — most of all perhaps our appear- 
 ance when we entered Fabyan's hotel, clothes 
 torn and dirty to the last degree, shoes annihilated, 
 and both of us from wading streams, wet half way 
 up the leg. Our baggage did not get round till 
 an hour or two after we arrived so we had to make 
 a decided appearance in this costume. 
 
 "Yesterday we came to this place and rode up 
 and down the Notch, i.e. the road that runs through 
 it. It is very grand and singular but no descrip- 
 tion I ever saw of it gives one any idea of it. It 
 does not look like a chasm torn apart by some con- 
 vulsion with opposite sides steep and matching 
 each other as I have seen represented in pictures 
 and narratives — it is not like the Greenfield Glen 
 as I had somewhat imagined it, but is a long valley 
 through which a river flows, with intense Qseal] 
 by steep sides which are the ends of mountains 
 which run down to it and are then suddenly cut 
 off: looking very much like a railroad excavation 
 on a large scale, the sides being hundreds of feet 
 high and the valley generally two or three hundred 
 feet wide. The most beautiful feature of it to me 
 was in the little cascades which come tumbling 
 over the banks; there are several of these, rivers 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 101 
 
 which run along on the mountain tops till the 
 mountains end, and they, of course, are obliged 
 to change into waterfalls. We saw the Willey 
 House, whose history you recollect, and went over 
 it; it has been deserted ever since the family was 
 destroyed. Tonight we sleep in this place, and 
 tomorrow start for Haverhill via Franconia. I 
 told mother yesterday that I hoped to be at home 
 this week, but by counting up days I find that that 
 will be impracticable. We return to Haverhill 
 rather slowly in order to see the Franconia scenery 
 and pass certain mineralogical localities so that 
 we shall not be in Haverhill before Friday after- 
 noon and thence it is 150 miles to Springfield. I 
 may get to S. in time to spend Sunday. I have 
 been travelling so promiscuously for four or five 
 days that I am quite behind all my family advices, 
 I hope to find a nice batch of letters at H. Early 
 next week I hope to be among you all again — I 
 shall have been gone nearly a month ! Think 
 what a traveller — I am very anxious to see you 
 all, and among others the new family bantling 
 Gaudi, who I suppose has, ere this, made his ap- 
 pearance to the admiring world. I see in the 
 newspapers notices of the new number of the 
 Chronicle. Good bye my dear Lucretia. Do not 
 fail to conduct yourself with that prudence and 
 discretion becoming a matron of your present ad- 
 vanced years. I should like to add a slight quan- 
 tum of advice, but am persuaded that you have 
 profited so much by the counsels of your different 
 pater-mater-frater- and soror-familiases that it will 
 
102 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 be unnecessary. I leave this letter only to go to 
 bed at half past six o'clock. We start by about 
 that time tomorrow morning. So once more, good- 
 bye. Give my love to everyone. 
 
 " Ever yours, 
 
 "Edward. 
 
 Another deep impression received on these early 
 wanderings was that of the Schoharie cave. He 
 kept a very definite recollection of it to the later 
 years of his life. In his trip thither, he was also 
 accompanied by Mr. Channing. 
 
 "Trenton Falls, Sept. 21, 1844. On my way 
 to this place we left the great western route at 
 Schenectady, that we might visit the cave recently 
 discovered and explored in the town of Schoharie. It 
 is but twenty-two miles from Schenectady, and is easily 
 accessible from that place, by a road which passes, 
 first across the Mohawk Valley and then through a 
 bold range of hills connected with the Kaatskills 
 which exhibit a great deal of fine upland scenery. 
 
 "Although several small caves in the limestone 
 of these mountains have been known for many 
 years, none of any size were ever discovered till 
 1842. In the summer of that year, Mr. Howe, 
 who had not long resided in that vicinity, was in- 
 duced to enter and explore what was called a blow- 
 hole, near the Kobleskill creek. This was a fissure 
 in the earth from which cold air rushed in the sum- 
 mer months so vehemently as to blow the leaves 
 and twigs quite away from its entrance. In winter 
 as strong a current blew in. 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 103 
 
 "Howe, having satisfied himself that the cavity- 
 was a large one, prepared himself to explore it and 
 entered alone, with a lamp in one hand and a gun 
 in the other. The gun proved useless. But after 
 some delay in the building of a boat, a two or three 
 mile journey showed him the beauties of a curious 
 and extensive cavern. He soon after established 
 an inn near the spot for the accommodation of 
 the curious ; — and made and still makes excava- 
 tions and other arrangements to facilitate the 
 journey through the cave. 
 
 "C. & I, with two other gentlemen, and a guide 
 made as careful survey of it on Wednesday as 
 seven hours spent in it would permit. In that 
 time, we advanced as far in it as any party had 
 ever gone, visiting one new chamber indeed and 
 thus travelling a distance of about six miles and 
 back; while we were also able to examine several 
 lateral passages. A strange enough undertaking 
 it is. A day spent beneath the earth would itself 
 be extraordinary enough. But as we travelled 
 on, we constantly met surprises and sudden changes 
 and novelties which were perfectly in keeping with 
 an underground life perhaps but which suggest in 
 the recollection more of the Arabian Nights' labors 
 and wonders than of the matter of fact manners and 
 customs of the worthy Dutch county of Schoharie. 
 
 "Thus — to speak only of the labors of the day. 
 (For day it was, — though I shall always think of 
 it as seven hours of successive concentrated mid- 
 nights.) Soon after we entered we passed pain- 
 fully enough, on hands and knees, with heads down 
 
104 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 bent, through a tunnel eleven rods long. Its top 
 is smooth but its floor is very rough, — and the 
 pilgrimage is a very hard one. We had scarcely 
 emerged from it when we embarked in a little 
 skiff and sailed across a black Styx, under as black 
 a vault, as easily as Sindbad the sailor under similar 
 circumstances. More easily in fact, for I think 
 he struck his head several times. We left this 
 luxurious navigation, and C. & I set out on a trip, 
 if trip it can be called, to see a waterfall whose 
 murmurs we heard far below. The guide told us 
 the way, but declined accompanying us, as we 
 could not lose ourselves and so sat down to await 
 our return. Down we went, through a passage 
 so narrow and so low that we could not turn round 
 after we had entered it, so low that we could only 
 lie at length in it. Woe to the faint heart, and to 
 those behind or before him. Down we went — at 
 an angle perhaps of ten degrees — hands first, 
 then heads, — through nine or ten rods of this. 
 Then another change to a roomy nook, with rough 
 rocks tumbled in all around — and this dashing 
 babbling stream jumping over them. We won- 
 dered at it, tasted of it, traced it and left it, to 
 wind our snail-like passages up again. Hardly 
 ten minutes after we were in a gallery perhaps 
 half a mile long and thirty or forty feet wide and 
 high. And so from moment to moment or from 
 hour to hour the cavern changed from the most 
 tiresome and disagreeable creeping passages to 
 halls or passages of wonderful grandeur or won- 
 derful beauty. 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 105 
 
 "I will not undertake to describe in detail these 
 several rooms or passages. The journey is one 
 which must be remembered to be understood, and 
 I would as soon try to describe six miles of a rocky 
 seashore as the precise turns and ramifications of 
 our journey. The hall which seemed to me the 
 strangest — and the most beautiful of all of them 
 is that which is called the Rotunda — ■ I suppose 
 it is not more than thirty feet in diameter, but one 
 cannot estimate distance in recollecting such pro- 
 portions. It is cased with shining stalactite for- 
 mation of a yellowish white and runs up — up — • up 
 no man can say how high. You look up into the 
 darkness of a topless pit. Our guide lighted a 
 bunch of birch bark, and held it upon the top of 
 a long pole above us. It lighted up the beautifully 
 shining walls for eighty or a hundred feet, but they 
 were as far apart as below, and that same black 
 darkness closed the view. Last year Mr. Howe 
 adjusted in the cave what anywhere else would 
 have been a sky rocket. He took care that the 
 stick should be perfectly vertical and fired it. The 
 rocket rushed up, entered a cavity, wider than 
 that below, burst, and for a moment illuminated 
 white walls which were never white before, and 
 came down again without having touched arch 
 or wall. Last Monday another similar hall was 
 discovered. We were the second party which had 
 seen it. By the way, it required some underground 
 swimming to reach it. The stalactites are more 
 beautiful than those of the Rotunda. They are 
 so arranged around it as to give the walls the ap- 
 
106 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 pearance of closely grouped marble pilasters — • 
 finely fluted. The formation of the whole hall 
 however is not quite so regular as that of the other. 
 As nearly as can be ascertained by the courses of 
 the several passages of the cave, as they have been 
 measured, these two rooms in each of which were 
 they a little wider, Bunker Hill Monument might 
 stand on tiptoe, rise beneath a high peak called 
 Barrach-Soughrie — which is perhaps the highest 
 of the bold mountains in the neighborhood. 
 
 "Almost as remarkable as these is the 'Winding 
 Way' through which you pass to reach them. It 
 is nowhere wider than five or six feet — ■ usually 
 not so wide, but it rises high above your head, 
 running zigzag for more than a hundred rods in 
 length, a pathway where one cannot fall, and where 
 he can see but a very short distance before or be- 
 hind him. The walls are closely coated like those 
 of the 'Rotunda' and the 'Capitol' with white and 
 yellow stalactite or are of white stone, left smooth by 
 the passage of water in some past generation. You 
 may imagine how beautifully the light is reflected from 
 these brilliant walls, moist as they are in most parts 
 from the general moisture of the atmosphere. 
 
 "These are the greater beauties of the cave. 
 Other halls are large and in their general effect 
 as grand but none so richly finished. But you, 
 can scarcely pass anywhere along its rough pas- 
 sages after you have fairly entered, without seeing 
 above you single specimens or masses of stalactite, 
 mostly small indeed — but in some places of great 
 size and beauty. The limestone rock in the crev- 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 107 
 
 ices of which you are walking lies in regular hori- 
 zontal strata, so that in many places it has exactly 
 the appearance of mason work. The cave has 
 been formed by the dropping down of the rock in 
 certain places, to a greater or less depth below. 
 Thus the wall above, — one is tempted to call it 
 the ceiling so smoothly does it lie, is often as flat 
 and square as that of a finished room. You may 
 walk for half a mile over broken stone, rough enough 
 below you indeed, but with the satisfaction of seeing 
 a perfectly level and smooth rock covering above you. 
 
 "Wherever in this flat roof there is any crack 
 in the stone, drops of water have trickled through 
 and stalactites have formed brilliantly white, and 
 shining vividly as they catch the light which is 
 almost lost on the black lime-rock above and be- 
 hind them. Of the smaller ones which hang like 
 single icicles one may collect any number. The 
 larger groups are more rare. 
 
 "One of them which hangs six or seven feet from 
 the roof has precisely the appearance of folded 
 drapery. Like all of them it is semi-transparent 
 and its colors are beautiful when a light is so placed 
 as to shine through it. As you strike its several 
 folds, they ring out different musical notes; clear 
 and solemnly deep — with a gallery of half a mile 
 long to echo them. In the intense silence of the 
 cave, to which midnight is noisy, as you sit looking 
 down into the utter darkness of the passage beyond, 
 these sounds come upon you with the effect of the 
 most solemn music. 
 
 "In as large a hall — perhaps in another part 
 
108 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 of the same C. blew a horn. The echoes rang and 
 rang round us long before they died away — with 
 the same organ-like dignity and depth of tone. 
 And when in the same place our guide fired a pistol, 
 — the explosion, loud as that of a heavy cannon in 
 the outer air, was, in just the same way, free from 
 all crash or harshness — That was the real ' dia- 
 pason of the cannonade/ I never heard so solemn 
 and gently musical a sound. 
 
 "If you are alone in any part of the cave, away 
 from any of the streams of water which flow through 
 most of the passages, and if you are undisturbed 
 by the bats which throng some of the galleries, 
 and there extinguish your light, you have the grand- 
 est combination possible of all the conditions which 
 go to make the sublimity, or if you please the hor- 
 rors of loneliness. Silence, as I have said, is per- 
 fect; not a grain of dust to brush against another, 
 not an animalcule to buzz round you — not a 
 breath of air gives the sounds which are, in mid- 
 night, above ground, though we are not conscious 
 of them. And darkness where three or four hun- 
 dred or more feet of rock are between you and 
 light is real darkness. So is loneliness when your 
 next neighbor is working on his farm a furlong 
 above your head. 
 
 "Such are one or two of the grand peculiarities 
 which make a day there utterly wild and unearthly. 
 The experience of it was as you may suppose, so 
 sublime and grand, that we did not in the least 
 regret the extremely fatiguing labors of our twelve 
 mile journey in the cavern's borders. In another 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 109 
 
 year Mr. Howe's path-making labors will be so 
 far advanced as to render the passage compara- 
 tively easy, without, I think, destroying any of 
 its wonders. It will then be an object of interest 
 to travellers on their way to visit the beautiful 
 spot where I am writing." 
 
 One of the great natural beauties of the State of 
 New York in the early days was "Trenton Falls, 
 the most enjoyably beautiful spot among the re- 
 sorts of romantic scenery in our country/' as N. P. 
 Willis called it. The Falls are in West Canada 
 Creek, "the main branch of the Mohawk River. 
 . . . having lost its proper name because not so 
 early explored." It is one of the most beautiful of 
 those long gorges or canyons of which there are 
 so many in New York. 
 
 to lucretia 
 
 "Trenton Falls 
 "Sept. 21, 1844. After dark last evening I ar- 
 rived here from Utica. After daylight rather, for 
 by moonlight I ran down to the bed of the stream 
 and there for half an hour watched the beautiful 
 reflections on the water, without knowing whether 
 I could go farther by that light — or caring to 
 know or try. For five hours since breakfast, this 
 morning, I have been watching the rapids and falls 
 and cliffs in the wonderful journey which you make 
 for a half mile along the river, — and now that I 
 have come home to write this letter to you and eat 
 my dinner, I am more rampant to rush right back 
 to the river than I was at first. And then I shall 
 
no EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 be more eager for tonight's moonlight and then 
 for such possibility as there is of another visit to- 
 morrow. You leave the stream and the falls with 
 the feeling that you have but just begun to look 
 — and must stop, or come back to see more. 
 
 "When you and I are here next summer for a 
 fortnight, you will understand how impossible it is 
 to describe this. Some very good water-color paint- 
 ings (good i.e. for w. c. p.) hang in the hotel, and 
 as Caroline King says they serve very well to pre- 
 vent you from having any anticipation of what 
 you are going to see. And, as in all beautiful places, 
 each one of the hundred points of view, where you 
 would be glad enough to sit all day, is so entirely 
 different from the rest that it gives you a full and 
 proper preparation for them without in the least 
 foreshadowing them. 
 
 "The hotel stands on high ground commanding 
 a fine view, and surrounded on every side but the 
 front with an old forest. You cannot see the 
 stream, (the West Canada Creek) anywhere from 
 the house, but you hear the falls distinctly, and a 
 minute's walk towards the sound through the 
 forest brings you to the edge of the deep — very 
 deep chasm which the water runs through. There 
 runs along the upper edge of this valley a path 
 from which you have a series of fine distant views 
 of the stream and some of the falls. Distant views 
 but distant below you — almost immediately be- 
 low. The sides of the chasm or valley are bold 
 limestone cliffs, — occasionally covered with ferns 
 or geraniums or such like so that a rich green con- 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS in 
 
 trasts with the black rock, — and in some places 
 shut out by cedars; — which grow sideways and up 
 and down, really down — • in curves like this [draw- 
 ing] from the rock. These distant views, however, 
 you do not see at first ; — for you are running on 
 to the sound of the falling water and just before 
 you come to them an opening in the fringe of wood 
 on the bank gives a place for a stairway by which 
 you can descend to the bed of the stream. You 
 do descend, about a hundred feet, — and are there 
 on a broad ledge of rock — with this black river 
 beside you — fast and deep — these straight rock 
 walls on each side, — you are so entirely below the 
 earth — as to be reminded of your day in Scho- 
 harie and to feel glad that the moonlight flashes 
 on the water. Sunlight at 9 this morning there 
 was none — the sun was not high enough to look 
 down into the valley. 
 
 "And this black stream — so black that some- 
 body has called it the Styx, has been tumbling, 
 and raving — and rock gnawing, and flashing, and 
 lying smooth and then splitting itself into infini- 
 tesimal particles of spray — -which have held up rain- 
 bows above the waves below, for the last mile of 
 its course. And by its side for that mile (or half 
 mile or league, I have no idea of the distance) a 
 path has been made that you may walk up and 
 see its work and play, what it does with itself and 
 what it has done with the rocks which it has been 
 wearing on. 
 
 "My dear, you never saw anything like it in your 
 life — and never will. 
 
H2 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "I sat for an hour, looking at the two rapids 
 which you come to first. And as I watched all 
 the peculiarities of their mad foam, and listened 
 to the perfectly musical tone which a real water- 
 fall like this has (and which a mill-dam fall does 
 not and cannot have) I had no very definite idea 
 that I was to see anything more grand or more 
 impressive than the scene around me, — I should 
 not have been in the least disappointed if a succes- 
 sion of such rapids had been all the exhibition pre- 
 pared for me. And yet I was but a hundred steps 
 below the lowest fall as they call it which was the 
 grandest cataract I had ever seen — and after an 
 hour more spent there, when I ran up a little far- 
 ther I came to the great fall or falls which are every- 
 thing. Those little rapids are only in the last 
 plunges of these falls. And so it goes on — a con- 
 stant change and constantly new beauty. 
 
 "This great fall takes in two plunges of the 
 river, I suppose of fifty feet each, — both which 
 you see from below at the same time. The upper 
 one is divided, by a point of rock — Goat Island 
 like. On one side of this a thin graceful sheet 
 drops down into the basin below, — which the 
 other side overwhelmed, and has been carved out 
 into curious gorges by a torrent taking the greater 
 part of this immense body of water, which is 
 whirled and whipped and slashed up into the fin- 
 est foam and spray. You can stand close to the 
 falling streams, so the wind does not bring the 
 spray upon you — and in the earnest dignity of 
 the confident plunge which they make there is 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 113 
 
 what surprises you in a waterfall. Indeed the idea 
 of 'angry' torrents must, I am afraid be confined 
 to [seal] and such-like. Here certainly and at 
 the little cascade at Sharon there is a simplicity 
 of the movement which seems more like fore- 
 thought than passion. With which philosophy I 
 stop, having dined, and finished the sheet. In 
 my theory of letter writing I have always sup- 
 posed that when a correspondent could give no 
 account of what he had seen and done, it were next 
 best for him to convey some impression of the in- 
 coherency of his own mind: — and in this I hope 
 I have now succeeded. When I have had a whole 
 winter to think over Trenton, to digest and in- 
 wardly remember it, to test my specimens of its 
 petrifactions, to botanize my harebells from its 
 foam, and to draw and paint out my recollections 
 of its points of view in a hundred and thirty-seven 
 portfolios, I will give you an elaborate account of 
 it and its wonders. For the present, dearest, take 
 what you have. I have just met at dinner my old 
 chief, Dr. Jackson of the Geological Survey. He 
 has just arrived on his return from the Copper 
 Mines of Lake Superior. Tomorrow I shall prob- 
 ably preach a part or the whole of the day at Tren- 
 ton village with Buckingham, whom I am in com- 
 munication with though I have not seen him. I 
 hope to retain my headquarters here. A thunder 
 storm is just now springing up which will I am 
 afraid delay my afternoon's visit to the stream. 
 I hope mother got on Saturday night a letter which 
 I wrote at St. Johnsville. Good-bye. Give my 
 
114 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 love to all of them and remember me as your 
 dear 
 
 "Edward." 
 
 ascent of mt. katahdin, note written in 
 
 I907 
 
 "Charming and I had agreed to ascend Katah- 
 din. I had then told this to Dr. Asa Gray. He 
 had said that no botanist had ascended Katah- 
 din, and that Alpine plants from there would be 
 interesting. This, of course, stimulated me the 
 more to go. I succeeded in getting twenty speci- 
 mens each of twenty species of plants which grew 
 either outside the timber belt, or in its upper line. 
 Gray had told me that I need not bring him 
 anything, unless I could bring him twenty speci- 
 mens and I filled that order. It proved that I 
 had nothing which had not been found on Mt. 
 Washington which is a thousand feet higher than 
 Katahdin, but somewhat south of it in latitude. 
 In the early edition of Gray's Manual, to my great 
 pride and pleasure, Mr. E. Hale is given as the 
 authority for the habitat of some of these Alpine 
 things. I could not understand, and what is in- 
 teresting is, Gray could not tell me then how they 
 came there, for we knew nothing then of the gla- 
 cial movement southward over New England, and 
 he had not thought out his simple and magnifi- 
 cent generalization which accounts so completely 
 for such islands of vegetation. I know I spoke 
 to him about it. Neither of us believed that the 
 similar circumstances of the two mountains could 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 115 
 
 produce absolutely similar species, and it was 
 impossible to suppose that seeds were carried from 
 one summit to the other. But I do not think that 
 at that time he had caught the true clue. He 
 certainly did not say so. We noticed then and 
 reported what Thoreau has since spoken of, the 
 stunting, close to the ground, of hemlocks and 
 spruces, whose trunks are at once so stout and so 
 short that you stepped from the top of one tree 
 to the top of another without touching the ground 
 at all. But you were at no time more than four or 
 five feet above it, so that you can not fall far. I 
 do not think I ever did this on the White Moun- 
 tains. 
 
 "The few people who had ascended had usually 
 gone up the face of the slide, which still makes the 
 most prominent feature in the southern view of 
 the mountain. But I think we had not money 
 enough to take a guide and canoe by the usual 
 circuit, which is from Moosehead Lake down the 
 west branch of the Penobscot. For some reason, 
 probably this, we went up the east branch of the 
 Penobscot, landing on the north side of what is 
 called the Wissatacook River and going on foot 
 twenty miles northwest by a logging road, which 
 followed the north side of the river. We had with 
 us a capital fellow named Jackins, whom we had 
 engaged as a guide. He got off late in the day, so 
 that we made our first camp only four or five miles 
 up the road." 
 
n6 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 FROM THE POCKET DIARY 
 
 " Jul. 28, 1 845 . It had rained piteously all 
 night, so much so that it once put out th| fire which 
 we kindled at 12. Poor Jackins was quite ill and 
 in great pain, and this and the rain kept us in camp 
 till afternoon. As we were up at 4 this made a 
 long morning and with cooking breakfast and 
 dinner, mending and drying and memoranding 
 and fire-making and sketching and bathing, the 
 time ran away fast enough. The water was in- 
 tensely cold — a perfect torrent just below the 
 house. At 12, in the afternoon Jackins who had 
 been sleeping under opium all the morning was 
 enough better to go on 3 or 4 miles to another camp 
 — small but dry where we slept. We carried with 
 us our pack from Reed's, and as before our bread. 
 Squirrels run in and out freely at night, — the spill- 
 ing of flour attracting them — Just after our ar- 
 rival a heavy tree fell near us — clashing thunder- 
 ingly. The bed was better than the night before 
 and tho' it rained we slept soundly, I more so than 
 before — Indeed my sleeping improved from day 
 to day as we went on." 
 
 "July 29, 1 841. The distances thus far have 
 been Mattawamkeag to Robinson's 27; Robin- 
 son's to Stacy's 5; S to Hunt's 6; (Hunt's 
 
 3 in 7th) to Reed's camp (4 in 8th) 11; Reed's 
 to this and hence to Jackins (4 in 9th) 10. We 
 made this distance to Jackins by 10 or 11 o'clock, 
 bathed, — beautiful cascades at Thilling Mill & 
 Grand Falls, — tried to fish and dined. But the 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 117 
 
 bears had eaten all the pork and most of the flo'ur 
 
 — so that we had but bread and molasses and 
 nothing but bread to carry up for our dinner. We 
 started at about 11 — with only what we needed 
 for the night in our packs for the ascent. For a 
 couple of miles we had one of the logging roads 
 
 — first crossing Wissatacook south in a boat, — 
 and afterwards Katahdin brook, a rapid fine stream 
 flowing into it. There the tree by which they 
 used to cross was gone — and Jackins felled an- 
 other for a bridge; He was not more than 6 or 7 
 minutes at most though the tree was a large one. 
 I found 137 rings — opposite is a sketch I made 
 while he was cutting off a turn in the river just 
 above. The afternoon was fine and we have not 
 seen more beautiful foliage or undergrowth than 
 the whole lower part of the mountain offered — 
 After we left the wood path everything was covered 
 with fine peat moss of the richest color and luxuri- 
 ance. Above the forest foliage was very fine and 
 rich. We ascended quite rapidly coming out at 
 length on a fine bluff point among the trees which 
 gave as good views of the surrounding mountains 
 
 — Carbuncle to the North and Wissatacook to 
 the South of Wissatacook River — Near here in a 
 deep rock crevice we found a large mass of ice 
 
 — very refreshing. From this slowly rising we 
 crossed to the valley of a large brook which de- 
 scends Katahdin itself by a series of magnificent 
 plunges. In the short distance which we followed 
 it, it must have descended 6 or 800 feet. The two 
 highest cascades above were certainly 60 or 40 
 
n8 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 feet — very fine and noble rocks around. From 
 this the ascent was harder — The lowest growth 
 of pines was very hard, but a bluff from it gave 
 what proved our best mountain view — the whole 
 eastern side of Maine open before us — lake, forest 
 and river a sea of woodland — quite level though 
 with occasional peaks and some fine mountains 
 near us. We reached bare rock by 6*4. Were in 
 the first valley at sunset which was clear and fine 
 and at once made our camp in the edge of the wood 
 below — very tired and exhausted — good fire and 
 good shelter from the wind — By 8J all was finished 
 — I pressed the plants I had found, made the 
 memoranda which are elsewhere in this book and 
 went to sleep." 
 
 "July 30, 1 841. On Katahdin and descending; 
 sleep at Jackins camp." 
 
 "July 3 1 ? 1841. Walk down to Hunt's — foot- 
 sore and tired — swam Wissatacook and found 
 my way as I could through to Hunt's — tired, 
 anxious and very late to bed." 
 
 NOTE IN I907 
 
 "The next day we left our packs at the camp, 
 and crossed to the highest summit along the ridge. 
 But alas! we were in a thick cloud. I do not re- 
 member one more thing. We could not see each 
 other unless we were near enough to touch each 
 other. We merely made the excursion for the 
 sake of saying we had been there and then re- 
 turned to our camp. It was on this return that 
 the incident happened that I have related above 
 
TRIPS AND EXCURSIONS 119 
 
 when I came so near walking off the sheer edge of 
 the precipice. At our camp again, which we 
 reached at about eleven o'clock in the morning, 
 we cut the half loaf we had into three large slices 
 and ate them, without pork and without butter, 
 because we had neither, and with nothing but plants 
 and our walking sticks and blankets, started to 
 return downwards. 
 
 "As we went down that afternoon Jackins lost 
 his way, and we had to prowl around a good deal 
 before we found it. We were very hungry and 
 afterwards when I found in Franklin's or Bachi's 
 Travels that hunger and crossness are convertible 
 terms, I went back at once to the memory of that 
 afternoon. We were simply furious with Jackins, 
 who was not of course in the least to blame, and 
 was as sorry for the loss of time as we were. 
 
 "But about sunset, all was right. We came out 
 on the camp which he owned, or which, with a 
 party of men, he had built the preceding winter. 
 We knew that he had some Indian meal or some 
 flour in a cache there, and he was to make us some 
 cakes from this for our supper and breakfast. But 
 as we approached the camp it proved to be in- 
 habited. The rain had swelled the rivers suddenly 
 and Jackins' whole crew had come up on a forced 
 march to run some timber down. They had ar- 
 rived some little time before us, had a good fire 
 going, and what we valued more, pork and bis- 
 cuits all but ready for supper. (I never shall for- 
 get those white saleratus biscuits, and how good 
 they were.) The men were as cordial as possible. 
 
120 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 They knew we were 'tender feet/ though that is a 
 western phrase, gave us the best places by the fire, 
 and helped us first when all was ready. 
 
 "We slept that night, of course, all of us in our 
 clothes. But it rained again like fury, and they 
 had put Channing and me in the only part of the 
 camp where the roof was tight. In the middle of 
 the night he got up and when I asked him what 
 the matter was, he said he was going for an axe 
 to cut out a hemlock stump which stuck into his 
 head. 
 
 "The next morning it still rained like fury, but 
 we told Jackins he need not go home with us, but 
 that we would go down the river alone. We did so, 
 but that is another story/' 
 
T: 
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 MAKING UP HIS MIND 
 
 i 839-1 846 
 
 HE life of the city and the town, or the life 
 of river and mountain — neither of these seem ex- 
 actly the life of a student of divinity. Doubtless 
 the student of divinity, more than other students 
 even, must have a first-hand knowledge of man 
 and of nature. But we have seen little in the 
 last chapters of the young minister. The growth 
 of the ministerial nature seems to have gone on 
 silently and apart. We shall want to know what 
 can be learned of that growth. 
 
 The time in which my father graduated from 
 Harvard was one of intellectual and moral stir. 
 James Freeman Clarke, revisiting New England in 
 1840, wrote to his wife, "I find social life in a pre- 
 cious state of fermentation. New ideas are fly- 
 ing high and low. Every man, as Mr. Emerson 
 remarked to me yesterday, carries a revolution in 
 his waistcoat pocket." The nature of this stir is 
 well known. It is sufficiently indicated by the 
 name of Emerson just mentioned, to which might 
 be added those of Carlyle and of Goethe. Those 
 names in the history of New England indicate 
 Transcendentalism. 
 
 We might suppose that coming from college into 
 
 121 
 
122 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 the world and dedicated to the ministry, my father 
 would have thrown himself with eagerness into such 
 a flood. But he did not. He viewed it without 
 interest. 1 
 
 Goethe he had read somewhat at college, but 
 not with any insistence upon the element which 
 had so inspired Carlyle. Carlyle, too he had 
 read somewhat, but he was more repelled by the 
 style of the "French Revolution" than attracted 
 by the thought. Much later he had a great in- 
 terest in "Sartor Resartus", but not at this early 
 day. 
 
 Concerning Emerson, his view is most interest- 
 ing. In his Sophomore year, when he was fifteen 
 years old, he wrote in his diary concerning Emer- 
 son's "Nature." "It is an odd sort of book but 
 I like it better than most every one else, seems to, 
 though to be sure there is a good deal in it that I 
 can't understand." But in the summer he listened 
 to Emerson's Phi Beta Kappa Address on "The 
 American Scholar" and remarked of it: "It was 
 not very good but very transcendental." 2 The 
 next year he heard that Emerson was to deliver the 
 address to the graduating class of the Divinity. 
 Of it he says in his diary: 
 
 "I did not like it at all. Mr. Emerson held that 
 Christianity of the present is little better than 
 none; that (as I understand him) the philosophers 
 of Ante-Christian times were better men than the 
 Christians of the present; that Church-going was 
 
 1 The same thing may be said of Lowell at this time, as may be inferred 
 from his class poem. 2 The but is a substitution for tho. 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 123 
 
 less popular than formerly, owing to the bad preach- 
 ing of the ministers of the day, whom he rated 
 severely as not putting enough of self into their 
 sermons. He said it would be impossible from 
 such a sermon as a minister of the present time 
 would preach, to learn anything of his biography, 
 even the time in which he lived. He had been 
 born, he breathed, and lived, he might have been 
 in love, or been married; but the audience knew 
 none of these things. Mr. Emerson's stock of 
 startling phrases concerning soul, mind, etc., are 
 getting exhausted, and I think his reputation will 
 fall accordingly. The sermon appeared to me to be 
 in singularly bad taste, considering it was preached 
 before an audience of young men, educated to the 
 ministry under the direction of three of the most 
 prominent preachers of the place, 1 who have if 
 any one has, the fault if such it be, of not intro- 
 ducing personalities into their sermons. 
 
 In this view of a youth of sixteen, we have prob- 
 ably a sort of natural conservatism strengthened 
 by parental opinion. In later life, my father says 
 as much: 
 
 "Like all college boys at their graduation, I was 
 sternly old-school; thought Mr. Emerson half 
 crazy; disliked abolition; doubted as to total absti- 
 nence, and in general, followed the advice of my 
 Cambridge teachers, who were from President down 
 to janitor, all a hundred years behind their time." 
 
 But it Was not merely conservatism and parental 
 opinion which caused this view. Throughout his 
 
 1 Henry Ware, Henry Ware, Jr., and John G. Palfrey. 
 
124 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 life, tho' he said little about it, my father felt 
 something of this disagreement with Emerson, which 
 is first mentioned in his college diary. In comment 
 on a sermon by Henry Ware on the existence of a 
 personal God, he alludes to the view of God as "a 
 mere combination of qualities as is held I believe 
 by Mr. Emerson." [Sept. 23, 1838J He always 
 believed, and the belief was entirely fundamental, 
 that God was a person having love and interest 
 in this world, and though in after years he felt 
 deeply the value of Emerson's idealism, he was 
 never carried away by him because he always 
 missed this one thing which he himself felt was so 
 immensely important. 
 
 Nor did he throw himself into another of the 
 great interests of the day, namely: the Anti-slavery 
 Movement, in spite of his admiration for one of 
 its important leaders, Doctor John G. Palfrey. 
 He has not left us much evidence on this subject 
 save of a negative character. 
 
 The following is from his college diary: 
 "April 12, 1838. In the evening I went to hear 
 Miss Grimke the younger, hold forth at the Odeon 
 on Anti-slavery. I was very much disappointed. 
 I had expected there would be something in the 
 style or substance of her observations or in her 
 personal appearance besides the singularity of hear- 
 ing a woman speak, that would account for the 
 great attraction she has always been. But there 
 really seemed to be nothing of the kind. She is 
 not at all handsome, at least thirty-five, has a 
 very unpleasant and unusual voice and a very 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 125 
 
 ungraceful gesture, (for she has but one) and talks 
 what is the weakest sophistry without exception, 
 that I ever heard. The house, however, was 
 crowded." 
 
 Indeed the views which influenced him were the 
 conservative Whig ideas of Webster and Everett, 
 with whom his father heartily agreed. Some years 
 later his mother in a letter speaks of her little spare 
 chamber as a "sanctum where the voice of the young 
 pleader for the slave or advocate of the cause of 
 temperance is never heard." The general opinion 
 of the family did not condemn either movement in 
 principle, but offered neither much assistance. 
 
 His vocation was that of the ministry. He said 
 later in life that he could not remember a time when 
 he did not have the idea of a minister's life before 
 him. He tells an anecdote belonging to his eleventh 
 year which shows it. His mother especially, but 
 also his father, always desired him to be a minister, 
 although it seems that they had no occasion to 
 urge or persuade. His friends in college knew of 
 his general intentions long before graduation. He 
 did not, however, desire to study in the Divinity 
 School. Just why is not clear. It was perhaps 
 in part a piece of his lifelong objection for doing 
 anything in a mechanical way, a feeling that made 
 him through life critical of all institutional processes 
 of education. It was perhaps in small part a 
 prejudice not unnatural to the undergraduate at 
 Harvard; he somewhere in his diary speaks of the 
 "Divinity drawl", and in writing to Nathan he 
 speaks of his aversion to the school and says, "You 
 
126 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 can imagine it as well as L" There was probably 
 a certain lack in the Divinity School ideal which 
 did not suit his own conception. 
 
 Writing a long time afterward he says that from 
 general objection to mechanical education he "was 
 not likely to go into the Divinity College, which 
 was more like a cloister than the College. Besides 
 this [he goes on] I must have had a definite notion 
 then that our business is a much more practical 
 affair than the teachers in such schools suppose; 
 indeed, than they generally comprehend. Again, 
 and this was a poor boys' reason, we did not fancy 
 some of the men at the school. I am sure that 
 most of us, had we been asked why we did not 
 study Divinity, would have said we did not like 
 the fellows down at the Hall." 
 
 For it should be definitely said at the beginning 
 that he was not very deeply impressed by the re- 
 sponsibilities and opportunities of a minister's life. 
 He, himself, said later that at college it was com- 
 monly regarded as a life which gave plenty of op- 
 portunity for literary leisure. Even three years 
 after college he said to Henry W. Bellows that 
 "one prime reason for my choice of my profession 
 was my desire to be in a walk where I might press 
 my general literature." And though too much 
 weight should not be laid on such slight indica- 
 tions, yet there is in diary and letters a general 
 absence of other more serious ideas which cannot 
 be neglected. The general notion which one gets 
 from his memorials of this earlier time was that 
 he felt, of the ministry that it offered an excellent 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 127 
 
 opportunity for a man of intelligence to lead an 
 interesting life of literary occupation and social 
 enjoyment, while being at the same time useful 
 and helpful to all kinds of persons who were not 
 so fortunately placed in the world as himself. The 
 following passages from journal and letters show 
 such a spirit and the way in which it gradually 
 grew into something very different. By the time 
 he was settled at Worcester, when he was twenty- 
 four, we see clearly the beginning of that temper 
 which developed into the character of later years, 
 which we know. . 
 
 "Apr. 3, 1 841. [He had been almost two years 
 out of college, teaching in the Boston Latin School 
 and reading theology.] I am nineteen years old 
 and all day I have been thinking more of the future 
 than I often do — not because it is my birthday 
 but because half a dozen odd circumstances have 
 called it up to me, and obliged me to remember 
 that I shall not always be a boy, nineteen years 
 old — living in my own home, and drawing my 
 quarter's salary from the city. Another year I 
 shall have left the Latin School, shall have begun 
 to devote myself exclusively to my profession, a 
 profession the proper preparation for which I think 
 no one understands — I am sure I do not myself. 
 I shall be obliged to take the responsibility of pre- 
 paring myself for its solemn duties very much in 
 my own way. I shall have the responsibility too 
 of not wasting time, when I have no master but 
 myself. 
 
 "While thinking of all this I am glad — very 
 
128 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 glad — that I am only nineteen. To be sure only 
 nineteen involves more than a quarter of the long- 
 est lease of life, but if I had entered college three or 
 four years older than I did, and there are theorists 
 enough who will tell me that I should have done 
 so — I should not now feel quite so easy as I do. 
 I .should not have quite so much time at my dis- 
 posal before forcing myself on the active duties of 
 life. 
 
 "After all, I have lately persuaded myself that we 
 are apt to trouble ourselves a great deal too much 
 about these active duties. God made me, I believe, 
 to be happy, and placed me here that my powers 
 might be developed and improved and so fitted for 
 a superior state of existence; if then by my labor 
 in the community I support myself and do my duty 
 to those of my fellow beings who are more unfor- 
 tunate than I, I conceive that nothing more is or 
 need be required of me. As for ambition I have 
 less and less of the schoolboy stamp of it every day 
 that I live. My air castles now are to live a life 
 of literary quiet and repose, to spend my time in 
 such manner as may be most pleasant to myself 
 without infringing on the rights or pleasures of my 
 neighbors, or fretting myself about the improving 
 my study or other labor in the highest degree, of the 
 advantages put into my hands. My time is best 
 improved when it is passed most happily. I know of 
 nothing to make me suppose that man was meant 
 to be a utilitarian machine." * 
 
 1 In 1907 he wrote against this entry the comment of eighty-five on 
 nineteen, in the words " Omar Khayam." 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 129 
 
 This extract and the following show that his theo- 
 logical work and study were still something external, 
 not the expression of his strongest desire. 
 
 "May 1, 1841. Blessing on the man who invented 
 holidays! I have taken more comfort in life than 
 I have for a long time. I had at command, and read 
 the first volume of "The Flirt," a new and very good 
 novel — This at intervals through the day. I ar- 
 ranged my Daguerreotype so as to be able to take 
 a view on the first favourable day. This too at 
 intervals through the day. . . In the afternoon and 
 evening I made two attempts to consult Madame 
 Adolph, the newly arrived fortune-teller. In both 
 cases however, she was preengaged for a considerable 
 time. 
 
 "There is an otium cum dignitate in a school- 
 master's or schoolboy's holiday that no other occu- 
 pation has. You do not feel bound to do anything, 
 you are perfectly at your own disposal and in conse- 
 quence can enjoy yourself fully." 
 
 This entry is illustrated by a good many passages 
 in his letters of this time, of which the following 
 are examples : 
 
 TO NATHAN 
 
 "June 24, 1840. ... I have been reading for 
 the last week Mackintosh's life of his father; and 
 by the book and the manner of reading it and the 
 heat of the weather, have been led by my own 
 musings of the dangers which valedictory ministers 
 at college warn us so touchingly, of a life of literary 
 leisure. There seems to be such an infinity, one 
 
130 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 would like to read round in on every subject that it is 
 a pity to sink entirely to one. Such ideas invite such 
 very airy castles that I suppose a week's east wind 
 would dispel them but now they are very refreshing." 
 
 TO LUCRETIA 
 
 "July 19, 1840. ... At all events I think that a 
 lazy summer will be a prominent part of my future 
 schemes of usefulness and enjoyment." 
 
 "June 22. School of course. It is a year today 
 since I was first confined to the house by lameness 
 last year. I never desire to spend a pleasanter six 
 weeks that I did then." 
 
 In the fall of 1841 [_ October 24] there is entered 
 in the diary "a Dramatic Ode" entitled "Theology", 
 which gives some idea of his view of his studies, 
 especially in its whimsical end. It begins: 
 
 "What do you do when you study Theology? 
 How are you speeding, 
 What are you reading, 
 Are you down in the depths of philosophy 
 Sinking; 
 Or thinking 
 Of fate — foreknowledge in an easy chair? 
 
 Now 
 Tell me what 
 You ,are at 
 
 And how!" 
 Several answering voices give the subjects of his 
 study, — Hebrew, Greek philosophy, the epistles 
 of Ruarus, Nature. The last stanza is as follows: 
 "5th Voice 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 131 
 
 Retire to Cimmeria like the rest, 
 And leave the field to me the last and best. 
 I read Theology like each and all, 
 I scan the precious wonders of the page 
 Time's hand has spared through many a crum- 
 bling age. 
 I read the later volume which has shown 
 How great the work to which the first led on. 
 I read the letters of that patient man 
 Who wrote in love and kindness to his friends 
 For he called all his friends, tho' they began 
 To write him as a heretic, because 
 He made the truth and love his only ends. 
 And in his works divine my God I find 
 Nor yet forget the works most great of all 
 The soul, the inward Monitor, the Mind, 
 The springs which move the world 
 Whate'er the names by which the varying powers 
 we call. 
 
 And yet — all alone 
 As I am here, I'll own 
 That I do this by fits and by starts for to speak 
 No more than the truth, I've a sort of a lurking 
 Suspicion, which is that the times of my working 
 Alternate; I play and I work week and week." 
 In January and February, 1842, he was doing a 
 good deal of legislative reporting, which interfered 
 with his study. 
 
 "Mar. 4, 1842. Invalided all day luxuriously. 
 "Mar. 5. Better, turned the point, read, drew, 
 thought, day-dreamed, and slept." 
 
 'Mar. 6. Mr. Ware preached all day — in the 
 
 a 
 
132 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 morning the agony in the garden. How could he 
 preach so! I hope I never may. In the afternoon. 
 Why is evil? I presided at Sunday school. At 
 home ever since, — and now for a 
 Plan for Monday (Mar. 7) 
 
 German, at least a double share 
 
 Acts of the Apostles 
 
 Greek perhaps 
 
 Ruarus 
 
 I believe no Hebrew quite yet 
 Drawing" 
 "Mar. 27. The a was an entire failure. 
 Will try now as follows : 
 
 To finish Ruarus before April nth 
 
 To finish Acta Apost. before April nth, 
 
 which will require 10 pages of the first and a chapter 
 of the second per diem. Meanwhile to work con- 
 stantly on the German, in the Testament, exercises 
 and translations. This will require say for tomorrow: 
 
 German Ex. German Testament 
 
 German Trans. Ruarus 
 
 Acta Apostolorum and I must write some 
 on the "Apocryphal Napoleon" for Nathan. By the 
 way I have been very much excited with that since 
 I saw you, and very much pleased with Festus. 
 
 "When this fortnight is over then — hey! for 
 something worth doing — Greek philosophy and so 
 for five centuries before and after, to include Greek 
 accents that one may do it accurately and all Greek 
 (and Latin in its order) literature that one may do it 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 133 
 
 well. And, too, if I should live to be more than 
 283 years old Hebrew, Arabic, &c. &c. 
 
 "I am going to write a letter to my next of kin 
 in 1942 when I get the nerve. I have had such a 
 plan on my mind this two years." 
 
 "Apr. 3. Twenty years old. 
 
 "So then! This game is done, — we're out again, 
 That last card closed our count, — we've twice 
 
 made ten. 
 These games are short, — a third would soon be 
 
 o'er 
 Don't take your hat but let me deal once more." 
 
 "Well, if you please, at least we need but try, — 
 The time has slipped along so pleasantly 
 That I should like to take my cards, — although 
 God knows, — we may not play the rubber through. 
 
 "And if I should not! — I should sooner see 
 The problem solved of life's great mystery 
 What if I should not ! — Let me ever stand 
 Ready each moment to throw up my hand. 
 What if I should ! The question tries 
 Life is more awful to behold than death. 
 We know what obstacles in life we meet \ 
 We see the stumbling blocks before our feet — 
 But ever trust, that passing through death's doors 
 Our paths will widen to a world of flowers. 
 
 "God let me feel that confidence in thee 
 By which my path in life still bright shall be: 
 With trust, with hope, with faith my quickened 
 
 powers 
 Shall find, on desert wastes, most fragrant flowers. 
 
134 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Yes, God ! firm faith in thee all fear might quell 
 Make earth a paradise: — find heaven in hell." 
 
 It was in the fall of 1842 that he began to preach. 
 On November 15 his mother wrote to her sister, 
 Lucretia : 
 
 "Since I wrote last Edward has made his debut 
 in the pulpit, though not in Boston, so that I have 
 not had an opportunity to hear him. He has been 
 asked to preach at the Chapel, but he thinks he 
 prefers to make his first trial before strangers, he is 
 not to preach there till next month. In the mean- 
 time he has preached once at Newark, N. Jersey, 
 then at New York, the last unexpectedly, but he 
 was pressed into the service by Dr. Bellows, as he was 
 on the way home, and he will now be for the next 
 Sunday or two at Berlin or Sudbury in this state. 
 I feel as if there were something appalling almost, in 
 one so young (20 years) who was but the other day an 
 infant in my arms, standing forth in such a position, 
 and people fancy he is to come forth with something 
 remarkable, from his name partly I suppose, so that 
 I cannot but dread that expecting too much they 
 may be disappointed. But I still keep hoping." 
 
 Some of his own feelings may be gathered from 
 letters to his uncle : 
 
 TO EDWARD EVERETT, NOVEMBER 15, 1842 
 
 "I have been, during the past few weeks making 
 my first essays, on such small scale as I could, in 
 ministerial life. I am sometimes very much dis- 
 couraged, and sometimes very hopeful about the 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 135 
 
 future. I wish I could think it were only the premier 
 pas qui coute, for the premier, as I have had it, 
 accidentally, going from place to place with every 
 new Sunday is disagreeable, not to say useless enough. 
 One must lose a few pawns in beginning however; — 
 but I do not quite know yet how I shall open my 
 game." 
 
 TO EDWARD EVERETT, JANUARY 3 1, 1 843 
 
 " I am greatly obliged to you for the kind wishes 
 you express as to my professional life. At some times 
 I feel greatly discouraged about it, looking at the 
 divided and I believe the quarrelsome feeling among 
 all parties on religious points, — and at my own 
 inability to come up to what I wish to do. At the 
 same time I am more and more satisfied as to the 
 immense effect which may be produced by the clergy, 
 if they act in the proper way. I am also, however, 
 every day more and more satisfied that I embarked 
 on the profession too young, and regret more and 
 more that Ipersuaded myself to enter in its practice 
 when I did : — for I feel younger and younger, less 
 and less experienced every day that I preach. I 
 suppose I may live through all this. There would 
 be something almost ridiculous in a man's entering 
 at any time with much confidence on a profession 
 for which nobody was ever fully prepared. I am 
 at present supplying the pulpit at Watertown for 
 a few Sundays: — the Church which Dr. Francis 
 has left the College, but for the future my plans 
 are not at all definite. A scheme, which I think 
 I mentioned to you, of an excursion to some of our 
 young societies at the west, quite fell through." 
 
136 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 It was in the fall of 1842 that he preached for the 
 first time. In September 3 he was at Saco, on a trip 
 to Maine and enters in his account, "Met Cushing, 
 the Unitarian Minister there and John (Batchelder) 
 having told him, as afterwards appeared, that he 
 believed I had preached, Cushing asked to supply 
 for him part of the day Sunday. So that my work- 
 ing honors begin to come upon me. I, of course, 
 declined — did not have a sermon with me because 
 I had never written one." In the fall and winter, 
 however, he preached a number of times, so that when 
 in March, 1843, he went to Northampton for three 
 months, he began with numbers 15 and 16. That 
 period of preaching must have been of importance; 
 the journal makes only a skeleton record of day by 
 day, but afterward comes a passage almost by acci- 
 dent. 
 
 "Greenfield. June 3, 12.20 p.m. For five min- 
 utes past I have been reading Mrs. Jameson's 'W. 
 Stud and S. Ramb' and the pleasant jotting down of 
 things which seem to be the 'utterances of the mo- 
 ment' has made me seize this book, with a yearn- 
 ing for the power which the perfection of that writing 
 machine of mine would give me. For after all, the 
 reason that we let so many thoughts, and knowl- 
 edges and pleasant ideas slide over the rapids forever 
 and forget them (I dipped at the Niagara visit) is that 
 it takes so long to record them. Her book loses 
 its charm when I think of her writing away for hours 
 on those apparently offhand sketches. 
 
 "'Life in a Minute' to be perfectly good wants 
 to be perfectly written in a minute. I am even now 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 137 
 
 chilled down from the zeal with which I took pen 
 and opened inkstand while this page was still fair and 
 yet I had three things to say. Perhaps the herald 
 may call to the banquet before they all are said. 
 
 "And first her description of the real natural zeal 
 of the refugee blacks in Canada against the resto- 
 ration to U. S. of fugitive slaves. Her story is an 
 affecting one — all such really are and the more you 
 strip them of anti-slavery jargon and abolition 
 eloquential and rhetorical twaddle the more affecting 
 they are — C I loved my mistress but I did not want 
 to be sold/ said a mulatto woman with whom she 
 talked : — and the moment that thought — the dis- 
 tress at the idea of being subject for barter occurs 
 to a slave — that moment his condition is a dis- 
 tressing one. I do not suppose that to hundreds of 
 thousands of them (the numbers are terrible) it 
 ever does occur. The more fortunate for them. 
 And yet it is a curse, a terrible curse ; — ■ abstractly 
 speaking a great moral wrong. 
 
 "And yet I would challenge any man with the 
 real enthusiasm for the rights and powers of human 
 nature which will make him feel this curse the most 
 sadly; — feeling anything like a proper zeal for the 
 real advancement of the race in any variety of life 
 but physical life (and the slaves have the advantage 
 of that as well as we have — besides it is too low a 
 thing to talk about) to do as I have done — come into 
 the country for three months so as to see man, 
 woman and child of different classes and situations 
 (and I have seen the best more than the worst) and not 
 be more shocked with the real degradation of spiritual 
 
138 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 and intellectual life and culture, and of both to the 
 purest and most unmitigated selfishness. I cannot 
 and will not talk of reforms in government and 
 institutions while the whole mass of those who are 
 to form society are so self-seeking, self-caring; — 
 earth-seeking, earth-caring: — so positively thought- 
 less as to spiritual life and religious hopes and 
 prospects as people are as I have seen them anywhere 
 where I have been in this state. I have been in the 
 pulpit and write with the feelings of a young observer 
 and a young man — God grant I may never feel 
 otherwise as to the heinousness of the fault, though 
 I hope. I may see differently as to its extent. 
 
 "In Boston, it is, I fancy, if possible worse — 
 There has Dr. Frothingham just given his people a 
 rap for having entered into rest in the faith upon 
 which they have agreed- They are as mad as they 
 can be about it. But they deserve it — the idea of 
 spiritual progress, any idea but the negative ones 
 of moral codes are not to those Boston congre- 
 gations so far as I know them. 
 
 "Do we talk mealy mouthedly when we say that 
 till people here are roused from such positive self 
 dominion as this they have no right to preach to 
 others about moral obligations. And will not the 
 best reformer of the south and of the world be dis- 
 interested, all loving Massachusetts ? I bend to that 
 oar. 25*1 p.m. 
 
 "I have forgotten what the other two things were. 
 N'importe." 
 
 "Nov. 26. Half my journal pages are written on 
 Sunday. Very well. A year ago today I preached 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 139 
 
 at Sudbury. I have begun today my winter's 
 work. I have heard one of the best sermons I ever 
 heard in my life: — but it was not my own. 
 
 "I went to Roxbury to preach for Mr. Putnam if he 
 had not returned from New York: — as I supposed 
 he had not. No matter for the series of contretemps 
 that sent me there. I have said enough of them today 
 to write nothing about them. Fortunately he had 
 returned, and in the morning I heard him preach 
 on the efficacy of faith: — a much better sermon 
 than my No. 22 to the same point. He gave the 
 true theory and a good deal of it. I am afraid that 
 mine is very near the outside. 
 
 "He says, — that before man can will and so act, 
 
 — at all: — he must have some idea of what he wants 
 to do. This of course. His will will be stronger, — 
 more vigorous, more down breaking of obstacles in 
 proportion as his conception or idea of the object 
 to be attained, and so his faith in its possibilities is 
 more vivid and distinct and real to his mind. He 
 labors to realize his idea — the faith — and the 
 truer, the clearer, the more earnest the idea, the 
 faith the more successful this labor: — he cannot 
 help the labor, — it comes upon him by a law of his 
 being; — -for he has the idea and must endeavor to 
 bring it to pass: — thus the more vivid and real it is, 
 
 — the more connected, earnest, skilful, tactful, well 
 designed will be the endeavor. The man who has 
 a perfect idea, a true faith will conquer the world — ■ 
 or die! He illustrated by Columbus, by Luther, by 
 any self reformer. 
 
 "All this after saying that faith in Christ was a 
 
I40 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 real conviction of the reality, the possibility, the 
 practicability, the necessity of the principle which 
 Christ inculcated, interwoven with as firm a faith 
 in God's being and in a future world, and resting 
 on the preliminary historical faith in Christ. 
 
 "And after all this he urged, — that men who fail 
 in duty: who fail in (real) life — do not really 
 believe, — do not make real to themselves the object 
 to be attained — do not see the perfection of the 
 principles by which they are to act or to which they 
 are to aim. No! and nothing like it! No wonder 
 they fail. 
 
 " For my personal life then — I must set up the 
 study of Christ and his, — never to be lost sight of, 
 day by day to be made more clear and thought of 
 more and more as practicable. 
 
 " For my action on the world I start on this : — 
 that the world can and shall be made less selfish — 
 be unselfished by Christianity forced, — if it must 
 be so, upon it by Christianity's self-appointed 
 guardians or expounders. 
 
 "Bend to that oar!" 
 
 "Jan. 15, 1844. I had forgotten what was the 
 detail of the last entry here when I took the book 
 to write these lines. The contrast perhaps is a 
 little queer though the aim is the same. 
 
 "On the nth Dec. I left home with father for 
 Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania resumption busi- 
 ness. Here we staid till the 29th. When we got 
 home I began to make my arrangements for the 
 winter's recommencement of preaching, and was in 
 negotiation with the Taunton and Nantucket com- 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 141 
 
 mittee, — agreed to preach and did preach January 
 7 for Chandler Robbins at his Church and at the 
 Chapel. 
 
 " But father had to come on again and I was very- 
 glad to come with him on this same business. And 
 as I may assist him, may be growing older: — with 
 more tact, with more common sense in this work. 
 I shall not attempt to make .any farther pulpit 
 arrangements till I see my way clear through this 
 private secretaryship. 
 
 "By beginning to preach too young I forfeited all 
 the advantages of going to college when I did. I do 
 not hesitate therefore when I can to reclaim them." 
 
 He remained in Philadelphia and Harrisburg dur- 
 ing the winter, having little opportunity for theo- 
 logical studies. He preached once or twice only 
 during the winter when he came back to Boston. 
 During 1844 the entries in his diary are few, but in 
 one or two cases we may detect the note of dis- 
 satisfaction; there was too much preparation and 
 too little action, sometimes compunction at what 
 appeared neglect of duty. We should not pry into 
 the more personal experiences, but he has himself 
 left record of one at least. In 1907 he wrote an 
 account of the realizing of what became one of the 
 foundation stones of his life. 1 
 
 "I was at Albany where I had been very much 
 alone. I was sent up there to preach in an effort our 
 people were making to establish a Unitarian Church. 
 I doubt if the people of the so-called parish even knew 
 that I was in town. I have no recollection of any 
 
 1 Freeman MSS. 
 
142 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 of them but a Mr. Little whom I used to see in his 
 store. Perhaps it was to this loneliness that I owe 
 a revelation which stands out in my memories of 
 life. I had been reading in my musty, dark bedroom 
 by an airtight stove. I think I was reading the 
 Revue de Deux Mondes. But I put the book 
 down for what people used to call reflection, and I 
 saw, or perceived, or felt that I was not alone and 
 could not be alone. This Present Power knows me 
 and loves me. I know Him and love Him. He is 
 here, I am here. We are together. And it is a 
 companionship much closer than I could have with 
 any human being sitting in that chair. 
 
 "Of course I do not mean that before this I had 
 never prayed to God, or waited for his answer. 
 But it is true that the sense of perfect or absolute 
 companionship, the give and take sense of society, 
 took form in my life then by the side of that rusty 
 stove in that musty little room at the Delavan such 
 as it had never taken before." . 
 
 In the fall of 1844 he took a considerable trip 
 through New York and Pennsylvania, ending at 
 Washington, where he agreed to preach during the 
 winter. There are one or two curious notes con- 
 cerning his feelings. 
 
 "Washington Oct. 24. Well! I came home and 
 considering, in the argument which laziness always 
 makes, that in such frame of mind it would be absurd 
 to try to work, I took Fanny Kemble's Journal, 
 where I meant to read some of her descriptions of 
 places which I have seen in my travels. And that 
 day and evening I read that book through. And 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 143 
 
 I was a great deal better for it. [He then notes 
 of the book its wholly journal character, in present- 
 ing day to day mental life and growth, and also its 
 frequent fits of despondency, low-spirits, Byronism 
 caused by trifles. He continues :] And the third 
 is this. 
 
 "Fanny did not like the social of this country. 
 Is there any wonder? And since we have the most 
 perfect groundwork in the nature of our government 
 and its principle for erecting the pleasantest forms 
 of society that this world shows, had we not better 
 do it? 
 
 "So much for Fanny's book which exorcised my 
 blue devils — even before they had really come. 
 [In the same entry is another note of his reading. 
 He had been "dipping in Bettina's letters to 
 Goethe."] 
 
 "Now I am afraid that Mad. Von Arnim is a 
 consummately conceited hypocritical world destroyer. 
 But when she wrote these letters, (I know just how 
 natural they are, — I can write of such sort myself, 
 — by remembering all the grotesque that in a short 
 time crosses my mind, and tumbling all in together) 
 she was full of feeling and she had great skill — per- 
 haps because she was unlearned in styles and rhetoric 
 in expressing that feeling. It is no matter so far 
 as the reading of her journal of that time goes, for 
 journal it is, — that this feeling was unaccompanied 
 by principle as the event in some manner proves — 
 that was the look-out of her and her friends but the 
 book is not therefore the less attractive or profit- 
 able: — because — this full feeling so glibly and 
 
144 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 winningly expressed is at least in such part as I read 
 this morning a complete expression, demonstration, 
 evidence, (that's the word) of the worth of the mere 
 power of enjoyment, of its growth under cultivation 
 and the benefit — the profit of taking means for 
 gratifying it in out of the way methods. She did 
 bizarre, strange things, but she enlarged her enjoy- 
 ment field, and saved up the strength and interest 
 of the pleasures always at command by substituting 
 oddities for them when she could. [He goes on 
 with some cases in the recent weeks which showed 
 how much better it was to push through any especial 
 experience. He ends:] So my chase down the river 
 to get here in time to preach Sunday. I spent 
 money, I worked hard, I got tired to effect it, and it 
 was of no great importance in itself after all : — but 
 it has given me a series of pegs for memory which are 
 different from other pegs, stick out farther from the 
 wall. 
 
 "Such is my argument, justification, suggestion 
 of oddity — not eccentricity — but strangeness, so 
 you make not yourself odd is strange- in the manage- 
 ment of life. If one can find any means of grati- 
 fication, that is any means of seeing or doing or trying 
 something new, which will not hurt him or anybody 
 else, he better do it. (That is the second time I have 
 had occasion to acknowledge better as a neuter verb. 
 It would be a very good one, as good on paper as it 
 is on boy and blackguard tongue.) 
 
 "And this suggests what came to me last from 
 Bettina and was therefore first in my mind — towards 
 which I have been writing here as Billy Swett used 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 145 
 
 to write his sermons — backward. Videlicet; — we 
 read in novels — in books of foreign novels; in 
 general accounts of Italy and Rhineland and in such 
 books as this Bettina with great delight of such 
 gloriously romantic days and nights — as long walks 
 by river sides and fine views and every form of open 
 air life and pleasure afford. All of which depend 
 not in the least on their taking place in a strange 
 country — with all my travelling enthusiasm I doubt 
 it, that is not a slight, a very slight drawback. But 
 they depend on the perfect freedom from worldly 
 care and thought of a man who has given up his 
 business while he travels and feels at liberty to 
 think of nothing but what God and nature and his 
 own enthusiasm, his own soul, suggest to him. 
 In one word, why take ye thought for the morrow, — 
 when you have so much to enjoy now in this beautiful 
 world — and that too, to enjoy not selfishly, cur- 
 mudgeon-like, as I am afraid is the principle of an 
 old birthday entry of mine some hundred or two 
 pages back, but to enjoy as God's child and servant. 
 One does make a mistake in working too much for 
 the future. Use time as holy time: — but not on 
 the immense scale of beginning a series of operations 
 worth less than nothing if no tomorrow, or no next 
 year comes for their completion." [There is no 
 other entry for a fortnight.] 
 
 "Nov. 8. Washington. I have been reading from 
 the July Edinburg an article, I suppose Macaulay's, 
 on 'The Good Men of Clapham/ 
 
 " It has made me wild — wild to do something 
 by virtue of the faith which if I know myself is in 
 
146 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 me. Here I sit, with a lame foot unable to walk 
 out well, and yet as I have read of the sincerity and 
 constancy of zeal and action of those men I have been 
 perfectly wrought up to the intensity of a personal 
 desire to effect in my own person that for this world 
 of ours which I know a sincere true faithful man as 
 such would effect. 
 
 "Those men were acting on a religious faith which 
 was beautifully sincere — yet it was involved and 
 twisted and dark. I have or think I have a faith in 
 God, in Christianity, and which they had not in 
 man; — Why not effect — nay [sic] the world's im- 
 provement by bending to it and it only — even to 
 the living for life in this worldly minded home 
 distant city? 
 
 "Ah. Ah. — the last entry here is half an Epicu- 
 rean one — and so may the next be perhaps. 
 
 "But 'The Good Men of Clapham' whose only 
 merit was that they were good is worth keeping at 
 hand and laying to heart. 
 
 "Here in Washington are ambition, fashion, a 
 civic self conceit, ignorance, want of intellectual 
 action among all classes, degradation and ignorance 
 of the free blacks, very little comparative influence 
 of religion, and slavery 
 
 "Wake them up in twenty or thirty years? 
 
 "Tears! ! ! ! !" 
 
 He preached in Washington during the winter, 
 but there are few entries of an intimate nature. 
 He declined the invitation to settle there, feeling 
 that the task was too great for his inexperience. 
 On his way he stopped at Philadelphia in rather 
 
MAKING UP HIS MIND 147 
 
 low spirits. He speaks of "the uselessness of the 
 profession, its appearance of coldness and machinery, 
 kept looming up before me — and whether I were fit 
 for anything and whether anything were worth 
 trying for, and so on." From this momentary 
 despondency he was delivered by an evening with 
 Mr. Furness, so that he "came down Spruce Street 
 thinking that after all the world was a happy world — 
 or might be — and that it was worth something to 
 be such a man as he is." 
 
 He reached home February 27, 1845, and on April 6 
 preached at Worcester, where he remained for six 
 months and finally accepted a call. 
 
 It is perhaps with a feeling that he had reached 
 a place where he could really work instead of dream, 
 think, and prepare, that he enters in his journal 
 these verses : 
 
 "Who came at the eleventh hour 
 And to their tasks were true 
 And labored each as he had power 
 Received each man his due. 
 
 "Who came when day was breaking bright 
 And labored all day through 
 Well toiling each as he had power 
 Received each man his due. 
 
 "These looked at those: — those looked at these 
 As from their lord they came : — 
 The dues of those, the dues of these 
 They saw were just the same. 
 
148 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 " For those and these God's children were 
 Born for eternity- 
 Moments of time could not compare 
 With lives which live for aye. 
 
 "And souls whose hopes and needs are fixed above 
 Deserve no lesser gift than universal Love." 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 EARLY SERMON-WRITING 
 
 j\T the time that my father was ordained as min- 
 ister over the Church of the Unity at Worcester, 
 he had preached for a number of years. He had 
 already formed the custom of writing his sermons 
 out completely. In later years, at least, he read them 
 with a considerable freedom and rather an extempore 
 manner. He had not, at this time, yet acquired the 
 habit of extempore speaking, on which he happened 
 rather by accident. He once stood up in the pulpit, 
 and opening his sermon case, found that there was 
 no sermon in it. He had a recollection of the text, 
 however, and beginning with that, he went on and 
 delivered a sermon, which in essential was doubtless 
 much the same as that which he had written. This 
 was at a later period, however, and at this time it 
 was his habit to write out his sermons with consid- 
 erable care. This habit, indeed, he continued to the 
 end of his life, and by means of it amassed a great 
 collection of sermons which in course of time became 
 famous among his brother ministers. About twenty 
 years after this time, Robert Collyer wrote him: 
 "and I will tell you what I want, to see a book in your 
 vestry that contains a list of the sermons you preach 
 as you preach them. I hear it is a sight to see. 
 Staples saw it. I would dearly like to steal a lot of 
 
 149 
 
150 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 subjects from it." There are three such books now, 
 for the list of sermons was extended by the preaching 
 of forty years more. Doctor Collyer might have 
 seen not only the book with the list of subjects, but 
 a set of the sermons themselves on the one hand, 
 and a collection of the suggestions for sermons on the 
 other. 
 
 These sermons were written with care for literary 
 expression and were effectively read. We have 
 already seen in what he says of school declamation, 
 that while he did not at that time excel in what is 
 commonly called "delivery", he had at least gained 
 from practice a considerable ease of address. There 
 remain one or two evidences as to his earlier preach- 
 ing. The first is from a letter from Margaret Harding 
 to her sister Caroline, January 15, 1843. Margaret 
 Harding was an intimate friend. As a girl she had 
 lived with the Hales in Boston while she went with 
 Lucretia Hale to Mr. Emerson's School. My father 
 had seen her often afterwards. 
 
 "Today being Sunday, we started in procession 
 for Church. Edward Hale, we knew was to preach 
 and we all felt a great curiosity to hear him. I was 
 afraid that when he arose in the pulpit I might feel 
 inclined to laugh, but he looked solemn enough and 
 grave enough to have inspired anyone with awe. He 
 has a splendid voice, very deep and rich, and when he 
 let it out, filled the whole Church. His prayers were 
 very good indeed. They were the best part of the 
 service. His morning's sermon was very good indeed, 
 very clear and perfectly unornamented, but he did 
 not express himself enough, he left himself open to 
 
't 
 EARLY SERMON-WRITING 151 
 
 attack by those who chose to misunderstand him. 
 His sermon was to encourage those who felt an 
 inability to perform the duties before them. He 
 said that the motive of an action was considered by 
 God as stamping the act as good or bad, and that our 
 duty was performed when we had earnestly striven 
 to perform it. In the evening, we had a number of 
 callers to see John, and of course our new minister 
 was discussed. Mr. Ashmun — 'He has got a 
 splendid voice and that is all he has got/ Mr. 
 Dwight — 'You are rather severe; he has consider- 
 able talent, at least, great cultivation of mind. But 
 I don't like his morning's sermon. It is a very 
 comfortable doctrine, but heaven is not going to take 
 the will for the deed/ John — 'I liked his sermon. 
 I think he shows promise of a great deal of talent, 
 though no genius/ — 'I like him better than any 
 minister I have heard this long time. I like the 
 stand he takes extremely.'" 
 
 There is another comment on my father's preach- 
 ing in Margaret Harding's journal. 1 It occurs a few 
 Weeks later in a note on a sermon heard at Springfield. 
 
 "He shows the fault of other young ministers. 
 They content themselves with telling us what our 
 duties are without showing us how we are to perform 
 them. The spirit of Edward's sermon this morning, 
 I liked very much. It was to show that motive 
 alone determined the worth of our actions in the 
 sight of God. One little short sentence I liked — 
 'No distress nor despondency can be religious' . . . 
 
 1 Parts of this have been published in "After Noontide" by her daugh- 
 ter, Eliza O. White. 
 
152 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Edward's voice is very fine, and his prayer (he made 
 but one long one) went to my heart. Only the young 
 can pray for the young. Only the young carries 
 [sic] that deep, holy, unquenched joy which is a 
 well-spring of praise, of love and gratitude. Life 
 must in ordinary cases do much to cloy this fountain, 
 if not entirely exhaust it, with the withered hopes 
 which the old man has seen to fall like the dead leaves 
 around him." 
 
 Such extracts show what we might otherwise 
 imagine, — a difference between the man in the pulpit 
 and out of the pulpit. In everyday life the Edward 
 Hale whom Margaret Harding knew was doubtless 
 very like the other young men of his social set, his 
 brother Nathan, James Lowell, William Story, Wil- 
 liam White, or others, — clever, interesting, amusing; 
 full of the literature of the day and of current inter- 
 ests in daguerreotypes, in wild flowers, or in chemistry ; 
 taken up in his school-teaching or reporting for the 
 Advertiser, or acting as secretary for his father; 
 a young man full of the usual interests and occupa- 
 tions of the world of his time. Such a one, like any 
 other, would have his view of life, his ideas of good and 
 bad, his theory of practical ethics, but whatever were 
 his views in such matters they would be but the views 
 of one of ourselves. When he stood in the pulpit, 
 however, and began to preach, he was somehow 
 different. He had a position. He had a sort of 
 authority. He was the guide and spiritual director. 
 It may well have been difficult at all times to recon- 
 cile the two positions; we need not wonder that 
 Margaret Harding had feared that she might be 
 
Church of the Unity at Worcester 
 Dr. Hale's Church from 1845 to 1856 
 
EARLY SERMON-WRITING 153 
 
 tempted to laugh. It is a testimony not only to her 
 own right feeling but to the real solidity of my 
 father's character that when the time came she felt 
 no such temptation, but rather a sentiment of gravity 
 and solemnity. 
 
 At a much later time 1 he wrote: 
 
 "The first sermon I ever wrote in form, as a 
 sermon I mean, is on Little Things. I was very 
 much under the sway of Leigh Hunt and Charles 
 Lamb who were very much in the essayist habit of 
 fiddling on Trifles and asserting their importance." 
 
 This sermon is that marked Number 1 in a list which 
 in course of time numbered over two thousand. 
 It is named "Trifles" and is on the text Matthew 11 : 
 29, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And 
 one of them shall not fall to the ground without 
 your Father." It was preached at Mr. Barnard's 
 Chapel, Warren Street, June 20, 1841, to an audience 
 apparently of children. Its first words are: "There 
 is nothing in the world then so small but what God 
 cares for it." 
 
 It would not be proper to take this first sermon 
 as a specimen of my father's earlier preaching. 
 Many of these early sermons he gave a number of 
 times and often "rebuilt", but this he seems never 
 to have preached again. Nor does the idea often 
 reappear in his sermons, though once in a while the 
 conception of the importance of little things will be 
 seen. Yet since it remained in his own mind as an 
 indication of his present interests and mode of 
 thinking, we may spend a moment upon it. It is not 
 
 1 Freeman MSS. 
 
154 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 very important in its thought. It is very simple in 
 idea ; on the back of it are written two or three general 
 heads, and the sermon is a development of them. 
 It is however written in rather careful rhetorical 
 form. In speaking of the faculties of the body he 
 says, "There will be no harm done, if while we esteem 
 and respect these faculties, we remember that there 
 is a Being to whom we all are nothing, who commands 
 and rules everything of which we can conceive, who 
 made us and everything around us, who can destroy 
 us and everything around us, who gave us the facul- 
 ties we boast of, and who can take them away, 
 who taught us the knowledge we are proud of although 
 compared with his it is nothing/' Such a sentence 
 shows the mind careful as to style; it may not be 
 much like Leigh Hunt or Charles Lamb — they were 
 probably of chief influence in the matter of idea — 
 but it is more the writing of the essayist turning over 
 an idea in his own mind than it is that of the preacher 
 who is earnestly pushing for his effect. 
 
 So far as this object is concerned, my father wrote 
 also in continuing his comment, "Dr. Channing on 
 the contrary is said to have said that a man should 
 never preach on a little subject, and I knew that one 
 of my criticisms on the Brattle Street ethical teaching 
 was that I expected some Sunday to be taught there 
 to brush my teeth and clean my nails." This first 
 sermon would doubtless be called ethical rather than 
 religious teaching. We must not infer too much from 
 it, for it is really only a casual address delivered on 
 a slight occasion, and of importance only because 
 he has himself alluded to it as significant. 
 
EARLY SERMON-WRITING 155 
 
 The second sermon in the list is on the Mediatorial 
 Office of our Saviour, and was preached before the 
 Boston Association at Doctor Pierce's, Brookline, 
 October 24, 1842. It was at this meeting of the 
 Association that the following minute was passed: 
 
 "At a meeting of the Boston Association at the 
 house of the Rev. Thos. Gray, M.D. on Monday, 
 October 24th, 1842, the following vote was unani- 
 mously passed. 
 
 "Viz: That Mr. Edward E. Hale having presented 
 to this Association satisfactory testimonials of his 
 qualifications for the Christian ministry, receive our 
 approbation to preach the Gospel, together with our 
 recommendation to the Churches of our denomination, 
 and our sincere prayer and hope for his future suc- 
 cess and usefulness." 
 
 This sermon — whatever was his ordinary mode of 
 thought at the time — was distinctly a theological 
 statement. The occasion doubtless called for a 
 statement of belief and the sermon, though by no 
 means a dry doctrinal discourse, must have been 
 planned to give an understanding of his theological 
 position. 
 
 The line of thought runs about as follows : 
 
 God desired at a certain time to recall his fallen 
 children, to reveal to them a new gospel, one of love. 
 To reveal this new gospel an example was necessary, 
 for fallen man would not apprehend abstract instruc- 
 tions. Christ came to unite man once more to God. 
 In Christ were mingled the essence of man and the 
 essence of God. Just how this mingling is accom- 
 plished he would not inquire (because no one can 
 
156 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 know anything of it), but he goes on: "Let me say 
 this however; that when I find that man's nature 
 is assumed by a being who is entitled to style him- 
 self in human language, the Son of God, I find a 
 strong proof of the dignity of man's nature. When 
 I see that no man has ever been able to show where 
 Christ's divinity ended and where those powers and 
 qualities which he showed in common with a perfect 
 man began, I cannot but believe that the nature 
 of man, when carried to this perfection, is more beauti- 
 ful, more spiritual, and more divine, than, without 
 this exhibition, there were reason to suppose." Yet 
 in spite of such a conception, he goes on later, in 
 spite of different opinions as to the possibilities of 
 man's excellence and possible perfection, "I do con- 
 ceive that for a revelation of God's will there was 
 wanted more than the exhibition and agency of a 
 man, however perfected and exalted." Revelation 
 by man alone would always have possibility of evil. 
 Such revelation was communicated to mankind 
 by the influence of Christ's life, not by any mysterious 
 atonement. 
 
 The sermons following the list are not develop- 
 ments of the ideas of either of these first two, though 
 each of those ideas reappears several times. In fact, 
 the sermons do not follow each other in the regular 
 development of any idea, as we might naturally 
 expect. It would hardly be natural to imagine a 
 young man trying to develop a system of thought in 
 a series of sermons. The case most naturally would 
 seem to be that each sermon, as it was written, 
 represented the application to some particular idea 
 
EARLY SERMON-WRITING 157 
 
 of some general set of principles, or the handling 
 of some idea, or some special way of thinking. One 
 thought or another would appear or reappear in one 
 or another place, but we should have no definite 
 development of thought. 
 
 Natural or not, such is the character of these ser- 
 mons. They stand well together, but they do not 
 constitute any definite system of thought. He did 
 not himself regard these early efforts as significant; 
 as has already been said he remarks in writing to 
 his uncle Edward Everett that "one must lose a few 
 pawns in beginning" and goes on, "I do not quite 
 know yet how I shall open my game." 
 
 Yet as we read them all together now, they express 
 something, — a personality, a way of looking at the 
 world, an ideal (we may almost say) of thought and 
 action. 
 
 The texts are most commonly chosen from the 
 Epistles; they are in the main short, even accidental, 
 utterances of Paul or John which serve to show the 
 tendency of the thought and act of the apostle. 
 "Let us go on" in Heb. 6: 1 gives opportunity for 
 a sermon on " Progress." "I cannot tell — God 
 knoweth" in 2 Cor. 12: 2 is the text for a sermon on 
 "Man's Ignorance: God's Omniscience." He deals 
 with each text with an appreciation of the circum- 
 stances and conditions of the time ; but he does not 
 attempt any very particular explanation, he does not 
 attempt to make his sermon a real interpretation of 
 the ideas in the mind of the apostle. To him the 
 text is an utterance, perhaps by chance, that embodies 
 some principle of the Christian idea which the apostle 
 
158 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 had learned, possibly from Christ himself. The 
 apostle full of the earlier spirit of our religion could 
 not speak without giving expression to some reality 
 of Christian experience, so that even a casual utter- 
 ance might be found to be surcharged with meaning. 
 The sermons are therefore not expositions of the 
 theological doctrine to be found in the writings of 
 Paul and John; indeed from what would be commonly 
 thought theological doctrine they are singularly 
 free. They do not attempt to give us the system of 
 theology, or any part of it, of the great apostles. 
 They express rather the preacher's own view as he 
 finds means of illustrating it in the authoritative 
 word of scripture. If we try to define that view as 
 it appears in these early writings without much refer- 
 ence to whatever case we may know, we should 
 probably say that it is in general the view of one who 
 regards the world with satisfaction, who sees in life 
 a great opportunity, who looks on the designs of men 
 and women as inadequate indeed to the full measure 
 of what might be, but yet as earnest of a great 
 possibility. Man was in the world to live rightly 
 and happily, and such a life was possible. True, 
 man had fallen from his first possibilities, and the 
 earlier forms of religion had only indicated in the 
 faintest way the manner in which he might attain 
 again to his earlier happiness. But God had desired 
 to recall his wandering children, and his son had come 
 with the revelation of a new religion, a religion not 
 of observances such as might be offered a child, or a 
 childish people, but of principles which might be 
 applied in every contingency of life to make it the 
 
EARLY SERMON-WRITING 159 
 
 kind of life God meant for his children. And this 
 Son of God, offering in his words these principles of 
 life, had shown in his own life that they might be 
 applied to the incidents and occurrences of any life. 
 Man then could be happy, for he could attain per- 
 fection by learning the word of the great teacher 
 and following the act of the great example. The 
 sermons offer no complete defense of life, it is true, 
 but they show a well-developed theory of optimism. 
 
 Some fifty years after this time my father preached 
 at Berlin, Massachusetts; he began with the fol- 
 lowing: * 
 
 "It will be fifty years next Saturday, the 12th of 
 November, since I preached in this place the first 
 sermon which I ever preached in Massachusetts. . . 
 The two sermons which I delivered on that occasion 
 still exist, somewhat yellow from time. I am not 
 displeased, after fifty years, to find what texts, 
 I chose for them. In the morning we considered St. 
 John's direction, 'Let us love not in word, neither 
 in tongue, but in deed and in truth/ In the after- 
 noon, I spoke from the same epistle of St. John, 
 the text, 'Perfect love casteth out fear/ I am 
 glad, I say, that I know that that Divine Spirit 
 which guides us always, led me, even in boyhood, 
 to choose such themes, shall I say, as the fit starting 
 places for the duties of the pulpit. That perfect 
 love casts out fear, and that this love must show 
 itself in action and not in word, — this may be said 
 to be a fair foundation for whatever the pulpit has 
 to say or do." 
 
 1 A Sermon — Tis 50 Years since — November 6, 1892. 
 
160 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Had he had occasion to review more carefully 
 the preaching of these earlier years, he might well 
 have maintained his general satisfaction at its 
 character. One cannot say that the kernel of his 
 later work is to be found there : it is not, — the 
 ideas most characteristic of him come later. But 
 the view of life to be found in the sermons of these 
 early years is the same practical optimistic one 
 which distinguished his work through life. It is a 
 working theory which says, "Get the best out of 
 things; know everything that you can, with faith; 
 growth means possibility of new growth." If one 
 tried to relate the ideal of some of the currents of 
 thought at the time, one would easily discern the 
 appreciation of the value of knowledge then so 
 prevalent. Later in life, he often spoke somewhat 
 slightingly of the "march of intellect fad", as he 
 once called it. "The reign of Lyceums and Mechan- 
 ics Institutes had begun. Briefly, there was a real 
 impression that the Kingdom of Heaven was to be 
 brought in by teaching people what were the relations 
 of the acids and alkalis and what was the derivation 
 of the word 'cordwainer/ If we only knew enough, 
 it was thought, we would be wise enough to keep out 
 of the fire and we should not be burned." * 
 
 He himself in these sermons never offers any 
 such view. Yet there is an instinctive leaning on 
 knowledge natural enough in one whose life up to 
 that time had been almost wholly taken up in its 
 attainment. One might guess at that from Margaret 
 Harding's remark concerning the fault of the young 
 
 1 "A New England Boyhood." P. 26. 
 
EARLY SERMON-WRITING 161 
 
 minister — "They content themselves with telling 
 us what our duties are, without showing us how we 
 are to perform them." That would be the way of one 
 who considered that knowledge was the principal 
 thing. One might think the same thing from the 
 sermon on "Man's Ignorance: God's Omniscience." 
 "We may labor, study, learn, constantly press on," 
 he. writes, "and we ought to: — but there will be 
 much that we shall not attain. It is then that a 
 true heart turns more confidently to its great Master 
 and Teacher and whispers to us, 
 
 'Man, 'tis enough for you to question why, — 
 Leave to your God to answer. If you knew — 
 Could you know all things, why need Christ 
 have come?' " 
 
 Christ as the one who should give to man the true 
 knowledge of God, — such a conception often occurs 
 in these sermons. Without regarding it as a complete 
 definition of his work and his purpose, we can see 
 that it is one most natural to the time. He prob- 
 ably himself never had any overweening estimation 
 of the value of knowledge pure and simple ; doubtless 
 he always felt more or less definitely, as he said later, 
 that "the business of a preacher, as distinguished 
 from that of a chief justice or other lawyer, is to help 
 people to accept or grapple with the difficulties or 
 mysteries — instead of trying to explain them away." 
 To help, rather than to explain, — that was what 
 Margaret Harding thought the minister should do, 
 and that, in spite of the high value given to knowl- 
 edge, these sermons evidently try to do. They are 
 
162 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 based on a clear idea of fact, but they are meant to 
 inspire and to help. 
 
 He certainly had the feeling that there were greater 
 things in the world than knowledge. In the sermon 
 preached at Berlin, which has just been mentioned, 
 he shows that love is the mark of the Christian. 
 The text is i John 3: 18, 19 — "Let us not love in 
 word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth", 
 and the sermon shows that mutual love among 
 mankind is the rule of life, if all will adopt it, and not 
 only the ideal rule, but that the example of the life 
 of our Saviour is the possible rule for the individual. 
 He urges his hearers to think how love and con- 
 sideration for others will soften and sweeten business, 
 family, personal life, and goes on: 
 
 "Jesus as the Son of God, had the power when he 
 assumed man's nature to exhibit it in the perfection 
 to which it might possibly attain. Examine the 
 record of his forgiveness, of his kindness to his 
 enemies, and of his compassion to all men. There is 
 a standard at which we ought to aim, and we have 
 the power if we have the will to attain it. Christ 
 prayed for those who persecuted and despised him. 
 He made his disciples do the same, and can they not — • 
 can we not, do so ? If we wish to do so, have we not 
 the power? And is there any curse upon us which 
 prevents us from wishing to do well? Man is not left 
 with an indistinct desire or craving to do good without 
 the ability to do it. When he fails to do it, he may 
 accuse himself and he ought. Let no man say 
 when he will be tempted, 'I am tempted of God' — • 
 for God tempteth no man to evil. No! God has set 
 
EARLY SERMON-WRITING 163 
 
 before us an example in the person of his Son, which 
 shows us of what we are capable, and to what we 
 may attain, and it is by our exertions to attain it, 
 that we may and must show our claims to a truly 
 Christian character." 
 
 A passage like this shows another thing, the 
 general rhetorical form in which these early ser- 
 mons were cast. Rhetoric, perhaps, one should 
 not call it, for it is obviously a natural currency 
 of thought, and these old manuscript pages, though 
 they show plenty of correction, do not, as a rule, 
 show much working over. Corrections were fre- 
 quently made as he went along, an additional 
 sentence or two was often inserted, but in the main, 
 the form of the sermon is the form of the current 
 thought. Somewhat conversational it is, but yet 
 a little lifted above common conversation. A style 
 for speaking, of course, and not for an elaborate 
 delivery either, yet of a dignity above ordinary 
 talk by reason chiefly, it would seem, of the true 
 feeling that dictates it. 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 
 
 i 846-1 847 
 
 T was on the 29th of April, 1846, that my father 
 was ordained minister of the Church of the Unity, 
 Worcester. The Unitarian body is congregational 
 in its church polity, and holds, as did the early 
 Independents, of England, that each body of wor- 
 shipers constitutes a church, independent of others, 
 save as fraternal interest may allow interference 
 or delegation of authority. When a minister is 
 ordained over a church, therefore, the ceremony 
 is not one of a regular body admitting and com- 
 missioning a neophyte, but rather that of a number 
 of representatives in a great fraternity welcoming 
 a new member to their circle. Ordinations, then, 
 in that day, were little assemblies of ministers, 
 generally of the locality, little councils of the 
 church. They served not only the particular pur- 
 pose for which they were gathered, but as a means 
 also of communication and society to the ministers 
 in the country near at hand. One pastor would 
 make the installing prayer, another would give 
 the charge, another the right hand of fellowship. 
 One perhaps would write an original hymn. My 
 father after his own ordination took part in many 
 another ceremony of the same sort, sometimes 
 
 164 
 
MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 165 
 
 preaching or taking some other part in the direc- 
 tion of worship, sometimes writing the ordination 
 hymn. In the case of his own ordination, the 
 hymn was written by his friend and classmate, 
 Samuel Longfellow, then just at the beginning of 
 his active ministry. 
 
 He had been preaching at Worcester for about 
 eight months at the time of his ordination, and 
 there was doubtless at this particular time no great 
 change in his usual work. He had already begun 
 the regular duties of a pastor. He had twice be- 
 fore been settled for a considerable period, once at 
 Northampton and once at Washington. In both 
 of these places, besides his Sunday sermons, he not 
 only carried on the usual activities of the church, 
 but took pains to continue the pastoral relations of 
 preacher and congregation, yet he had not taken 
 up the work of organizing the church activities 
 into any definite form for the future. This in 
 Worcester was the one thing of most importance. 
 He found himself settled in a place where he meant 
 to stay permanently and where he meant to take 
 a definite position in the life of the town. Natur- 
 ally he wanted the Church of the Unity to take 
 the ideal position as he conceived it in such a com- 
 munity. Just what that position was does not ap- 
 pear very clearly in his letters and diaries of this 
 time. The old New England ideal, according to 
 which the Church represented the community in 
 its religious activity, as the State represented it in 
 its civil capacity, was of course impossible. No- 
 where in New England — save in the smallest 
 
166 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 places — was there any remaining form of what 
 had in colonial days been the legal and usual thing. 
 Not only were there at Worcester, as elsewhere, 
 several churches of the differing denominations 
 which divided even the old New England, but there 
 was a considerable influx of new population which 
 gathered together people of the other churches 
 and often of no church at all. 
 
 The Church, then, was not the community in 
 its religious aspect as it had been. Just what 
 conception did the new minister of the Church of 
 the Unity have as he entered upon his ministry? 
 Without a perfectly definite conception, he had evi- 
 dently already formed in his mind the ideal, to- 
 ward which he continued to strive through life, of 
 the Church as one of the active social factors in 
 American life, working by whatever personal or 
 institutional means suggested themselves, toward 
 the upbuilding of the community in which it existed. 
 A scrap of a note of a speech at some religious an- 
 niversary gives a good idea of his thoughts at about 
 this time: 
 
 "Mr. Hale said, in allusion to some remarks of 
 Mr. Hedges, that he knew very little about the 
 negative side of Unitarianism and never succeeded 
 in understanding it or explaining it. Its positive 
 side gave him more to do than he ever did and 
 suggested all he had to say at the meeting. The 
 business of the church was positive. The only 
 value of such an assemblage of men of heart and 
 spirit, at work in the walks of moral and religious 
 effort is, that they assure themselves whether they 
 
MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 167 
 
 are doing their share in the great positive work of 
 the world's redemption. In that work all men of 
 conscience and life — in whatever calling — are en- 
 gaged. All of them, however engaged, are seek- 
 ing to lift up the civilization of the world. We 
 meet here, — in these philanthropic assemblies to 
 see whether we, — in our several lines of action, 
 are doing our share — and keeping up with the 
 immense well trained work of other laborers. It 
 is the work of the world's salvation which is given 
 us to urge along — with such powers as God en- 
 dows us with." And he goes on with a figure which 
 compares the material and religious workers in 
 the world to the oarsmen in a boat. They are 
 engaged in a common effort to get the world ahead, 
 and each side wants to do its share in the work, 
 that the boat may go ahead and not be driven 
 around in a circle. 
 
 On some other occasion — the notes are fast- 
 ened together without further memorandum — we 
 read: 
 
 "Rev. Mr. Hale of Worcester was the next 
 speaker. He would inquire what sensible men, 
 that is religious men, are trying to do? He sup- 
 posed they were trying to lift up the civilization of 
 the world, trying to make something better out 
 of the society in which we live. They had come 
 together on that occasion to see if they were keep- 
 ing civilization up. The material means of civili- 
 zation do not exactly accomplish the thing for us. 
 We want to level everybody up. ' Friend, come 
 up higher,' is the word of Christianity to Civili- 
 
1 68 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 zation. We want to elevate men in their physical 
 habits, their education, their perils, their morals 
 — in every relation of life." 
 
 These two conceptions are perhaps not consist- 
 ent in any rigid development, nor is either to be 
 considered as a carefully thought out statement 
 of the place of the Church in modern life. But 
 both do give an idea which was doubtless impor- 
 tant in my father's thinking and acting at this 
 time. The Church was a social power; whatever 
 character it had in ministering to individual souls 
 was absorbed and included in that larger office, the 
 power of society. In this social office the Church 
 was but one of several agencies engaged in the 
 same work, the up-building of civilization, other- 
 wise to be called the salvation, even the redemp- 
 tion, of the world. But though only one of several 
 agents or factors, and though not always the most 
 modern or most efficacious of such agents, it was 
 rather the highest and had its effect on the others, 
 just as other agents had their effect on the Church. 
 Such a conception perhaps he never definitely formed 
 or expressed, but it was evidently, in its main 
 points, at the bottom of his religious idea at this 
 very early time as it was throughout his after life. 
 
 Just whence came such an idea it is hard to tell. 
 In his college days, he details with apparent ap- 
 proval the thoughts of the Rev. William Swett, 
 who disapproved strongly of those steps toward 
 secularization which were becoming apparent on 
 all sides. Ministers knew more of Texas than of 
 Judaea, the minister complained, and were more 
 
MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 169 
 
 interested in anti-slavery and Canada than in 
 the salvation. 1 The only comment of the young 
 collegian on these ideas is his mention of " Dr. 
 Channing and the other clergymen who cannot 
 mind their own business." When we consider his 
 general literary ideal and the broad conception 
 which he first had of the ministry as a life, ia the 
 main, of literary leisure, we can see that he would 
 naturally have sympathized with Doctor Swett. 
 That the Church was to throw itself into the general 
 work of the world, that its chief effort was to be 
 the uplifting of what was otherwise considered 
 secular civilization, this was hardly in keeping with 
 such religious ideas as we know of in his earlier 
 days. 
 
 Yet, however formed, these were the control- 
 ling ideas with which he began his pastorate at 
 Worcester, and the record of the ten years he spent 
 there — not to speak of the fifty years he spent 
 in his next pastorate — show how important they 
 were to him. That the Church was to be organ- 
 ized so as to be a social factor — that is still if 
 not a new idea, at least in many places an unac- 
 cepted one to-day — that the Church, as a social 
 factor, is concerned not merely with its own people, 
 but with everyone with whom it comes into con- 
 tact, is a natural corollary. Both ideas he had 
 well in mind as he arranged his work. Among 
 his own congregation he was not concerned with 
 spiritual states alone ; he was not merely one who 
 should advise them about their spiritual state on 
 
 1 See I, p. 39. 
 
170 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Sunday and at such other times as he might per- 
 sonally meet them, and who was concerned chiefly 
 with such spiritual functions as christening, mar- 
 riages, and funerals. He was one who had an 
 interest, and as far as was natural, a guiding in- 
 terest, working in all the activities of life. But he 
 had a position outside of his congregation as well. 
 Wherever there were those who had no one else 
 to stand by them in their social life — whether it 
 were to help them to some work that should give 
 them a daily wage, or to offer them some associa- 
 tion and fellowship which should make their lives 
 happier or more effective — there, in his view, the 
 Church of the Unity should be at hand to counsel 
 and help. Hence from the early days at Wor- 
 cester we find not only record books with careful 
 lists of members of the congregation and partic- 
 ular notes of parish calls and other activities; 
 we have also notes in which are set down the daily 
 work that came up with people not of the congre- 
 gation, who had no connection with him or with his 
 church except that he had the ability and the 
 church the desire to be useful in just such cases. 
 These instances of various forms of help and coun- 
 sel were doubtless nothing absolutely new, yet 
 they were more systematically cared for and fol- 
 lowed by my father, even at this time, than they 
 were by many other ministers, and they certainly 
 played a far more important part in his mind in 
 the conception of what a clergyman ought to do. 
 They developed into a systematic theory of church 
 work which he followed out through life and they 
 
MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 171 
 
 overflowed the limits of theory and developed into 
 all sorts of illustrations and examples, as well as 
 topics and subjects in his literary work. 
 
 Thorough individualist as he was, there are many 
 notes of a keen appreciation of the value of neces- 
 sity of a life in common. Talking with Mr. Preston 
 in Columbia, South Carolina, he notices that the 
 South separates from the North and grows more 
 and more conservative. Among other things, "They 
 live so little together that there is none of the con- 
 tagion of large masses of men acting on each other. 1 
 
 A little before this is a poem on Cotton and one 
 on Unitarianism not being very suitable for the 
 South on account of being founded on brother- 
 hood of man. 
 
 But these things took form in his mind but slowly. 
 Suggestions came from very different sources: his 
 mind reaching out somewhat vaguely found a hint 
 in one place or another, and when it found one 
 developed it into some practical form which satis- 
 fied his ideal. In his journal for August and Sep- 
 tember, 1846, after a good deal about association 
 with other ministers and work suggested thereby, 
 he writes: 
 
 "Saturday I wrote two sermons and a communion 
 service address, Sunday 105, 106, and the service 
 only excited me the more for this union of true men 
 to take a true hold on the world. For behind all 
 these different suggestions has been Rudolstadt, 
 — George Sand's with its at times paltry, but at 
 times grand descriptions of Illumination. Why 
 
 1 Journal, May 26, 1848. 
 
172 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 does the Real sleep when these petty imitations 
 flourish and seem so successful?" 
 
 A bit later after some definite memoranda "to get 
 some children's books for George Brown", to do this 
 and that, he adds, "In one word to extend constantly 
 wider active relations with the true world." 
 
 His journal during these first years does not 
 show the development of any new plan or scheme. 
 It was not for a good while yet that he began that 
 systematic plan of putting down appointments 
 beforehand and records afterwards that for the 
 latter half of his life offers such an accurate means 
 of determining just what he was doing at any time. 
 Still he noted a good deal : his journal records 
 parish calls, parish parties, teachers' classes in 
 the congregation, meetings, exchanges, meetings 
 of denominational associations and councils, and 
 other things which belong to-day to the everyday 
 routine of many an active-minded clergyman, and 
 probably did then, with the addition of lectures, 
 addresses, and magazine articles, which are not 
 so usual. It is in minor ways that we see the growth 
 of new ideas. Note these early records of practi- 
 cal philanthropy; they are put down as a little 
 out of the usual course. 
 
 "September 2. Last night a talk with Mr. Hill, 
 who had been preaching at the County House. 
 Resolved to go this morning and see that little 
 boy, Geo. Brown, out next month; and praise God 
 did it this morning. Sickly— bright — sad — -perhaps 
 wicked: — but likes poetry — ! and I will see him 
 again." 
 
MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 173 
 
 Three weeks later is the note that "George 
 Brown comes out of prison next Monday. I have 
 promised to meet him there and see him to his 
 home." All of which, no doubt, he did, though 
 he makes no reference to it in his diary, which here 
 becomes more and more fragmentary. The diary 
 has more notes on the literature of Illuminism than 
 upon the practical illustrations of it. But though 
 there is not much account of his beginning the 
 work of practical philanthropy, yet that may 
 be because it is much easier for a man of literary 
 tastes to write about his own studies and reading 
 than about his experiments in working out a diffi- 
 cult social problem. 
 
 A year later he had another experience, still so 
 novel as to be worth a page in the diary: 
 
 "September 1, 1847. 
 
 "Had a call from an Irishman who had lost his 
 hat last night in a gale of wind; Anglice pawned 
 it for liquor, of which he was still redolent. Fixed 
 him up a hat, and then, could not I let him have 
 a few cents to get some breakfast with? I could 
 let him have some breakfast and so Werther's 
 Charlotte-like appeared with bread and cheese 
 which however he wrapped up in his rag: — and 
 next came 'hadn't I perhaps a pair of pantaloons 
 he could wear.' No, I had given my pantaloons 
 to a gentleman from Poland, and then after a little 
 talk about his pedestrian journey from Hartford, 
 'had not I a vest which would fit him/ No, 
 my vest in fact had gone to his cousins in Ireland: 
 — though I did not tell him so: — and after a few 
 
174 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 words more, about the way his breastbone was 
 broken — he suggested that his coat was worn and 
 then — But I told him it looked very well, and the 
 weather was warm — and so exchanging blessings 
 he went his way. 
 
 "Put that down to the charity of the day." 
 On his birthday, as often, he wrote down in the 
 form of verse some of the thoughts which had been 
 in his mind. 
 
 "April 3, 1847. My twenty-sixth birthday. 
 Easter Eve. 
 
 "Why seek the living here among the dead! 
 Father! and why do we who breathe Thy life, 
 Who move with miracles of love around, 
 Who know our immortality of life: — 
 Why do we pause, why falter, why not go 
 Where he — our Saviour went — to every walk 
 Of mercy — to know and call to truth 
 The worst, the poorest, the most sorrow worn ? 
 Why plan and read so much and leave so much 
 
 undone ! 
 Why seek in dead resolve — the life above," 
 
 That the Church was to be a social power, — ■ a 
 power in the world of men, — this was undoubtedly 
 a principle well fixed in his mind by the time he 
 settled down to work at Worcester. But just how 
 it was to do the work, just how it was to be what 
 it had to be, — as to that he was perhaps not so 
 entirely sure. He did not at this time have any 
 full or careful knowledge of these matters. It 
 was not for five or six years that he began to feel 
 
MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 175 
 
 the necessity of thorough and accurate knowledge 
 of questions of emigration, taxation, relief of 
 the poor, care of delinquents, which were among 
 the first of the social studies to which he began 
 to give attention. As soon as he became convinced 
 of the importance of these matters, he began to 
 read and study and write about them. At pres- 
 ent, however, his ideas were but general theories. 
 We may be fairly sure that he did not think in any 
 definite way of what is nowadays called an "in- 
 stitutional" church. Some of the great organiza- 
 tions of the present, with their missions, clubs, 
 kindergartens, lecture courses, savings banks, and 
 many other means of reaching and touching hu- 
 manity on all sides and in all ways, would have 
 been as much of a surprise to him at just this time, 
 as his own conception was to many other people. 
 He undoubtedly believed in the social mission of 
 the Church, but there is nothing to make us be- 
 lieve that he had any idea of an institutional church 
 rather than a personal church. A personal rela- 
 tion, that was what he had in mind, just as Jesus 
 Christ had had it in mind. It had been possible 
 in Galilee; it was doubtless possible in Worcester. 
 George Brown and the wandering Irishman were 
 the advance guard of a never ending army. The 
 next year there were so many of these broken men 
 and women that he began to enter them in a book. 
 He put them down as they came along and systemat- 
 ically indexed them. He generally gives a little 
 sketch of each case. So many of them came from 
 Ireland that right in the middle of his book is a 
 
176 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 map of Ireland carefully drawn and worked in with 
 notes here and there of the places where one or 
 another had come from. These people do not 
 appear to have belonged to his church or to have 
 had anything to do with it. He sometimes paid 
 them money out of the church fund and sometimes 
 got payments from the city. But in the main he 
 looked after them himself not with money, but by 
 some personal effort, thinking up something that 
 they could do and either arranging it himself or 
 getting somebody else to arrange it. It does not 
 appear that he did this in any public capacity, 
 though he was doubtless led to it or confirmed in it 
 by being one of the town's Overseers of the Poor. 
 He had been asked to serve on the Board of Educa- 
 tion, but thought he would be more useful in 
 the other place. 
 
 To which may be added a comment on his min- 
 isterial work made at the time, and one written 
 long afterward. 
 
 "Jan. 15, 1847. The first entry for this year! — 
 Last night and to-day come the first of the sad 
 series of intimations — which from the first I have 
 known as the inevitable reaction from the enthu- 
 siasm of an ordination time. The talk of two or 
 three silly women to one sensible one is a fair 
 enough index of the discussive tendency of the parish 
 in the middle of a winter; — and yet I am half 
 surprised now that I hear of such criticism how 
 little it pains me. First undoubtedly because I 
 was prepared for it: — Vide Palfrey's Ware, Hunt- 
 ington, Dr. Frothingham, and so on ad inf. — knew 
 
MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 177 
 
 it was inevitable: — though perhaps nine months 
 is a shorter time than I should have looked for. 
 
 "Second because such murmuring criticism is 
 either true or false. What I know is mistaken 
 — false — I cannot be greatly troubled at. ( If 
 Mr. Hale wants anything he wants heart' — is 
 ridiculous when said of me — whose only force of 
 any kind is sympathy — & sympathetic feeling. 
 That does not trouble me. 
 
 "Per contra when they say that I have not spent 
 time enough on my sermons & have run about too 
 much — ■ they say what is very true — though 
 not in the exact significance they give it — and 
 what I had found out by New Years' Day. 
 
 "So we will hammer on and God be with the right! 
 
 " — - then father in the wilderness 
 
 "Thy angels strengthen him!" 
 
 The following is a reminiscence, written long 
 afterward, but probably a pretty accurate one: 
 
 "My dear Jasher. 
 
 "This is the close of the charge I should have 
 given you if I could have gone to your ordination. 
 
 "To reduce to practice the considerations I have 
 offered, let me suppose that you will regard the 
 first of the boys or young men of this church who 
 happens to meet you tomorrow, as the special 
 gift of God to you as a personal friend, — ask 
 him to walk with you. Bring him home and show 
 him your books or your gun or rods. Help him 
 tomorrow night in his lessons. Borrow his horse 
 when you have a distant call to make and wish 
 
178 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 to go in the saddle. Take him with you if you 
 hunt the glen for climbing ferns or for lady's slip- 
 per. Read with him, sit with him on the hay 
 cocks, or make hay with him. If you are the man 
 I think you are, you and this young Arthur will be 
 intimate and confidential friends before the year 
 is over. 
 
 "This is the first of May. By the first of June, 
 you will have established such friendship in the 
 parish, when you and Arthur go for your wild 
 flowers, his sister Blanche, who is now an awk- 
 ward and self-thinking girl of thirteen, may go on 
 the party. You and he will put confidence in her, 
 
 — can cure her of that cursed introspection. She 
 can be made to believe that people are not looking 
 at her, — that nobody cares whether she is alive 
 or dead. She can be interested in life in flowers 
 
 — and books, and frogs and toads, — in milk weed 
 and chrysalis and butterfly. Before the year is over, 
 Blanche who will be nearly a year older, will be able 
 to take a comfortable and useful part in life. 
 
 "But you three are not the only people in New 
 Arcady. In July you and Clarence will find each 
 other out, — some day when you and he go in 
 swimming with the boys, — and twelve months 
 will teach you and him that you like to be together, 
 and that you have much to bring you together. 
 And you will find that Mrs. David, Bertie's Mother, 
 is never more glad than when you join the three 
 youngsters at her house for some of your combina- 
 tions of study, of walking or riding, — of oratory, 
 of autographs, or of a thousand exigencies of life. 
 
MINISTRY AT WORCESTER 179 
 
 Four sworn allies have you in the business of bring- 
 ing in the Kingdom of God before August is over. 
 
 "And if, my dear boy, you do not think of your- 
 self more highly than you ought to think, Septem- 
 ber, November, January and March will add to 
 that little sodality, Ethelbert, and Griscom and 
 Ichabod and Kensing among the boys, and Fanny 
 and Harriet and Josepha and Laura among the 
 girls will appear as September and December and 
 February and April come round. 
 
 "In some such way, you can enlist in that neigh- 
 borhood in the next twelve months, twelve of the 
 most spirited young people here, between 13 years 
 old and 19. They will be loyal to each other and 
 loyal to you, loyal to the church, loyal to the town 
 and state. They will be consecrated ministers of 
 the Good God, — that his will may be done on 
 earth, — quite as much as you are. Take care 
 that they are not more efficient than you. 
 
 "I have only described the intimacy of one 
 year with 12 young people of an average age of 16 
 years. Observe that the next year you can do the 
 same, the next year the same. Fifty years hence, 
 if you are still in this ministry, you will have a list 
 of 500 close confidential friends, whose lives have 
 been consecrated to the love of God and the love 
 of men, — who remember the passages of difficulty 
 and of joy, when you helped each other, and to 
 whose common joy, common strength, common force, 
 — comfort the present prosperity of the world to 
 some extent depends." 
 
F 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 LIFE AT WORCESTER 
 
 i 846-1 8 50 
 
 OR the first years of his pastorate at Worces- 
 ter my father's personal life was largely his life as 
 a minister. The tie between him and the others 
 of the family at Boston was by no means less strong, 
 but he was not now living with them ; he was living 
 by himself in new surroundings. One or another 
 of the family was often in Worcester with him, and 
 he himself was often in Boston. But the new 
 surroundings necessarily made a separate life, dif- 
 ferent from the common life of the family which 
 was so much to him. He was now separated from 
 the home circle that had been so important an 
 element in his existence, nor was there anything 
 that could exactly take its place. Worcester was 
 not very far from Boston; the railroad between 
 was a family affair, — he could without much 
 trouble get to Boston, and others of the family 
 could without much difficulty get to Worcester. 
 Yet in spite of all communication, it was inevitable 
 that old usages and circumstances should pass 
 and that new ones should take their place. Out 
 of hundreds of letters, a few only can be selected 
 as giving a general atmosphere. 
 
 180 
 
LIFE AT WORCESTER 181 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER 
 
 Undated, but in 1848 
 "My long silence must be attributed to various 
 causes, princeps inter primas of which is 'Jane 
 Eyre'! I should have written Monday but each 
 instant of leisure was occupied by 'Jane Eyre' 
 and Tuesday, but each similar instant was occu- 
 pied by the undone work of Monday — and review- 
 ing 'Jane Eyre.' And so yesterday was a day of 
 chaos, in which I finished a Lyceum Lecture and 
 carried it and Charles over to Grafton at 4.30 p.m. 
 to deliver it, of which he will tell you in a letter 
 which he is now writing. I was delighted to see 
 him, and am only sorry that he did not come be- 
 fore. We will go down Saturday morning: he on 
 his way to Cambridge and I on mine to New Bed- 
 ford. 
 
 "The week has been rather a gay one and a good 
 deal occupied with the end of the sleighing, and the 
 beginning, middle, and end of the thaw. I think 
 I left home Thursday p.m. Friday was a little 
 gathering at Mrs. Harris's in honor of Mrs. Thayer's 
 79th birthday. I was there till nearly 11 and then 
 (you remember the evening of your sleighride) 
 I walked out Graftonward about a mile and met 
 the sleighs in which our Club were coming in from 
 the Grey Farms, Fanny Allen's house. I joined 
 them, and for an hour of that peerless moonlight 
 we took a delightful sleighride around the pleasant 
 drives about the village. 
 
 "Monday night was a party at Eliza Allen's in 
 
182 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 honor of Mary Weld, Billy's sister. A magnificent 
 aurora — the finest but one I ever saw was the out 
 door entertainment — the moonlight notwithstand- 
 ing — the columns and blazes of rosy light were all 
 over the sky. Tuesday night was a similar party 
 at Ruth Ann Miller's. 
 
 "But the event of the week has been 'Jane Eyre/ 
 we talk in this house * of nothing else, we look 
 back to detached passages morning noon and night 
 and do not often get through a meal without in- 
 troducing the book for reference. I am perfectly 
 crazy about it. I can hardly say I want more be- 
 cause I read and re-read it again and again. It 
 lies open on its face beside us now. 
 
 "The news of Edward Webster's death is very 
 sad. I can but think how painfully it will come to 
 Julia, to whom he was very dear. And his father 
 too. He can hardly have been in his new quarters 
 at all before the attack came on. 
 
 "I wish you would send these pamphlets — (the 
 Insane Reports) to the parties indicated. The 
 pamphlets make a parcel as before. 
 "Love to all from 
 
 "Yours ever 
 
 "E" 
 
 TO LUCRETIA 
 
 "Yes! — what you say about music impresses 
 me more and more. And I can conceive that at 
 the Bog Church, the very fact that you had been 
 asked to go and hear the music, probably made 
 
 1 He lived with Mr. and Mrs. Moses Phillips. 
 
LIFE AT WORCESTER 183 
 
 the matter worse ; — you could not get that artis- 
 tic notion out of your head. I find that more and 
 more I listen with trembling feelings when people 
 speak of Church music, or architecture lecture: 
 
 — or of anybody's sermon that they remember, 
 dreading lest they shall stop without having shown 
 any devotional feeling as the foundation of the 
 other. Of course the theory is simple enough, 
 that the Arts should be the Handmaiden to the Life: 
 
 — the [blank] to Religion. But for a' that, one 
 looks with an understanding sympathy back on 
 the old Iconoclastes, and can understand in exactly 
 what mood they did what they did. St. John 
 was so amazed at the way one of the angels de- 
 livered his message that he fell on his face to wor- 
 ship him. 'See thou do it not' said the other, 'I 
 am thy fellow servant, — worship God." 
 
 TO NATHAN 
 
 "This minute, I met a scrap in one of Milton's 
 Sonnets which reminded me that there was the 
 place to look. In the sonnet to Lady Margaret 
 Ley, you will find her father, Sir Jas. Ley, spoken 
 of thus — 
 
 'Till the sad breaking of that Parliament 
 Broke him, as that dishonest victory 
 At Cheronea, fatal to liberty, 
 Killed with report that old man eloquent.' 
 
 This was Isocrates. True to my blood, of which I 
 think the main characteristic is that we stop in 
 what we are doing to do whatever presents itself, 
 
1 84 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 I stopped my reading to write it down. . . p.m. — The 
 French news is amazing. When you can spare 
 them let me have one or two of the Paris and Lon- 
 don papers for a day or two. I wish I were there. 
 I think a skilful republican to the manner bred 
 could, by following his hand make himself Presi- 
 dent or First Consul or Chief Archon, with alacrity. 
 And by vamosing in time he could gain a perpet- 
 ual feather in his cap." 
 
 TO LUCRETIA 
 
 "Charleston, Monday night 
 "May i, 1848 
 "Frank Hayes arrived this morning and after 
 the shower this afternoon we all took a walk on 
 the Battery. This is the favorite promenade to 
 which for one and another reason, I had not been 
 before, although it is a place of great resort every 
 afternoon. It is certainly the finest walk or drive 
 I ever saw. It embraces the whole point of the 
 peninsula, looking out on the harbour and open 
 ocean, and across the two rivers, Ashley and Cooper, 
 between which Charleston is enclosed. The wall 
 is at the very water's edge, wide enough for six or 
 eight abreast and solidly built from the water. 
 Then at a lower level most of the way is the drive- 
 way, where are carriages of bonnetless ladies or 
 men on horseback. In a little ' pavilion' in the 
 midst of the green space enclosed by this walk, 
 was a band of music playing. Add to this that the 
 houses which look on it are of the largest and fin- 
 est, with sumptuous gardens and now blazing with 
 
LIFE AT WORCESTER 185 
 
 roses — and that the beauty and chivalry of Charles- 
 ton was on the move here while we also were, and 
 that a perfect sunset surrounded the whole, and the 
 fault is my description or your imagination if the 
 coup d' oeil does not equal Charles Street. . . . 
 
 "To go back, one by one, to the gaps since my 
 hasty note on Friday night, sent day before yes- 
 terday by, Mr. Curtis, I passed the vexatious or- 
 deal !of a first Sunday's preaching yesterday much 
 more pleasantly than I dared expect. You can 
 imagine how blankly one feels at the idea of talk- 
 ing to a house full of criticizing strangers. But 
 what with the hospitalities of the week and par- 
 ticularly the Sunday School expedition Saturday, 
 a great many of the congregation were not stran- 
 gers to me when yesterday came, and as the church 
 was full and the people very attentive, I soon felt 
 quite at home. The church is old and very vener- 
 able of aspect. The church-yard is even one of 
 the most beautiful gardens of this garden-strewn 
 place. When I talk of roses you must imagine 
 the choicest roses of our greenhouses growing high 
 and large and blooming fully as the cinnamons or 
 blush roses do in the spring with us, and this church 
 garden was vivid with them. Everywhere the 
 air is laden with perfume and here the brilliancy 
 and fragrance as I have said seemed to me more 
 striking than ever. The service in the church, 
 though of a very simple plan (E-lev-en and all's 
 well — from a distant watchman as I write) has a 
 little more of Liturgical appearance than ours and 
 is very agreeable. . . . 
 
1 86 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "Sunday evening, (as Tuesday and Thursday 
 evenings) the negroes of the church meet for a 
 service, like a Methodist class meeting, in a hall 
 attached to the house. You know the religious 
 fervor of the blacks, and the musical enthusiasm. 
 I never enjoyed any service more than I did this, 
 to which I went as spectator for a little while. 
 They speak admirably, and the singing — very 
 Methodistical — is very fine. One of the men 
 took my morning's sermon and in his own fash- 
 ion followed out a series of deductions from it 
 with admirable point and finish. We had a great 
 shaking of hands all around then a general wel- 
 come of me and good-bye to the Doctor. 1 They 
 styled me 'the young Doctor who had come from 
 'way off from the North 'tother side of the great 
 sea/ They asked me to speak and I did — not 
 better than they." 
 
 TO FREDERIC GREENLEAF 2 
 
 "Worcester, Sept. 6, 1848 
 "My dear Frederic: ... I have charged Pen- 
 niman to be not only minister in Savannah, but 
 Bishop of Georgia. I tell him and every one as 
 the result of my southern observations, that in 
 the South, especially in Georgia, there is a deal of 
 young life, — all torpid and lost though it be, for 
 want of stimulus and direction, — that in Georgia 
 property is widely divided, that the state is com- 
 paratively little in the hands of a landed aristoc- 
 
 1 Doctor Gilman who was going to Worcester for an exchange. 
 
 2 Frederic Greeenleaf was one of his most intimate friends at this time. 
 
LIFE AT WORCESTER 187 
 
 racy, and that any man or body of men of firm 
 faith and living souls who would go into Georgia, 
 and, any-how, marshal around them the young 
 blood, — the bubbling life of the land, which does 
 not yet know how to boil or to flow, who would by 
 literary culture or scientific, and in the end by re- 
 ligious training create one and another and an- 
 other Timothy born in the land, but baptised into 
 a higher culture and a higher life than seems to the 
 land indigenous, who would thus teach, thus attract, 
 thus enliven and thus send forth reflectors of their 
 fire into the highways and byways of the land, 
 would in a little ten years revolutionize Georgia, — 
 make of it the beginning of a better than New Eng- 
 land, — make it a land of a living spirit, — and, of 
 course, would in the process drive from it the black 
 master-devil who now sits on its back and holds 
 it down. What do you say to that? Have I seen 
 more than you see? . . . 
 
 "We have had a beautiful Sunday and a pleasant 
 service. People are mostly returned from the sea 
 shore, so that we see natural faces after the parting. 
 I preached in the morning a new sermon which I 
 liked so well that it had grown under this pen to 
 an inordinate length. But I was obdurate, re- 
 membered that no one would know how good things 
 I left out, and chopped out nine magnificent pages. 
 Afternoon an old sermon with a new leading il- 
 lustration, — so-so only, rather a shame to bosh a 
 good subject and text so. . . . My best love to your 
 wife. We shall ordain the Doctor (Penniman) 
 some day this month. I shall see that he carries 
 
188 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 on some Greenwoods with him. God bless you 
 and so good bye." "Ever yours 
 
 "E" 
 
 TO MRS. MOSES PHILLIPS 
 
 "Bulletin No. 2 
 "Dinner time, Sept. 22, 1848 
 
 "My Dear Mrs. Phillips: Thank you for the 
 Letters Missive. If you have a spare week take 
 the Dictionaries and find out why they are called 
 so. I am sure I do not know. 
 
 "I am better decidedly. When I wrote yesterday 
 I was in bed, — as I was from 11 p.m. Wednesday 
 to 6 p.m. Thursday. I could not sit up because 
 through that time to reduce this inflammation, 
 the blood was still flowing from these leech holes. 
 But now all that is at an end. The inflammation 
 is reduced and we are only waiting for time to 
 give the strength to the muscles. For fun in the 
 meanwhile, we apply cold wet cloths, but I believe 
 this is only what the Doctors call a placebo, for the 
 amusement of the patient. 
 
 "Uncle Doctor comes in every day, and at a 
 different time George Hayward. So that I have 
 a double excitement in looking out for the Doctor, 
 the event you know, of an at-home day. . . . 
 
 "I wish you would care for the Movana with the 
 fantailed frame in the barn, if it is not dead. Also 
 please take up my oleander when it comes time. 
 
 "I am delighted with the Rosary. I had become 
 very dumpy about it, feeling that it would seem 
 a very scatter-brained affair." 
 
LIFE AT WORCESTER 189 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER 
 
 "January 25th, 1849 
 "Of my today the event has been a long very 
 pleasant call from Mr. R. W. Emerson. He left 
 Concord for Albany, today, between the arrival of 
 his train and the departure of the Western had the 
 whole afternoon, and called here in that time and 
 sat an hour or more, talking wonderfully. He told 
 of his European experiences with evident gusto. 
 He wrote the lectures he is to deliver here in Paris 
 in May — saw the gathering for the row of May 
 15th, having been at Blanqui and Barbe's Club 
 regularly to see what was in embryo till that out- 
 break. He told me the details of Robert Brown- 
 ing's marrying Miss Barrett. She was an invalid — 
 never left her bed — her father a jealous old man, 
 who let no one see her. Browning and she had 
 complimented each other in print, but never met. 
 'How can I see Miss Barrett/ he cried in Carlyle's 
 parlour one day. And Mrs. Carlyle answered 
 'You can't see her at all,' giving reason as above. 
 At which he took his cane, went to the house, asked 
 for Miss Barrett, and by a blunder of the servant 
 who thought him a doctor was admitted to her 
 bed room. She had not moved for three months, 
 was bed-ridden — but at the end of the first visit, 
 she lifted her head in bidding him come again — the 
 second time she sat up — the third stood — and 
 closed the fourth by eloping with him to Italy 
 where they are now — her cure being a complete 
 one. 
 
190 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "Mr. Emerson will come here to lecture on the 
 16th of next month." 
 
 There is another account of the conversation in 
 his journal. My father had apparently been try- 
 ing to find out something about Emerson's new 
 interests and had asked about the " soi-disant 
 Philanthropic Set in England, the Howitt's Journal 
 and People's Journal people, saying they seemed 
 very flat." Emerson, however, said he had not 
 seen any of them except Mary Howitt. "I saw 
 very few, if any of those people. I saw many 
 philanthropic men — truly philanthropic men, but 
 not of the set you allude to." He turned the con- 
 versation with more interest to Carlyle and Brown- 
 ing and other people of literary note. 1 
 
 TO ALEXANDER 2 
 
 "Aug. 9, 1850 
 "And now I have come home and am trying to 
 settle down quietly for August. It is a month 
 when I always try to be close at home because 
 there is a good deal of sickness and death here and 
 people like to have the minister close at hand. 
 This year Mr. Hill is away for the month, so that 
 I have this duty in his parish as well as mine. Not 
 from my letters, I am afraid, but from the home 
 
 1 His mother, like many others of an earlier day, was no admirer of Emerson. 
 My father wrote of her later that "She would laugh and say he was crazy, 
 which she profoundly believed, never reading a word he said, and being ab- 
 solutely idealist." His own opinions of Emerson had undergone a change 
 since college days. 
 
 2 His brother Alexander had graduated in 1849 and was now an Engineer 
 at Pensacola, Florida. 
 
LIFE AT WORCESTER 191 
 
 letters, you may have seen that my summer has 
 been a good deal broken. February and March 
 saw me sick in Boston and here — it was not till 
 the middle of April that the Phillipses came home- 
 Then I took a few days of May to go to Baltimore 
 with Sarah, a week more for the Anniversaries. I 
 was hardly at home when there were four days in 
 June to go for her, then a week or two weeks after 
 Nathan's lameness and well earned journey [[to 
 the White Mountains], All this time the knock- 
 downs of the sick months of the beginning has 
 been hanging over me — until the White Moun- 
 tains which has recruited me more than anything 
 else has done. And by doing no hard work through 
 the dog-days which I can help I hope to keep 
 what I have gained. 
 
 "This sort of broken summer is scarcely more 
 a feature of my life, than in the family's generally. 
 Poor Sarah's sickness and long absence; Mother's 
 visit here; Father's virtual six months in Mary- 
 land ; Nathan's short trip ; Charley's l ending of 
 college life and what not beside have, as you may 
 well suppose, rather upset any evenness in the cur- 
 rent of the family career. You may have guessed 
 that the Chesapeake and Ohio business has proved 
 a miserable affair. I hope it will turn out all well 
 in the end, but they have thrown a great deal of 
 work upon my father, for which as yet I suppose 
 he has no compensation, and they would have been 
 glad to have involved him personally to any pecu- 
 niary extent if they could. All this, of course, 
 
 1 He was the class of 1850 Harvard. 
 
192 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 was embarrassing at the same time that the new 
 arrangement of the proprietorship of the Daily 
 required all his funds and time. But he has wholly- 
 washed his hands of them now and I hope will 
 get off, at least without loss. To this matter, of 
 which we do not talk publicly at home, do not 
 allude in your family letters, except as theirs may 
 suggest it. 
 
 "We have all been sorry not to see you this sum- 
 mer. If the home letters have fallen off, you must 
 ascribe it to the broken-updom which I speak of. 
 I hope now things are more to rights. Sarah is 
 better, Nathan quite himself, father very much 
 engrossed in the Daily and in nothing else. Since 
 I got back Nathan has spent three nights with me. 
 Last night we went to Newport and back for the 
 sail, which was very pleasant, diverging from each 
 other at Providence on our return. Charley passed 
 here on Tuesday on his way to Alpha Delta Phi 
 at Amherst. The rest are all at home." 
 
M 
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1833-1850 
 
 Y father's first great success in literature was 
 made in the year 1863 when he was forty-one years 
 old. He is now chiefly known and doubtless long 
 will be, as the author of "A Man Without a 
 Country." * Yet, although this story was the first 
 to come to general notice, — for "My Double and 
 How he Undid Me", published four or five years 
 before, did not at once become widely known, 
 — though it first gave him a general reputation as 
 a writer of fiction, yet it was really but one very 
 significant point in a long course of literary devel- 
 opment. 
 
 Fortunately or unfortunately my father came 
 early into a "literary atmosphere" and became used 
 to books and newspapers and magazines, and the 
 machinery of producing them. There could never 
 have been a time when he thought of a book or a 
 newspaper as other than a normal, if occasional, 
 
 1 He sometimes thought of this in later life. The following was written 
 about 1900: "It is not a little curious — I am not in the least sensitive about 
 this — that when a man has worked sixty years in the hope of bringing in the 
 Kingdom, and has been in twenty or thirty states on that business, still nine- 
 teen persons out of twenty should think of him as the author of one, two, or 
 three stories. Well, you know what Renan says, — that the parables of the 
 Prodigal Son and of the Good Samaritan have made more Christians than 
 St. Paul ever did. I suppose that is true." Freeman MS. 
 
 193 
 
194 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 mode of expression of anyone who wished so to 
 express himself. His father conducted the Boston 
 Daily Advertiser, and his mother wrote little books 
 for Carter, the publisher. He himself contributed 
 to the Advertiser at the age of fifteen and wrote a 
 little book for Carter at the age of seventeen. It 
 seems to have been as natural for him to express 
 himself in writing as in speaking. To have what 
 he wrote printed soon became as customary as to 
 have it read privately. If one wrote, it was natural 
 that people read. The whole mechanism of litera- 
 ture, so far as it then existed in Boston, became 
 early a matter of absolute familiarity. He him- 
 self commented upon these facts later. 
 
 "If ever children were born to know the machinery 
 of what is called literary life, we were those children. 
 After my father entered at the bar in Boston, he was 
 engaged by Mr. John Lowell to be the responsible 
 editor of the Weekly Messenger, a newspaper then 
 established by Mr. Lowell and his friends. Mr. 
 Lowell was a leader, not to say the leader in Mas- 
 sachusetts politics, and he and the other leaders 
 felt the want of better journalism than New Eng- 
 land then had. Under their auspices and I think 
 though I do not know, with Mr. Lowell's pecuniary 
 help, my father bought the Daily Advertiser in 1812, 
 when that paper had existed only a few months. 
 
 "For many years, that paper was the only daily 
 paper in New England, and to this hour, old fash- 
 ioned people call it "The Daily" in Boston. 
 
 "The Weekly Messenger was a distinct effort to 
 publish a newspaper which should not be depend- 
 
LITERATURE 195 
 
 ent on advertising. They admitted no adver- 
 tisements. The Advertiser, on the other hand, 
 was confessedly a business paper. But all the same, 
 it maintained the political views of the old Federal- 
 ists and their political successors in New England. 
 Steadfastly opposing, for instance, the Missouri 
 Compromise and all other concessions to the 
 Southern States. . . . 
 
 "All this is by way of preface to say that all of 
 us were born into a home crammed with news- 
 papers and books, perfectly familiar with types and 
 ink and paper and proof sheets and manuscripts. 
 By the time I can first remember my father owned 
 a well-equipped printing office and carried on power 
 press printing on the cross dam of the Mill Com- 
 pany, which is now Parker St. He made contracts 
 with the United States Government for printing: 
 he printed the American reprint of Campbell's 
 New Monthly Magazine. He had a fine literary 
 sense himself, was a good Latin scholar, and kept 
 up his Latin. He read French and German easily 
 and Greek as well as I do, with a better knowledge 
 of Hebrew than most men now have in my own 
 profession. 
 
 "My mother's brothers were in Europe a great 
 deal, and I suppose that this was partly why it 
 happened that our office was better supplied with 
 Continental newspapers than any of other American 
 journals. My mother was the only woman in Boston 
 who could read German when I was a boy, and from 
 the day of her marriage to the time of her death, 
 her translations from the French and the German 
 
196 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 appeared in the newspaper. There is a pretty story 
 which has the advantage of being true that she 
 rocked with her foot the cradle in which Lucretia 
 lay in the evening, while Mr. Webster or Judge 
 Story, or Lemuel Shaw dictated to her their speeches 
 in the Massachusetts Convention of 1820. . . . 
 
 "I cannot fix precisely the date, I wish I could, 
 of the first paragraph of mine which was ever printed 
 in a newspaper. It must have been about 1833, in 
 the beginning of all this business of Assyriology. 
 Papa brought in Le Journal de Debats, from his study 
 and showed us a little article about the French 
 discoveries on the Euphrates. And he said to me 
 ' Edward, if you will translate that I will print the 
 translation in the paper/ I suppose I thanked him. 
 I hope I did. But when he had gone, I confided to 
 Mama what she and the others knew, that I had 
 never studied French. She said she knew that, 
 of course ; but that it would be a pity to disappoint 
 him, but that Lucretia had studied French, and that 
 we had better take the dictionary into the corner 
 together and translate the article, which we finally 
 did. And to my joy it appeared in the Advertiser. 
 
 "This was the beginning of my newspaper work 
 which has lasted until this time. 
 
 "While I was in College, I had a sore throat turn, 
 such as I was a good deal troubled with in those days, 
 and was working it off at home, when Papa brought 
 home the first copy of Graham s Magazine which 
 afterwards became quite an important element in 
 magazine literature. He asked me to write the 
 Advertiser s notice of it, which I did and at night he 
 
LITERATURE 197 
 
 told me that he had given it out for publication. 
 He said 'I struck out all the "verys" and then it was 
 quite right.' I had said in the exaggeration of a 
 young writer that such a magazine was very much 
 needed, and that this was very well done and very 
 handsomely printed, and so on. I have handed 
 down his advice to hundreds of young authors since 
 that time. 
 
 "In College, of course, I had to write and I enjoyed 
 it heartily. We worked under the care and criticism 
 of Prof. Channing, Edward Tyrrell Channing (Tyr- 
 rell killed William Rufus, and why Channing was 
 named for him we never knew) of whom his pupils 
 were never tired of singing the praises. In my 
 senior vacation, my father proposed to me to report 
 for the Advertiser the proceedings of the Massa- 
 chusetts Legislature, Senate and House. This I 
 did. I wrote shorthand well at that time, and this 
 is a great advantage to any man: and practically 
 the work was that to which we had been well trained 
 in College, the condensing the statements of the books 
 we read and putting them on paper. It is very good 
 training to write for a newspaper where you are not 
 to see a proof. It gives you the habit of accuracy 
 from the beginning. I have seen my father wait 
 three or four minutes with his pen in his hand while 
 he was feeling for the precise word he wanted." 1 
 
 There were of course advantages in all this, and 
 had general surroundings been different, they might 
 have been much greater. For a bright boy to come 
 naturally into a literary atmosphere where there are 
 
 1 Freeman MSS. 
 
198 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 great men or great traditions may be the best way 
 of arousing and giving a chance to the spark of genius. 
 Boston in the '30' s and '40' s was not a place of great 
 men or great traditions in literature. The foremost 
 literary figure of the earlier generation was possibly 
 my father's uncle, Edward Everett, a man of the 
 utmost literary adaptability who had at this time 
 already been pastor of Brattle Street Church, student 
 at Gottingen, professor at Harvard College, editor 
 of the North American Review and governor of the 
 state. But it was perhaps just on account of Edward 
 Everett's immense facility that he never became 
 truly great. Without difficulty he became a pre- 
 eminent figure in the slightly lettered American civil- 
 ization of his day. Perhaps he was never called on to 
 make a real effort that demanded his whole power. 
 
 Somewhat like him, in a smaller way and in a 
 narrower circle, was my father. It can rarely have 
 caused him real effort to do whatever was done in 
 letters by those around him and to do it better than 
 most. His college themes he wrote without the slight- 
 est difficulty; he used to say late in life that he learned 
 much from Professor Channing, for whom he prepared 
 them, and this is doubtless the case. Professor 
 Channing must have enjoyed the easy facility with 
 which this boy of fifteen or sixteen thought and 
 expressed himself on any subject that might occur. 
 He also wrote, and probably with equal ease, a poem 
 for the I. O. H., and a class poem on graduation. 
 He says himself that he valued his poems at their 
 true value, that he knew that they had nothing of 
 real poetry in them, but were a common form of 
 
LITERATURE 199 
 
 elegant expression. Of James Lowell, the class poet 
 of the year before, he speaks differently. He says 
 of him that Lowell knew himself to be a poet, and 
 that everybody else knew that he was one. 
 
 Beginnings in literature therefore to my father 
 were matters of course. To write an account of the 
 Dighton Rock for the Advertiser or a poem for the 
 graduation of his class was natural one year, just as 
 it was natural the next year to write an article for 
 the North American Review or for the Boston Mis- 
 cellany. It was the normal thing and easy — indeed, 
 it was really too easy. 
 
 If one read much of these evidences of his life, 
 at this time, it soon becomes clear that these early 
 publications do not express the literary ideals which 
 were gradually forming in his mind. He wrote one 
 thing or another as occasion arose, but he seems 
 rarely to have written anything (at least, to have 
 published it) as the expression of an imperative 
 need. His articles were concerning various matters 
 of fact; but he also thought of many matters very 
 different which never came to publication at all. 
 His college poems as we see at once were in the 
 conventional form for such things, but at the same 
 time he wrote, though he never published, verses 
 of a very different character. It was not for a matter 
 of twenty years or so that he found an opportunity 
 for expressing the real thing that seemed to him 
 worth expressing, in the way that seemed to him worth 
 while. In "My Double" and "A Man Without a 
 Country", both extravaganzas and impossibilities 
 written to present perfectly simple and vitally 
 
200 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 important truths, he hammered on two thngs that 
 the experience of life had convinced him were worth 
 saying, two truths which were almost fundamentally 
 at the bottom of his heart. One was that a man 
 really must have a country: whether we understand 
 by the word country, nation, state, neighborhood, 
 church, family, does not matter much; the idea is 
 that one cannot throw over the claims of the life in 
 common. That was the first great truth of his life. 
 The other truth was less important in theory and more 
 so in practice. It was to the effect that, great as are 
 the calls of the life in common, and absolutely as it 
 is one's duty to obey such calls, so far as it is pos- 
 sible, yet one still has a duty to oneself. The calls 
 of society are too apt to be formal, conventional, 
 mechanical, and if one does not somehow free 
 himself from them, one will get no chance at all to 
 develop the only thing by which one can be of any 
 use to society or oneself. These two ideas are almost 
 enough for the foundation of a man's ethics. They 
 had slowly been clarifying in twenty years while he 
 gave his time up to teaching school, reporting for the 
 Advertiser, preaching and doing parish work, and, 
 for literary expression, writing reviews of Anthon's 
 edition of Leverett's lexicon and of "Cecil, the Story 
 of a Coxcomb " and other things of the kind. 
 
 A real study of his literary development, therefore, 
 would not necessarily follow the course of his various 
 publications. These were at first only accidents; 
 they are of course expressive, but they are not the 
 only expression of his literary life; often, in fact 
 generally, they were not the best. 
 
LITERATURE 201 
 
 During his early years, perhaps till he was thirty 
 years or so, my father's literary ideal, in fact, his 
 ideal in general, was that of the essayist, the man who 
 lived a life of literary leisure among books and 
 letters, and who wrote out as he saw fit the musings 
 and reveries that rose in his mind as he sat in his 
 library before a glowing grate. He himself much later 
 said that his literary ideals at this time were Leigh 
 Hunt and Charles Lamb, and the fact that he men- 
 tioned these two together shows that he appreciated 
 in them something which they had in common. I 
 cannot find in my father's early writings anything 
 much like the humor of Lamb or the poetical appre- 
 ciation of Leigh Hunt. But one does find something 
 else which they both had as well as many others, the 
 delight in literature, in books for their own sakes 
 (we may say), as the most real, most certain interest 
 in life. Literature and the time to enjoy it — that 
 was his early ideal. At first it was because the min- 
 istry seemed to offer some such life as this that it 
 seemed attractive to him ; by the time he had 
 settled at Worcester such fancies had almost gone by, 
 and he had understood the solid foundations which 
 must be laid for the minister's life and had gone to 
 work to lay them four-square for himself. But in 
 early days he did no such thing: he had little con- 
 sideration of foundations in those days, but in his 
 musings and reveries he saw rather the cloud-capped 
 towers and airy pinnacles of innumerable castles in 
 the air, as he often said himself. 
 
 In college he read vigorously everything that was 
 in vogue. But it would seem that he had but slight 
 
202 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 interest in those things which a later view sees to 
 be the really germinating powers of those days. 
 His journal is full of remarks about reading Scott 
 and the Quarterly Review. But of Goethe, who was 
 at this time so great a voice in Europe, there is 
 hardly a mention^ little of Carlyle, though "Sartor 
 Resartus" and the "Heroes" were but just out, 
 and of Emerson only (as we have seen) slight men- 
 tion and that with but little * commendation. The 
 real literary life of England and New England at 
 that time — the life which impressed itself on the 
 world so that it is remembered as an influence, if it 
 be not an influence still — was of little interest to 
 him. He understood it and its ideals later, and 
 gained something from them. But at this time his 
 aims were different: his typical literary man was not 
 a figure like Carlyle; it was somebody rather more 
 like Henry Pelham. The contrast is not so absurd 
 as it may appear. Carlyle himself in the year 1834 
 practically said in "Sartor Resartus", in the 
 chapter on The Dandiacal Body: There are two 
 ideals in life: that of Teufelsdrockh and that of 
 Henry Pelham; one thinks the inside is the thing; 
 the other thinks the outside is. Take which you 
 like — they are mutually exclusive. If such a view 
 appear strange to those who think of the author of 
 "A Man Without a Country " and "In His Name" 
 and "Ten Times One", they have only to read a 
 review by my father in the North American Review of 
 October, 1842, of two novels popular at the time, 
 "Cecil a Coxcomb" and "Cecil a Peer" and then (if 
 they can) the novels themselves. 
 
LTTERATURE 203 
 
 It would be absurd to suppose that the super- 
 ficial, the social, the sartorial ideal of Henry Pelham, 
 Vivian Grey, and Cecil Danby could ever have 
 exercised a strong influence over a respectable young 
 Bostonian who was earnestly and seriously reading 
 for the ministry. There is nothing in all the diaries 
 and letters to give the idea that the impossible com- 
 bination of coxcomb, dandy, man of the world, which 
 may be found in each, was ever very interesting to 
 him. But the superficial is not everything. No one 
 would fancy that cloud-compelling, beer-drinking, 
 airy-thinking Teufelsdrockh was great because he 
 smoked, drank, and talked interminably. Under these 
 hulls and chaffs lay the real man, the man of the 
 Everlasting Yea: under the brilliant and correct 
 trapping of the dandy and coxcomb lay the real 
 man, the man familiar with the world of politics, 
 of society, of scholarship, the man who in the morn- 
 ing plays his part in the public life of the day, who 
 in the afternoon makes his bow and passes his 
 epigram in a few best houses, who spends the hour 
 that belongs to himself in company with a volume 
 of the classics of other times or even of his own, — 
 an ideal which might easily have attracted a brilliant 
 and clever young man in 1840 as it has attracted 
 millions of brilliant and clever young men before 
 and since, and continues (in different forms) to attract 
 up to the present day. 
 
 Such was the ideal of literary life up to settling 
 in Worcester, nor did it ever wholly fade out of mind. 
 It is an utterly impracticable ideal in actual life, 
 whether in Worcester, Massachusetts, or London, or 
 
204 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 anywhere else, except for those rare geniuses in whom 
 the temper of the charlatan is mingled with real 
 and tremendous power, men like Disraeli — and one 
 can hardly think of another of universal reputation. 
 But few ideals of life are ever very practical, or rather 
 it is not very important whether they are or not, 
 for long before people have realized them, they 
 have changed and become different. For ten years 
 my father's idea in literature was to be a brilliant 
 essayist, a man who knew everything that ever had 
 interested anyone, and who wrote when he did 
 with the ease and elegance of the scholar and the 
 gentleman. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that he never attained 
 any such ideal nor ever made very strenuous efforts 
 to attain it. He simply had it — and for the time, 
 no other. 
 
 Later he had a very different ideal. Henry 
 Pelham would never have produced "A Man Without 
 a Country/' But neither did my father do anything 
 of the sort till twenty years after this time, nor 
 was he capable of so doing. Steeped in literature 
 from his birth and coming to maturity very early, 
 he produced nothing of really artistic quality till he 
 was thirty-seven years old. 
 
 He did write for publication much for the Daily 
 Advertiser and later than this a good many reviews 
 for the North American Review, At just this time 
 he wrote two or three things for the Boston Mis- 
 cellany which are quite enough to show what he 
 would have liked to do at this time in his life and 
 why he did not do it. The Boston Miscellany of 
 
LITERATURE 205 
 
 Literature and Fashion was a magazine published 
 during the year 1842, and edited by my father's 
 brother Nathan Hale. It was, as one would imagine, 
 a gathering up of the work of that brilliant group 
 which had for one nucleus the Hale family; among 
 the contributors to the first volume were Edward 
 Everett, Alexander H. Everett, their sister Mrs. 
 Nathan Hale, Nathan Hale, Jr., and Edward Everett 
 Hale. Besides these were James Russell Lowell and 
 W. W. Story, who had been in Nathan's class in 
 college, and N. Hawthorne and N. P. Willis, and 
 some others. The second volume had naturally 
 a larger range. It would be an interesting study in 
 American literature to point out what was good in 
 the Boston Miscellany and what was not. Here we 
 have room only for the contributions of my father. 
 One of them is a review of Geoffrey's "The Apoch- 
 ryphal Napoleon," a book which we may recognize 
 at once as after my father's especial vein. It makes 
 the assumption that Napoleon did not allow himself 
 to be vanquished by the destruction of Moscow, 
 that he pressed on and destroyed the Russian army 
 at the Battle of Novgorod, and that after that crucial 
 turning point, his course of victory was unbroken, 
 and that he came to be sovereign of the world. 
 Such a book may be said to be in my father's especial 
 vein because it makes a practically impossible 
 assumption and then proceeds to tell the story in a 
 logical and realistic manner. This will be recognized 
 as the manner of "My Double" and "A Man With- 
 out a Country", as well as of that long series of stories 
 with which my father interested and amused the 
 
206 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 readers of the seventies and the eighties. No one 
 can conceive as an actuality a government like the 
 United States imposing such a whimsical punish- 
 ment as exiling a man on board of one its own ships 
 of war. No one can seriously imagine a country 
 clergyman using his hired man as a double to go to 
 tedious public occasions for him. We may say that 
 such things are possible, we may think of other 
 matters that are like them, but they are really as 
 impossible as that a microscopist should make a 
 lens out of a diamond whereby he was enabled to see 
 a nymph in a drop of water, or as that a quiet intel- 
 lectualist talking with a friend should find out that 
 two murdered women had come to their deaths 
 at the hands of an orang-outang belonging to a 
 Maltese sailor. It was a current literary mode of 
 those days, just as it is, in lesser degree, of these. 
 My father naturally enjoyed this imagination of the 
 possibilities of the life of Napoleon, granting the one 
 great impossibility, and chose it for review for his 
 brother's magazine. His other contributions, how- 
 ever, are stories. If the Boston Miscellany had been 
 successful, perhaps he would have become a story 
 writer and novelist twenty years before he did. The 
 first was a "Tale of a Salamander." This story he 
 had written some time before and had sent to Black- 
 wood's Magazine. It did not succeed in becoming 
 one of the well-known Tales from Blackwood, and 
 when the Boston Miscellany was started he evidently 
 had it in his portfolio. It is the story of a student 
 who one day resolved to try the truth of what he had 
 always thought, of as mere tradition, — the glass 
 
LITERATURE 207 
 
 blower's superstition that a salamander will emerge 
 from any fire that burns more than forty days and 
 forty nights. The student's resolutions and fancies 
 are fully told, and his difficulties and trials in the 
 way of keeping his fire going for so long a time; the 
 story is fully worked out up to the very point when 
 the salamander may be expected to appear, — 
 and then we have a line of stars. An afterpiece gives 
 an idea of the student's violent fever. He is led to 
 speak of his experiment but of the actual result he 
 says he "cannot, ought not say." 
 
 From a later standpoint it is not difficult to 
 say why the story is not a good one; however good 
 the beginning, it fails at the very point for which the 
 beginning was written. One is excited and aroused 
 at the idea of the mysterious possibilities of the 
 appearance of the salamander, but the possibility 
 is all there is to it, and one ends the story with a 
 feeling of disappointment. Perhaps my father con- 
 sidered it a success, for he reprinted it in one of his 
 later volumes. 
 
 He did not reprint the second of the stories which 
 he contributed, "Love by the Way." The story is 
 not like that of the salamander, the working out of 
 an impossible idea; it is the development of an idea 
 very possible and indeed familiar to all readers — 
 namely, a journey in a stagecoach. But if we do not 
 have here a story of the especial kind that has just 
 been analyzed, we do have another kind of story which 
 was commoner in those days than now, namely, the 
 story which at the end turns out to be a hoax. The 
 story of this sort which has made most reputation is 
 
208 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "Marjorie Daw", by T. B. Aldrich, but there were 
 many others during the half century which preceded 
 that attractive fancy. They are not so different 
 from the realistic extravaganzas like the "Sala- 
 mander" or "The Diamond Lens"; they call for 
 the same realism of treatment and the same whimsi- 
 cality of idea. In this case the story is of a man who 
 made love all day to an attractive girl in a stage- 
 coach and only at the end of it discovered that she 
 was deaf and dumb. 
 
 The third of his tales, "The South American 
 Editor", evidently pleased my father better, for when 
 he collected his first book of stories, "If, Yes, and 
 Perhaps", he put it in. This story is more of a 
 realistic extravaganza than a realistic hoax; we need 
 hardly spend time in determining the character 
 when the general quality is so clear. Taking the idea 
 of the mercurial quality of South American politics, 
 my father invented a story in which he was able to 
 use both his imagination and his knowledge of fact. 
 To create something like life, — that is really as 
 much an act of the imagination as it is to create 
 something unlike life. To give a realistic account 
 of the day's work of a newspaper man who has the 
 oversight of the South American news is really as 
 imaginative as it would have been to tell all about 
 a salamander which came out of a fire in the forty- 
 first night of its burning. All may not think so, 
 but whether it be so or not, it was the kind of imagi- 
 nation that my father had. To get some idea — in his 
 work it was generally as whimsical as possible — 
 and then to clothe it with flesh and blood and give 
 
LITERATURE 209 
 
 it the breath of life ; that was his conception of writing 
 a story. It was not a bad one, and not very unlike 
 his general plan of life, which was very largely given 
 to thinking how one could transmute machinery 
 into life. 
 
 The stories in the Boston Miscellany had no 
 immediate successors. The daily course was gener- 
 ally so full of things to do and articles to write that 
 there was little time for anything more than day 
 dreams and plans. So far as literature was concerned 
 — the two or three things that he did were rather 
 more the result of suggestion from without than the 
 development of his own thoughts. 
 
 In 1848 he edited for Phillips, Sampson, and Com- 
 pany, The Rosary of Illustrations of the Bible. 
 Those were the days of annuals of all sorts. The 
 Rosary was a religious annual and consisted of a 
 number of engravings and a number of articles in 
 prose and verse, original and selected. One would 
 not look in such a volume for evidences of originality, 
 nor would one find such here. There is, however, 
 indication of my father's thought in the selections. 
 The poetry is not very significant; a good deal of 
 Jones Very was natural in the New England of the 
 day. George Herbert, Aubrey de Vere, Bernard 
 Barton were also the normal results of liberalism. 
 But the extracts from James Martineau and Atha- 
 nase Coquerel, especially the latter, show us much of 
 the intellectual and spiritual food of that time. 
 The sermons (if they be such) on Eli, on the Good 
 Samaritaji, and Paul before Festus, in their simple 
 realization of the Bible narrative, in their conver- 
 
210 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 sion of theological material into life itself, undoubt- 
 edly show one of the factors which went to make up 
 his religious temper. Theology must adapt itself 
 to life is the fundamental idea. It is of less impor- 
 tance to note that if the book as a whole shows very 
 clearly where he was going, the chief prose extract 
 by himself shows where he had come from. The 
 essay in "Silent Worship" is more like Leigh Hunt 
 and Charles Lamb than anything else of his that I 
 have read; I suppose it must have been written some 
 years before The Rosary was published, at a time 
 when the literary fancies of college still had some- 
 thing of the nature of ideals. 
 
 A year or two afterward was published "Margaret 
 Percival in America" by himself and his sister 
 Lucretia. 
 
 My father later * gave some explanation of this 
 early piece of work; "partly a novel, partly a sermon" 
 he calls it. It was most of the latter, as far as its 
 really serious purpose was concerned. "Margaret 
 Percival" was a religious novel of the time of the 
 Oxford movement, which gave the Anglo-Catholic 
 position; in it, to use his later language "you were 
 taught how to tread on that narrow rope way, which, 
 as she thought [Miss Sewall, the author] swung 
 between the Church of Rome on the one hand, and 
 the awful depths of 'Dissent' on the other." The 
 particular point which attracted my father's atten- 
 tion, however, was the natural assumption of the 
 book that the Church of England was in England 
 The Church. He wanted to show that the Church 
 
 1 The Christian Register, October it, 1906. 
 
LITERATURE 211 
 
 in America was different from any such establish- 
 ment. He and Lucretia conceived the idea of bring- 
 ing Margaret Percival to America, and showing her 
 what the real Church of America was. They intro- 
 duced her into a group of conscientious Christian 
 people from whom she gradually learned that the 
 establishment of England, even including its mis- 
 sionary offshoots, did not include the whole Christian 
 world. That was the main thesis, but of course 
 the book is full of other things indicative of American 
 life and of my father's life at this time. 1 
 
 1 'Moses Dresser Phillips, of Phillips and Sampson, published our little 
 book with cordial enthusiasm. Phillips and Sampson was a firm of young 
 men, who led the way in restoring the publishing enterprise of Boston. Let 
 us hope that the little book did what it was written for. . . . The title was 
 attractive, for Miss SewelFs book was well known. Then the book was founded 
 on the eternal realities: that is a good thing if you write a book. What hap- 
 pened was that four or five editions of it were immediately sold. I think 
 that no critic for the press ever read it. I know that the 'Dissenting* papers 
 never read it. But, on the other hand, I have good reason to know that four 
 or five thousand copies were sold." 
 
F 
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 LIFE IN WORCESTER 
 
 1850-1854 
 
 OR the first years of his life at Worcester things 
 went actively and well. His preaching and parish 
 work were successful, he began to see more and more 
 into the possibilities of a strong church in a town 
 like Worcester, he had some time for reading and 
 study. He lived with Mr. and Mrs. Moses Phillips. 
 Mr. Phillips was a bookseller and publisher with 
 ideas that soon extended beyond the limited boun- 
 daries of the town they lived in. But while he re- 
 mained in Worcester, his house did the most that 
 can be thought of to take the place of that family 
 atmosphere which my father had left in Boston. 
 He made intimate friends: among those he knew 
 best and depended on most was George F. Hoar, 
 just settled in Worcester. But probably the man 
 whose friendship meant most to him personally at 
 this moment was Frederic Greenleaf, the friend 
 who suggested Harry Wadsworth in "Ten Times One 
 is Ten." "The most manly and womanly fellow he, 
 whom I ever knew," said Colonel Ingham. "The 
 merriest and the freshest, and the bravest, and the 
 wisest; the most sympathizing when people were 
 sorry, and the most sympathizing when they were 
 glad. Thunder! if I were at home [Colonel Ingham 
 was at this time with Garibaldi in Calabria] and 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 213 
 
 could just show you three or four of Harry's yellow 
 letters that lie there, then you would know some- 
 thing about him; simply he was the most spirited 
 man who ever stumbled over me; he was possessed 
 with a true spirit, that was what he was; and so he 
 had guns enough, for any emergency." This was 
 written twenty years after my father and Fred Green- 
 leaf had been familiar friends. My father's letters to 
 him are probably the most intimate of all those pre- 
 served at this time. 
 
 TO FREDERIC GREENLEAF 
 
 "Worcester, Jan. 3, 1850 
 "It has been a hurried, sad, and happy fortnight. 
 To say that I have been pressed for time is to say 
 nothing. I have been crowded even to being jaded, 
 saddened, even to being sick, and yet of course in the 
 midst of all this, have had some of the very brightest 
 cases that I ever had at all. I think you will have 
 some notion of one of them when you reread Pbilo. 
 Christmas Eve we had a service at our church. 
 The young men, in the face of pitiless snow had been 
 dressing it with green, — Mr. Hill preached and it 
 'went off' very pleasantly. Well, just as I was 
 awaiting it here came a parcel with the first copy of 
 Pbilo, and a letter from Judd to me, which he called 
 'a claviary.' If I can I will copy for you the letter 
 and send it. Imagine my enthusiasm! Only, it 
 seemed too bad to sit here and read it all alone. And 
 all alone I was. LeBaron was at Plymouth for the 
 holidays, and Joseph called away to his home. 
 So I just tasted Pbilo, and then took it to "meeting" 
 
214 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 with me. No, you're wrong there, I did not read 
 a word of it there, though it once or twice burned 
 under my cloak, I own. Then I looked around for 
 an appreciative listener, — found Miss Stearns who 
 was ready to hear on Christmas day itself, — what 
 day better to read an Evangeliad. Now, I make 
 but two absolutely idle days of the whole year, 
 Christmas and Independence. So the next day I 
 went down to Miss Stearns's and began on Philo. 
 For the next week I had the book in my coat pocket 
 when I was out, and at my left hand when I was at 
 home. I read from it to my St. Paul's class, in my 
 sermon, to my Sunday School children, it became 
 my text book, and already through mine and other 
 agencies, so great is the enthusiasm here about it, 
 that one lady told me yesterday she had narrowly 
 escaped having four copies for New Year's presents. 
 Indeed, I think it first rate, as I know you will. 
 You will like Longfellow's 'Launching of the Ship' 
 too. Commonplace people will say that it is an 
 imitation of the 'Song of the Bell' and that Philo 
 is an imitation of Festus, in fact both of them are the 
 imprudent readiness of men of genius to show that 
 they can take familiar forms for expression and 
 infuse into them new life, wholly original and their 
 own, and both of them are successful. As to the 
 Festus machinery, why we all of us roam over heaven, 
 earth and hell and the sea so constantly, whether 
 with devil, angel, or alone, that no one man can claim 
 patent right to the invention of that system! 1 
 
 1 Sylvester Judd was the Unitarian minister at Augusta, Maine. He had 
 already published "Margaret," called by Lowell, who reviewed it in the North 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 215 
 
 "But there are other things to talk of than Philo 
 Juddaeus, as the wits call it." 
 
 TO FREDERIC GREENLEAF 
 
 "Worcester, Jan. 9, 1850 
 "We had a ministry at large meeting last night. 
 They agreed to call a general meeting Sunday even- 
 ing at the Town Hall, on what Burton calls the 
 'moral condition' and I 'the crime and poverty' 
 of the city. You see last Saturday a man broke his 
 neck in a fight, which he brought on after a gambling 
 drunken day in old Dr. Bancroft's study, which is 
 now called 'The Lunch,' a fashionable gaming 
 dramshop. This has made a ripple of popular 
 feeling on the condition of things here, out of which 
 I hope something may come. But I do not hope for 
 much; indeed we have worse canker sores than public 
 meetings or speeches by well-disposed people will 
 mend. The City Government is firm, as far as their 
 firmness will go. They prosecute the Liquor sellers 
 to effect, whenever they can, but you know it is 
 hard to get any testimony. Meanwhile I grow, or 
 at this instant of writing am in, rather a discouraged 
 mood. Here are these armies of young stars who do 
 not appear to apprehend that character is an element 
 in life; a man may have it or not, is their notion, as 
 he may learn handicraft or not, or so one would 
 suppose they live." 
 
 American Review, "the most emphatically American book ever written." 
 The present book was "Philo; an Evangelical," and was the story of the second 
 coming of our Lord. My father used to say afterward that they really seriously 
 expected "Philo" was to convert the world. 
 
216 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 TO FREDERIC GREENLEAF 
 
 "Worcester, Feb. 3, 1850. 
 
 "We have had a very pleasant Sunday, bleak 
 enough out doors, but for all that, cheerful enough 
 indoors to make up. I preached the Coming of 
 Christ in the morning (communion today) from a 
 letter I had from Judd, explaining about Pbilo. 
 He had been hurt that people said they could not 
 understand it, — and so wrote me the most glorious 
 letter of eight pages, telling all about his notion of 
 Christ's second coming. 'This is the sum of my 
 conclusions/ he says. 'That Christ would come 
 into the world again, that he expected to come, and 
 promised to come. But how? In the person of his 
 followers, in their virtues, his would be reproduced, 
 in their moral beauty his would be reproduced ; 
 they would walk in his steps, bear his cross, die his 
 death, illustrate his life, and so personate him. 
 The "Coming of Christ and his Revelation are terms 
 used interchangeably by the Evangelists and by 
 the Saviour himself. 'The doctrine of the book is 
 that no foreign, super-human agency is allowed in 
 the world. It teaches moreover that the hope of 
 the world lies in itself, in its men and women, its wood 
 and iron, and in the blessed gospel of the Son of God, 
 which also it has. It alludes to the evils and more 
 particularly to that culminating one, War/ — and a 
 great deal else which it is madness to condense and 
 a shame not to copy. 
 
 "Then this afternoon in my course on the Gospel 
 History, I have told them of the open air tang and 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 217 
 
 tone of the gospels so far as the Galilean part of 
 them goes ; — and how that fresh, racy spirit, of lily 
 perfume and sea breeze is the natural dialect of such 
 lively, vivid, wide-awake words and teaching. And 
 this, my dear Fred, brings me back to the other reason 
 for writing. Are you wholly off the notion of taking 
 Caroline and the boy to the Mediterranean this 
 summer? Is it that you are not well enough for it? 
 We talked of it, — I almost as a dream. But 
 now it seems to me more as a thing that can be, — 
 why should we not sail early in April. — If you will 
 I will join you at New York, though you would 
 want to come farther perhaps. We will go together 
 where you will, to Gibraltar, Genoa, Smyrna, or 
 Beyrout. I think this last is best. Borrow Eothen 
 and see what a good centre of movement that would 
 be. How fine this voyage thro 5 April and May for 
 you, — and then we would all go, by such means as 
 offer, to Tiberias, to Jerusalem, and all the rest. I 
 want to go very much. I shall not if I have no 
 companion. But, with a companion, and you are 
 best of all, I think I could go for six months, perhaps 
 eight, though I have consulted no one about it, and 
 must, of course, ask the parish. Pray think it all 
 over again, and talk it over with Caroline who prob- 
 ably knows better than you or I, whether it will be 
 really best for you to go. The nearer we come to 
 the time, the more it changes to me from one of my old 
 visions into a possible reality. I will not say any 
 more for you see I am in earnest. And I know you 
 will judge for the best. 
 
 "We have had young Mr. Carpenter here, an 
 
218 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 English Unitarian minister, son of Dr. Carpenter. . . . 
 Fanny Kemble was here : I saw a good deal of her, 
 and was perfectly fascinated by her. So thoroughly 
 direct, straightforward a woman, — who has seen 
 so much of the world and so hardly, — you have 
 hardly seen. Her power is true expression, not imi- 
 tation. And so she strikes you with as much delight 
 and even amazement when she is talking as when she 
 is reading. Then we had Miss Bremer. Did I 
 write you of her? Very short, very old, very plain, 
 but very bright and goodnatured. She looks as if 
 she were every day of 60, — is said to be, — is, I 
 think forty-eight. She says by the way, that she 
 shall die when she is sixty-six years old. She had a 
 revelation to that effect from a friend, a gentleman 
 who died some years ago, — who promised if he 
 could he would return to tell her of the other world 
 and give her a sign." 
 
 TO FREDERIC GREENLEAF 
 
 "Worcester, Feb, 20, '50. 
 "Hurrah! I have waited so anxiously, my dear 
 Fred, and am so delighted with your answer! — Let us 
 say this then, as we are going — (why does not the 
 ink stand blow up at the words ?) that we will strain 
 every nerve to get off as soon as we can. If when 
 it comes to the time you are not ready March 30, 
 of course I can wait, — or if I am not you will, and 
 neither shall grumble — I do not scrape up more 
 than $600 at very most and I mean it to last me eight 
 months. Now, cannot she (Caroline) and he come 
 within as modest a figure as that ? Think again pray. 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 219 
 
 "And I have broached it to no one but LeBaron 
 and my father's family. I shall begin my consul- 
 tation of the parish from whom I must get this 
 leave of absence tonight. I write now as you see in 
 haste, but you shall have another bulletin tomorrow 
 with all that I can collect by that time. This is 
 only to say Courage, and close up! before we go 
 farther. I hope April will be possible. Love to C. 
 from yours, 
 
 " Edward." 
 
 "Bulletin No. 2 
 "Feb. 21, 1850. 
 
 "Dear Fred: I wrote No. 1 yesterday as you 
 see in haste, but missed the mail. I am in the re- 
 action of yesterday's enthusiasm just now, having 
 been in search of the Parish Committee, to whom 
 pro forma, this matter ought to be broached first, 
 and having missed seeing any of them, — so that my 
 secret burns within me. Besides, I have rather a 
 sad letter from mother (my father is away) who is 
 afraid it will cost #3000 (why did she not say #50,000, 
 — how charming are women's notion of money!) 
 so no more hurrahing in today's bulletin but more 
 practical suggestions. 
 
 "If I had just the cutting and carving for days and 
 winds with my light of today, as God be praised I 
 have not, I should say: 
 
 Sail from New York April 2 
 
 Arrive in Gibraltar April 24 
 
 Sail from Gibraltar in steamer April 28 
 
 Arrive in Beyrout May 10 
 
220 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Palestine and Egypt, — if Egypt, to July 15 
 
 Athens to Aug. 15 
 
 Florence to Sept. 15 
 
 Germany or Paris to Oct. 31 
 
 London and England .... to Dec. 1 
 Liverpool to Boston Dec. 1-20 
 
 "What do you say of that programme as showing 
 what is possible? 
 
 "Now as to the money. Hy. Sargent says $100 
 a month is good calculation. Young Cambridge 
 going to France and Germany always takes #1000 
 a year. Dr. Anderson, King of the Missionaries, 
 told me that #500 a year when he was in Palestine 
 would carry a man there, let him travel there, and 
 come back again. In short, I am convinced that if 
 we took #600 for each (I hope of the three) resolving 
 to stay till it was spent we should get home about in 
 time for Christmas. I hope to be in Boston in a day 
 or two. I will then see some of the Mediterranean 
 trade about the best vessel up the Mediterranean. 
 I am already informed about quarantines, an impor- 
 tant matter of study. I have resolved to throw by 
 everything that is not preparation. But as this 
 involves preaching constantly at home and brushing 
 up my Italian which you and Caroline must do, — 
 and finishing a book for P. & S., it is no joke. Good 
 bye again, — another bulletin tomorrow. 
 
 " Ever yours truly E." 
 
 Unhappily this delightful plan was to come to 
 nothing. 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 221 
 
 "Worcester, Sunday night, 
 "March 17, 1850 
 
 "My dear Fred: By a telegraphic despatch sent 
 as I mail this letter tomorrow, I shall do my best to 
 undo the mischief I have done, and at once to let you 
 know the unexpected condition affairs have taken. 
 I have just returned from a conference with Judge 
 Thomas, Frank Merrick and Mr. Tolman, a com- 
 mittee whom the parish yesterday charged with the 
 matter of my "leave of absence," and the result is 
 that I ought not go with you, — and must submit to 
 withdrawing my request to the church for a furlough. 
 That is this committee, most anxious to please me, 
 and acting as my best friends, still feel bound to 
 say to me that they think it will be a decided dis- 
 advantage to the permanent prosperity of the church 
 to have me go away now. Now as, all along, I have 
 put the request and not a claim, (and there I am sure 
 you will think I am right) I do not think that in 
 view of the prosperity of the church, which is cer- 
 tainly, as certainly it ought to be, the object next 
 my heart, that I ought to hesitate in surrendering 
 my private personal gratification, to a duty to which 
 I have consecrated four years, simply because I have 
 consecrated to it my life. 
 
 "I know there is involved another interest, viz. 
 yours. I know that I have stimulated you to go, 
 have put you up to sacrifices for going, in the idea 
 that I was to be with you, strong enough and well 
 enough, and God knows, glad enough, to take care 
 of you. I know that you are as much delighted with 
 the idea of going with me as I with you. I remem- 
 
222 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 bered all this to the last. In the vigorous effort I 
 have made to keep to our plan, it has been one 
 of my strongest incentives. But see what the 
 difficulty is. It is unfortunately the end of our 
 parish financial year. Unfortunately the parish is 
 in a panic? Three men whose annual tax amounts 
 to some #350 have signed off. Therefore, the parish 
 is in a panic. You remember our people. You know 
 that a notion of this sort once in their heads worries 
 them a while and they forget it. Well, this is their 
 notion now. I have no idea but what, without these 
 tax payers, the church is virtually strong this morn- 
 ing. But, it seems, it does not think so itself. From 
 every quarter, where my best friends can speak to 
 me they tell me that we must pull together just now, 
 and that this is just the time of all times when I am 
 most needed here. 
 
 "Mark, this difficulty was not when I wrote 
 you first or secondly, or thirdly. Not till this last 
 week did this thunderbolt, which I could laugh at, 
 were it not so serious to you and me, fall. But no 
 sooner was my plan fairly afloat for the gossips of 
 the town to talk of than it assumed every variety 
 of dress under their lips. I am afraid that our friends 
 of the old church helped it along. Some said it was 
 Hale's excuse to get rid of his parish. Some thought 
 it was the parish's excuse to get rid of him. Then 
 fell the thunderbolt aforesaid, — and so our friends, 
 my best friends, tell me distinctly, that for their 
 benefit it will be decidedly very desirable that I 
 stay, — save them from 'supply' with no pastoral 
 ministration, — show all tremblers that we have a 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 223 
 
 firm front and no fear, and so weather the storm. 
 In true faith, then, I must stay. At the same time, 
 I, individually, think there is very little of a storm 
 to weather. 
 
 "Now, Fred, you cannot be angry with me, but 
 you will think I have been hasty, — and that I have 
 misled you seriously, as I have more than once 
 before, by one of my hasty half-cock decisions. 
 But this time, it is not so. Thomas, Tolman, both 
 say that since I first advised with them their minds 
 have changed wholly, because the circumstances 
 have. I did not determine without consultation, — 
 and now that I recede it is because the parish recedes 
 and compels me to do so. You must look on the 
 disappointment as you would do if I had died, or 
 fallen sick. It is, in its circumstances, one as little 
 expected or expectable and as wholly beyond control. 
 
 "Now, for yourself, I still hope you and Caroline 
 and the boy will go. Not quite as we should have 
 gone, but I am sure that the voyage to some pleasant 
 summer home on the Mediterranean, — or life of 
 some weeks there, such as you would lead with them, 
 and then a voyage back would be for you invaluable. 
 What you want is rest, depend upon it. The freedom 
 from responsibility, freedom from care which this 
 would give you, would build you up more than fifty 
 Wistars or fifty million cod-liver oils. God knows 
 what a pain to me it is not to go with you. I do not 
 remember to have had so dear an idol, or castle, — - 
 call it what you will. My table here is steeped with 
 books about those lands, — and how much advice I 
 have to give you if only you will go. If I have writ- 
 
224 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ten calmly up above here, it is because I have forced 
 myself to write under the impulse of what I owe to 
 our own dear church, — not that this is not as 
 severe a disappointment as ever I met with." 
 
 TO FREDERIC GREENLEAF 
 
 "Worcester, March 20, 1850, 
 "Wednesday 10 a.m. 
 
 "Now for the first time, I feel nervous, — at this 
 moment I am sad. I never involved anybody so far 
 before as I have you now, and how your affairs, how 
 everything may stand, in your change of plan 
 which (I will not say I) but I and mine have com- 
 pelled, I am most anxious to know. 
 
 " Still, I cannot accuse myself of want of decision 
 nor of effort. In the longest fit of sickness I ever 
 had, and since I returned, I held on to this as firmly 
 as I could. I am defeated, personally disappointed, 
 but because I have not my own weakness to charge 
 with the defeat, in any point that I can find, — be- 
 cause I have given up to a clearly stated case of duty, 
 I do myself readily accept the condition of things as 
 a Providence, not one which I have pulled upon 
 myself, but one ordered for me to meet, — and ( 1 
 will not let it go without it blesses me.'. . . 
 
 "But, Fred, did ever so fine a castle in the air come 
 so near completion ! I go about among people calmly, 
 without expressing any intense sorrow, — nay, with- 
 out feeling when others are very much troubled. 
 It is when I sit down to write to you that all these 
 visions of the moods in which I have written, the 
 letters that I have written to you come over me 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 225 
 
 again, and I feel the disappointment really. At 
 other times, I have not had, barricaded though I 
 am with the guide books and travel books, a ' realiz- 
 ing sense' that we were going. I was deep in all 
 practical inquiries, knew about climate, rents, and 
 houses, hire of horses and all that, still it was all like 
 a very definite dream, not like a reality. And to 
 decide to stay, to my somewhat surprise, seemed 
 like falling back by a sudden plunge from a dream 
 in to a waking life. 
 
 "But in this letter writing, I had a realizing sense 
 of the voyage. 
 
 "Let all that go, it will all come out right. God 
 knows how, — much better than I do. 
 
 "I can see what a relief my determination seems 
 to be among our people. Not that I am vain about 
 it. There are elements enough to save me from 
 that. I mean by relief, that they are relieved from 
 a dread which they could not define, — a something 
 hanging over them, they do not know what. 
 
 "There is a disappointment to me, — that after 
 four years they have no more confidence in their own 
 mutual communion, in their own strength." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "June 7, '50. 
 "And from that you are free. And your last 
 vacation for life begins. That is to say, after Com- 
 mencement you will always have, even in any self- 
 granted holiday, the feeling that they are self-granted, 
 and that their limit is in your hands. I hope you 
 will come up here as soon as you can. Two or three 
 
226 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 things we shall like to talk of before you make any- 
 definite arrangements for the year. And I know you 
 will enjoy Worcester. We are bringing 'Margaret 
 PercivaF to a close, thanks to Lucretia's energy, of 
 which she has enough to be a light to all of us. And 
 indeed I am amazed in every chapter with the fresh- 
 ness and vividness of thought which she brings to bear 
 in a book, too, which in itself is rather unpromising. 
 I mean closely cramped in its requisitions and designs. 
 On Monday it goes into Phillips and Sampson's 
 hands. Its merits are that it exposes its predecessor, 
 a book which has had a very wide circulation, and 
 that it brings out a good deal of practical theory of 
 personal training. Its demerits, that it has no 
 story whatever and is published a year too late, the 
 original forgotten more than I wish it were. So is to 
 be launched our first literary enterprise." 
 
 to mrs. moses phillips 
 
 "Centre Harbor, 
 
 "WlNNIPISEOGIE, July 21, 185O 
 
 "The smile of the Great Spirit be upon you, my 
 dear Mamma, as I do not doubt it is, in our dear 
 home. 
 
 "Here as I have been sitting this last hour every- 
 thing seems so full of life and of God ! From close in 
 front of me, where are the flowers I brought in from 
 my walk this morning, across to the blue distant 
 hills which lap on the bluer sky of the world inhabited 
 ether, one ray, one bunch of rays, brings so much to 
 me! And my brave little wee eye can take them all 
 in! What is man that thou are mindful of him? ? ? ? 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 227 
 
 "What, indeed, but this. The same Thou hast 
 made him but a little lower than the angels ; — hast 
 crowned him with glory and power! Why, these 
 flowers here ! As I dressed after my swim, I thought 
 to take one only of each sort. I appreciated as never 
 exactly before, how great our error when we bunch 
 together wild flowers. Their charm is almost always 
 in their lightness, or at least in the shape. They 
 grow one by one. (Oh, those two beautiful orchids 
 that I got yesterday, — separate as Egyptian obe- 
 lisks or as fixed stars!) Bunch them, — -to feed 
 your civilized eye with a mass of their color, and 
 you gain in color to be sure, — but that is where, — 
 as far as brilliancy goes, — they do not affect to 
 equal gardens or carpets, — • and you have lost grace 
 and form. As if you had arranged with a barbaric 
 power Fanny Ellsler and Sarah Phillips and Susy 
 all in a platoon, and were marching them about 
 according to the school of the soldier. Having, at 
 last, by the gift of 28 years and odd, appreciated 
 this, I say, I gathered one Monkey flower, — then 
 I put him by and took another who was better, — • 
 one Loose-strife, — one Cistus, one Actaea, — (forgive 
 me Mamma and Spirit of Harry Blake and all good 
 powers if these names be wrong), and I brought them 
 home and put them in water. And I have arranged 
 them by letting one lean out at every corner of an 
 imaginary square inscribed in the top of the tumbler 
 which I took from my washstand. 
 
 "What could be a simpler arrangement? 
 
 "And yet, there are those four little fellows, pink, 
 purple, yellow, and straw color, nodding now in this 
 
228 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 playful breeze, perfectly conscious that their very 
 movement is infinite and incalculable, — that La- 
 Place and Charley on the tip top slide of the fluxions 
 and integrals could not state, a line or a curve of it, 
 — and as for this witching tracery of their lines and 
 leaves, — in the water and out of it, edges, tops, 
 bottoms of their leaves, — buds, blossoms and seed 
 vessels, — Good God, there is not the man of us 
 all, nearest to Uriel or farthest following on Zephon, 
 who would dare take pencil and undertake to follow 
 that tracery and put it down, — without apologizing 
 at every step, — toning down at every stroke, and 
 arriving at the end that he had better not have 
 begun. And for color, will you paint them, my 
 excellent friend, crowned with glory and honor as 
 you are and little lower than the angels ? 
 
 "Yes, sir, I will paint them, for I will not forget 
 them, but I will paint them in eternal colors on an 
 eternal sketch book, — and with none of your miser- 
 able manufactured pigments. Paint the infinite 
 with the finite, — faugh! 
 
 "So much for the flowers, — which I am sorry to 
 be done with so soon. Now as I sat> the length of 
 that tall graceful stem of Cistus stretched way 
 across from the bottom to the top of the cone of 
 light that brought to me that blue heaven, — blue 
 mountain, blue lake, — and perpetually a twig of 
 maple waved into it, or a fly flew across it, to remind 
 me that between the mountain, nay, between the 
 worlds lost in the distance and me, the whole was 
 full of Life and full of the God of Life. 
 
 "There is a Hymn of Sterling's; I must give you 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 229 
 
 Sterling's poems. Go find mine. A bit of it is in 
 our Hymn Book. Stay, I think it is all in the Rosary. 
 Something in it about the 'fly inweaves his (some- 
 thing) flight' has brought it to me, — the spirit 
 and tone of it, I mean, for I cannot remember another 
 word than those three, — as the hymn of this place 
 and hour. ('God In All Things, — beginning, Oh 
 Thou, whose strength and wisdom'). 
 
 "In this glorious world, now in one mood and now 
 in another, but always with this loving welcome from 
 skies gray or white or blue, and prospect various as 
 the heaven of which it is a part, we have been steeped, 
 — saturated for these three, four days, with nothing 
 to terrify us or make us afraid. We in it, and I hope 
 we may yet say, it and the spirit in us. Thursday 
 night we came to Tyngsboro, sleeping .beautifully 
 by the beautiful Merrimac. Friday night we were 
 at Concord, N.H. It had rained almost all day, and 
 we had come from Nashua in the cars. Yesterday 
 on horseback again we came here. The horses are 
 good, — the day was just the day to ride, — and so 
 tho' our ride was nine miles more than we meant, 
 we enjoyed it all. We dined with the Shakers at 
 Canterbury, nice souls they of whom some time 
 I will tell you. I am better every way than when I 
 started, though I have a throat still. Today we 
 have been to meeting all Sunday. I hoped to find 
 some Methodists, but no. For preaching a Professor 
 Forsyth of Princeton in the morning diluted the 
 23 rd psalm (as he called it) with Calvinism, — or 
 tried to (poor witch work it was, mixing gold dust 
 with water to make a paste) and a poor boy from the 
 
230 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 neighborhood told about Regeneration in the p.m. 
 But I stood firm, loyal to my last Sunday's doctrine, 
 — the singing and the chance for praying saved it 
 all, — and I am very glad I went. 
 
 "We shall stay here at least two days more." 
 
 The year closed in a most depressing way. Not 
 only was the trip to Palestine given up, but in the 
 summer Fred Greenleaf died. Not only that, but 
 early in the fall my father's younger brother Alex- 
 ander was drowned at sea. The blow was a very 
 serious one. Alexander, Charles, Susan, and Jane 
 had been the younger half of the family; Jane died 
 in childhood, but the others had now grown up and 
 were eagerly beginning life. Alexander had graduated 
 from Harvard in the class of 1849 and had shortly 
 gone to Pensacola, Florida, as an engineer in the 
 Government service. Here on the occasion of a 
 shipwreck, he had volunteered as one of a life-saving 
 crew. None of them were ever heard of again. 
 My father has told me that for years he had the 
 idea that his brother might somehow reappear, but 
 there was no real chance of escape, and nothing 
 was ever heard of him afterward. 
 
 TO MRS. MOSES PHILLIPS 
 
 "Wednesday evening, Sept. 4, 1850 
 "My dear Mamma, 
 
 "All that we have had is virtually in the letter 
 from Major Chase in this morning's Advertiser 
 which you have read. Tonight, Father has a similar 
 letter from Commodore Norton, who speaks, as 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 231 
 
 Major Chase did, in the most beautiful way of Alex- 
 ander and the way in which he had ingratiated him- 
 self with all there. His letter says that they seem 
 to have lost sight of their own peril till too late, 
 in their efforts to reach the endangered vessel a 
 second time, and that after they were once in the 
 current their destruction was certain. 
 
 "None of the bodies are found and it is not at all 
 probable that they will be, from the nature of the 
 currents on that coast. 
 
 "I cannot tell you how small the family circle 
 seems. As large of course as it has been for fifteen 
 months past, at any moment, but yet the gap 
 seems immense, — the difference tremendous be- 
 tween my last visit and this. Sarah bore it much 
 better — I mean with less painful physical result, 
 than I dared hope. She got through yesterday 
 well, and last night got good sleep, as with God's 
 blessing we all of us did. 
 
 " For the rest, it is a blessing to be together, — 
 that is all I can say. My father is affected as I 
 never saw him, — but not more than I knew he 
 would be. The brave boy was in the prime of his 
 fortunes, with a promise that could not be over- 
 stated." 
 
 TO MRS. MOSES PHILLIPS 
 
 "Monday p.m., Sept. 9, 1850 
 
 "Yesterday was not so sad a day. I had not 
 
 been in the church as one of the congregation these 
 
 five years, — my own feeling of 'the home of our 
 
 devotions' came back over me as it could have done 
 
232 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 nowhere else out of our own dearest little home 
 church, and in the hour of the service I felt for the 
 first time the reaction, — not to hope exactly, or 
 high cheerfulness — ■ but to life, energy, plans for the 
 future. The service was very agreeable but of that 
 I will tell you some other time. I do not know that 
 that moved me so much as the deeper influences of 
 the place. 
 
 "Understand me when I speak in such ways. I 
 am not in the least conscious, since the beginning 
 of the week, of a single pulse of distrust faithless- 
 ness, or repining. It is as clear to me as ever that 
 God's order of things is right. But at the same 
 time, it is terribly clear, that that order has crossed 
 my separate wish. God knows this, as well as 
 I. That I need the sorrow I do not doubt, but 
 none the less is it sorrow. 
 
 "And here is its effect on me individually, — that 
 for years past, say ten years, — whenever I have 
 failed in any wide enterprise, seen my want of in- 
 fluence on wider circles, I have fallen back in thought 
 and resolution on what I could be and do for these 
 three children. There my empire was certain. 
 There the field was all my own, — they as eager to 
 receive as I to give, — loving to be with me in 
 body or spirit, as much as I have rejoiced and been 
 proud to be with them. What I have lost, then, 
 in my dear brother's return to his home, is one of 
 the harbours under my lee — one of the light houses 
 I was accustomed to look to in my storms. That 
 is, I have lost one of the favorite objects of my life, 
 I do not wonder then to find, that there is not in 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 233 
 
 me one plan of action, one thought or system of 
 labor through which this crack does not somehow 
 run. But I can feel as proud as ever of him, and, 
 as I said to you, I believe, see how noble an angel 
 he has made. All is, my life, in many regards, 
 must be recast in its hopes, plans and dreams." 
 
 In the spring of 1851 came another blow, the 
 death of his much loved sister Sarah. She had been 
 in poor health, and in the late winter he had gone to 
 Washington with her. She had stopped in Baltimore 
 on the way back and instead of improving had grown 
 worse and died. 
 
 TO MRS. PHILLIPS 
 
 "May, 28 1851. 
 "I will tell you when I see you of the beautiful 
 way in which Mr. Judd spoke of Sarah. He had 
 first learned of her death from Mr. Phillips. I 
 believe I always rated intellect low enough, in 
 the scales of manhood, but I think I shall now rate 
 heart higher than I have done. It is what one 
 wants in seeking strength from surrounders (sic) 
 in this world." 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER 
 
 "Sept 16, 1851. 
 "I had a good time at Concord where as Lucretia 
 told you I went a little unwillingly. I staid at 
 Mr. Hoar's. He is splendid, a real old school 
 gentleman. I liked very much Mrs. Stover his 
 daughter, who did the honors. Mrs. Hoar and 
 Miss Elizabeth were away. The sudden change 
 in the weather had left a beautiful day and the 
 
234 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 church was full of people. In the evening I made 
 some calls, one of an hour on Mr. Waldo Emerson 
 who was especially genial. He was amazingly and 
 amusingly interested in the model and success of 
 the yacht America, had the Illustrated News with 
 the pictures of her and talked quite pleasantly 
 about her victory. The new life of our friend 
 John Sterling which Phillips and Sampson are 
 carrying through and which he negotiated for, on 
 Carlyle's behalf, was another subject of talk." 
 
 On October 31, is the first mention that I find of 
 a person afterward of great consequence in his 
 world. He had met Miss Emily Perkins before 
 this particular time when he went "and made a 
 call at Dwight Foster's." At the moment, how- 
 ever, his mind was much absorbed with other mat- 
 ters. Toward the end of the year he received a 
 call to be the pastor of the First Church of Boston. 
 One might suppose at first that the offer would have 
 been exactly in the direction of his plans and hopes. 
 But there were many circumstances involved. 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER 
 
 "Jan. 10, 1852. 
 "You are always kind, and your letter was most 
 kind; tho' I will not say that reading it just before 
 I went to bed helped me much to sleep last night. 
 I only wished that you had expressed yourself as fully 
 a month since, instead of trying to feel as I think 
 you feel no longer, that it was really an open ques- 
 tion which had two sides. You are wrong in think- 
 ing that I am surrounded with advice here. Yours 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 235 
 
 is the first advice I had had from any one, except 
 Greene who said he and Anna Greene (Shaw) 
 feeling that I was of indolent temperament, thought 
 such a place of no-work as Chauncey Place just the 
 place for me; and from Huntington eager for me 
 to go 'because Boston needs true soldiers/ and 
 from Shackford because 'if the most conservative 
 parish in Boston had thrown itself into the hands 
 of one of the younger men, he owed it to the rest 
 to accept the burden and the responsibility.' From 
 Chandler Robbins and Weiss on the other hand 
 I had their intimations that they should not go, 
 Weiss's perhaps amounting to advice to stay. But 
 here no one advises me. Everybody says it is for 
 my personal interest to go, and then, persons whom 
 I had thought my indifferent parishioners or my 
 disaffected opponents come to say that if I were to 
 stay they would be the first to rejoice in it as a 
 thing of great value to themselves, the parish and 
 the town," 
 
 In the main he felt that his duty and his inclina- 
 tion led him to stay. The First Church was a 
 parish of older people, without Sunday school or 
 benevolent institution; his church at Worcester 
 was young, desirous of carrying on the institutions 
 of the church, and entirely united in a wish that 
 he should stay. The salary in Boston was larger 
 than that he was receiving, but he felt that even 
 in Worcester his additional earnings might enable 
 him, as he greatly desired, to do something for 
 the maintenance of the family in general. He was 
 eagerly desirous of being with the rest of the family, 
 
236 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 but in Worcester he had formed many very close 
 associations. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 "Jan. 20, 1852. 
 
 "... my work with pen and in print. This is my 
 pet fancy and ambition, the thing I enjoy most. 
 For this sort of work I have most power at Worces- 
 ter, because I have my time most at my command 
 and have a parish who have to let me do as I chose." 
 
 One consideration is well worth note. Speaking 
 of the letters of some of his brother ministers, he 
 writes to his father. "They say the Unitarian 
 ministry must have a man to be before the public 
 what Mr. Palfrey, or Mr. Buckminster, or even 
 Cotton Mather was, a man not shut up in his parish, 
 but capable in charities, useful knowledge societies, 
 mercantile libraries, athenaeums and so on: that 
 now when the clergy is to be represented in such 
 matters, some Orthodox or Methodist comes in. I 
 think they are right. I think we need such a man, 
 in such a way. I think I could be he : but I do not 
 think it a very important or desirable person to be." 
 
 Possibly not in just the way he conceived it at 
 that time. But he afterward made such a posi- 
 tion very "important and desirable." 
 
 He decided to stay in Worcester. But he im- 
 pressed on his father that if he felt that a per- 
 manent residence in Boston would be substantially 
 better than his frequent visits he would make the 
 other decision. 
 
 Not long afterward he received an informal call 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 237 
 
 to Brooklyn. "The position/ 5 he wrote to his 
 brother Nathan, "is a splendid one. A young, 
 wide awake parish, starting with means enough in 
 this immense active world. But I prize home too 
 much in my modesty to entertain it." 
 
 At this time he took two important steps. He 
 contracted for a house on his lot of land to be done 
 in the course of the summer, and he became en- 
 gaged to be married. On October 15 he was 
 married to Miss Emily Perkins of Hartford. The 
 wedding journey was taken in a chaise in the 
 Berkshires, and when they returned the house 
 was ready for them. 
 
 Life resumed its general character with the added 
 pleasure of married life. As the spring came on he 
 began to develop his garden, getting up before six 
 to have an hour to himself. 
 
 The diary which had been kept for ten years 
 now ceases. In the last years it had been very 
 intermittent and had consisted more of a noting 
 of reflections and meditations than of a record of 
 facts and occurrences. The Omnium Gatherum 
 also, although it contains some note of reading, is 
 likely to have more careful analyses and abstracts 
 of fewer books. Now, however, after marriage, 
 a new and most amusing series of scrapbook ap- 
 pears. These books carefully kept up for ten years 
 are very full evidence of a full and cheerful social 
 life. They have generally rather elaborately drawn 
 designs on the cover painted in now faded and worn 
 water colors. The inside is embellished with coats 
 of arms, illuminated borders, and other such things. 
 
238 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 These were all drawn by my father who, like all the 
 others of his family, could draw and paint in water 
 colors. His sister Susan was the only one who 
 devoted herself to painting as a profession, but 
 my father, at this time, was always drawing and 
 painting, and now and then taking lessons. So 
 he decorated his scrapbooks with all sorts of amus- 
 ing things. The books are full of memorabilia, 
 invitations, programs, notes, cards, inscriptions, 
 generally mounted or supplied with ornamented 
 borders. My recollection of my dear mother's 
 drawing leads me to think that these were wholly 
 the product of my father's pencil. 
 
 We find also note of much family visiting. 
 "Dec* 22. Nathan, C. E. P., Mrs. Perkins 
 
 Charley Perkins leaves at 9.30 
 
 In a.m. arrived Mr. Charles Hale 
 (visiting card) 
 
 In p.m. Mrs. Stowe.'" 
 Nathan, of course, was his elder brother. C. E. 
 P. was my mother's younger brother, Mrs. Perkins 
 her mother. "Mr. Charles Hale" was at this 
 time studying law and reporting for the Advertiser 
 and looking about in politics. Mrs. Stowe was 
 my mother's aunt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, in the 
 first glow of the fame of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 "Dec. 24. Nathan, Uncle Tom in p.m. [Thomas 
 K. Beecher] 
 
 Writing Christmas sermon. 
 
 Vignette from study window [sketch 
 of a pool and distant landscape] 
 
 Christmas Tree in evening. 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 239 
 
 "Jan. 5. To Worcester. E & E and Mrs. P. 
 [with an illustration of a snow-covered 
 church cut from some paper] 
 "Jan. 6. Brace arrives. [Charles Brace: just 
 about beginning the work which took 
 form twenty years later in "Danger- 
 ous Classes of New York City."] 
 Mrs. Foster, Lizzy Baldwin dine 
 [sisters, and first cousins of my 
 
 mother] 
 Reading class: with note of names. 
 Braces's Lecture in evening. 
 "Jan. 7. E. and E. to Boston. 
 
 Brace and Mamma here. 
 Thackeray on Goldsmith and Sterne 
 With Mr & Mrs Bacon. 
 "Monday, May 9. Kate's birthday [my mother's 
 sister] 
 E. & L. & K. & S. & mother read. 
 
 Village Bells 
 Evening. E. & E. & K. & S. & L. 
 to Henrietta Sontag." 
 [At the Howard Athenaeum: The program — 
 part of it — is surrounded by an elaborate picture 
 of the stage with the backs of the party mentioned 
 in orchestra seats, looking partly at Sontag on 
 the stage and partly in a very vacuous way around 
 the audience.] 
 
 This all shows a family life full of charm and 
 attraction; all sorts of jokes and coterie-talk, 
 brightness and cleverness. Doubtless the mem- 
 bers all have something to do (we get constant 
 
240 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 note of parish calls and of more serious ecclesiasti- 
 cal functions) but the family circle is the center, 
 the main thing. The Worcester family is a new 
 center between Boston and Hartford. Nathan and 
 Susy Hale, Charles and Katy Perkins, are con- 
 stantly coming and going, and every program, 
 announcement, ticket, visiting card is taken as 
 opportunity for borders or vignettes. The grave 
 program of the inauguration of James Walker as 
 President of Harvard University is adorned with 
 an absurd drawing of the University procession. 
 The announcement of the Fourth of July celebra- 
 tion at Worcester has bells ringing in the morning, 
 little boys and citizens shouting and giving three 
 cheers, displaying the flag. The oration by F. 
 Wayland has a hand which points to a picture of a 
 rapt audience and gesticulating orator. We must 
 remember also that this was not the production of 
 some artist or dilettante but of a working minister 
 who was preaching and making parish calls, be- 
 sides organizing practical work for Kansas and 
 Nebraska on the one hand, and the charitable 
 work of a city of fifty thousand on the other. The 
 drawing must have been done quickly, generally, 
 we may imagine, with someone looking over the 
 shoulder of the artist; the books are not evidence 
 of artistic ability, but of a constant flow of good 
 spirits and ingenious expression. A note of it 
 must be enough. It was a gay and clever group; 
 my father, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Lucretia Hale, at 
 least, came to subsequent reputation in literature, 
 while Nathan and Susan Hale had always that 
 
LIFE IN WORCESTER 241 
 
 better founded but even more ephemeral reputa- 
 tion in the social recollection of their own genera- 
 tion. But like most of such social movements it 
 left slight mark of what it actually was, — an ele- 
 ment in the life of my father that we should not 
 miss. 
 
M 
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 
 
 1850-1856 
 
 Y father's earliest expression of political opin- 
 ion may be found in the "Address of the Carriers 
 of the Public Informer to their Patrons", written 
 toward the end of 1834, when he was about twelve 
 years old. There, after mentioning among the 
 remarkable happenings of the year, the achieve- 
 ments of the Boston and Worcester Railroad, and 
 the burning of the Ursuline Convent at Somerville, 
 he goes on 
 
 "Once more: we find the spirit of the age, 
 In our own home where many parties rage, 
 No longer sturdy Federalists are we, 
 No longer Nat. Republicans we see, 
 Now we are Whigs ; and now we see revive, 
 The spirit of the Whigs of '75." 
 
 No political writing of the day gives a more 
 rational account of the rise of the Whig party in 
 Massachusetts than these few lines. They had 
 been Federalists; then they became National Re- 
 publicans; now they were Whigs and the succes- 
 sors of the Whigs of 1775, the heroes of Lexington 
 and Bunker Hill. That was all they knew and all 
 they needed to know. 
 
 242 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 243 
 
 It was a matter of course that my father's views 
 should have taken this form. His father and his 
 uncle were both persons of importance in the Whig 
 party, the one as editor of an influential news- 
 paper, the other as member of Congress. Daniel 
 Webster, the great Whig statesman, was not only 
 closely connected with them, but was the father of 
 his friend Edward, who at this time was writing 
 the gossip of the Capital to my father from Wash- 
 ington. He might not unnaturally have known 
 that there was some reason for other views in poli- 
 tics, but it would have been very unlikely that he 
 should have had much sympathy with them. 
 
 As a good Whig, then, my father went through 
 college and in his diary we now and then get note 
 of some political event or other. It seems prob- 
 able, however, that he did not think very deeply 
 about the condition of national affairs. In college 
 and in the after years when he traveled about the 
 country a good deal, he does not appear to have 
 emerged from the political views of the godlike 
 Daniel, "his Excellency" (as Edward Everett was 
 commonly called in the family after his being 
 Governor), and the editor of the Advertiser. In 
 college we have seen his sympathy with the Rev. 
 William Swett, who thought that the clergy should 
 take more interest in Palestine than in Texas. 
 He evidently took little real interest in politics; 
 his diary, letters, commonplace books contain lit- 
 tle mention of political affairs, except when writ- 
 ing to Edward Everett or his brother Nathan, 
 who was in these years doing more and more on 
 
244 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 the Advertiser. It must be admitted that though 
 the Whigs of 1835 and later years were doubtless 
 as patriotic and full of the love of liberty as their 
 grandfathers of 1775, it is not so clear that they 
 were more so than the followers of Jackson who 
 in their opponents' imagination had to take the 
 part of Tories. Glimmerings of such a view ap- 
 pear now and then in my father's writings. 
 
 At Washington where he preached during the 
 winter of 1844, he had good opportunity to see 
 something of politics from the inside. In his "Mem- 
 ories of a Hundred Years" he gives his recollec- 
 tions of his own position at that time. 
 
 "On the morning of the 2d of March I called on 
 Mr. Rufus Choate at the Senate Chamber, and 
 called him out from his seat. 
 
 "'I am going to Boston, Mr. Choate. What 
 shall I tell my father?' 
 
 "'Tell him we are beaten, Mr. Hale — we are 
 beaten, magno proelio victi sumus. We have been 
 beaten in a great battle.' 
 
 "The truth, was, as I sujfpose, that President 
 Tyler had told Senator Merrick — ■ a weak Senator 
 from Maryland — that if he would vote for annexa- 
 tion, his son should be made Judge in the District 
 Court of Columbia. Such was, at least, the scandal 
 of the time. The son was made judge of that court, 
 receiving a position which he held until his death, 
 and the father, who had been chosen as a Whig, 
 voted for annexation. 
 
 "For myself, I went back to Boston most eager 
 to carry out what I thought to be the true policy 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 245 
 
 of the Northern States. I have never changed 
 my opinion. The whole North was angry with 
 what seemed a trick which had been played upon 
 it. This same North was sending westward thou- 
 sands of emigrants every year; and here was this 
 magnificent province lying empty. How certain 
 it is that if the wave of free emigration could have 
 been turned into Texas then, evils untold of would 
 have been prevented. On the other hand, I am 
 afraid it is as certain that human slavery would 
 not have been abolished in the older States for an- 
 other generation. 
 
 "But my own duty seemed to me clear enough. 
 I gave my first days after I returned to Boston 
 to writing an eager appeal for the immediate set- 
 tlement of Texas from the Northern States. 'How 
 to Conquer Texas before Texas Conquers Us/ this 
 was the title of my pamphlet. I printed it at my 
 own cost, and I am yet to meet with the first per- 
 son, outside the circle of my immediate friends, 
 whoever read those sixteen pages. No, I must 
 except the proof-reader of that edition and the 
 proof-reader of the eighth volume of my standard 
 edition, in which I reprinted it fifty-six years after- 
 ward. 
 
 "I was ready to go myself in any capacity. I 
 had fancied, in the innocence of twenty-three years 
 of age, that we could arrest attention to such a 
 plan — that the men with money would contrib- 
 ute money and that the men of courage would 
 ally themselves together; and even, as certain 
 men went from Leyden to Massachusetts Bay in 
 
246 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 1620, a body of us would go to Texas in 1845. But 
 no, mine was a voice crying in the wilderness. 
 No man went or proposed to go/' l 
 
 Settling in Worcester shortly afterward he found 
 other matters crowding in upon him, and with his 
 practical trend of mind he began, as we have seen, 
 to deal with the things of immediate importance. 
 I do not know exactly when the expression "The 
 duty that is next your hand" came to take a fun- 
 damental place in his thought and feeling, but it 
 expresses a good deal of his feeling at just this time. 
 The Mexican War began and came to its end. I 
 find little reference to it in his papers. The fol- 
 lowing notes of beginning and end probably show 
 his general view. 
 
 "May 12, 1846. Then there was the public news 
 of the outbreak of the Mexican War, where I had 
 hoped was nothing but vapouring and bluster." 
 
 "Mar. 13, 1848. The war is done as it began 
 — ■ so awkwardly and left handedly that nobody 
 knows it is done — and can be enthusiastic over the 
 finale." 
 
 He was beginning his real church work and his 
 mind was probably full of church interests which 
 were gradually forming his ideas as to the really 
 important things of life. 
 
 In 1850, however, the Compromise debates, and 
 especially the position of Webster, aroused many 
 who had regarded the slavery question as a matter 
 of no immediate pressing importance. Nathan 
 Hale, of course, believed in his old friend and polit- 
 
 1 "Memories of a Hundred Years." Vol. I, p. 151. 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 247 
 
 ical leader, and my father, with some misgivings, 
 I think, acquiesced in his view. 
 
 TO FREDERIC GREENLEAF 
 
 "Mr. Hill tells me he is going to pitch into Web- 
 ster's speech. Much good may he do by it, but 
 I think the speech is good and going to do good; 
 I am only afraid it is a little too machiavellian in 
 what I suppose to be its subtle policy. The 
 Free Soilers mostly will not agree with me, but I 
 think they will within the month and give the 
 great Daniel credit for a longer head and more 
 principle than they thought for." 
 
 Bits of other letters will show political senti- 
 ment coming out here and there. But such bits 
 are not numerous and generally show little more 
 than a desire to escape from the general do-nothing 
 policy to which the Whigs seemed bound. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 "There is an assiduous effort made to make 
 political capital out of the Fugitive Law. The 
 papers give us credit for more excitement than 
 there really is. But everybody talks of it. I 
 send you a circular which I received yesterday 
 from the Anti-Slavery (Garrison Wing) Society. 
 It seems to me that you ought not ignore this very 
 natural excitement." 
 
 There soon occurred, however, an opportunity 
 to do something himself in the way he thought 
 things should be done. 
 
 "When, in the beginning of the year 1854, with 
 
248 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 a sublime audacity, won by success, the Southern 
 leaders determined to overthrow the Missouri 
 Compromise, the same opportunity for the direc- 
 tion of free emigration presented itself to another 
 man in Massachusetts as the solution to be at- 
 tempted then. 
 
 "The 'Nebraska Bill/ still so called in conver- 
 sation at the North, though it was for many years 
 the law of the land, was introduced in the Senate. 
 It violated the promises of the Missouri Compro- 
 mise by throwing open the territory west of Arkan- 
 sas and Missouri and Iowa to the institution of 
 slavery. The North, was on fire at once at a 
 violation so disgraceful of a compact which had 
 been loyally respected for thirty-four years. And 
 Eli Thayer, a schoolmaster of Worcester, Massa- 
 chusetts, called on the Legislature to organize 
 the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company. He 
 was a member of the Legislature for the city of 
 Worcester. It was not a plan of an old antislavery 
 warhorse. It was a plan which proposed to meet 
 the South on its own terms, familiarly known as 
 'squatter sovereignty/ It authorized a capital of 
 five million dollars in establishing settlements in 
 the West. The charter was rushed through both 
 Houses of the Legislature at once, and was signed 
 by Governor Washburn on the 26th day of April, 
 1854. This was a month before the Nebraska Bill 
 was signed by Franklin Pierce, then President. 
 On the 4th of May the petitioners accepted the 
 charter. Massachusetts picked up the gauntlet, 
 it has been said, before it was thrown down. 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 249 
 
 "In point of fact, the friends of the movement 
 acted under a quiet, private organization through 
 the whole of the year 1854, and a more valuable 
 working charter was obtained for the New Eng- 
 land Emigrant Aid Company in the next winter. 
 That company still exists. Before May, 1855, 
 thirty thousand dollars were subscribed and spent. 
 Eventually, the company raised and spent one 
 hundred and thirty-six thousand dollars. The first 
 company of emigrants went under the direction 
 of its executive in August of 1854. Dr. Charles Rob- 
 inson, who afterward became Governor of Kansas, 
 was the leader. 
 
 "When this New England Emigrant Aid Com- 
 pany organized, the largest subscriber was John 
 Carter Brown, a millionaire merchant of Provi- 
 dence. He was chosen the first President of the 
 new organization. 
 
 "Mr. Eli Thayer was a near neighbor of mine 
 in Worcester, and as soon as I knew of his prompt 
 and wise movement, I went over to see him. I 
 was ready to take hold anywhere. He was very 
 glad to have a man Friday so near at hand. There 
 was enough for all of us to do. We called meet- 
 ings in all available places, and went to speak or 
 sent speakers wherever we were called for. Colo- 
 nies formed themselves in all the larger towns of 
 New England, and before the end of 1855 we had 
 sent out four or five thousand settlers into Kan- 
 sas. It is fair to say that every man in this com- 
 pany went for the purpose of making Kansas a 
 free State and to give a privilege to all other States. 
 
250 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 No man went with the primary purpose of enrich- 
 ing himself or his family. What followed was 
 that Kansas has always been a State of idealists. 
 When the Civil War, so called, came for the whole 
 nation, Kansas, which had tasted war for six years 
 already, furnished a larger proportion of soliders 
 to the Union than any other State did." x 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Does father give any cue about the Nebraska 
 bill ? Because it is a gross fraud, and I hoped 
 he would let you say so. The Missouri Compro- 
 mise was the result of as much travail as the 1850 
 one, and none of them are to be worth anything 
 if they are not held to." 
 
 TO NATHAN 
 
 "Mar. 17, 1854 
 "I am very much riled at Douglas's language 
 regarding me among others. That he should say 
 I had not read up the debate on the Missouri Bill. 
 I was tempted to write him to say he was misin- 
 formed. I think his Excellency was even more 
 than usually diplomatic on the occasion." 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 "Mar. 22, 1854. 
 
 "The last Independent published at New York 
 
 contains this map. They offer to sell blocks of 
 
 it at two dollars, and if no other Boston paper has 
 
 it I thought you would like to print it. I bought 
 
 1 "Memories of a Hundred Years." Vol. I, p. 153. 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 251 
 
 this paper therefore to send you. I think there is 
 no doubt it is accurate." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Mar. 25, 1854. 
 "The Independent published in New York has 
 stereotyped a good map of Nebraska etc; which 
 they will sell the block for two dollars. Will you 
 call there and buy one? Father says he will put 
 it in with an article which I am to write on the 
 present position of that question." 
 
 FROM EDWARD EVERETT 
 
 "June 5, 1854. 
 "Dear Edward, 
 
 "Mr. Rich and Dr. Webb called upon me one 
 day last week with the subscription book of the 
 Emigrant Aid Society, on which there were I think 
 three names. I told them I was altogether friendly 
 to the subject, and willing to make a small dona- 
 tion (twenty dollars) in aid of the fund, but was 
 not prepared to become a member of the corpora- 
 tion. Wishing to withdraw myself from all the 
 agitations of political life, I feel reluctant to be- 
 come a subscriber among the very first, and with 
 the avowed purpose of influencing others to an 
 organization so vast (four millions in pecuniary 
 amount) and capable of becoming a tremendous 
 engine. I do not suppose any such purpose is 
 intended, but while I am withdrawing myself as 
 much as possible from all active duties, I do not 
 
252 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 feel warranted in assuming the responsibility of new 
 relations of such possible magnitude." 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 "Apr. 5, 1854. 
 "I ought to have said this morning in sending 
 an article about Emigration to Kansas that the 
 quotations in it were from a letter from John M. 
 Forbes to me, which I should have liked to print 
 entire, if it had been proper. Of course, I would 
 not ask your assistance to the petitions if I did 
 not think it were in honest hands." 
 
 "May n, 1854. 
 "My dear Father: — 
 
 "The Corporators of the Emigrant Aid Com- 
 pany hold their meeting for arranging for sub- 
 scriptions to stock tomorrow at ten o'clock at the 
 Revere House. Other gentlemen will be there, 
 and I wish you would go and see if there is not real 
 prospect in effecting something. It is no mere 
 charity scheme, but one in which business men, I 
 think, will interest themselves. Benjamin C. Clark, 
 Isaac Livermore, Charles Thurber, Mr. Bullock 
 here, Moses Kimball, Otis Rich are among the 
 corporators whom you know. They want to se- 
 cure your hearty cooperation if the scheme pleases 
 for an examination, and I think would be glad to 
 make you President of the Company. 
 
 " You know how it has interested me as the 
 means of helping these Irish and German people 
 west without suffering. 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 253 
 
 "There are two hundred thousand of them and 
 others going west this summer. If twenty thou- 
 sand only of them go into Kansas, that is made a 
 Free State forever. 
 
 "The company proposes to make contracts at 
 the reduced rates with Railroad Companies for tak- 
 ing Emigrants on in companies, say of two hun- 
 dred each. We will let them have their passage 
 at these reduced rates. Arrived there it provides 
 for them saw mills, grist mills and temporary bar- 
 racks. 
 
 "It makes its profit by reserving the sections in 
 which these establishments are placed. Suppose 
 at such places two or three towns grow up, as they 
 must do, in two or three years. You can see what 
 two or three reservations of six hundred and forty 
 acres each will be worth, and what a return it will 
 make for the investments necessary. 
 
 "Mr. Bullock, Mr. Thayer and I were requested 
 at the first meeting of the corporators, (at which I 
 was not present) to draw up the Corporator's 
 address to the public, which I have just now been 
 putting in form. It will make a column of the 
 Daily. I wish you would print this on Saturday. 
 
 "But I will not ask for this if you will go to the 
 meeting. If you cannot, will you ask Charles to 
 go and make some report of it ? 
 
 "I think I have never had anything so much at 
 heart, and I only wish I were a business man that 
 I might move in it openly. 
 
 "We had mother's nice letter and the valise 
 yesterday, Emily's gloves answered admirably. 
 
254 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Today is a warm southern rain excellent for trans- 
 planted things. 
 
 "I leave to some of the others such little domes- 
 tic news as we have." 
 
 At this time occurred a very important matter 
 in relation to the Boston Daily Advertiser. It is 
 impossible, nor is there any reason for explaining 
 the details of the financial embarrassments of his 
 father. They had long been a source of anxiety. 
 At this time his father had a slight stroke of paral- 
 ysis. He recovered very quickly, but his illness 
 became the occasion for a rearrangement of affairs 
 by which my father and his brother Charles as- 
 sumed to a great degree the financial and editorial 
 responsibilities for the paper. Charles became 
 practically the managing editor. My father helped 
 on the editorial page. 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "We have canvassed that and still spell it with 
 'z.' I think you will find that the territory of Ar- 
 kansas was organized under that spelling, but the 
 public changed the matter before it was a State. 
 The Emigration is taking a very good turn. You 
 may say you have heard of more than one instance 
 where manufacturers of wood and iron are pro- 
 posing to take out machinery and establish it. I 
 do not add more to your article from want of time. 
 See the pamphlet for advertisement of the next 
 poetry from here." 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 255 
 
 TO NATHAN 
 
 "Aug. 10, 1854. 
 "I cannot get the Nebraska Act, but have a clue 
 to that National Era which I am to have today. 
 I am sick of the whole thing, and it really seems as 
 if my hand quailed at writing.' 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "I have not written to Boston this week because 
 I was writing Kanzas at the rate of forty-three 
 pages a day and dreaded the sight of pen and ink." 
 
 "Kanzas at the rate of forty-three pages a day" 
 means his book called " Kanzas and Nebraska " 
 which he was writing to spread the influence of 
 the Emigrant Aid Society. This work, which en- 
 gaged his whole mind and his best energy, gave 
 him the satisfaction of finding some way which 
 he felt to be practical in which he could work for 
 the cause of antislavery. But in addition to this 
 feeling was the interest growing out of his newer 
 studies and work in social science, in the questions 
 of immigration from Europe, and of dealing with 
 immigrants in this country. Kansas Emigration 
 seemed to him something well worth doing. One 
 can easily understand the eagerness with which he 
 wrote the closing passage in the book: 
 
 "It must be that the settlement of the new ter- 
 ritories by the best population which can be given 
 them shall command the active effort of all true 
 lovers of their country. This effort ought not 
 to be spoken of as a little affair, or as incidental or 
 
256 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 subsidiary to other enterprises, but as the greatest 
 duty now before American patriots and Christians. 
 It is a way of work more hopeful than any which 
 has been opened for years. It gives room for the 
 exertion of every one, in whatever position, and 
 holds out rewards such as satisfy the most eager. 
 In the long, painful, irritating, and perplexing dis- 
 cussion which has sought to check and hem in the 
 institution of slavery, the great difficulty has been 
 the want of a field of action, where working men 
 should not feel that they were wasting life in mere 
 talk or wordy protest or prophecy. That field is 
 found in Kanzas. To send men to Kanzas or to go 
 to Kanzas, resolved that free labor shall be honored 
 in Kanzas, and shall make itself honorable, is an 
 effort which can enlist the energies of every man. It 
 is an effort which the whole providence of God de- 
 mands, and which is made easy by the wonderful ar- 
 rangement of his wisdom. From the time of Moses 
 to this time there has never been seen so gigantic an 
 emigration as He has been pleased, in less than 
 forty years, to lead from Europe into America. As 
 part of this, and as consequence of this, every year 
 has seen the wave of emigration passing west- 
 ward from the Northern States into the north- 
 western deserts. That wave is moving now, larger 
 than it ever was. There needs no Peter the Hermit 
 to enlist crusaders. The crusaders are already on 
 their way. There need only the guides who shall 
 show them the fairest lands in the world; the 
 counsel and assistance which shall organize them, 
 that they may encourage and support each other, 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 257 
 
 and they will pass into the valleys of the Nebraska 
 and the Kanzas, as the waters of a mountain stream 
 pass into the lake in the valley. Passing thither, 
 they carry with them the principles which sent 
 them forth. No propagandism is needed to instil 
 them. These emigrants would not have left their 
 old homes had they not wanted to work some- 
 where, and had they not meant to find a home 
 where they could work with fit prospect of reward. 
 That reward they can only gain in a state which 
 shall be free. The dignity of working men will 
 only be preserved by the institutions which give 
 all men equal chance before the law. And with- 
 out special instruction, without pledge to any 
 political or social party, the great pilgrimage of 
 free emigrants from Germany, from New Eng- 
 land, from the Middle States, or from the states 
 of the God-protected old 'North-western Terri- 
 tory/ know that this is so. The Emigrant Aid 
 Companies ask no questions of their emigrants. 
 They sell their tickets at the cheapest rates to all 
 who come for them. They take no political posi- 
 tion. They make no political pledges or promises. 
 But none the less is it sure that when twenty thou- 
 sand men have gone into the new territories from 
 the seaboard and the North, they will be men who 
 will know that, to preserve the value of their virgin 
 farms, to maintain the dignity of their own lives, 
 to sustain the honor of their new-born states, those 
 states must be forever free." 
 
 But as he worked on the subject, he found also 
 a topic in history which appealed not only to all 
 
258 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 his interests as a historian, but to those leanings 
 toward the life of a pioneer which were so much a 
 part of his nature. 
 
 His book gave an account of the history of the 
 regions which had become Kansas and Nebraska, 
 of the geography of each territory, and of the re- 
 lation of the territories to the rest of the United 
 States. He read for it, or remembered, not only 
 the account of Father Marquette and La Salle, 
 but accounts much more recent and full of the 
 charm of current interest. The travels of Lewis and 
 Clarke; of Pike and of Long; Irving' s account of 
 the wanderings of Captain Bonneville; Fremont's 
 own reports; Parkman's story of his life among 
 the Sioux which we remember as " The Oregon 
 Trail"; the account of the American Indians by 
 Catlin, are but the best remembered of the travels, 
 and explorations of half a century, which at that 
 time had all the charm of actuality as well as the 
 romance of the frontier. Even nowadays "Kan- 
 zas and Nebraska", though little more than a com- 
 pilation, is an interesting book, because it is so 
 full • of the intense feeling of the day. The book 
 ends as follows: 
 
 "Every indication now points to victory. The 
 movement of freemen is ten times as fast as is pos- 
 sible to men who must sell plantations before they 
 can move, and carry field hands before they can 
 labor. The whole foreign emigration comes prin- 
 cipled or prejudiced against slave institutions. 
 And the whole feeling of the North, whatever its 
 politics or its religion, turns eagerly to seek a field 
 
Edward Everett Hale 
 
 From a daguerreotype taken in 1855 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 259 
 
 of action for freedom. That field is open now, 
 inviting effort, fair, loyal, constitutional, and 
 manly. In that effort the whole energy of the 
 North may be enlisted, without one word of anger, 
 without one partisan appeal, with a simple reliance 
 on the principle which is diffused through the whole 
 system of northern life, thought and industry. 
 
 "It will only be by a miracle of indolence, by 
 blindness utterly incurable, that the men of the 
 free states can forfeit such a prize. 
 
 "Unless freedom refuse the strength she always 
 has given to freemen, that victory is gained. It is 
 gained unless the intelligent, high-trained industry of 
 the North, which has surrounded the world with its 
 commerce, and made all nature tributary to its 
 arts, meets now its first defeat. It is gained un- 
 less the great principle of association in a great 
 cause fails as it never failed before. It is gained 
 unless the Church of Christ, which has thrown over 
 the world a net-work, along the cords of which run 
 the electrical words of good tidings, is false at home 
 to a golden opportunity of advancing His kingdom. 
 
 "Unless, in one word, the providence of God 
 be wholly neglected and the immense power for 
 freedom flung away which God gives when he 
 sends an army of his children westward over sea 
 and land, the freedom of Kanzas and Nebraska 
 is secured, and the firmest step for the future 
 prosperity of America made sure. 
 
 "That victory will be won! God gives it to the 
 energy and wisdom of those who stay." 
 
 Further matters may be seen in the following: 
 
260 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Aug. 18, 1854. 
 
 "The managers, I see, of the Whig party are 
 coquetting with the Know-nothings. Think twice 
 before you go into that game. The organization 
 is wrong, and it will be just as weak as Masonic, 
 Oddfellow, Native American, and all other secret 
 organizations have been before. 
 
 "I will write an article explaining why I spell 
 Kanzas with a z. Will you print it and give a 
 general order to spell so. I will make the Register, 
 and I think the Tribune; my book will spell so, 
 and, I hope the Emigrant Company. I hope 
 it is not too late to change it, or rather to settle it." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Sept. 20, 1854. 
 "I am heartily obliged for the notice of Kanzas: 
 whether I ever see the book itself seem more doubt- 
 ful. I have been sending down to Webb myriads 
 of Emigrant letters. Can you conceive of any 
 bore less deserved and less in one's power to avoid, 
 than being announced as Secretary of a Popular 
 Society. I think a very good farce might be made 
 out of it. I have settled down to reading Hip- 
 polytus, as if I did belong to a sedentary profession 
 and really were a literary man. Imagine a work- 
 ing minister reading the Fathers." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Feb. 2, 1855. 
 "I have lots of things which I want to write about 
 of which the evil is that having in ten years la- 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 261 
 
 boriously broken myself of writing editorials that 
 I might write sermons, I now return to my old love 
 and dislike the sermons in proportion." QHe 
 wants reports of State Almshouse and the State 
 Auditor.] 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Feb. 15, 1855. 
 "I wrote the Tribune a letter headed Freedom in 
 Kanzas which if he prints I wish you would copy." 
 
 TO CHARLES , 
 
 "Feb. 17, 1855. 
 "Will you send me six copies of my Emigration 
 Statistics in same parcel. I missed your abstract 
 of the New Liquor Law. Let me have that. Your 
 Judge Loring article is excellent." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Feb. 22, 1855. 
 "What fatality introduces George T. Curtis to 
 defend Loring. It seems to me the end of the 
 case. And this (inter nos) is Judge Thomas's 
 feeling. He has all the judiciary feeling about 
 the attack on Loring, but said yesterday in a nice 
 talk I had with him that this fatality he thought 
 finished it. If Loring is guilty of anything, Curtis 
 is more. Not only is he one of the Curtis clique, 
 but he is the most unpopular of the officers on trial. 
 It is precisely having an accomplice not named 
 in the indictment defend a man who is tried. When 
 that accomplice happen to be the most unpopular 
 man in the country, God be with his client. 
 
262 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "Take care that you do not overstake our Su- 
 preme Court's decision in the Sims case. It covers 
 one point only, viz. the validity of the warrant by 
 which Sims was arrested. It is not a review of the 
 whole Fugitive Slave Law and an approval of it, 
 and does not cover all the points Loring made in 
 the Burns. I will tell you more of this when I 
 see you. I am going to send so much Emigration, 
 but it turns up you see. I wrote the enclosed for 
 the Tribune a week ago. Print it when you can. 
 Here is their last onslaught on the college. I would 
 not answer it, but you may want to." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 1855 
 
 " I have read here this morning two or three polit- 
 ical diatribes in as many newspapers, — and com- 
 paring their spasms with the stillness of the town 
 and people, — and with my general observations 
 on society, am led to remark that there is no such 
 humbug as this pretence that the country is con- 
 vulsed to the centre by the re-awakening of the 
 Slavery discussion, etc., etc. The fact is, the 
 country is not convulsed at all, and at heart does 
 not care a copper for the Missouri Compromise, 
 — nor, I am sorry to say, for Kanzas. There was 
 great truth in the bon mot, which attributed the 
 success of the K.N. last fall to the fact that people 
 were tired of Rum and Niggers. The leaders of 
 K.N. not being tired of these, have rushed back 
 into their old treadmill and are trying to persuade 
 a jaded audience to stay to a sixth act of the melo- 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 263 
 
 drama which has fatigued them. But it does not 
 follow that any, except very old stagers, will 
 stay. Indeed, — looking philosophically on things, 
 I suppose that the great want for purposes of polit- 
 ical interest just now, is the want of a man or 
 two. Parties, all over the world, have been al- 
 ways the trains, or admirers or supporters of men. 
 In America this has been specially true. With 
 Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson, — we have 
 had parties which deserved the name : — with 
 Clay, — with the imagined Cincinnatus to whom 
 we gave the name of Harrison, — and with Zack 
 Taylor we have had parties, of more or less effi- 
 ciency, — but never with cries, or platforms, or 
 mere principles. The same has been true in Eng- 
 land, — and in France, and is true at the present 
 day. Meanwhile, while some man is coming along 
 we can discuss questions which are going back into 
 history, pour passer le temps, et pour engorger les 
 colonnes de notre Gazette, — but I don't think it 
 makes any great difference what we say. 
 
 "In shorter language the public is a fool and we 
 can wait 
 
 "Love to Lucretia, "Ever Yours, 
 
 "Edward." 
 
 to charles 
 
 "This may show you how little importance I 
 attach to it. I have meant for a fortnight to write 
 to say that Fremont's nomination seems to me 
 to offer some hope for the Presidential Election. 
 I know nothing of him but that he has commanded 
 
264 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 a few men well, and that he is not distinctly com- 
 mitted to any thing that now is. 
 
 "Governor Robinson intimated that the notion 
 of running him had emanated from them, he and 
 Robinson were old political bed-fellows, (though 
 nominally opponents) in California. Whether Rob- 
 inson named him or not, I think it maybe considered 
 as the nomination of the West proper which really 
 (speaking of the Union) is a conservative element 
 in the country. 
 
 "Thayer, who has seen Fremont, says he is 
 not a great man, but sound upon Kanzas. The 
 Sewardities evidently look with some horror on the 
 suggestion, and he will take the wind out of their 
 sails, 
 
 "I do not write to suggest the paper's taking 
 any ground, but rather to suggest that it should 
 not yet take ground against him. It seems quite 
 clear that the Democratic Convention will name 
 some of the old dead wood. Fremont is, whatever 
 he may be called, a National man; born in South 
 Carolina, trained in the Army and the wilderness, 
 and now belonging to California. I think also 
 that he has been cautious, not to commit himself 
 in any way to the pure and simple abolition wing of 
 the 'Republicans/ 
 
 "With this notion, I am not sure but I shall 
 write an article, conferring with Nathan, and send 
 it down for your judgment or addition. And if 
 you know anybody whose advise is worth anything 
 (I do not) you might confer with him as to the 
 advisibility of our taking up Fremont so early, or 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 265 
 
 rather speaking civilly of him so early as to encour- 
 age him in not going savagely into the arms of the 
 Blacks. But when I began this note I had no 
 thought of this article. 
 
 " Farewell, 
 
 " Edward 
 
 "P.S. Can you in building a brick knock- 
 down [picture] cross a space of twelve brick lengths, 
 [three feet] so that the train on the other side shall 
 run? I can." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Dec. 18, 1855. 
 "I had another invitation to go to Plymouth 
 and hear Seward on the 21st which I was quite 
 tempted to accept. But I declined both on the 
 point of duty. I have swept Kanzas off my table 
 completely and return to the work of making a 
 decently organized Christian parish out of the few 
 hundred people who pay me the compliment of 
 coming to hear me preach. In St Bernard I have 
 the finest of conceivable subjects. An immense 
 folio containing half his letters is in the other room. 
 I have as yet hardly begun upon them." 
 
 TO MRS. PERKINS x 
 
 "Sept. 2, 1856. 
 "If you read our Kanzas news, you will see that 
 our people have been fighting, have broken up four 
 Southern forts, got back a good store of their own 
 
 1 Mrs. Perkins, Mrs. Hale's mother, was at this time abroad with her 
 sister, Mrs. Stowe. 
 
266 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 arms, and in general taken their affairs into their 
 own hands. If you chance to see Fred Olmsted, 
 tell him his howitzer has been recovered in an ex- 
 change of prisoners against arms. There are two 
 results of all this; first that Missouri threatens 
 another invasion, and talks very loud about it, 
 and will try it. You may get news of the begin- 
 ning of it with this letter. But, second, our people 
 are in more confidence than they have ever been, 
 and the Southern party more discouraged. Our 
 men have fought very well and with the tacit ap- 
 proval and consent of the officers of the army there. 
 The new Governor goes out a Free State man, 
 and we hope to keep him so. The best judges 
 think there will be no more fighting for three 
 months, i.e., till winter. But this is all but a guess. 
 I write you this by way of consoling you and Aunt 
 Harriet for Buchanan's election, for which the 
 chances are one hundred to one. We shall save 
 Kanzas, even if we lose Fremont." 
 
 TO MRS. PERKINS 
 
 "Sept. 13, 1856. 
 "Our Kanzas news is much what it was when I 
 wrote you; if I believed in the arm of flesh I 
 should say better. First after the Missouri men 
 burned Ossawatamie, a village of forty houses 
 from which, however, all the woman and children 
 had been withdrawn, our friends drove them bodily 
 out of the territory. For a week we only heard 
 that they had returned to organize themselves, 
 but the news of last night is distinct that they ran 
 
KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 267 
 
 away. It is regular warfare of the Marches or 
 Borders and if you want details you can ask your 
 friends the Angles how they used to lift cattle and 
 burn villages when there was occasion. It is cruel 
 beyond conception when you see it in detail. Our 
 friend Mr. Mute is a prisoner, taken when he went 
 to get the body of his brother-in-law who had been 
 shot and scalped, and this by a Kentuckian. There 
 is chivalry." 
 
 TO MRS. STOWE 
 
 "Oct. 7, 1856. 
 "Of politics all your correspondents write. It 
 is growing intensely exciting. We are in better 
 hope and better [[for the election of Fremont]; 
 but if you ever play whist you know that when your 
 adversary has made six and you must take seven 
 points running to beat, then the excitement is in- 
 tense. What, then, if you must take sixteen points, 
 without dropping one, the points each a state, in a 
 world of separate tangles any one of which defeats 
 you, and such a stake to play for. God bless us in 
 it, for surely it is no play." 
 
 TO MRS. PERKINS 
 
 "Oct. 18, 1856. 
 "In your last you were imprudent enough to 
 ask for news about politics. I suppose therefore 
 that by this mail you have Emily's, Fred's, Charles', 
 Kate's, and Mr. Perkins' views at length on the 
 Pennsylvania elections. I may say the less of it 
 therefore. But I feel very badly about it. I 
 
268 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 think we are beaten in the Presidential vote. That 
 is I think the chances for Fremont are reduced to 
 a bare hope, by the miserable result in that miser- 
 able commonwealth. I knew the state well when 
 I was there thirteen years since with father, (he 
 was engaged in persuading them into paying their 
 debt to Sydney Smith, and others). He suc- 
 ceeded, but we came away with the idea that it 
 was a state of people entirely debased by their 
 material interests. They will write you all sorts 
 of reasons for hope. Hope on — of course. But 
 this is a fact that the speakers who went from here 
 to help our friend in Pennsylvania in the canvass 
 were cautioned to say nothing in their speeches 
 about Fremont and nothing about slavery! Do 
 you wonder that such leaders were beaten? 
 
 "Oh! God is above us. We will not put our 
 trust in princes, but will save Kanzas in spite of 
 them." 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 THE CALL TO BOSTON 
 
 1856 
 
 JVIy father's life at this time was very full of 
 business. One day he wrote to Charles (March 1, 
 1856): "Yesterday I went out at 10:30 a.m. and 
 returned at 9 p.m. I put myself to sleep counting 
 the number of people I had talked with on different 
 affairs, people whom I knew, not including office 
 boys, or girls at doors, or people I called on and 
 found out. There were fifty-three of them." 
 
 Another letter to Charles (May 21, 1856) "written 
 after a singularly crowded day" and beginning 
 about Sumner's defense of "our Emigrant Com- 
 pany", Hovey's bill for roses and other plants, 
 Athenaeum books, and so forth, goes on: 
 
 "To this point I actually forgot (so tired am I) 
 that my chief object in writing was to say that 
 T. P. Hale called to ask me in confidence, if I would 
 settle as Huntington's successor, if they would 
 give me a unanimous call. I have written him to 
 say that I think not. This being after a good deal 
 of doubt, my opinion, I told him, however, that I 
 would write again at the end of the week, if I saw 
 any reason to change this decision. Could you 
 make a chance to come up Friday p.m. and talk 
 it over? We expect Miss Day here that day, but 
 
 will give you a bed somewhere, and I should like 
 
 269 
 
270 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 to compare notes on some points in the matter. The 
 whole is a profound secret; I have not told Nathan 
 and would rather you did not tell father or mother." 
 
 This is the first mention I find in my father's 
 letters of his call to the church which he served so 
 long. Frederick D. Huntington was at this time 
 Professor of Christian Morals and Preacher to the 
 University. He had been the minister of the South 
 Congregational Church of Boston but had resigned 
 to take up his college position about a year prior to 
 this time. Yet I presume the matter had been 
 mentioned before. There is a letter from Mr. 
 Huntington to my father on the subject dated two 
 days before this. He says "some hopes are en- 
 tertained" and goes into some description of the 
 congregation. It seems as though my father must 
 have received it before this; perhaps it was timed 
 to reach him just before the visit of Mr. T. P. Hale. 
 My father himself said, some twenty years after- 
 ward "quite by accident I preached in the old pul- 
 pit and was asked to settle there." 1 
 
 There seems to have been little doubt in my 
 father's mind about the main point of accepting 
 the call. There was discussion and hesitation last- 
 ing for a considerable time, but it was occasioned 
 by what seem at first minor matters though doubt- 
 less of great importance just then. Exactly what 
 were the deeper reasons for his decision can only be 
 inferred; as is so often the case with important 
 matters, his letters of the time assume that we have 
 the main things in mind. 
 
 1 "Historical Discourse/' February 3, 1878, p. 34. 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 271 
 
 The chief and sufficient reason for accepting the 
 call was that the South Congregational Church 
 was an active, vigorous church in a large and in- 
 fluential city, and opened a much greater oppor- 
 tunity than did Worcester for just the work he 
 had been coming to see was his work. But this 
 reason did not at first seem very apparent, for his 
 first impulse was to decline the offer, and he wrote 
 to Mr. T. P. Hale to that effect. But his letter, 
 which is not preserved, mentioned "a contingency" 
 and Mr. Hale did not, therefore, take it as a posi- 
 tive refusal. Mr. Huntington also wrote again 
 saying, "From your note received, I find that your 
 chief reason for hesitation is a distrust whether 
 your services will be acceptable to them." It 
 shortly appeared that there was some question 
 as to the unanimity of the call. This doubt Mr. 
 T. P. Hale and Judge G. P. Sanger of the South 
 Congregational Church did everything they could 
 to dispel. 
 
 In the course of a week my father rather changed 
 his mind. On June 8 he went to Dorchester to preach 
 at Church Green and at that time had an interview 
 with Judge Sanger and a committee of the South 
 Congregational Church. He wrote to my mother: 
 
 "But, about 8/| appeared Judge Sanger with 
 his Jury of twelve men, constituting the Hunting- 
 ton Committee. They had with them their formal 
 invitation, very well drawn and signed by all of 
 them. This Judge Sanger read — after some pre- 
 amble, — and then we had a free talk, in which they 
 certainly made out a very strong case as to their 
 
272 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 agreement and the spirit with which they go into 
 the thing. It even appeared that most of the men 
 who were supposed to have stood up among the 
 five malcontents (in the Standing Committee) now 
 say they did not vote against the majority. They 
 quite reversed the feeling with which I came down." 
 The letter of invitation was as follows: 
 
 "Boston, June 7, 1856. 
 "Rev'd and Dear Sir: 
 
 "At a meeting on the fourth instant of the Pro- 
 prietors of the South Congregational Church of 
 this City it was voted that you be invited to be- 
 come their Pastor at an annual salary of Three 
 Thousand Dollars; and the Standing Committee 
 of the Society were entrusted with full power to 
 carry the vote into effect. 
 
 "In thus tendering to you formally the invita- 
 tion as the Committee of the Society, we cannot 
 refrain from individually expressing to you our 
 most sincere and earnest wishes and hopes that you 
 will accept it, and thus enter upon a wider field of 
 labor in the Master's service. 
 
 "And with the prayer that you may become fa- 
 vorably disposed to our request, 
 
 "We are, truly, your obedient servants, 
 "Geo. P. Sanger, S. Tinkham, Peter C. Jones, 
 Charles B. Darling, Oliver Carter, 
 David F. McGilvray, Samuel Wads- 
 worth, John L. Emmons, Ebenezer 
 Morton, Theo. P. Hale, Chas. G. Wood, 
 Elisha Copeland, Wm. F. Nichols." 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 273 
 
 In the course of the week that followed, the ques- 
 tion as to the unanimity of the call passed away. 
 As a friend wrote him: "The case is open to all eyes, 
 and to yours, just as it is. I do not wonder that 
 you feel deep regret at the prospect of relinquish- 
 ing a post where you are held, as I know, in such 
 regard; but a sphere of influence will open itself 
 at once such as your professional life has not yet 
 afforded." 
 
 The following letters need no comment: 
 
 "Dear Mother and all: — 
 
 "I have drafted all the letters asking for a dis- 
 missal from the parish but I do not get them all 
 copied in season for this mail, and so send none of 
 them till afternoon. After Saturday morning you 
 need not think it a secret, as they will all be in 
 Worcester at eleven tonight. 
 
 "I am sure the decision is right though not pleas- 
 ant. I am confirmed in this by my success in stat- 
 ing it briefly. Look brightly on our great decision, 
 and pray for us that we may carry it through. 
 
 "Ever yours, 
 
 "Edward." 
 
 to his mother 
 
 June 23. 
 "As I have said to Father I dread the counter 
 clap of my Saturday letters. I have a dozen more 
 to write in answer to as many kind expostulations. 
 It is a sad business, but one which, as I read biog- 
 raphy, most men (except Saint Bernard) have 
 
274 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 had to go through, if they did their work well enough 
 to be regretted." 
 
 His own congregation were naturally unwilling 
 to accept his decision and sent a committee to ask 
 him to reconsider it. He wrote an account of the 
 matter from Boston to my mother. 
 
 "July 2. 
 "My dear Lady Pemberley: 
 
 "This unexpected place of mine is thus explained. 
 Last night, just after I closed my letter to you the 
 parish committee (not the regular Standing Com- 
 mittee, but a special one) came up to see me. They 
 were Hoar, Chapin, Tolman, Sargent, and Mes- 
 senger. Hoar was Chairman and stated that there 
 had been the most earnest wish expressed for our 
 remaining and read the resolutions to that effect 
 which appointed them to come up and see about 
 it. 
 
 "I said that I had hoped that Dr. Sargent would 
 read my letter at the meeting, and that that would 
 have stopped any such action. To which they 
 replied that they had seen it, but still wanted a 
 discussion of the matter. 
 
 "I, of course tried to keep this within as narrow a 
 range as I could, saying that he must confine it to 
 any new facts which they could bring forward, 
 which I could be supposed not to know and so we 
 went at it. 
 
 "First, as to the attachment of our parish to me, 
 — its real strength its weight and mine in the com- 
 munity and so on. 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 275 
 
 "Second, they thought I was deceived as to the 
 weight and unanimity at the call here. And Hoar 
 went with some detail into his view of the politics 
 of this parish. To which I referred in a way which 
 showed them that I knew more of that matter than 
 they — 'and I think, quite took that ground from 
 under them. 
 
 "Then we got on the general question of the 
 comparison of Boston and Worcester as points of 
 important influence, and the question of the per- 
 manency of the pastoral relation. It was all talk, 
 — and quite brilliant and funny talk, no speech 
 making and not at all formal. I said distinctly 
 that I thought I should lose the respect of our 
 parish if I changed a decision made with care on 
 so important a subject. They said no; — that if 
 there were new facts involved I ought to consider 
 them, and that nobody could wonder at my doing 
 so. 
 
 "It ended in my saying that I would of course 
 take into consideration what they had said, and 
 review them a written answer before Saturday, 
 to which day the meeting adjourned." 
 
 He did take the matter into consideration and 
 went immediately to Boston to make one or two 
 inquiries into the state of feeling in the parish there. 
 He found nothing, however, to lead him to change 
 his mind as to the unanimity of the desire for his 
 service, and on June 5 he wrote definitely to the 
 Worcester Committee. 
 
276 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "Saturday afternoon, July 5, 1856. 
 "My dear Sir: x 
 
 "I received with the most grateful feeling the 
 expression of the Parish, which your committee 
 brought me on Tuesday. 
 
 "To the request that I would withdraw my let- 
 ter I have given the most anxious thought and 
 prayer. I have listened to all the suggestions made 
 so affectionately by your committee and have con- 
 sidered them carefully. I have attempted to find 
 any additional facts relating to the subject, in 
 every quarter which has been suggested. 
 
 "I was never at all in doubt as to the warm at- 
 tachment and unanimous support of our parish. 
 At that score I needed no further assurance; but 
 the assurance you have given me is most gratify- 
 ing to me. 
 
 "I cannot see — after all consideration of the 
 subject — that any additional facts of importance 
 have been produced when I wrote to you from 
 Hartford. 2 Eagerly as I have sought therefore for 
 any reasons for remaining here, strong enough to 
 outweigh the sense of duty under which I wrote 
 those letters, — I have not found such reason. 
 
 "I am sure therefore that you will agree with 
 me that I ought not to withdraw my letter asking 
 dismissal. 
 
 "I say this with great regret. I know it gives 
 pain to very many friends. I must beg them to 
 
 1 The letter is printed from the rough draft which lacks the address. It 
 was presumably written to George F. Hoar. 
 
 2 The letters mentioned here on page 273. 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 277 
 
 remember that my parting from all is very much 
 harder to me than it can be to any one of them; 
 — and to think of me always, as they do now as 
 their affectionate and grateful friend and minister. 
 "With many thanks to the Committee I am, as 
 always, 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 "Edward E. Hale." 
 
 So the matter was definitely decided. He wrote 
 to Charles later in the month. 
 
 "June 27 
 
 "I was very glad to get your letter last night. 
 It is strange enough how much ten years has put 
 us through. After I had finished my two sermons 
 in the midst of a tremendous randan, I had a soothed 
 feeling of rest and satisfaction come over me such 
 as I have never seen described. In that mood I 
 was most glad to have you or any one recognize 
 that it was an era: — much more marked indeed 
 than any birthday. It was the finishing of a ten 
 year's job. Something as McClure may have felt 
 when he got his men paid off and everything done, 
 only more so." He says much the same thing in 
 writing to his sisters from the Adirondacks, where 
 he went in August for a vacation journey. 
 
 " It has been infinitely strange, almost as 
 solemn a novelty as Niagara, to have nothing to 
 do this last week, to feel a ten year's job is over 
 (not to use the word job in a poor sense.) I can 
 feel the blood vessels of my brain dropping back 
 to a normal condition after the effort and excite- 
 
278 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ment of the last two months, as your foot expands 
 for hours after you have had a tight boot on; till 
 the 1 8th of October it is play time. That day is 
 the installation." 
 
 He had rather desired that there should be no 
 formal occasion on his installation, but there was 
 quite a desire among his parishioners that there 
 should be some celebration. He naturally acceded to 
 their desires and afterward was very glad of it. He 
 wrote an account of it to his brother Nathan, who 
 was still at Worcester. 
 
 "Boston:— Mass., Oct. 2, '56 
 "Dear Nathan; 
 
 "This note, rejected for another because I had 
 added the Mass. (as was my custom in writing to 
 unknowing correspondents from Worcester) shall 
 go to you — as careless of such niceties. 
 
 "You know how indifferent I was about the 
 Installation. I had not wanted to have it, and it 
 seemed to me like a disagreeable parade. But I 
 was wholly disappointed by it, entered completely 
 into the spirit of it, and feel now as if it had made 
 things a thousand times easier. Huntington is a 
 preacher par excellence. The sermon was simply 
 magnificent — rambling, disjointed, beginnings with- 
 out ends and ends without beginnings, but eager, 
 all on fire, seductive therefore and exciting, a ser- 
 mon exactly. Little Mr. Stone was poetical and 
 what Susy would call lovely, incredible to the pews, 
 but very pleasant to me. King extempore and 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 279 
 
 very hearty, Lothrop, quiet and really fervent, 
 Gannett venerable in look and mad with all forms of 
 cant and hypocrisy, generally. I never sat through 
 three hours so well satisfied, and father who from 
 4:15 to 10:30 went through the whole, declared 
 that he forgot fatigue and pain in the excitement. 
 We went downstairs and ate more and so home." 
 
 TO MRS. PERKINS 
 
 "Boston, Sunday night 
 "Say Oct. 18, '56 
 "Dear Mother: 
 
 "My dilatoriness in writing these lines hindered 
 Emily from sending off hers by yesterday's steamer, 
 so I write tonight, albeit I am rather knocked up 
 by the day's preaching as you will see before 
 you have done. I will put into the envelope the 
 printed copy of Aunt Harriet's verses. 1 They 
 were sung by the Sunday School children at the 
 party given by them in our honor just after the 
 Installation, and came into as general use as though 
 they had arrived for the service proper. Every- 
 body thinks them charming and I want to thank 
 you again for them. 
 
 "We are getting entirely ensconced in our new 
 quarters and duties. I think I told you that I 
 had not had so much time to myself in ten years. 
 I knew that that was a mere lull, and so of course 
 it proves. But I do have my time at command 
 thus far as I have scarcely ever had in Worcester: 
 
 1 Mrs. Stowe, who was traveling with Mrs. Perkins, had written some 
 verses for the installation, but they had arrived too late to be used. 
 
280 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 — and I think I can make this continue. There is 
 also the luxury of preaching, con amore, old sermons ; 
 about which there is this to be said, that to a con- 
 gregation which has heard them before it is just as 
 odious to preach an old sermon, as it is to finish a 
 story at a dinner party — when by the manner of 
 the guests you observe that they have heard it 
 before. But to preach an old sermon to a con- 
 gregation which has not heard it, is just as agree- 
 able as to find a brand new audience for one of your 
 old stories. You tell it, if possible, with all the 
 more gusto because you have told it before. Be 
 it remarked in passing that of Whitfield's preach- 
 ing and all itinerant preaching, (very likely, there- 
 fore, even of Paul's and Luke's and Barnabas's,) 
 this repetition of old sermons has been a great ele- 
 ment of power." 
 
 The South Congregational Church was one of 
 the later churches of Boston, as the student of 
 history would infer from its name. It had been 
 gathered among the people of the then South End, 
 "particularly those who lived well up toward the 
 Neck." The obvious reason was the need of re- 
 ligious opportunities in that part of the town. 
 Hollis Street Church (with which seventy or eighty 
 years afterward the South Congregational Church 
 was united) was "so crowded that many families 
 in this quarter were destitute of seats in any place 
 of worship, and many are now obliged to go a great 
 distance, which is very inconvenient, especially 
 for females and children" — so ran the circular printed 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 281 
 
 in 1825 and distributed among those who were 
 asked to form a new religious society. 1 The time 
 was one of interest in the preaching of the Gospel 
 and giving it forms of manifestation in everyday 
 life, the Ministry at Large, and the Industrial Aid 
 Society. It was in 1825 that the first meetings 
 were held to consider the new society; the corner- 
 stone of the church was laid on Castle and Dover 
 streets in the summer of 1827; the building was 
 dedicated January 30, 1828, and Mr.Mellish Erving 
 Motte carried the society through the difficulties 
 of early years. He resigned in 1842 and Mr. F. D. 
 Huntington was ordained in the fall of that year. 
 He was my father's immediate predecessor, about 
 of his age and time, it will be observed, and a near 
 and intimate friend. Twenty-two years after he 
 had resigned my father wrote a few words of his 
 character and his work; after speaking of his power 
 as a preacher, of his change from the "simply 
 ethical preaching" to "the more intense and eager 
 preaching which is not satisfied until the whole 
 man is quickened and his whole life fired", he goes 
 on: 
 
 "At the same time he was an organizer as he always 
 has been. He did not mean to do all the work of a 
 church himself, active and eager though he was: 
 he meant to have its members work, and, where 
 he led the way, they followed loyally. He set on 
 foot our Board of Charities here, which has worked 
 on his plans from that day to this. In his time 
 our connection with the Benevolent Fraternity 
 
 1 "Historical Discourse/' 1878. 
 
282 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 was so developed as to give to that institution new 
 life. He said one day in this parish that if the 
 Fraternity was worth anything it was worth more 
 than the driblet we then gave it. He proposed 
 we should give a thousand dollars that year. The 
 parish agreed with him, raised the money, and 
 gave it. Such a thing had never been heard of 
 in the Fraternity's annals. The rich downtown 
 churches had hardly dreamed of such lavishness; 
 and here this little church of yesterday — this 
 South End Church, built nobody knew where, 
 and nobody knew by whom — had outdone them 
 all. It wakened all the dry bones; and from a 
 revenue of a few thousand, from that hour to this 
 the Benevolent Fraternity has considered twelve 
 thousand dollars as its legitimate annual income, 
 as it is. I think it is mere justice to Mr. Hunt- 
 ington to say that this was his doing. If a thing 
 were worth doing it was worth doing well. Never 
 was a ministry more successful than his had been 
 for fourteen years. The church was full; its debt 
 was paid ; its charities were admirably administered ; 
 ■the Sunday School was in perfect order. More 
 than this — oh, so much more than this! — hearts 
 had found living food here that had hungered and 
 thirsted elsewhere. Poor, weary birds, that had 
 been tossed and ruffled under hard gales outside 
 had taken shelter under these branches, and found 
 rest. Here were those who had heard no peace 
 elsewhere, and who had found it here. Here were 
 voices pleading with God and finding answers 
 who had not known how to plead before. Here 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 283 
 
 was sin repentant and forgiven. Here were exiles 
 who had been lost and were found. Here were 
 those who were all alone in a strange city, and in 
 this church, in its fellowship and in its minister, 
 had found companionship and a new life." l 
 
 Mr. Huntington was called to be Plummer Pro- 
 fessor of Christian Morals at Harvard. My father 
 says : " How indeed was the place to be filled ? 
 Nor was it ever filled. It is very, very seldom 
 that men's places are filled. Nearly a year wore 
 by; and quite by accident, I preached in the old 
 pulpit and was asked to settle here. I remember 
 saying at the time, that, if ever two men were un- 
 like, they were Mr. Huntington and I." 
 
 He accepted the call, however, and began work. 
 
 In many ways the South Congregational Church 
 offered more to his broadening ambition than the 
 church in Worcester. He had declined the invi- 
 tation of the First Church some years before, prob- 
 ably because he felt that a church of older men 
 and women of the higher classes in the best part of 
 the town did not offer him the real opportunity 
 that he wanted. There would be too much in the 
 way of his developing those ideas which he felt 
 were the real necessities of the Christian ministry 
 in large cities. But the South Congregational 
 Church offered a different opportunity. It was not 
 what we should now think of as a mission church; 
 its congregation was not made up of the poor, 
 nor was it, at that time, in a part of the town given 
 over, as we may say, to the poor. It was made 
 
 1 "Historical Discourse," pp. 31-33. 
 
284 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 up to a considerable degree, however, of young 
 men and women with their fortunes to make in the 
 world, and its situation was not very distant from 
 some of the poorer localities that were even then 
 beginning to develop in the newer parts of the city. 
 
 Mr. Huntington wrote of the parish: 
 
 "You cannot very well overestimate the good 
 qualities of the South Congregational Society. You 
 must make what allowance you see fit for personal 
 favor on my part; growing out of intimate and 
 endearing relations; but I really do not believe 
 there is a Parish in the country possessing more 
 of the traits commonly thought desirable. The 
 number of families is about two hundred and fifty 
 or seventy-five, besides many single persons, as 
 clerks, schoolteachers etc, etc. Nearly all of them 
 are young. I think there are not six grey heads 
 among them. They are of the working genuine 
 vital class, young merchants, mechanics, men of 
 the professions. There are babies in any quan- 
 tity, — increasing families. Sometimes, I think, I 
 have baptized fifty or more in a year. They are 
 busy energetic, wide-awake people. There are 
 hardly any crotchety fussy folks or crooked sticks 
 among them. They have too much to do, 
 to gossip or criticise or grumble, or worry over 
 things much. They are accustomed to act with 
 singular harmony. Every reasonable thing that 
 a minister wants done they are ready for, acting 
 or giving, everything but talking. In the way of 
 speech-making, at conferences, it is hard to get 
 much out of them, though they are largely inter- 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 285 
 
 ested in such meetings, believe in them, and like 
 to attend them either to hear the minister or for 
 promiscuous sociability. When they come to- 
 gether on Sunday, they want earnest, direct, prac- 
 tical preaching, religious preaching, preaching that 
 searches their conscience, appeals to their spiritual 
 affections, rebukes their lives, preaching that is 
 done heartily, and braces their mind up to the 
 pitch that their business does through the week. 
 They like to see proofs that the minister is engaged 
 in what he is about, takes pains with his prepara- 
 tion, studies his sermons, puts both mind and 
 spirit into them, does his best. This is the main 
 thing. They like a good deal of pastoral attention. 
 "It may be said, the church is full and so there 
 is no chance for growth and the satisfaction of 
 building up. This is true in the external sense. 
 But in a society constituted as I have shown this 
 to be, is there not always a chance for progress? 
 Character is growing in all of them. They need 
 to be kept together and edified. It is a great thing 
 to preserve and carry forward such an institution." 
 
 My father was not much attracted by one ele- 
 ment in this description. He recognized it as a 
 good thing and something necessary to good work, 
 but it was not in itself particularly attractive. 
 This was that very natural feeling on the part of 
 the congregation, that a minister should carefully 
 study out his sermons, and that he should give a 
 great deal of parochial attention. My father gave 
 his whole mind to his sermons and to his parish 
 
286 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 calls, but if his ten years at Worcester had taught 
 him anything, it must have taught him that he 
 would never be a minister who gave himself up 
 chiefly, or even largely, to writing sermons and to 
 parish calls. Such things are entirely relative, of 
 course, and we cannot feel precisely what Mr. 
 Huntington or the South Congregational Society 
 may have felt was desirable. I believe the Society 
 never felt any lack in my father in either of these 
 matters. Whether he gave careful study to his 
 sermons or not, he became in no very long time a 
 noted preacher. He probably never got beyond 
 one parish call per family yearly, but he gave so 
 much of his heart and soul to church life that no 
 parishioner could ever feel neglected. Still ser- 
 mons and parish calls clearly did not fulfill his 
 conception of the ministerial profession. He be- 
 lieved that a Christian minister really must work 
 more outside his congregation than inside, as our 
 Lord used occasionally to say that his business 
 was not with those who were all right as it was, 
 but with those who were all wrong. 
 
 It was a question that I find nowhere stated 
 how a minister who believed that his Christian work 
 really consisted in leading the Christian life of the 
 town would get on with a parish that had been 
 accustomed to careful sermons and a good deal of 
 pastoral attention. No one asked that question, 
 which was very well, for no one could have given 
 as convincing an answer as was given by experi- 
 ence. I find nowhere stated any theoretical res- 
 olutions of the difficulty on my father's part, but 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 287 
 
 the practical resolution of the possible difficulty 
 (which probably no one really felt) was obvious. 
 My father's life and act soon persuaded the South 
 Congregational Church that it existed not (as he 
 liked to say later) "as a club of well-to-do Christians 
 who have associated for their profit and pleasure, 
 but as a working-place in the world, of men and 
 women who want to bring in God's Kingdom." 
 It was so clear that he considered himself a fellow- 
 worker together with God, and he so immediately 
 assumed that every least one in the congregation 
 was in like manner such a co-worker, that matters 
 went well. 
 
 The church had already more of a conception 
 of work among the city poor than many other 
 churches. It had a definite Board of Charities 
 which had been organized for a dozen years. It 
 was represented in the Benevolent Fraternity, an 
 organization otherwise known as the Ministry at 
 Large, of which the work was to preach round 
 about in the city to all sorts of people who had no 
 one else to preach to them. Its ladies had long 
 been organized into the South Friendly Society 
 for personal work in the relief of the poor. These 
 agencies look slight when compared with the varied 
 multiplicity of organization shown by many an 
 institutional church of the present day, but they 
 offered a chance to begin. It soon appeared how- 
 ever that something new was needed which could 
 more exactly embody my father's ideas and those 
 of his co-workers. In 1858 the Christian Unity 
 was organized. My father was its first president 
 
288 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 and in its first published report will be recognized 
 a fine ideal that is characteristic of his thought and 
 style. 
 
 "As early as December 1857, this Mission was 
 opened in our vestry by Mr. Bishop, his intention 
 being to call into it those children from the* neigh- 
 borhood, who attended no other Sunday School, 
 and received no regular religious instruction. It 
 began with five boys only; but grew rapidly for 
 about three months, till it numbered about seventy 
 pupils. At this period, says Mr. Bishop, 'we lost 
 nearly all the children of Catholic parents in one 
 day, through the interference of the priest. 5 In 
 the spring of 1858, some of the families moved 
 away, taking more of our children, reducing our 
 number full one-half. Since then, we have been 
 gradually increasing, without admitting any but 
 Protestant children. Our number is about as large 
 as ever; and it would have been much larger, had 
 we enough regular and competent teachers. 
 
 "From the commencement of the Mission School, 
 the teachers gradually became acquainted with the 
 parents of the children, and thus with other families 
 residing in the same or in neighboring houses, 
 particularly with those who happened to be sick 
 or in any other trouble. It was a year when labor 
 was scarce, and laborers plenty; wages were low, 
 and provisions high : the heads of families, de- 
 pendent on daily labor, needed then, if ever, Chris- 
 tian encouragement and sympathy. The acquain- 
 tance which sprang up between the Mission-School 
 teachers and the families of the school-children and 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 289 
 
 their neighbors showed at once the value of the 
 mutual help which could be rendered by one to an- 
 other among a crowded population. There was 
 thus suggested to Mr. Bishop the formation of a 
 Christian association, with its headquarters in 
 the vestry of our church; which, by the mutual 
 assistance which its members should render to each 
 other, should afford relief and encouragement to 
 those who were almost strangers to each other, 
 yet might well be Christian friends. 
 
 "This suggestion was eagerly taken up by the 
 teachers of the Mission School, by other members 
 of our own parish, by the parents of the Mission 
 School children, and by many of our friends. The 
 Christian Unity was established thus, by the adop- 
 tion of the following — 
 
 "'CONSTITUTION 
 
 "'The Christian Unity is a society for mutual 
 friendship and assistance. 
 
 "'Its members strive to do to each other as they 
 would be done by, in the spirit of our Saviour. 
 
 "'They render each other mutual help in all 
 sickness, or other want of body, mind, or soul; 
 and they ask help of each other as readily as they 
 offer it. 
 
 "'For these purposes, they unite in this society;' 
 undertaking to do such duty for the society as the 
 proper officers may request, to sustain its character, 
 to assist each other by strict temperance and pur- 
 ity of life, and by fulfilling the duties of good citi- 
 zens and friendly neighbors/ 
 
290 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "On the evening of the fourteenth day of De- 
 cember, 1858, a business meeting was held to effect 
 a permanent organization. The Constitution, pre- 
 viously drawn up by Mr. Hale, was adopted, signed 
 by the sixteen members present. 
 
 "We named the society 'The Christian Unity' 
 and chose for our officers, as President, Edward E. 
 Hale; Vice-President, H. P. Kidder; Secretary, 
 James M. Chase; and appointed a Visiting Com- 
 mittee of seven, and were now ready to work." 
 
 The Christian Unity was long one of my father's 
 chief interests. This was his way of carrying on 
 Christian work in cities, and he gave to it his very 
 best work and care. He did not himself absolutely 
 become the minister of the Unity; he remained 
 the ' minister of the South Congregational. But 
 he was long its president, and its particular workers 
 were his close coadjutors. Mr. Charles J. Bishop 
 and Miss Maria Simmons, the founders of the 
 Society, Rev. Charles E. Rich, Rev. Loammi 
 G. Ware, Rev. John Williams, its ministers; Mr. 
 Henry P. Kidder and Mr. Fred Nazro, its treas- 
 urers, were of those who knew him in the way he 
 liked best to be known, as one grappling with the 
 difficulties which arise when thousands of people 
 try to live together in that strange agglomeration, 
 — the modern city. 
 
 In this particular work and in the more general 
 work of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches 
 he found a means to develop those growing inter- 
 ests and convictions which made so great a part 
 
THE CALL TO BOSTON 291 
 
 of his later life. Here are some words spoken at 
 this time which indicate plans which did not come 
 to realization for ten years. 
 
 "It is a fond hope of mine, which I will state 
 here, though you may think it a fancy or a dream; 
 that such work of gleaning after the reapers will 
 yet be taken up, for the different localities of the 
 city by the different Christian churches which are 
 scattered over the whole ground; that each shall 
 work thus, as we might say, for the circle around 
 it in which the daily shadow of its own steeple 
 falls. We now divide the town into charity dis- 
 tricts ; we appoint local boards of relief. What 
 more natural decision than to say, in any church, 
 'We here are responsible for all those so near us 
 that they hear the tones of our organ, if we open 
 our window to the air of heaven. We will not let 
 one perish who catches the sound of our hymns 
 of praise as he waits through the long night for 
 the day'? Eager as our churches are for the relief 
 of the poor; willing as they are to say ' We help 
 all Pagan Infidel, Christian, Jew, or Gentile, bond 
 or free,' I do not think it would be hard or strange 
 to re-arrange here that which was the old Christian 
 custom, a system of neighbourhood relief, in which 
 each congregation should thus care not only for its 
 fellow worshippers, but for those who live around 
 its temple-walls. This was what Chalmers, that 
 light of practical philanthropists, found possible 
 even in crowded Glasgow. No harm would it 
 be to the spread of the Gospel, if the poor should 
 gradually come to congratulate themselves that 
 
292 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 they live near a church, as now they tell you grate- 
 fully that they live near a great hotel, or that they 
 have the privilege of picking chips in the wood 
 station of a railway, or broken coal round the doors 
 of a gas factory, if in the fullness of time our 
 churches come to be recognized as helps as posi- 
 tive as our railroad, our factories, and our inns." l 
 
 * "Discourse delivered before the Howard Benevolent Society at the South 
 Congregational Church." December 14, 1857. 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 NINETY DAYS WORTH OF EUROPE 
 
 1859 
 
 N the summer of 1859 came a great opening. 
 His mother tells of it in a letter dated August 21 
 to his sister Susan: 
 
 "Charlie and Edward came out to dine yester- 
 day; we dined at two thirty and Charlie went at 
 four. Edward made a great revelation, which is 
 at present a secret, that will come out soon if it is 
 carried out. You must not lisp a word till you 
 hear more. Firstly, Uncle Edward don't want to 
 go to Europe with Will, don't want him to go alone, 
 wants Edward to go with him. Will pay all his 
 expenses, supply his pulpit while he is gone. Ed- 
 ward at first thought it impossible, but Uncle 
 Edward urged it almost with tears. Edward con- 
 sulted Kidder of his parish, and he says the people 
 would be glad to have him go and advised it. 
 Uncle Edward while urging the most profound 
 secrecy, was so desirous to accomplish his wishes, 
 that he consulted Judge Sanger and he has sum- 
 moned the Parish committee. Edward says Emily 
 is willing and the programme seems very attrac- 
 tive to get this little peep at the heart of England 
 under Uncle Edward's eye. Uncle Edward re- 
 served to himself the right of going himself instead 
 
 293 
 
294 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 at the last if he can, which would simplify matters. 
 But is it not amazing? He seemed to think if he 
 went they should shut up the house and Emily 
 divide her time between here and her mother's. 
 It seems as if we were never to settle down quietly. 
 But Edward would enjoy it so much, and it would 
 build him up so entirely." 
 
 William Everett, the son of Edward Everett, 
 who was the ultimate cause of this excitement, 
 had just graduated from Harvard in the class of 
 1859 and was desirous of going on with his studies 
 in England, and had chosen Cambridge as offer- 
 ing the best chance for the work in Latin, which 
 he wished to continue. It is of interest here, though 
 perhaps a little out of place, to give some of my 
 father's remarks on this subject made at a later 
 time. Writing to my mother October 18, from 
 London, after having seen Will established at 
 Cambridge, he said: 
 
 "It has all turned out admirably, nor has there 
 been any difficulty as it passed along. I thought 
 so ill of the whole plan before we got to Cambridge 
 that I had told Will with great definiteness that if 
 he was not satisfied by the experience of one term, 
 he must not let any feeling of pride hinder him 
 from taking up his connections with the college. 
 I advised him that in that case he should go to a 
 German University for a while * and come home. 
 But we had not been in Cambridge long, before I 
 saw that it was just the place to satisfy his tastes, 
 if indeed it did not satisfy them too well. When 
 
 1 Edward Everett had been one of the first American students at Gottingen. 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 295 
 
 I left college I was in much the same mood as he is ; 
 most boys are; a mood which centers in a passion 
 for scholarship, the more useless the better. The 
 English Cambridge, of which I speak with great 
 respect; for I have contracted a great affection for 
 it myself and regard for the men who were so kind 
 to me there, is the impersonation of this same 
 useless scholarship. As the Smithsonian prints 
 books which no ordinary publisher will undertake, 
 and which by consequence, no ordinary public 
 will read; just so does this giant corporation of 
 corporations give home and all home's comforts 
 and luxuries (except wives and families) to men 
 who seek this life rather than any more useful to 
 the public, and of most of them I am afraid the 
 public gets but little real good. Still they are not 
 mer* monks. They are God-fearing men, in their 
 kind, who keep up for their own sake the feeling 
 that they are doing something. And j ust as in 
 the Smithsonian, Professor Henry persuades him- 
 self that there is real service done in the subjuga- 
 tion of the world by his printing a Sioux grammar 
 that nobody in the world wants, these gentlemen 
 persuade themselves that a book in five years on 
 the text of the Antigone or a lecture twice a week 
 on the same, discharge their account with God in 
 that business, if only the intervals be kept filled 
 up with enough microscopical scholarship. 
 
 "Now all this is the mood to suit a bright Cam- 
 bridge man from our Cambridge, dissatisfied with 
 the immense range of our curriculum at which 
 these men stared aghast, and which, en passant, 
 
296 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 I will say is worth theirs forty times over. We 
 graduate dissatisfied because it is necessarily su- 
 perficial. We are left, as I used to say, with the 
 base of the pyramid of Cheops built, and we are 
 to build on some part each man his obelisk. 1 Well! 
 that which I said in satire in 1839, I say in praise 
 in 1859. Every man has his own to build. And 
 I suppose in the compensations, he is damned, or 
 nearly so, if he do not build it. Between us and 
 these men on graduating the difference is this that 
 they must go on building Latin verse, or the $x 2 — 
 y z d {a — z) . They have no other choice and if 
 it ever occurs to one of them that that is the thing 
 he is least gifted for and that he never had the 
 least chance in his life, there is nothing left for 
 him but strychnine; while with us, a man has sur- 
 veyed his ground, and unless he is an ass knows 
 what he does in the choice he makes. 
 
 "Still with us, one leaves college with the intense 
 wish for more, and that is what Will has got." 
 
 All of which gives more of a notion of my father's 
 general ideas and character than it does of this spe- 
 cial trip. But how characteristic an utterance it 
 is; not only in his clear understanding that the 
 Cambridge Dons and the Smithsonian scholars 
 feel that in their way they are doing real service 
 in the subjugation of the world and so discharging 
 their account with God, but also in his appreciation 
 of the superficiality of his own broad scholarship 
 and the immediate uselessness of the depth of 
 erudition that can produce a Sioux grammar. Not 
 
 1 A curious figure dating perhaps from my father's Egyptian studies. 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 297 
 
 that either phrase can be taken literally, but that 
 both express with the bold extravagance which 
 was natural to him the necessary limitations of 
 people's work in a finite world. 
 
 It will not be necessary to give details of the hurried 
 time he had in getting ready nor of the interests 
 and delights of the trip itself. He wrote a good 
 many letters while he was away, some to the members 
 of the family, some to the newspaper. When he 
 came back he made them into a book which is 
 excellently called "Ninety Days' Worth of Europe." 
 He sailed for Liverpool, left Will Everett at Cam- 
 bridge, spent some days in London, and there, 
 with Dr. George Hayward, an old college friend and 
 classmate, went to Antwerp, thence up the Rhine, 
 crossed the St. Gothard Pass, saw Florence and Rome, 
 and returned by way of Marseilles and Paris to 
 London. He sailed from Queenstown, Ireland, 
 whence had recently come so many of those who had 
 aroused what was becoming the strongest interest 
 of his life. He writes with pleasure of the Rhine 
 and the Alps, of Stratford and Rome, of the Pitti 
 and the Louvre, and certainly all these things were 
 matters of immense importance to a man of his 
 tastes and interests in literature. But these were 
 things that every traveler saw. It was more per- 
 sonal that he should have gone to see the Working 
 Man's College in London and taken out a card for 
 it, and should have gone to Ireland and taken a 
 jaunting car out of Dublin to find the relatives of 
 a certain Margaret Foster who had come to America. 
 
 One can make but the slightest selection of the 
 
298 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 letters; there are a good many of them and some- 
 times a single one is long enough to fill a chapter. 
 
 TO MRS. HALE 
 
 "Oct. 2, I8S9. 
 
 "Today we rose early to be sure to see the Giant's 
 Causeway. For, as I hope the Africa has informed 
 you (whom we met about that time) we took the 
 Northern passage around Ireland. Wednesday I 
 shall arrive at Liverpool about midnight, if all works 
 well. We were not disappointed about the Cause- 
 way, though hardly near enough to it. It was 
 curiously like in some of its effects my sailing by the 
 Pictured Rocks, and I recognized the little island 
 pillar which [Here is a little sketch of the pillar, 
 and later one of the Giant's Causeway.] I think 
 you will remember in Mr. Waterstone's Sketches. 
 For any detail, however, we were quite too far off, 
 and the G. C. will remain in my memory rather as 
 a sense of receding cliffs much like that in the geog- 
 raphy pictures, than with any such specific aspect, as 
 Mr. Waterstone portrayed. Soon after we doubled 
 the North East Cape of Ireland, Fair Head, which 
 we came close to, and which had a much finer 
 appearance for us therefore. An immense basaltic 
 cliff like the Palisades, and the country each side 
 very much like the Highlands of the Hudson. You 
 may imagine how pretty churches, cottages and 
 fields looked after this imprisonment. I had on 
 my knees little Clara Hay, a pretty little pet, about 
 Nelly's age, the daughter of Capt. Hay of the R. 
 Navy. She asked me to show her Scotland. So 
 
Mrs. Hale and Her Daughter 
 Ellen 
 
 From a daguerreotype taken in 1855 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 299 
 
 I lifted her up and pointed out to her the Mull of 
 Cantire which was hazy in the East. It was as it 
 proved the first sight the child had seen of her own 
 land. She a little blue eyed flaxen-ringleted Scotch 
 lassie, who was born in Malta, and has been ever 
 since she left there, in Halifax with her father and 
 mother who are returning home with us. This 
 Capt. Hay, her father, is a very pleasant man, was 
 one of Arnold's boys at Rugby till he was fourteen, 
 and since has been all over the world. Mrs. Hay 
 we have not seen. She has been sick. She is Lady 
 Napier's sister. 
 
 "We kept very close to the Irish shore till we passed 
 the Lough which makes the harbor of Belfast, 
 having, by the way, before this, passed the Lough 
 Foyle where the horrible Londonderry battles in 
 Macaulay were fought. We then began to cross 
 toward the other side, the rain and fog began together, 
 it came time for service which I read again, and the 
 Gospel for the day happening to be Mark five, I added 
 'into the same' briefly." 
 
 "Teddersley, Penkridge 
 "I had better make this a journal of the day, 
 which has been perfectly lovely, just such a day 
 as you have had, and throw in my comments as 
 they come. Nothing could have been more per- 
 fect than the skill in entertaining, nothing more 
 lovely, even wonderful than the place, nothing 
 more charming than the whole day has been, and 
 nothing more unreal. I cannot believe that I 
 am here. 
 
300 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "I slept sound, meant to get up and write this at 
 seven, but when a servant came in to open my 
 shutters, and take my boots, it was twenty minutes 
 of eight. Breakfast was at nine, I did get up, 
 washed with splendid appurtenances, dressed and 
 wrote two or three notes and memorandas: among 
 others sending off to Kidder the letter I told you of. 
 A large clock in the stables keeps the time, and when 
 it struck nine the breakfast bell rang and we went 
 downstairs. A good deal had been said about its 
 not being necessary for anybody to come, but every- 
 body did, and I inferred that late breakfasts were not 
 understood. As soon as the party were gathered we 
 marched into the large dining-room, a different 
 one from that we had dined in, where were the ser- 
 vants standing, six men and seven women. (Thurs- 
 day, four men and eleven women.) We took our 
 seats, they theirs. Lord H. then read the Gospel 
 for the day and a prayer not from the prayer book 
 they made each a bow or a courtesy and we retired 
 to the breakfast room. Breakfast was a little of 
 everything served by servants from a sideboard. 
 The gentlemen habitues got up and helped them- 
 selves but neither of three guests did. 
 
 "After breakfast Mr. Stimson, whom after a day 
 I like very much, as a gentlemanly amiable young 
 fellow, showed us all through and over the house; 
 beer vaults, pantrys, game houses, and all such. 
 This was while the ladies were arraying for the gar- 
 dens and we then joined them and walked into the 
 American Garden, the ferneries, the vegetable gar- 
 den, the nurseries, and coming back to the lawn in 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 301 
 
 front of the house stood loafing there and enjoying 
 the exquisite view." 
 
 "Leamington (after a visit to Kenilworth). 
 "It was my first ruin, and I could well use this new 
 sheet in giving you the impress which ruin and medi- 
 tation on ruin wrought on me. Utterly unlike as is 
 every association but ruin, every historical memory, 
 and every present aspect, when one compares our 
 unique Ticonderoga with this immense pile, I was 
 instantly set thinking of all that by all this. The 
 same sense of the change of the world's centres and 
 its interests, the same moralizations on the vanity of 
 human expectations and plans, even the same mental 
 effort in making out in the luxurious sheep-walks, 
 whether this be a bit of old cellar or of new drain. 
 But in the masses themselves, yet four and five 
 stories high of the old palace, there is of course no 
 comparison with anything that you or I have ever 
 seen until this living day. I have bought two or 
 three prints of it and one or two stereoscopes, which 
 of course are better." 
 
 "Armsteg, Tuesday Evening. 
 "Oh my dear child! such a day as we have had, 
 peerless for weather and through such scenery. 
 I am wild to try to describe it and yet know I cannot 
 describe it. But just as we arrive at this charming 
 Swiss inn (Le Blanche Croix the standard of Uri) 
 I must at least go into a little enthusiasm. You 
 will hardly find Armsteg on any map, unless indeed 
 in the Murray's Northern Italy which I have left 
 
302 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 at home. It is not even a post horse place; but is 
 a village between Altorf which you will find at the 
 Southern end of Lake of Lucerne (the most beautiful 
 sheet of water in the world, says Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh whom you will please to see) between Altorf, 
 I say, and Hospenthal at the beginning of the St. 
 Gothard pass. We have driven here in a post 
 carriage through the gloaming that we may have a 
 full day for the passage of the St. Gothard, which if 
 the weather is fine we make in the same carriage 
 tomorrow. 
 
 "It was a valley ride, — like the passes of the Poto- 
 mac in many places, the woods on the hills in all the 
 glory of an Indian Summer save the red maple; 
 the other colors quite as brilliant. Mountains higher 
 and still higher shut in this valley, and at last began 
 to be white with snow; not because they were Alps 
 for they were not, but because it snowed on this 
 Righi [RigiJ range last week for our express benefit. 
 The valleys are as green as summer. The dahlias 
 even were untouched which had been cut down by 
 frost through Bavaria yesterday. The men and 
 women were at work in the fields. The country 
 was a garden still, as, for that matter every inch 
 of Europe has been, but the hills which shut them in, 
 just as the hills shut in the valley at Hinsdale and 
 Becket, were of this gorgeous autumn coloring and 
 the sky as blue as with us or as in Switzerland. 
 They have built the prettiest stations, perfectly in 
 keeping, and there is not a house in sight of the road 
 anywhere (a hundred miles or less) that is not prettier 
 than any architect in Boston knows how to build. 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 303 
 
 " So at last we swept through a tunnel into Lucerne 
 which looked as if it had been saved under glass for 
 five hundred years for you and me to look at. It 
 was the end of the railroad. Of course the baggage, 
 instead of going by any vulgar porter or coach was 
 put into a little boat to be carried across the river 
 to the dampschiff. Of course it was a market day 
 and the deck of the D (think of the baggages being 
 chalked with D because they were going on a steam- 
 boat) the deck of the D was crowded with the most 
 picturesque peasants you ever dreamed of, pretty 
 girls, farmers going home with their purchases, a 
 Dominican friar, of whom I surreptitiously make a 
 good sketch, and two hundred more of the funniest 
 people you ever dreamed of. Of course the water 
 was as blue as the sky, and the day as lovely as heaven. 
 I did so wish you were there. A nice Swiss guide, 
 who would have liked to take us up the Righi (whose 
 little house was in sight) was very pleasant and com- 
 municative, and my German thawed in talking 
 to him. I told him that I hoped to bring you soon 
 and he should take us both up there. 
 
 "I do not think the hills around the lake are 
 higher than the White face mountains or Red Hill, 
 say, north of Winnipisogie. I know you have not 
 seen these, but you will read this to Kate, who has. 
 (I forgot that Kate will not be at Hartford) I mean 
 higher than the lake. (I stop to look at Murray 
 to find that they are rather higher, or rather that 
 the Righi is four thousand and seventy above the 
 lake; Red Hill is not) but these rise sheer from the 
 water, by steeper lines than the White Mountains 
 
304 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 show but in exceptions, and literally this lake has 
 nothing but mountains round it. It is a gulf in the 
 range filled with water. Snow capped, all of them 
 today, and the foliage below, of the richest colors, 
 with these wonderful farms carried up ever so high 
 on the sides, and these sweet little villages on the 
 shores. You must come there and see them. Then 
 of course just as we landed most of our peasants, 
 at Brunnen, up comes one of the gusts from the 
 south, just as at that very place where Gessler in 
 his boat was bringing Tell this way, so that he was 
 compelled to give Tell the helm: and he jumped 
 ashore where the chapel is. We were wrapped 
 and double wrapped but could hardly keep our caps 
 on. It blew as I hardly ever knew it, and made so 
 real the Tell story. Do you know that in 1827 
 Miss Whitney gave me for a prize a book of William 
 Tell? Take it and read it. It is one of those I 
 brought in to Nelly from Brookline the other 
 day." 
 
 "Florence. 
 
 "No! do not expect my raptures yet! I liked the 
 Venus de Medici too well before to go into much 
 further enthusiasm now. Of all the statuary I 
 have seen, not much, the casts have given me better 
 previous impressions than the copies have of the 
 pictures. I have never seen many statues till now, 
 but what I have seen were good and I have seen 
 them well. In old days, after I graduated and 
 before I preached Dr. Bass and I were the only two 
 occupants of the old Athenaeum, he as librarian, I 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 305 
 
 as visitor. He was so cross that he had frightened 
 away everybody but me. I used to go there to read 
 divinity, among (inter alias) some nice old editiones 
 principes which William and Mary gave King's 
 Chapel when they came to the crown, a gift for which 
 I always blessed the glorious and happy memory. 
 Well, in those days I used to top off my theology, 
 by saying to Dr. Bass that I would thank him for the 
 key of the Sculpture Gallery, and there without 
 bother as if I were a grand Duke who had walked 
 across from the Pitti on a festa day, with no public, 
 I had the Venus, Night and Morning, Greenough's 
 Venus Victrix, Canova's Ditto, and about six good 
 antiques and I learned them thoroughly. This all 
 by the way of parenthesis, that I may say, in all 
 loyalty to the past, that exquisite as the Venus is; 
 and I have now been to see her four times, go again 
 tomorrow, she is no more beautiful than I expected 
 her to be. She expresses no more and no less. I 
 had rather have the original than any copy I ever 
 saw, but if you would throw in Power's California 
 with the copy, I had rather have the two than the 
 original. 
 
 "Now of the rest of the Tribune, which is a col- 
 lection of the finest things in this gallery, the picture 
 which won me most, which I remember best and 
 shall, is Andrea del Sarto's Holy Family. The con- 
 noisseurs call it the Harpeian, because Harpies are 
 carved on the throne on which she sits. Andrea del 
 Sarto is almost a new name to me, but everywhere 
 I have found the same dignity, reality, and sweet- 
 ness combined in his pictures. As I said to the girls 
 
306 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 about Vandyke you soon get to feel whether these 
 men did or did not go the root of the matter. En- 
 thusiast as I am about Rubens, I would not have one 
 of his sacred pictures in our church if either of the 
 Leopolds would give me one. No, not the Descent 
 from the Cross itself, I believe, though I should 
 probably make an exception for that and for one 
 other. But of this Andrea, the quality is good, 
 really good, and then the coloring and the rest is all 
 but up to the Raphaels. You know I like Dr. Froth- 
 ingham so you may imagine that I was pleased when, 
 today, I set out to make this remark to him, to have 
 him fairly anticipate me, and say he had followed up 
 Andrea with this feeling, since his visit to Europe 
 when he was quite a young man. 
 
 "The other pictures in the Tribune are Titian's 
 Venuses, two, both very beautiful, one of them really 
 attractive, so far as you can get over the odious asso- 
 ciations of the whole of that line of painting, the 
 Fornarina, which is much finer than the copies, 
 but which I do not care a straw for, Guido's Virgin 
 so often copied and exquisite beyond all copies, 
 and a good many other pictures which we have seen. 
 You could almost reproduce the Tribune in the large 
 room of the Athenaeum by the copies they have 
 there." 
 
 The foregoing passages are from letters to my 
 mother. The following on Italian politics is from 
 a letter to my grandfather, who, as a journalist, 
 he probably thought would be more interested in 
 public affairs than in country houses, or scenery, 
 or pictures. 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 307 
 
 "Leghorn, Nov. 5, 1859, 
 "On board the Vatican. 
 " French mail steamer. 
 "My dear Father: 
 
 "In the long run I do not suppose that I should 
 rank the politics of the place among these agremens. 
 But there, here, at Genoa, and in our run through 
 Sardinia we have been in a transition-time, it has 
 been very curious to watch the signs of the times 
 among these descendants of Machiavelli, and when 
 I have emptied my coat pockets at night, I have 
 found not only Florentine mosaics (the opera li- 
 bretto) and the catalogues of the gallery, but parcels 
 of revolutionary songs. Every day I have been 
 tempted to write you one speculation more on the 
 position of Central Italy. Every day I have rather 
 shrunk from the doing so, for the reason that Cousin 
 gave when he abstained from Buddhism, 'I say 
 nothing of the Buddhists, in these lectures, gentle- 
 men, because I know nothing about them/ 
 
 "Without knowing much of the inside of affairs, 
 however, we have seen and heard and read a great 
 deal that is very curious of the outside. I am 
 apt to think also, that nobody knows more than 
 three days worth more of the inside than we do. 
 When we landed in this place from Genoa, a week 
 ago, we found the Leghornese very enthusiastic and 
 demonstrative. They have a reputation that way, 
 and are called even savage by the more delicate 
 Medicean Florentines. We spent Sunday here, and 
 the streets were alive with Italian tri-colors, which 
 flaunted from almost every house, many of them 
 
308 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 bearing the cross of Savoy to indicate regard for 
 Victor Emmanuel What seemed funnier was that 
 every shop and house almost, had a little rough 
 printed placard on, 'Viva Vittorio Emmanuel il 
 Nostro Re. 9 As poor Emmanuel has not been 
 able to consent to be their King to this day, this 
 loyalty to a King who had not taken the crown seems 
 very touching. Streets and squares had had their 
 names changed to Palestro, Solferino, Carol Alberto, 
 and Vittorio. Even the square, where are statues 
 to Leopold, the grand duke, and Ferdinand, from a 
 grateful Leghorn, was altered in its own name into 
 Piazza Carlo Alberto. I may say, en 'passant that 
 the statue of the late Duke looks like an indifferent 
 portrait of Professor Longfellow, and so do the 
 effigies on the coins. 
 
 "This intense loyalty to their new King who is 
 not their King marks everything we have seen in 
 the week we have been in Florence. There is not 
 so much show of tri-colors as in Leghorn, but quite 
 enough, the flower seller offers you a leaf of geranium 
 with one orange blossom and there are crimson 
 picotee tied into it to make the mystic three. But 
 every official document, of the city of Florence or of 
 the state of Tuscany is headed with the cross of 
 Savoy, and the words 'Regnando S. Vittorio.' The 
 actual government of Tuscany is in the hands of 
 three ministers, of whom B. Ricasoli, a nobleman 
 of great wealth, and, as I am told, of great cleverness 
 and ability, is the chief. But all their edicts begin 
 thus with 'Regnando S. M. Vittorio Emmanuele/ 
 
 "At the bottom of their hearts they all fear re- 
 
Nathan Hale 
 Edward Everett Hale's Father 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 309 
 
 action more than anything else, more than Mazzin- 
 ism, more than Austria, and more than the approach- 
 ing Congress. I cannot learn that there is any real 
 cause for this, which anybody knows, but what has 
 been may be, and the Italians, though as ought to be 
 everywhere said, now behave magnificently, having 
 been fickle in their lives long before the day of 'Ay 
 down to the dust with them, slaves as they are/ and 
 long since. Everybody here remembers the fate of 
 the revolution of 1 849 ; when things seemed as 
 prosperous as now, one fine day the Livornese 
 national guards fired on the Florentine mob in a 
 quarrel, the Florentines pitched into the guards, 
 somebody shouted 'Vive Leopoldo' whom everybody 
 had been cursing the day before, and in two hours it 
 was settled that the Grand Duke should come back 
 again. Now, nobody knows why this should be 
 done again, but they think that Napoleon hopes for 
 it, and that he is trusting time, and the chapter of 
 accidents to bring back the Grand Duke in this, 
 which I may call the natural way. . . . 
 
 "You will readily understand that on such a state 
 of popular opinion Napoleon's letter to the King of 
 Sardinia has fallen as a very wet and very cold 
 blanket. Their press, however, both here and in 
 Turin stands out very gallantly, and very civilly 
 towards him. With Machiavellian ingenuity all 
 the journals take the same tone in an argument which 
 must have been suggested from some central head- 
 quarters; that it is important to distinguish between 
 the principles to which Napoleon pledges himself, 
 and the individual opinions which he sustains. 
 
310 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 The principles, they say, are that there shall be no 
 armed intervention, and that universal suffrage 
 is to dictate dynasties; to the last he is of necessity 
 pledged, to the first he pledges himself now. The 
 individual opinions are that the Grand Duke of 
 Tuscany shall come back, &c. But, as this is impos- 
 sible without an armed intervention it falls to the 
 ground if the principle is sustained. 
 
 "Of course, in the midst of all this, we hear a great 
 deal of talk about everybody's position, on the out- 
 side, to whom these poor 'hereditary bondsmen' 
 are looking. Of the Pope and his Counselors 
 everything bad is said in Tuscany. The press is 
 indulged in license in discussing his right to his 
 temporal possessions, and they do it extremely well. 
 An intelligent gentleman said to me that this revo- 
 lution differed from that of 1849 in this, that the 
 people now know who is their true enemy, viz. 
 Pius IX. You would think so if you saw Florence. 
 I was present on Tuesday, at the most elaborate 
 service of the church in the Cathedral on All Saints 
 Day. The day, in the town, was a complete holiday, 
 every shop closed and every other place of business. 
 The Archbishop and an immense body of the clergy 
 joined in the most brilliant service with every 
 accessory. But there were not, in attendance on 
 the service when I arrived, as many people as there 
 were priests. Before it ended more dropped in, 
 but at no time in that immense cathedral, with the 
 whole pomp of the church before them, were there 
 attendants enough to have made a respectable 
 Sunday congregation in one of our meeting-houses. 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 311 
 
 This observation, which I made myself, confirms 
 the remark which well informed persons here make 
 to me that there is no part of the world where the 
 Roman church has less influence than in Florence. 
 "Yet the insurgent army in the Romagna does not 
 and dares not hazard any attack on the Roman 
 states proper, Catholica, as they call it there. On 
 the other hand they steadily deny, and what is more 
 disprove, the Roman Catholic stories as to their out- 
 rages on the Roman priesthood. If the Neapolitan 
 forces would take the initiative, it would be a perfect 
 blessing to the whole Revolutionary movement, 
 but Garibaldi cannot and will not take it. The 
 on dit here is that when General Guyon threatened 
 to withdraw the French troops from Rome Cardinal 
 Antonelli replied, 'We ask nothing better, but in a 
 fortnight after they go, your master will cease to be 
 Emperor.' Probably untrue in itself, the story is 
 ben trovato and shows well enough what the dead- 
 lock in the 'situation' is. Nobody can move any- 
 where and Paul Morphy himself would be puzzled to 
 escape the stale-mate consequent, which I find 
 people dreading. Napoleon cannot desert the Pope, 
 lest the French church desert him. He does not 
 want to support the Pope, because just now he is 
 himself 'the first soldier of Italy.' Garibaldi cannot 
 attack the Pope, because thus he attacks Napoleon. 
 He cannot stay without doing anything, because his 
 cacciatori degli Alpi must have some excitement to 
 keep them together. Victor Emmanuel cannot take 
 the provinces which beg him to do so, because he 
 has promised to await the Congress. But while he 
 
312 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 waits they melt away. They, poor fellows have 
 given up the local nationality which we have always 
 been told was the curse of Italian freedom and yet, 
 now they have given it up, nobody will take them 
 as subjects even, for the asking. 
 
 "I am afraid my dissertation is not half as edi- 
 fying as the journals, pamphlets, songs, and gossip 
 from which I distil it. I am sure it is not a hundredth 
 part as entertaining. I sent Emily a version nearly 
 literal of one from a thousand of these broadside 
 ballads. If I have time before I close this, I will 
 translate another, bitter almost to blasphemy in 
 its assault of the exiled Dukes, which will show you 
 another tone; I think I hardly swell the number at 
 all in speaking of a thousand of these things, I think 
 I have seen (not read) that number and they print 
 new ones every day." 
 
 to mrs. hale 
 
 "Rome. 
 " I am still talking of detail, I see, saving myself, 
 as usual from the effort to convey the whole grandeur 
 of the hours we spent there, by talking of one and 
 another of these incidents of it. All I knew of the 
 general effect and the whole grandeur is, that I 
 was wholly at home there from the first. I had 
 felt that I belonged to the church and that it belonged 
 to me, that I had entire right there and that it was 
 a temple by no means the special property of this 
 fag end of Christendom, which is burning here at 
 Rome. I do not think I had any sense of wonder 
 about it, nor of disgust with the little Romanisms, the 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 313 
 
 St. Peter's toes, and so on. It is — and it is right 
 was rather my idea all along; glad that Michel- 
 Angelo had planned it. I was not and am not 
 worried by a thought of the taxes which paid for it, 
 nor of what the stones might have been sold for and 
 of how that quiddam ignoium resulting from that 
 hypothetical purchase might have been given to 
 the poor. Indeed the interior of St. Peter's has been 
 (except the Vatican sculptures) the most satisfactory 
 thing in Rome. Indeed — again it is a fit culmi- 
 nation to this marvellous journey of ours." 
 
 "Dijon, Burgundy, 
 "I was charmed with Geneva and am well repaid 
 for the two days it has cost me. Not that I saw 
 Mt. Blanc; a heavy cloud threatening snow hung 
 over the valley all the time I was there and when 
 I asked Mr. Magnin to whom I had a letter of intro- 
 duction from our Mr. Bigelow, when this would 
 clear away he answered very simply that it might 
 remain all winter, though they generally saw Mt. 
 Blanc in January. I gave you some account of the 
 exquisite ride up the valley of the Rhone. The 
 city itself always beautiful, has lately been a good 
 deal enlarged and they have built the most charm- 
 ing walks and promenades along the side of the lake. 
 It is more like one of our towns than any place I 
 have seen in Europe. In a long walk I took in the 
 environs on Sunday there were places where it fairly 
 seemed as if I were at home. You see it is the same 
 thing; a manufacturing and commercial republic, 
 with plenty of old families, with great wealth and 
 
3H EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 a good deal of culture, but with no hereditary 
 aristocracy and no army; Protestant to the back- 
 bone — even to Unitarianism and very proud of 
 its Protestantism. Think of a town not much larger 
 than Hartford, say with thirty-five thousand people, 
 which has collected the enormous wealth of these 
 republican princes, has the taste and enthusiasm 
 for science which we associate, I think, always with 
 Geneva, and rightly, and you may imagine what they 
 have made of it in three hundred years since Calvin's 
 time. The environs are curiously like those of the 
 neighborhood of Boston or Hartford, and in a long 
 walk I took on Sunday I saw a great deal to remind 
 me of home." 
 
 "25 Montague St., London, 
 "Last night having just finished these official 
 letters I tell you of, I went to Maurice's Working 
 Man's College. It is a large dwelling house, once 
 Lord Thurloe's, in every room of which was somebody 
 teaching last night. The lower floor was a library, 
 I entered myself a member of the college by paying 
 2s.6d. with ulterior views. Only think Ruskin was 
 giving lessons in water-colors upstairs! I could not 
 get into that class last night, but I mean to next 
 Thursday, though I shall probably never get a second 
 lesson. Wednesday night Tom Hughes presides 
 at a social party at which all teachers and pupils 
 are present. I introduced myself to the gentleman 
 who conducted the evening prayers and he walked 
 home with me. Altogether it was a very good 
 glimpse at the thing, and a satisfactory illustration 
 of what one may do here." 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 315 
 
 His most characteristic experience, however, was 
 in Ireland, where he spent his last day abroad in an 
 effort to find John Foster, the brother of Margaret, 
 one of the maids in his house. 
 
 "My business in Killishandra was to see a certain 
 John Foster and his family. I knew one of his sisters 
 in America. I summoned the landlord of the 
 Imperial Hotel, and consulted him. Then I went 
 to the postoffice, and soon found there were so many 
 John Fosters as to make an embarras des richesses. 
 But my John Foster was, pretty clearly, a man of 
 "Arrish Island," who worked for Mr. Behan, and 
 had a brother Robert in Australia. There was a 
 thick rain by this time; but I took out my mackin- 
 tosh (not used since the Rhine), had another jaunting 
 car brought round, and we went down to find him. 
 
 "It was not a long drive; and the driver, after a 
 mile and a half perhaps pointed out five or six men at 
 work on a new road, one of whom was John Foster." 
 He was not, however, his John Foster, so the search 
 continued. 
 
 "James Markinson's was two miles the other side 
 of the town, up a villainous road. Into the cabin — 
 first of his brothers, then of him — I pitched ; and 
 great was his delight and his wife's. Frequent 
 outcries of 'O heavenly Father!' at wonder that I 
 had come, and great enthusiasm at my account of 
 'Margaret:' when the whole romance was dashed 
 by their asking for Margaret's children ; and it 
 appeared she had been married these four years, 
 and had two or three. Of this there was no doubt, 
 as a sister had been home this year. I had a little 
 
316 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 warning of this at the Tralee house, when the good 
 woman had insisted that Margaret's hair was black. 
 This was a comforting result of the morning's work. 
 It was now two, and I had to leave for my train at 
 four. I was no nearer my John Foster than when 
 I began; so I resolved to sacrifice this train, and to 
 continue the investigation in what was left of the 
 day and evening. This I did, first on the great 
 principle of life which Napoleon expressed, when he 
 said, 'If you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna;' 
 second, on that principle of travelling which I com- 
 mend to all my young friends, that it is better to see 
 one place thoroughly, than to half see two, or to pass 
 through three without seeing them at all. 
 
 " By this time it appeared that Killishandra, instead 
 of being a village, was something much more like 
 a Virginian county. It is called a parish, and this 
 had misled me: but ' parish' in Ireland does not now 
 mean the district for which one church suffices; 
 if, indeed, it ever did. It is more like a large Ameri- 
 can 'township.' After a solemn series of councils 
 with the innkeeper, the postmaster, the doctor, and 
 the English archdeacon, I got a new basis of oper- 
 ations. These various visits and conferences showed 
 me some Irish interiors, and at the surgeon's and the 
 clergyman's I met the cordial reception which gentle- 
 men give a stranger. Since that day's journeying 
 up and down this quaint, crowded, street, crowded 
 so unnecessarily in the midst of a great half-settled 
 farming country, the details of Trollope's novels 
 have come out for me with singular sharpness. The 
 result of the conferences as to my 'Holy Quest' 
 
NINETY DAYS OF EUROPE 317 
 
 was this, that in the neighborhood of Arvagh, the 
 other principal town of the parish of Killishandra, 
 were two more John Fosters, one of whom was prob- 
 ably my man. I could take one on my way to 
 Arvagh, which was only eight miles across the coun- 
 try. I had seen, meanwhile, two other Margaret Fos- 
 ters, who knew nothing of my Margaret or my John. 
 So we started, with a fresh horse in our jaunting car, 
 and 'jaunted' over the eight miles. It rained all the 
 time, but I enjoyed all the ride till the twilight failed 
 me, about the time I came to my first John; I think 
 his name proved to be Hugh. I'm sure that he knew 
 as little of what I wanted as the most un-Irish 
 Know-nothing. 
 
 "How we ever came to John Foster's cabin that 
 night, I cannot tell. When we came there, it proved 
 to be the right place; and the cordiality of its humble 
 reception is beyond description. I have no more 
 right to put in print the details of this stonemason's 
 family life, than I should those of palaces, if I had 
 seen them. I will say that I believe the regret was 
 perfectly heartfelt which was expressed there and 
 in other similar visits which I made in Ireland, 
 when they found that I could not spend a week with 
 them to test the sincerity of their welcome. The 
 mother of this family of six or seven fine children 
 offered to send her pretty daughter of fifteen to her 
 friends in America by my care, if I would bring her 
 with me. Observe that this was at nine in the 
 evening, and the girl would have to be ' ready' at 
 four the next morning for the expedition. 
 
 "I spent two or three hours with these new-found 
 
318 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 friends, and left them with real regret. It proved 
 that I could go most easily to Crossdony to the 
 train, without returning to the village of Killishandra. 
 I gave directions, therefore, that a man should be 
 sent there at three in the morning for my St. Gothard 
 walking stick, which I had left by accident that I 
 should myself be called at five; and so retired for the 
 night after my first day of Ireland." 
 
M 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 THE WAR 
 
 1860-1863 
 
 Y father came back from Europe into a very 
 busy life. During the breathing space of his vacation 
 he had spent a little while looking at his life from a 
 distance and had determined: 
 
 " First, To give more care to my work, and write 
 sermons of permanent value. 
 
 "Second, To cut loose from the Examiner and all 
 other avocations. 
 
 "Third, To devote myself exclusively to my parish 
 and refuse all other duties." x 
 
 He began with spirit on his new program. There 
 were particular reasons for preaching, for Dr. Hun- 
 tington, who had been his predecessor at the South 
 Congregational Church, had aroused feeling and 
 interest by resigning his position at Harvard and 
 becoming a member of the Episcopal Church. 2 
 There was opportunity for parish work, for the church 
 was considering a new church edifice. His first 
 days at home were full of all sorts of things, and even 
 when he got through the first days he had plenty to 
 do. 
 
 1 A letter to Charles, February 3, 1865. 
 9 He subsequently became Bishop of Central New York. 
 319 
 
320 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 TO WILLIAM EVERETT 
 
 Jan. 30, i860. I was fairly driven from my guns 
 last week and missed the Europe's mail. You can- 
 not conceive of the randan and confusion of the first 
 week at home. This goes by the Africa tomorrow. 
 
 "I found everybody well; my own family here and 
 at Brookline, your father, Helen, whom I saw the 
 first day I was here, in short everybody. They 
 were all eager to hear from you. I distributed as 
 quickly as I could your messages and commissions 
 and gave, as you may be sure, glowing accounts of 
 you. 
 
 "I went to your father's at once, and told him 
 in great detail everything I could of your Cambridge 
 life ; successes, feelings, expectations and plans. 
 I think he was thoroughly gratified and pleased. 
 You had said modestly that you did not expect to 
 take the scholarship in competition, and he had wor- 
 ried himself a little to think that you should expose 
 yourself on anybody's advice to a failure which you 
 thought certain. But I told him that I expected 
 you to succeed; that I thought you meant to succeed, 
 and as far as you had any right to look forward con- 
 fidently, you had gone into the competition with 
 the expectation of succeeding. I think I reassured 
 him. Of course, if I had thought when I saw you 
 last, that for mere practice you were exposing your- 
 self to certain failure, I should have dissuaded you, 
 as far as I could, from the competition. But I 
 thought you were right in entering for it, and I 
 think so still. I told him so. I told him also, what 
 
THE WAR 321 
 
 you may have heard that Frank Channing, son of 
 our Rev. W. H. C. (of Liverpool now) took an 
 Exeter scholarship at Oxford, at the end of his first 
 term (just before Christmas) over forty-one com- 
 petitors. He had not, more than yourself, an 
 English public school experience. 
 
 "I think your father looks a great deal better than 
 he did when we went away. 
 
 "I made Ruah come into the dining-room, and told 
 her, in as much detail as I could, of your house- 
 keeping arrangements. She wanted to know who 
 mended your clothes, on which point I was not well 
 informed. But as my laundresses mended mine 
 whenever I was in Europe, I told her I thought 
 that must be the custom at Cambridge. . . . 
 
 "Our establishment here at Worcester Street with 
 which you are not so familiar as I wish you were, has 
 taken up its line of march again quite steadily. 
 Emily has been at Hartford almost all the time I was 
 in Europe. She came back with the children on 
 Wednesday, I the next Tuesday morning for we had a 
 villainous voyage. My boy is a new element which 
 quite varies as you may suppose, many lines of our 
 proceeding, he makes Nelly feel a great deal older 
 and more confident. She had profited by my absence 
 to learn to read; an accomplishment for which I 
 have so little respect that as long as I was here I 
 had not permitted her to aspire to. In revenge for 
 which that her feet may keep pace with her head I 
 have sent her to a little folks' dancing school kept at 
 Brookline by Sarah Phillips whom you used to meet 
 at Shakespeare. 
 
322 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "Whether Shakespeare continues I do not know. 
 There is however, an Italian class to which I brought 
 home galore of Italian books, in the same Brookline 
 coterie. 
 
 "Cambridge has its new President, my candidate 
 and I think yours, Mr. Felton. I believe there is no 
 doubt of his confirmation. Huntington has resigned 
 in a very manly letter, after printing a very absurd 
 sermon showing that he has at last succeeded in 
 believing the Trinity. Everybody is replying to it, 
 quite unnecessarily, I think, — as the second head of 
 it is a reply to the first a les Kilkennys, as it is. 
 The drift of the statement is 'The whole church, 
 with one or two exceptions believes this — ergo I do* 
 and the tone is so 'sacramental* as you Churchmen 
 say — and so traditional that I do not think he will 
 tarry either with orthodoxy or Episcopacy. 
 
 "Your college friends will have told you about the 
 desecrations of the Chapel, and the Forbes row. 
 
 "I look back on Cambridge with delight.. I hope 
 this will find you well and happy. Remember me to 
 all my friends, and believe me. 
 
 " Ever yours, 
 
 "Edward." 
 
 to william everett 
 
 "I have been pretty fully occupied since I came 
 home. First in writing five sermons of the 'Ele- 
 ments of the Doctrine and its development' which, 
 having preached I am now carrying through the press 
 and shall send to you. The plan of them was in my 
 mind a year since, but there are one or two points 
 
THE WAR 323 
 
 suggested by Huntington's change of attitude, and the 
 new interest attached here to the Trinitarian dis- 
 cussion has called the attention of my people to them 
 particularly. For my parish having been Hunting- 
 ton's, is I think specially anxious to clear itself from 
 any responsibility for his heresies. The Corporation 
 acted on the principle of your government in filling 
 the vacant Plummer Professorship. That is they 
 accepted Huntington's resignation and appointed 
 Andrew Peabody his successor the same evening. 
 Huntington is to continue Professor until next 
 September, but he supplies the pulpit by substitutes 
 meanwhile. He was confirmed at the Cambridge 
 Episcopal church ten days ago." 
 
 A matter of more immediate importance to him 
 and his congregation was the building of a new church 
 edifice. The course of population in Boston had been 
 setting steadily toward the South End, and not only 
 was Dover Street becoming almost "down-town", 
 but the greater number of the congregation lived, 
 as he did himself, much farther out on the "Neck" 
 as it was still vaguely and each year more and more 
 inappropriately called. Union Park Street had been 
 chosen for a situation, and early in 1861 was gradually 
 completed the church in which he preached for thirty 
 years and which is most definitely associated with 
 his work. 
 
 In the midst of this and other such interests came 
 the Civil War. My father had believed till very 
 late that the war would not come. In the first 
 months of 1861, however, he seems to have changed 
 his mind. He joined a drill club. On February 26, 
 
324 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 he wrote to his brother Charles, who was in Washing- 
 ton: 
 
 "There is not any news at all, but that we drilled 
 with muskets yesterday for the first time. Why the 
 pesky things did not fall on the floor before us I do 
 not know. It is excellent exercise and so trivial 
 in its detail that it is perfect rest. I have slept 
 better since Feb. ist than for a great while before 
 and have not once been tired." 
 
 When Charles came back from Washington, he 
 urged him to join the club. The following is undated, 
 but must have been written early in March. 
 "Dear Charles: 
 
 "I have just come in from drill. There is a new 
 company of as much as forty men (01. Peabody and 
 a dozen others whom I knew) who had their first drill 
 yesterday. You had better fall in with them. 
 "Minot's Hall, Sudbury St., 
 "Ever yrs., 
 
 "Edward." 
 
 "Dear Charles: "March 24 
 
 "I have just sent your name to Cabot as a member 
 of the drill club. You will have to pay Salignac 
 six dollars ; there is a fee of twenty-five cents a month 
 to the man who cleans the guns, hence called quarter- 
 master. If it is convenient for you to come round 
 at 11 tomorrow (over Jones, Louis, & Ball's, No. 20) 
 or a few minutes before eleven, I will meet and 
 introduce you. But you cannot take your first 
 drill at that hour, — and if you are pressed for time, 
 I will find what the hour for the new comers is, and let 
 
THE WAR 325 
 
 you know. We are to move this week to a hall in 
 Sudbury St., because the floor where we are is not 
 safe." 
 
 He remained in the drill club during the spring, 
 even after the outbreak of the war, but there is but 
 slight mention of it in his letters. "If the weather 
 is fine," he wrote April 30, "I shall celebrate May 
 day by going to Longwood with our drill club." 
 " I found again, what I found often, that my Light 
 Infantry experience has set me up on my pins very 
 decidedly. After a day mostly spent on my feet, 
 I had no sense of foot-soreness or of stiffness." On 
 July 3, "I am to dine with the Cincinnati tomorrow. 
 'Seems as if I ought to wear my parade cap and 
 jacket." 
 
 I remember the drill jacket, as a boy; he must have 
 kept it a long time. It was a tight-fitting single- 
 breasted jacket coming somewhat below the waist, 
 blue with brass buttons, not unlike those we used 
 to wear later at the drill of the Boston School Regi- 
 ment. There used also to be in the study two old 
 Springfield muskets. They were very long compared 
 with the Springfields of to-day, and of course had 
 percussion locks. There was also a belt with cart- 
 ridge box, bayonet case, and bayonet. The cap 
 vanished before my day. 
 
 In the fall there was a new arrangement. "Our 
 old Salignac drill club has broken up under the 
 weight of its own prosperity. The real leaders of it 
 have quarrelled with Salignac, who did neglect his 
 business badly in the pomp of fuss and feathers, and 
 have deserted him to establish the Massachusetts 
 
326 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Rifle Club at Boylston Hall. I have joined there and 
 have drilled two evenings under a philosophical 
 Prussian drill master who has been found name 
 unknown. He interlards the drill with anecdotes, 
 philosophical reflections on the reasons for the 
 manoeuvres of a sort which, as compared with Salig- 
 nac's elan illustrates very well the distinction between 
 the French and German service and their comparable 
 success in the war business of the last seventy 
 years." 
 
 On October 29, he writes: "Our new Rifle Club 
 fares very well. There is added to the regular drill 
 instruction in shooting at a mark." 
 
 In the winter of '62 his brother Charles went abroad. 
 In the spring he wrote to him "Frank Peabody. . . 
 does not want the rifle, — says the enthusiasm has 
 rather past. In fact before you come home we shall 
 all be beating our rifles into gas-pipes, and studying 
 war no more." 
 
 Up to the last he had felt that war would be averted. 
 On March 2, 1861, he wrote to Charles in Washington: 
 
 "I doubt if we have any news. No other paper 
 than ours had the final report of the Peace Con- 
 ference. That august body seems to have done its 
 duty in biding over the weeks before next Monday, 
 perhaps would have done more duty if it had bided 
 a little longer. There is great virtue in Time." 
 
 But of course the war did come. "War has 
 begun," he wrote to my mother, "I am exquisitely 
 sorry, now that it is here. I did not know that I 
 could be so sorry about anything out of the family." 
 On April 1, he wrote to Charles: 
 
THE WAR 327 
 
 " I want to congratulate you specially on the dig- 
 nity, spirit, decorum, and wisdom of the paper 
 since the war began. I think it really deserves all 
 praise. 
 
 "In the way of war poetry, print again Holmes's 
 verses of the President's Fast. We had them the 
 day after. The burthen 
 
 'God bless them when our Northern pine 
 Shall meet their Southern palm.' 
 
 runs in my head all the time. Indeed the whole 
 thing fills me with unutterable sadness. But if we 
 come out of it a nation it is worth something." 
 
 "Your letter," he wrote about this time to Mr. 
 George Abbott, "shows that you had there no idea 
 of the way the whole North is backing up this move- 
 ment. I have no idea that in 1775 there was such 
 unanimity. There was not, of course, a thousandth 
 part of the power." 
 
 TO CHARLES HALE, OR , EDITORS OF THE BOSTON 
 
 Daily Advertiser marked "private" 
 "I wish the enclosed might be printed Monday. 
 Cannot there be a very solemn Editorial to the point 
 that Taking the Loan is the solemn business of the 
 week, — quite as important as any week's work 
 the war has done. The banks will never take the 
 second if the people do not lift this off their hands, 
 and I really believe that if there were anybody whose 
 personal look-out it was to bring people to the mark, 
 — and to take as much pains as would last winter 
 
328 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 have made a torchlight procession, we might have 
 stampedes of people swarming to the treasurer's 
 office — and making long tails in the streets as they 
 waited for their chance. I have a great mind to go 
 to the Union meeting and make a speech proposing 
 they adjourn to meet at the Assistant Treasurer's 
 office the day he gets the notes. 
 
 "The reason for saying it is the business of the new 
 week is that they say the notes will be ready on the 
 ioth. Of course if there is to be any popular demon- 
 stration there must be time for it, and now there is 
 a good deal of sporadic enthusiasm, which helps. 
 
 " Pray give us a thundering leader double leaded if 
 necessary, Monday. At all events, I shall follow 
 up the week through in second column brevities 
 with a mitraillerie (which means musquetry) of small 
 talk, not always songs, but utterly in earnest. 
 
 "If only I had a fifty-spot myself! 
 
 "Ever Yours, 
 
 "E. E. Hale. 
 
 "On Sunday the 15th, I shall preach on the Reli- 
 gious duty of Taking the Loan from John VI, 12 or 
 Matt. V, 42. 
 
 "Went to the museum where was a very bright 
 adaptation of Great Expectations, really with a most 
 bloody new finale and then 
 
 " Take the Loan 
 
 "They sing it very well standing like sticks as 
 they do so. The last verse was encored, and we came 
 
 home." 
 
THE WAR 329 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 '"July 25, 1862. 
 "The recruiting goes on perfectly steadily. Wil- 
 liam Loring my old parishioner, who is Lt. Col. 
 commanding the 34th wrote down to me to ask me 
 to be chaplain of his regiment and I was sorely 
 tempted, I confess. I suppose if I was at even a 
 regiment's headquarters, the feeling that all was ill 
 done would be rather worse than it is in this blissful 
 ignorance in which we live." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "July 31, 1862. 
 " Our recruiting goes on very well, except in 
 Boston where it has been badly botched, and 
 drags terribly. I suppose we none of us knew last 
 year how much the recruiting was stimulated by the 
 zeal of officers to fill their companies and earn their 
 commissions. Now we make few or no new officers, 
 filling the vacancies from the ranks, and exhorting 
 people to go into the old regiments. It is therefore 
 nobody's business in particular to go round hunting 
 up the men. In the country where everybody 
 attends to what is nobody's business this makes no 
 difference and every day the selectmen of any num- 
 ber of towns appear with their full quotas of men 
 taking them to the camps. But public meetings and 
 all that sort of thing do not do this work for us in 
 Boston. They say today that the Maine quota is 
 full. I dare say, that with the absurd bounty we 
 are paying for men which has done more to check 
 
330 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 recruiting than to help it, we shall draw men from 
 Maine to fill up our gaps. People are getting into 
 better spirit and the tone of the public is absolutely 
 firm, 'They have just found out that this is not a 
 picnic/ as I heard some one say in the cars today." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "August 5th, 1862. 
 "Old Abe has called out 300,000 men by draft, 
 and has informed us that if the 300,000 volunteers 
 do not appear by the 15th he will draft for them. 
 This is as it should be — if he had put his figure 
 higher it would have been better. The act giving 
 him power was run through just in the heel of the 
 session. The old theories of war are exploded, 
 which spoke of people's staying at home and send- 
 ing a few wretches to do the fighting. For if every- 
 body goes on both sides, universal service justifies 
 itself by the great appeal in fact, which I have so 
 often lectured about in theory; viz. the appeal to 
 physical force. The result of universal suffrage 
 may be right or may be wrong, but it is the result 
 which will be carried through." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Aug. 8th, 1862 
 " But Abraham's draft is universally well re- 
 ceived and has hurried up thfe volunteering at 
 once. When it is filled, nearly half our military 
 population in Massachusetts will be under arms. 
 . . . Gov. Andrew is sentimentally opposed to a 
 regular draft, a very absurd opposition. I think 
 
THE WAR 331 
 
 there are already evidences that he means to call 
 out the volunteer militia for nine months, instead 
 of bravely taking by lot his 15,000 men." 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Jug. 15th, 1862. 
 
 "The enthusiasm of the outbreak of the war did 
 not come up to the steady movement of people 
 now about the two quotas as we call them familiarly. 
 The regular topic is the quota of this town, and the 
 quota of that, — how much a town is in advance : 
 of its quota and so on. Nothing ever illustrated 
 better the self-governing principle. Andrew re- 
 ceives this order for 15,000 at once. He gives it 
 to a clerk who calculates that if the men came 
 forward equally Boston would furnish so many, 
 Hull so many and so on. Andrew publishes this 
 list, and requests the selectmen to see that those 
 quotas are made up. The reasonableness of the 
 thing approves itself at once. It is, of course, no 
 more the selectmen's business to enlist them than 
 the Shah of Persia, but they do it with alacrity and 
 in incredibly short time, appear in person, dear 
 souls, bringing their quotas (of course through 
 State Street) to the camp of inspection, and report- 
 ing with enthusiasm that they have more than 
 filled their number. 
 
 "The draft helped all this. It was the most 
 popular thing that was ever done. I have not 
 seen a man myself who was not hoping to be drafted. 
 But Andrew prefers to fill up his militia battal- 
 ions and send them, and with some reason; — ■ 
 
332 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 though on the whole, I think he is wrong — and 
 it is probable that he will have volunteers enough 
 for all his 34,000 (15,000 of the first call, and 19,000 
 of the second). 
 
 "We are in much better spirits about the war. 
 Gold is only at 13 premium again and exchange is 
 down with it, I believe. I sold at the very top of 
 the market. [This alludes to a draft which his 
 brother Charles had sent him a while before.] 
 Government securities of course are steadily ad- 
 vancing. Our crops are magnificent, and our im- 
 portations not much larger than last year. So 
 the Lord fights with us." 
 
 His brother Charles was at this time suffering 
 under a personal experience of the most painful 
 kind. He was now a man of some position, being 
 editor of the Advertiser and member of the House 
 of Representatives, of which he had recently been 
 the speaker. At the beginning of the war, he 
 had gone to Washington, but had found no open- 
 ing in the varied work that was going on. In the 
 fall of 1 861 he went to Washington again, and 
 shortly afterward, still unable to fix his mind on 
 any work, he went abroad. My father's letters 
 to him at this time form an excellent record of all 
 he was interested in. The only trouble is that 
 they are so full that one can select but a small 
 portion of them: 
 
 "I believe if I had seen you this morning I should 
 have reiterated the commonplace advice which 
 I urged on you Saturday, of the value of mere 
 
THE WAR 333 
 
 mechanical work, the more mechanical the better 
 perhaps, to drive out of heart and mind a sorrow 
 as great as yours. I know it, from what I went 
 through when Sarah died and Alexander, and I 
 think • you will remember the same thing, that 
 firm steady occupation, and that not perhaps of 
 the highest level was the only thing that helped. 
 Unless you fill the empty house, the devils of dif- 
 ferent kinds come in, and brooding over what 
 might have been or should have been is the worst 
 devil of all. This is why I am glad you are in 
 Boston today, it is why I hope you are not there 
 to-night. You must not think of going back to 
 your lonely No. 22, [Ashburton Place] but at three 
 o'clock regularly: regularly, for clockwork is what 
 you will have to rely on now, you must go to Brook- 
 line or come here. Pray come to us, if it seems 
 pleasant to you, sure that it will be a real pleasure 
 to us. 
 
 "I don't like to say this, in a world where ad- 
 vice is so cheap, without going a little more into 
 the rationale of it. I think you have never read 
 Sartor Resartus. The rationale is there and very 
 well put too; though it was in the four Gospels 
 eighteen centuries before. It is this, that God 
 trains us sooner or later to find out that our hap- 
 piness (etymologically, that which happens to us) 
 is not after all that matter of A. no. 1 consequence 
 to us, that we should lay ourselves out much to 
 secure it, or that we should think the great essential 
 lost even if it be lost for our lives. Carlyle puts it, 
 by saying 'There was no act of Parliament that I 
 
334 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 should be happy.' Jesus Christ had put it more 
 to the point, when he said 'unless a man take up 
 his cross — he cannot be my disciple* — Because 
 this is true; because we cannot teach it to each 
 other; God himself teaches it to us sooner or later, 
 in some such terrible crash as yours. And it is 
 part of the lesson that laying stone wall, or cheap- 
 ening potatoes and Indian meal for beggars, or 
 hearing Mr. Salisbury's accounts of a collection 
 tour shall be of more real use to us, than any re- 
 view of part pleasures or part pains, or any study- 
 ing out of the laws of them. I had meant to say 
 this as soon as I could write this note. Just now 
 mother's Sunday evening note to me comes, with 
 the very same thing in it. 'I have often found/ 
 she says, 'that the week's mending and tending a 
 worrisome child were a help even when the heart 
 was bleeding under a last parting or the head 
 racked with the breaking up and remodelling of 
 the whole establishment. Plain, hard, humdrum 
 work is an excellent soother, and in using it thus, 
 the body pays back some of the debts it owes the 
 mind.'" 
 
 "Sept. 14, 1 861. 
 
 "I learned with surprise of your sudden depar- 
 ture, but I was glad you had been sent for and 
 know you must be glad to go. I have nothing to 
 suggest about the Loan, but that in general I think 
 you want to make people see they are acting to- 
 gether. If for some days the subscriptions of 
 the preceding days could be printed (as those to 
 everything else have been) the amour-propre of 
 
THE WAR 335 
 
 the subscriber is so much the more gratified, and, 
 which is much more, everybody is forced to read 
 and understand what has been done. Now not 
 one in ten persons appreciates the announcement 
 that ( $ was taken yesterday/ 
 
 "Here I should say [in Boston] that a public 
 meeting at which a few really crack speakers, as 
 Thomas, Everett, and perhaps Franklin Haven 
 would speak might be of real purpose. The coun- 
 try is to be moved simply by the action of the 
 cities. You can always make Worcester do what 
 Boston has done, never what it is going to do. 
 
 " i st. I wish you would ask anybody who 
 knows why the government will not let the con- 
 trabands at Fort Monroe come to Boston. We 
 can absorb the two thousand in a month, or in less 
 time if it is necessary. If the government does 
 not want to take action it need not. But it can 
 let them go as freemen would. It does not know 
 them as slaves. No one has attempted any legal 
 process for their recovery. If they were per- 
 mitted to take passage North, we could be all 
 ready for them on a week's notice, and could make 
 the first squad so comfortable that others would 
 follow rapidly. As it is, the strictest surveillance 
 is kept upon them. Officers of our regiments 
 were not permitted to bring individuals as body 
 servants to whom they had got attached. On 
 the most conservative view even, this is straining 
 a point. Who made the government, Wool or 
 Butler to be keeper of a nigger boarding house? 
 
 "2nd. I am very anxious to send to Richmond 
 
336 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 sheets and shirts for our prisoners there. The 
 Sanitary Commission write me that there is no way 
 in which they can do so. I can see that Govern- 
 ment does not want to recognize the enemy in such 
 ways as might be involved in a negotiation about 
 it. But suppose we put up say five hundred shirts, 
 and addressed them to some clergyman or Masonic 
 Order in Richmond, — would not the Government 
 give a flag of truce at Fort Monroe to get them in? 
 If the rascals steal them, there is no great loss 
 and there is great shame to them. And I do want 
 to let the prisoners feel that we have an arm long 
 enough to reach them if we have. 
 
 "If you see Seaton will you ask him to print 
 Take the Loan in the Intelligence. You may tell 
 him I wrote it." 
 
 "Sept. 16, 1861. 
 "I enclose to you Nelly's two cents, which she 
 wanted to give the President for the war. * Con- 
 science money' seems to be unknown to our ex- 
 chequer and gifts even more so, so I could not 
 get Ezra Lincoln to take the gift. But perhaps 
 you can give it to Mr. Chase or to the Treasurer 
 of the United States, at all events Nelly will be 
 satisfied at knowing I have sent it. You can say 
 it is a legitimate two-mite contribution. For she 
 has never heard of the machine beggary of sums 
 from children for charities, and she had nothing 
 more and expected nothing more, but, hearing me 
 discuss the Loan, brought in her contribution 
 spontaneously. 
 
THE WAR 337 
 
 "Abe seems to have put his foot in it mildly 
 by his letter to Fremont. It will make him no 
 friends, and many enemies : do the constitution 
 no good and do the country a little harm. 
 
 "Mother had an impression that you would 
 confine yourself at Washington to writing C. Hale 
 as rapidly as you could fourteen hours a day. Pray 
 do not embark in such mechanical work as that, 
 which, after all Mr. iA could do better than you: 
 but accept one of Mr. Chase's appointments as 
 Loan agents, and come on here to 'Canvass the 
 State.' Don't do anything that shuts you up in 
 an office. You see if any letters have come from 
 you I have not yet seen them. Perhaps I shall 
 before I close this so no more at present." 
 
 "Oct. 24, 1861. 
 "Our public news is that the great advance 
 has begun. Banks has crossed the Potomac, hav- 
 ing possessed himself of the command of Edward's 
 Ford on Monday, in a series of skirmishes which 
 cost our Mass. Fifteenth, Devens's regiment, five 
 captains killed, and in which we also lost Baker 
 of Oregon, whom Dunbar thinks the ablest man 
 we had in the Senate. It is evident that our men 
 were severely exposed to sharpshooters. They did 
 all that they were sent to do, but evidently at- 
 tempted more than they could do, and though the 
 result is more or less veiled in the fact that the 
 army is advancing, the action itself seems to me 
 rather badly botched. For us, locally, the merit 
 of it is that our Massachusetts men behaved well. 
 
338 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Our Col. Lee of the Twentieth is, however, a pris- 
 oner. Dunbar has won great fame here by a 
 guess in the Daily that our great military expedi- 
 tion by sea is going, not to a Southern port but 
 to Fredricksburg in Virginia. I think myself that 
 they will move up York and James Rivers. They 
 sailed from Annapolis on Monday: a fact an- 
 nounced in the New York papers of Wednesday 
 morning only, so much reticency have we gained. 
 Seward made a bad botch by publishing a circular 
 to the State governors, recommending them to 
 fortify the harbours in the Sea and on the lakes. 
 The stocks fell plump at once; and were only 
 cossetted up by repeated assurance that the des- 
 patch meant nothing at all. Fortunately for him, 
 Lord Lyons just then wrote him to say that the 
 Queen's law advisers thought our suspension of 
 Habeas Corpus unconstitutional. Seward wrote a 
 dashing reply, very good though not so good as 
 Dunbar's leader on it, the same day as Lyons's 
 letter; printed it at once, with Lyons's note, and 
 had so much chance to recover in public esteem. 
 He is nervous, utterly shattered by his constant 
 smoking, men say who know him: certainly every- 
 thing he does seems like impulse more than reflection. 
 "The next night uncle Edward opened the new 
 Mercantile course with his new lecture or address 
 on the Causes of the War. It is in his best, i.e. 
 his conversational style. I even doubt if some 
 parts of it have been committed to writing. It 
 contains some very curious passages, one where 
 he expresses his real regret that the nullification 
 
THE WAR 339 
 
 trouble was patched up, 'if Jackson had been per- 
 mitted to strangle the hydra of Nullification in 
 1832, the hydra of Secession would never have been 
 born etc., etc. 5 Another, and by far the best in 
 the address a passage of ridicule of Virginia; what 
 she would not secede for, and what she would. 
 But, in face of the current opinion of the week, 
 I must say that it is not in any sort, 'as it seems to 
 me' one of his philosophical addresses; — -not to 
 be compared, for instance, with that of the fourth 
 of July at New York. He ascribes the origin of the 
 the whole row distinctly to the ambition of eight 
 or nine men, a curious number which seems to show 
 he knows what he means, or who precisely. You 
 are likely to see Mason and Slidell in Paris. The 
 N. Y. Post says boldly, that they are rats desert- 
 ing a sinking ship. That is my own belief. That 
 the Confederacy, for want of strength within is 
 caving in. We do not help the process much from 
 without, alas! The next week will show if we can." 
 
 "Dec. 19, 1861. 
 "We are just in the excitement of the news of 
 the English passion about the Trent matter, our 
 latest news being General Scott's very judicious 
 letter, which shows that he has not had any para- 
 lytic stroke as I guessed he had. You will see that 
 Dunbar toned down, with my assent one of the 
 paragraphs of your very valuable and well-con- 
 sidered letter. The truth is that the seizure, as 
 you must have seen, has been regarded here with 
 such unmitigated exultation, that a handle against 
 
340 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 you personally would have been made of expres- 
 sions of yours indicating regret at its occurrence; 
 under whatever lights of circumstances you wrote. 
 Of this danger you must feel we were better judges 
 than you. Curiously enough in all the discussion 
 here as to the way in which England would take 
 the seizure, the point made (and as I think well 
 made) by the Queen's Law officers, although 
 brought forward, has not received till now any 
 attention. I was not even aware that anybody had 
 stated it. But Emily is sure she had seen it. So 
 complete was our feeling that Wilkes had miti- 
 gated the matter to his utmost by sending the 
 Trent on. The truth also is that the arrest was 
 managed in the most courteous manner. Lt. 
 Fairfax is himself a Virginian, and may be sup- 
 posed to have wanted to be courteous to Mason. 
 Twice the people on the ship made such a row 
 that his boat's crew rushed up rescue him, and 
 both times he sent them back immediately. One 
 of the girls (' Noble girls/ says the purser) slapped 
 him in the face, at the door of her father's state 
 room; and all this time, it appears from your side, 
 Mrs. Slidell was holding the despatches in her un- 
 searched state room ready to drop them into the sea. 
 "The only pity is that M. and S. were not well 
 hung before this row from England came over." 
 
 "Jan. 16, 1862. 
 "Mother will tell you the report she had of the 
 dedication of our church. It was truly a magnifi- 
 cent and solemn fete. I think I am sensitive 
 
THE WAR 341 
 
 about the details of such things, but even my ex- 
 cited observation could find nothing which was not 
 completely satisfactory. The church is very beau- 
 tiful, lights up splendidly, and was perfectly over- 
 whelmed with people. Nobody got standing room 
 even but those who stood three quarters of an 
 hour before the service began, so that thousands 
 of people literally went away. I do not mean to 
 speak of these last as if their absence contributed 
 to the impression of the occasion, but certainly the 
 sea of upturned faces, the mass of people who did 
 get in, made it intensely solemn and joyous and 
 triumphant together. The Orpheus Club sang 
 a chorus with our Choir, so that for the Congre- 
 gational Hymn at the close, there was that body of 
 disciplined voice to lead the two thousand singers 
 below. Really the movement of that singing 
 seemed to take you off your feet. When Bradlee 
 the architect found the next day that his galleries 
 had risen a sixteenth of an inch under the throng, 
 we told him it was Old Hundred that took them 
 up, as so sung. I made the congregation dedi- 
 cate the church. They read alternately with the 
 pulpit the service of dedication and, at the close, 
 came out with a will, in 'We devote and dedicate 
 this church/ 
 
 "Really grand as all this service was I enjoyed 
 Sunday more, because it had the thorough home 
 feeling almost immediately. It was a stormy day, 
 but the church proved light enough and it is de- 
 liciously easy to speak in. I long to have you see 
 it and compare it with Karnak. 
 
342 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "You have guessed rightly that the last cares 
 about this, and the leaving of the old church, 
 which have been legion, have checked my letter- 
 writing, although, as I say, I have always meant 
 to get off a note when Tuesday comes. You know 
 I have not your faculty of writing in the night, or 
 rather the correlative faculty of sleeping after it. 
 Fox, by the way, has just printed my article called 
 the 'Mind ? s Maximum' of which I believe I wrote 
 you when I was finishing it. It is rather funny 
 and has some good advice to men who work with 
 their heads, if anybody would get so far as to read it. 
 1 "We have sent back Mason and Slidell to their 
 dear English friends. In feting them I hope you 
 will remind John Bull, that in Sumner's epigram 
 Mason is the author of the Fugitive Slave Act, 
 and Slidell the chief leader of the filibustering sys- 
 tem. The utter deep-seated contempt which Eng- 
 land has earned by the hypocrisy of the flareup 
 about the Trent, is something you will never 
 conceive till you get home. 'I thank God this 
 is not an English coat/ Kidder said the other day, 
 and that is just an illustration of the way in which 
 grown men, not given to excitement throw Eng- 
 land over, as a power which has lost all moral force 
 in the world. For though our friends write us 
 kind words, no public men but Bright, Stanley, 
 and Argyle have dared express a wish for our suc- 
 cess. Just now there is a pretty general thought 
 that the Lord has taken Slidell and Mason to him- 
 self and that they are at the bottom of the sea. 
 
 "The surrender was most readily acquiesced in." 
 
THE WAR 343 
 
 "Brookline, June 24, 1862. 
 "I have been wrestling yesterday, and since six 
 (till nine) this morning with a pamphlet I am writ- 
 ing for N. E. Emigrant Aid Co., a resume of its 
 history of eight years. Looking back on 1854 I 
 am astonished at the amount of work I then did 
 in that cause; indeed which all of us did. I be- 
 lieve History will say, for I believe History will 
 notice, that the expenditure of twelve thousand 
 wretched dollars that summer, with infinite agility, 
 rapidity and promptness on everybody's part 
 turned the destinies of this country at a time when 
 all ©ur side was wretchedly dejected. 'Good God!* 
 said Loammi yesterday who was copying for me, 
 'it was an apprenticeship/" 
 
 We may close the chapter with a letter of a 
 little more personal character. 
 
 to henry p. kidder 
 
 "Boston, Nov. 25, 1862. 
 
 "I cannot tell you or our friends how much 
 pleasure your note and its very generous enclos- 
 ure gave me. It launches me on my Thanksgiving 
 Day with a new sense of gratitude. For it is every- 
 thing to me to feel that in trying to do my duty 
 I have secured the regard and confidence of you 
 — the people — who place me at my post and keep 
 me there. 
 
 "I am sure that no minister was ever surrounded 
 by people so eager to relieve him from care and 
 save him labour. I wish every one in the parish 
 might know how entirely I appreciate this eager- 
 
344 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ness of theirs, for me, and how grateful I am for 
 such kindness. It is my loss and my great re- 
 gret I cannot see them more at their homes. I 
 could more often express to them personally my 
 sense of this. I do hope they know that I never 
 forget them, and in that proportion do I value 
 every expression of theirs which shows they do 
 not lose their confidence in me. 
 
 "As always, I find your own thoughtfulness 
 and heartiness in the way in which this charming 
 present is sent me. Pray believe me 
 "Always yours 
 
 "Edward E. Hale" 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1856-1865 
 
 N time of war, as at other times of deep feeling 
 and devoted work, certain things in life continue, 
 cropping out at one time or another, almost as if 
 war or crisis were unheard of and affairs were go- 
 ing on in the old humdrum course. It must be 
 so for vast numbers of people who attend to the 
 commonplace but necessary matters of life, but 
 it is so also for many who are much more closely 
 connected with the important affairs that make 
 the time remarkable. My father's day books, 
 which he now began to keep more carefully, 1 are 
 full of business and occupations quite unconnected 
 with the War, and there is only now and then any 
 remark on the public events of importance. Some- 
 times he took himself entirely out of the War and 
 the necessities of everyday life. On one occasion 
 — it was after some Union reverse in which the 
 Boston regiments had suffered severely, so that 
 every moment on the street one heard of friend or 
 acquaintance killed or wounded — my father quietly 
 left town and took a train for Vermont. There 
 he spent a week in the Green Mountains, wander- 
 
 1 He continued to do so till his death, so that the series of forty or fifty 
 Clayton's Diaries forms an excellent means of telling what he was doing at 
 any given time. 
 
 345 
 
346 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ing here and there as if there were no war, no Bos- 
 ton, no South Congregational Church. Doubtless 
 he came back a hundred times the better for it. 
 
 The pursuits of literature possibly would not 
 come under this head of separate and unconnected 
 interests, for the War, in the intensity of feeling 
 created by it, was certainly the immediate cause 
 of his really beginning the career of a man of letters, 
 which had for so long been vaguely one of the ele- 
 ments in his plans and ideas. "The Man Without 
 A Country" came right out of the War. Still 
 in giving an account of some other matters con- 
 nected with it, we must make something of a gap 
 in the story of his energies at this time. 
 
 In the early months of 1859, my father tucked 
 into the postscript of a letter to his brother Charles 
 the remark, "I finished an article for the Atlantic 
 last night, 'My Double and How He Undid Me/" x 
 I find nothing more about the story. He had other 
 literary work at this time ; his next letter, February 
 25, says: "I have finished my lecture on the Pacific, 
 'my old Panama revamped/ Next week I write 
 the conclusion of my Historical course, which 
 likely you never knew I began. Next week my 
 biography of Mr. Everett for Barnard's Journal. 
 Next week my Examiner article on Making Power. 
 Next week my notes on Ralph Lane's Voyage for 
 the Antiquarian, and then I shall be ready to go 
 to the India Key with you." 
 
 1 The Atlantic Monthly had just been started. James Lowell, doubtless, 
 had asked my father to write for it. It is a testimony to the real conditions 
 which "My Double" caricatures, that in four years my father succeeded in 
 writing only two stories. 
 
LITERATURE 347 
 
 Those things, perhaps, do not seem to us so 
 interesting as "My Double", but they were more 
 of the stuff and fabric of his life. I do not find 
 much more about "My Double" except in its own 
 pages, and cannot tell whether it was written as a 
 regular piece of work or in happy intervals be- 
 tween Examiner articles and lives of Uncle Ed- 
 ward. Still written it was, and evidently very 
 much as he wanted it. He always used to men- 
 tion it with pleasure. It is a very genuine produc- 
 tion and therefore singularly interesting from the 
 standpoint of the biographer. There will be those 
 who regret to use the fine fruit of letters as the sim- 
 ple pulp for the biographical mill. But much of 
 the literary criticism of our time urges us to look 
 from the work to the worker; the sixth grade 
 teacher explains "Life is real, Life is earnest" 
 by telling about Longfellow and showing a picture 
 of the Craigie House; and the disciples of Coleridge 
 do much the same thing, and of St. Beuve. So 
 I shall quote the passage telling of Frederic Ing- 
 ham's first days as a pastor in the "active, wide- 
 awake town of Naguadavick on one of the finest 
 water-powers of Maine": 
 
 "A spirited, brave young parish had I; and it 
 seemed as if we might have all 'the joy of event- 
 ful living' to our heart's content. 
 
 "Alas! how, little we knew on the day of my 
 ordination, and in those halcyon moments of our 
 first housekeeping. To be the confidential friend 
 in a hundred families in the town, ... to keep 
 abreast of the thought of the age in one's study, 
 
348 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 and to do one's best on Sunday to interweave 
 that thought with the active life of an active town, 
 and to inspirit both and make both infinite by- 
 glimpses of the Eternal Glory, seemed such an 
 exquisite forelook into one's life! Enough to do, 
 and all so real and so grand! If this vision could 
 only have lasted! 3 ' 1 
 
 The reason the vision did not last was that so- 
 ciety pressed too hard with all sorts of formal and 
 conventional duties so that one had no time for 
 the things of real importance. Somehow or other 
 Frederic Ingham was expected to "fulfil certain 
 public functions before the community, of the 
 character of those fulfilled by the third row of 
 supernumeraries who stand behind the Sepoys in 
 the spectacle of the 'Cataract of the Ganges/ 
 They were the duties, in a word, which one per- 
 forms as member of one or another social class or 
 subdivision, wholly distinct from what one does 
 as A. by himself A. What invisible power put 
 these functions on me, it would be very hard to 
 tell. But such power there was and is. And I 
 had not been at work a year before I found I was 
 living two lives, one real and one merely functional, 
 — for two sets of people, one my parish, whom I 
 loved, and the other a vague public, for whom I 
 did not care two straws. All this was in a vague 
 notion, which everybody had and has, that this 
 second life would eventually bring out some great 
 results, unknown at present, to somebody some- 
 where." 
 
 1 "My Double and How He Undid Me." 
 
LITERATURE 349 
 
 Mr. Ingham was a member of the School Com- 
 mittee of the town of Naguadavick, of the En- 
 lightenment Board under old Judge Dudley's will, 
 of the Board of Trustees of the new Coventry 
 Academy, of the Proprietors of the Naguadavick 
 Ferry; indeed he became a member of the Legis- 
 lature, and besides such definite institutional posi- 
 tions he had certain other " functional " duties, 
 like going to Sandemanian Conventions, to meet- 
 ings of Societies for teaching the right use of the 
 knife and fork, and other such, and all this took 
 up his time and mind and energy so that he had no 
 time and mind and energy for his own life. I 
 never heard my father say, as a later philosopher 
 has said, that Our Lord told us we should love 
 our neighbor as we loved ourselves, and not more 
 than we loved ourselves, and that to have any- 
 thing to give others one must somehow get it one- 
 self first. He does not say this, nor is it clear that 
 he felt it. What he clearly did feel (at least at 
 this time) was that there was somehow the pos- 
 sibility of a fine, wonderful, individual life, and 
 that the claims of "the world" were too apt to 
 crush it out. When Dennis got used to going to 
 all the stock formalities from school committee 
 meetings to lectures by foreign exiles, the Rev. 
 Frederic Ingham "fell into that charming life 
 which in boyhood one dreams of, when he sup- 
 poses he shall do his own duty and make his own 
 sacrifices, without being tied up with those of other 
 people." He and his wife finally live the true and 
 real life of an active minister and minister's wife 
 
350 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 of an active parish. But it is too good to last, and 
 the experiment of the Double ends in explosion. 
 The Rev. Mr. Ingham and Polly exile themselves 
 from society and settle in the Minister's Lot in 
 Number 9 in the Third Range in Maine, where his 
 wife and little Pauline are his parish, where they 
 raise corn enough to live on in summer and kill 
 bear enough to live on in winter, and where he 
 works steadily on his work on "Traces of Sande- 
 manianism in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries/' 
 "We are very happy," says the story, — and what 
 wonder, since life embodies the ideal which had 
 been in view for twenty years? My father always 
 had longings to be one of the old pioneers. 
 
 It was perhaps only a coincidence that the liter- 
 ary form of this tale should have been borrowed 
 from the great classic story of the victorious strife 
 of man by himself, man, against nature. 
 
 I suppose there never was a time when my father 
 did not know "Robinson Crusoe." By this time, 
 at any rate, Defoe had become something of a 
 literary ideal. "Besides these, I say, (imitating 
 the style of 'Robinson Crusoe') ", he wrote early in 
 the story. In the times that I remember, my 
 father often spoke of Defoe as a master of fiction, 
 and besides "Robinson Crusoe" he used to read a 
 number of Defoe's other novels, though I do not 
 recall his mentioning any but "Colonel Jack." 
 I suppose he may have got some notion of Defoe 
 as a stylist from Charles Lamb, whom he read 
 with great admiration in early days, for Lamb men- 
 tions precisely the same point of style that my 
 
LITERATURE 35* 
 
 father notes in the effort to give the appearance of 
 truth. 1 
 
 However he came by it, the particular style 
 which suited him may be seen fully developed in 
 "My Double", which in this respect is the type of 
 his most successful later work in fiction. A wholly 
 impossible conception dealt with in an absolutely 
 matter-of-fact way, — this is the material he liked 
 when he wrote a story. It might be a story about 
 an over-worked minister whose hired man looked 
 so like him that he could act for him at all formal 
 functions; it might be the tale of a high-spirited 
 boy who was condemned to endure the carrying 
 out of his hasty wish never to hear of his country 
 again; it may have been a young lady who wanted 
 to go out in the evening and improvised an escort 
 out of a tailor's mannikin; it may have been a 
 man who lived in New York City as though on a 
 desert island on an empty lot surrounded by a 
 tight board fence. Whatever it was, it was treated 
 as a perfectly common and ordinary fact. 2 The 
 most successful pieces of work were sometimes 
 supposed actually to be fact in spite of the 
 obvious impossibility. Many who read "The 
 
 1 " So anxious the story-teller seems that the truth should be clearly com- 
 prehended, that when he has told us a matter of fact or a motive, in a line or 
 farther down he repeats it, with his favorite figure of speech, — I say, so and 
 so, though he had made it abundantly plain before."' — Charles Lamb to Walter 
 Wilson, December 16, 1822. 
 
 2 This way of writing short stories, it may be remarked, was rather the 
 usual way at this time. Poe was probably the man who made it widely known, 
 but in the fifties there were not a few who were very successful at it, the most 
 notable being Fitz James O'Brien whose "The Diamond Lens" is quite as 
 good an example of the form as "My Double." 
 
352 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Man Without A Country" supposed it to be 
 true. 1 
 
 "My Double" and "A Man Without a Coun- 
 try" were written in the days when magazines 
 did not print the names of their authors, 2 and 
 came before the people as the work of Frederic 
 Ingham. My father amused himself with the ver- 
 satile Frederic Ingham. Sometimes he was Cap- 
 tain in the United States Navy, commanding the 
 Florida captured from the Confederates ; some- 
 times he was the Sandamanian minister at Nagua- 
 davick and later in the Third Range. In practice 
 he held rather to these functions, but in theory 
 he could have done all sorts of other things. He 
 was an all-around man, a man who could do any- 
 thing that came up in the course of daily duty. 
 "If it were his duty to write verses, he wrote verses; 
 to lay telegraph, he laid telegraph; to fight slavers, 
 he fought slavers; to preach sermons, he preached 
 sermons, and he did one of these things with just 
 as much alacrity as the other; the moral purpose 
 entirely controlling such mental aptness or phys- 
 
 1 "The charm in his things is — as nearly as we can get at it — that the 
 characters, in no matter what absurdity of attitude or situation they find 
 themselves, always act in the most probable manner; the plot is bizarre or 
 grotesque as you like, but the people are all true to nature, and are exactly 
 our friends and neighbors, or what our friends and neighbors would be if they 
 were a little livelier. The Rev. Frederic Ingham and his Man Dennis, so 
 wildly fantastic in their relation to each other, are never anything but New 
 England clergyman and Irishman in themselves; Philip Nolan, amidst all 
 the sad impossibilities of his fate, was so veritable a man that many have 
 claimed to know his history apart from Mr. Hale's narrative." — From a re- 
 view of " If, Yes, and Perhaps", the first volume of my father's collected stories, 
 in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 1868. 
 
 2 The names of the authors of the Atlantic articles were first given in 1862. 
 
LITERATURE 353 
 
 ical habits as he could bring to bear." * This is the 
 all-around man of earlier days, with the added concep- 
 tion of a man as he must be in the life in common. 
 
 At about this time he made "a list of Edward 
 E. Hale's printed works as far as can be ascer- 
 tained at this date", which need not be reprinted 
 in full. The first entry is "One article in Har- 
 vardiana for 1838-1839." From this first entry 
 to "The Man Without a Country" there are forty 
 entries. A few are fiction: "Jemmy's Journey", 
 a child's story; the stories in the Boston Miscellany; 
 "The Rosary" ; Margaret Percival in America" ; 
 "My Double and How He Undid Me"; and "The 
 Man Without a Country." 2 Three or four are 
 reviews, though he does not mention by any means 
 all the reviews he had written for the North Ameri- 
 can Review, or historical studies. But by far the 
 greater number are publications of an economical 
 or political character. "How to Conquer Texas"; 
 "Kanzas and Nebraska"; "The State's Care of its 
 Children"; "Letters on Irish Emigration"; "The 
 Christian Ministry in Large Cities"; "Christian 
 Duty to Emigrants", are some of the titles which 
 he remembered when he made the list. A good 
 while after this, in speaking of a dinner given by 
 the Aldine Club of New York, in honor of his 
 seventy-fifth birthday, he says of the opening speech 
 
 1 "Mr. Herbert D. Ward, to whom my father read these words from the 
 title page of a volume he was making of his own poems, asked my father, 'Is 
 this your epitaph?' 
 
 "*I am willing to stand by this as my epitaph/ said he." — McClure's Mag- 
 azine, I. 4, 299. 
 
 2 " The Children of the Public", Frank Leslie s Illustrated Newspaper, Jan- 
 uary, 1863, is not in the list. 
 
354 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 of Mr. R. W. Gilder, "He pleased me by squarely 
 recognizing the truth that I considered literature 
 in itself as worthless, and that my literary work 
 has always had an object." As he looked back 
 over the busy years, he could have recalled thou- 
 sands of hours when he was considering a letter 
 on Irish Emigration or a sermon on the "Relief 
 of the Poor", to scores in which he was imagining 
 a "Double" or a "Man Without a Country." 
 And at the age of seventy-five he stood definitely 
 on what had happened and approved of it. It 
 may be that he would hardly have felt just the 
 same if he had looke d forward over the list at the 
 age of twenty-five. And yet there is a possibility; 
 Cecil Danby, Vivian Gray, Henry Pelham would 
 certainly have been able to pronounce upon Irish 
 or any other kind of emigration, or upon how to 
 conquer Texas or any other place. To understand 
 public affairs was certainly a part of the duty of 
 the all-around man. 
 
 The War perhaps put a clincher on the matter; 
 if "My Double" asserts the rights of the individual, 
 "The Man Without a Country" asserts the yet 
 more paramount necessity of the demand of So- 
 ciety. All the longings for the life of the pioneer, 
 for the island of Robinson Crusoe, become vague 
 and indefinite mists which melt away under the 
 warmth of that firm, fine feeling that it is a great 
 and necessary thing to have a country. 
 
 But if "The Man Without a Country" is the 
 great and well-known assertion of the life in com- 
 mon, a somewhat earlier and really more definite 
 
LITERATURE 355 
 
 treatment of the subject may be found in "The 
 Children of the Public." I do not remember ever 
 hearing my father say anything about this story, 
 but this was probably an accident, for it seems 
 as if the story must have been a favorite. At 
 any rate, favorite or not, it contains my father's 
 fundamental idea and the duties and privileges 
 of those who observe it. "We have found in our 
 lives, that in a great democracy there reigns a 
 great and gracious sovereign. We have found that 
 this sovereign, in a reckless and unconscious way, 
 is, all the time, making the most profuse provision 
 for all the citizens. We have found that those 
 who are not too grand to trust him fare as well 
 as they deserve. We have found, on the other 
 hand, that those who lick his feet or flatter his 
 follies fare worst of living men. We find that 
 those who work honestly, and only seek a man's 
 fair average of life, or a woman's, get that aver- 
 age, though sometimes by the most singular ex- 
 periences in the long run. And thus we find that, 
 when an extraordinary contingency arises in life, 
 as just now in ours, we have only to go to our pork 
 barrel, and the fish rises to our hook or spear. 
 
 "The sovereign brings this about in all sorts 
 of ways, but he does not fail, if, without flatter- 
 ing him, you trust him. Of this sovereign the 
 name is — 'the Public' Fausta and I are apt 
 to call ourselves his children, and so I name this 
 story of our lives, 'The Children of the Public/" 
 
 "The Children of the Public" was based on an 
 old suggestion, and perhaps written some time 
 
356 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 before its publishing. In the introduction to the 
 tale when it was first republished he mentions the 
 original suggestion, and its results: 
 
 "This story originated in the advertisement of 
 the humbug which it describes. Some fifteen or 
 twenty years since [about 1850], when gift enter- 
 prises rose to one of their climaxes, a gift of a large 
 sum of money, I think $10,000, was offered in 
 New York to the most successful ticket-holder in 
 some scheme, and one of $5,000 to the second. It 
 was arranged that one of these parties should be 
 a man and the other a woman and the amiable 
 suggestion was added, on the part of the undertaker 
 of the enterprise, that if the gentleman and lady 
 who drew these prizes liked each other sufficiently 
 well when the distribution was made, they might 
 regard the decision as a match made for them in 
 Heaven, and take the money as the dowry of the 
 bride. This thoroughly practical, and, at the same 
 time, thoroughly absurd suggestion, arrested the 
 attention of a distinguished story-teller, a dear 
 friend of mine, who proposed to me that we should 
 each of us write the history of one of the two suc- 
 cessful parties, to be woven together by their union 
 at the end. The plan, however, lay latent for 
 years, — the gift enterprise of course blew up, 
 — and it was not until the summer of 1862 that I 
 wrote my half of the proposed story, with the 
 hope of eliciting the other half. My friend's more 
 important engagements, however, have thus far 
 kept Fausta's detailed biography from the light. 
 I sent my half to Mr. Frank Leslie, in competi- 
 
LITERATURE 357 
 
 tion for a premium offered by him as is stated in 
 the second chapter of the story." 
 
 The real history of my father's most famous 
 story,- — just what was the suggestion, when and 
 how it came to him, what he thought of it, and 
 why he treated it as he did, — as to these things 
 his letters and journals give very little evidence. 
 Such mention as there is, however, may well be 
 put down, if only to show how little impression 
 the great events of life make on the written record, 
 or else of how little real importance in life are the 
 things that seem to outsiders great. The few 
 notes that we have on "The Man Without a Coun- 
 try" are as follows: 
 
 Diary, September 24, 1864. "Letters and Man 
 Without a Country." 
 
 Diary, September 29, 1 864. " After dinner ; 
 Finish Man Without a Country." 
 
 To his Mother, October 1. "I had written to 
 Mr. Frank Leslie telling him I had a sensation 
 story, with a national moral, and asking him if 
 he would print it before November. But as Mr. 
 Fields has assumed the getting out of the 'Man 
 Without a Country' in the November number 
 [of the Atlantic Monthly] this letter became use- 
 less. I got an answer from Leslie, today, however, 
 asking me to send it." 
 
 This hints at something otherwise known, that 
 "The Man Without a Country", however con- 
 ceived and first thought of, was written with a 
 practical object. In 1886 he wrote in a prefatory 
 note to the story : 
 
358 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "This story was written in the summer of 1863, 
 as a contribution, however humble, towards the 
 formation of a just and true national sentiment, 
 a sentiment of love to the nation. It was at the 
 time that Mr. Vallandingham had been sent across 
 the border. It was my wish, indeed that the story 
 might be printed before the autumn elections of 
 that year as my 'testimony' regarding the prin- 
 ciples involved in them, but circumstances de- 
 layed its publication till the December number of 
 the Atlantic appeared." 
 
 He also, it seems, rather liked the mystification 
 which came from the careful realism of the story. 
 
 To Charles, November 8. "The story is an- 
 nounced on Fields's list as by Frederic Ingham, 
 Esq., United States Navy." 
 
 To Charles, November 13. "I think it would 
 be a good joke in your notice of the Atlantic for 
 December to say this: [What is to be said has been 
 cut out, — probably to be used.] 
 
 "You understand that there is no Levant in the 
 service. But I think this may possibly mistify 
 some one a little, possibly Fields. We are hav- 
 ing a splendid time. 
 
 "Ever Yours 
 
 " Edward. 
 
 "In private I make no secret of my writing 
 'The Man Without a Country/" 
 
 To Charles, November 28. "Dr. Shipley says 
 the officers at the Navy Yard understand that 
 
LITERATURE 359 
 
 Philip Nolan was not meant to deceive them but 
 the public: — and are much tickled with the in- 
 genuity of the hints given the Navy that it is not 
 true. 
 
 "If Fields had not been a fool what fun it might 
 have been!" 
 
 Such notes amount to very little, but no story 
 needs comment or explanation less. That it is, 
 like some of its less famous predecessors and suc- 
 cessors, an extravaganza told with the simplest of 
 realism, that it was written with a practical end 
 in view, that many persons believed it to be the 
 narration of an actual fact, that it was pointed 
 out at the time that this was not the true history 
 of Philip Nolan, who had really gone to Texas 
 and been shot by the Spaniards, — these things 
 and other things of the same sort are not necessary 
 to be known, and they are impertinent also if they 
 distract our minds from the real power of the story 
 itself. My father sometimes said that he thought 
 "In His Name" was the best book he ever wrote. 
 "The story of 'The Man Without a Country' 
 has circulated in much larger numbers," he also 
 said. "It was forged in the fire, and I think its 
 great popularity is due to its subject." Few will 
 agree with him, and those who do may well reread 
 the story. 
 
 Besides these things one ought to mention his 
 historical studies. He sometimes thought that he 
 was meant to be an historical student rather than 
 anything else. Whether he were or were not he 
 
360 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 always had some sort of historical work on his 
 hands. And he usually took rather the position 
 of the historian: his fundamental idea was the 
 examination of original sources. While yet in col- 
 lege he listened to Edward Everett's lecture on 
 the Norsemen in America and planned an ex- 
 cursion to Dighton Rock to study for himself the 
 evidences offered by that curious monument. Of 
 course his historical studies were by no means 
 always from the original sources; after leaving col- 
 lege he wrote a number of things for the Monthly 
 Chronicle and the North American Review which 
 would hardly come under this head, and he was 
 always having historical clubs and classes in his 
 church which certainly did not. Indeed the two 
 historical principles which appear to have been 
 most important in guiding his work seem, if not 
 contradictory, at least hard to combine. One was, 
 as had been said, the importance of studying the 
 original sources. The other, naturally in his case 
 and almost inevitably, was the importance of* 
 being interesting to all sorts of people. This was 
 most natural. We can hardly imagine such a man 
 studying the original sources without regard to 
 people's getting the advantage of his studies, any 
 more than we can imagine him publishing a text of 
 the Antigone or a Sioux grammar that was quite 
 unnecessary. A history had to be founded on the 
 original sources, he held; but then also it had to 
 be interesting or it might as well not be at all. 
 
 As time went on and he became involved in other 
 interests, he still continued historical studies of 
 
LITERATURE 361 
 
 all kinds. He studied Puritan politics in Eng- 
 land and New England; he gave lectures on the 
 Pilgrims in Holland, but also he lectured on Rome 
 in the time of Paul and wrote (following perhaps 
 Coquerel) -on Paul before Nero, As he says above, 
 he became interested in the history of the Pacific 
 Ocean, and " Kanzas and Nebraska" is full of 
 reading on the excursions across the continent of 
 Lewis and Clarke, Bonneville and Fremont. He 
 studied various other matters farther afield; the 
 ancient Egyptians and Arctic voyages make the 
 most frequent appearance in his letters and note- 
 books. These things, however, did not take any 
 regular form, as we might say, of historical study: 
 they showed an absorbed interest, but they re- 
 mained only evidences. In 1 847 he was elected 
 a member of the American Antiquarian Society, 
 an association which he valued through life, and 
 five years afterward he became a Trustee and 
 wrote the report of the Council. He could not, 
 'however, devote himself to any great historical 
 work, as about this time did Parkman and Motley, 
 but had to content himself with doing here and 
 there whatever he found opportunity to do. 
 
w 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 THE WAR 
 
 1863-1865 
 
 E have seen that as the War went on, my 
 father found himself more and more carried away 
 from the sermon writing and parish work which 
 are so important in the everyday life of a work- 
 ing minister. In writing to Charles (February 3, 
 1865), he says, after speaking of the earlier resolu- 
 tions which have been already mentioned (p. 319): 
 "In this system I worked very steadily till the 
 war. Even then I clung to it so firmly that when 
 it was suggested that I might have been Secre- 
 tary of the Sanitary, I knew I should decline it. 
 But last summer, at Milton, on a careful review 
 and forelook, I saw distinctly that I was living in 
 the most critical period of the country's history; 
 — that I held official position, even in spite of my- 
 self, in relations which enabled me to be of some 
 use in the country. I had felt this on my visit 
 to Boston, — that at such a time a man had no 
 right to regard his own reputation or even the con- 
 dition of a parish in contrast to public service, 
 and with my eyes open I determined to address 
 myself as best I could to the national problem of 
 the hour. You see of course that this is one of the 
 
 362 
 
THE WAR 363 
 
 decisions that you and I are constantly called to 
 make pro and con, whether we will or will not stick 
 to the calling to which we were trained. I must, 
 however, say that I think the greatest Civil War, 
 and the greatest National Reformation known in 
 history, constitute an exception to all rules. Well, 
 — I was Vice-President of the Freedman's Aid, 
 Vice-President of the Emigrant Aid, and in a few 
 weeks more, President of the Refugee's Aid, and 
 Director of the American Unitarian Association, 
 besides being a high private in the Sanitary. These 
 are the specific agencies through which — see 
 tomorrow's Daily — I conceive the reconstruction 
 is to co'me." 
 
 His letters of these years need little comment. 
 
 to mrs. hale 
 
 "Brigham Hill; Grafton. 
 "May 14, 1863. 
 "Ma chere Maman: 
 
 "We are having a very successful time despite 
 this pitiless storm. The country is exquisite at 
 every outlook and I am surrounded, as I write, 
 with tokens of it in the shape of wild flowers and 
 apple blossoms. I found Will at the station. He 
 had received my despatch of Thursday, which had, 
 however, mystified him a little because the teleg- 
 rapher had chosen to date it 1/4 4 instead of 4.1/4. 
 We actually found Rhodora in bloom by the way- 
 side as we rode up, and I have been trying my 
 skill in drawing and coloring from that very plant. 
 
 " The place is beautiful ; an immense house 
 
364 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 built fifty years ago, thoroughly comfortable and 
 with rooms high as well as large; barns for forty 
 odd cows who with their calves etc. are there. 
 We saw them milked, in part last night, and an 
 orchard of fifteen hundred apple trees, * with the 
 dependent ' mill-house ' which means cider-mills, 
 and such other appurtenances as you may conceive 
 of, as belonging to a great New England planta- 
 tion. It is in no sort a show place, but is in the 
 neat good order of a working farm. The farmer's 
 family lives, in a wing of the house. But we have 
 nothing to do with them. Will conducts our cui- 
 sine himself, and in fact we have established our- 
 selves in the kitchen, — as being the room most 
 easily warmed. 
 
 "Will is indignant that the weather is so thick 
 that we cannot get the good of his tower, which, 
 however, we ascended yesterday. It is more of 
 a work of art than I had supposed: twenty-five 
 feet high — thoroughly framed, stayed and boarded, 
 and with a stairway within. As this hill is the 
 highest hereabouts — the view of course is very 
 extensive — ranging directly up the valley of Long 
 Pond, and quite commanding us at the chimneys. 
 After we had mounted this, we took a long and 
 very pleasant walk, the wild flowers at every step 
 seducing and exciting us. I brought home three 
 kinds of violets, every shade of glory in maples, 
 oaks and other budding trees, blossoms of sugar 
 — maple, — apple and wild pear; houstonia, anem- 
 one and thalictrum with no end of the saxifrages, 
 vernal grapes, and other spring wonders. And, as 
 
Mrs. Nathan Hale 
 Edward Everett Hale's Mother 
 
THE WAR 365 
 
 I said, in the afternoon I tried my hand at indif- 
 ferent water color representation of some of them. 
 Their garden here is very fascinating, just such as 
 you and I would like to have. Will and his mother 
 have introduced a good many wild shrubs and 
 plants, and have a great many curious trees, West- 
 ern, Southern, and others such as we do not often 
 see here. They have a great deal of fruit of every 
 kind, from strawberries forward: little fruit and 
 large. 
 
 "We shall take this over to the village, which 
 you remember, perhaps, is about two miles off 
 and post it, and perhaps we shall find something 
 there from you. I hardly know at what time I 
 shall come down. If tomorrow is a bright day 
 I shall be tempted to stay till the afternoon. Other- 
 wise there are one or two things I ought to do in 
 Boston before Sunday. 
 
 "Goodbye. Much love to all from 
 
 "Papa" 
 
 to his mother 
 
 "June 12, 1863. 
 "For me, I spent the morning in a long essay 
 to the Sanitary about the condition of discharged 
 soldiers, in answer to a letter of theirs, and the 
 afternoon in trotting round to see my own boys 
 who came home in the Fourty-fourth. It has 
 certainly very much improved those whom I have 
 seen, not only physically I think, but in real man- 
 hood. I had a nice old lady, very sick, who has 
 been counting days till her grandson should come 
 
366 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 home, that she might die happy. I called there 
 to congratulate her, and the good old soul had 
 died an hour before I came. She had seen him 
 twice, and then let go the hold on life which this 
 passion for him had been strong enough to main- 
 tain. 
 
 "I think we have really no news. Much love 
 from 
 
 "Edward" 
 
 to charles 
 
 "Sept. 24, 1863. 
 "I have just come from the Examiner Club, 
 and though it was not particularly brilliant, I felt 
 particularly sorry you were not there. There had 
 been a conversation, introduced by Warner, on a 
 possible literary Weekly journal, which I did not 
 hear nor indeed regret. But I arrived just in time 
 for a particularly nice tea, such as I did not sup- 
 pose the Parker house could furnish. After which 
 the talk went on a subject introduced at the last 
 time, viz. the recent contributions to the Philoso- 
 phy of History, Buckle and Draper's book es- 
 pecially coming up. Hedges who presided, made 
 a very clear statement of the three theories of 
 human progress: Buckle's that it depends on phys- 
 ical laws, Bossuet's that it depends on ecclesias- 
 tical order, and Herder's that it depends on a de- 
 velopment of pure reason. This was itself very 
 clear and worth hearing, and into the talk, Alger, 
 Allen, Whipple and I dropped. The laymen pres- 
 ent were Warner, Chas. Cummings, W. R. Ware, 
 
THE WAR 367 
 
 Whipple, Walker (of W. & Wise) and W. F. Allen, 
 the teacher of Newton. The ministers were those 
 I have named — and Loammi Ware, and Chaney. 
 We put on the nomination list, Norton, Parkman 
 (the Sioux Indian man), Shackford, and Wasson. 
 
 "They asked if you meant to join and I said 
 I thought you did, and this is to encourage you 
 to save the last Friday in October for the meeting. 
 
 "This is the kind of thing which I meant, when 
 I said that a man wanted, in a thousand ways, 
 to get rid of himself. My life, is I think more 
 fortunate than yours, in the requisitions made in 
 it. But any man needs to make machinery to 
 keep him from thinking of himself and his own 
 concerns, as Ware says from eating his own heart. 
 A hobby, — a philanthropy, a railroad, or a Back 
 Bay, if they only draw you out of yourself, have 
 their chief value in doing so." 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER 
 
 "Sept. 30, 1863. 
 
 "He is here to see what encouragement he can 
 get in undertaking a new weekly journal, political 
 and literary, — to be called perhaps The Week 
 and to embody I need not say, the best lucubra- 
 tions of the best minds. A sort of critic of the 
 press, and general discussion of the great questions 
 now forthcoming. 
 
 "I need hardly say that I entered into the sub- 
 ject with interest, having, since the year began 
 been acting editor of the Army Spectator, chief 
 counsel of all parties interested in the purchase of 
 
368 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 the Christian Register, which is now on the tapis 
 again, and being at this moment on a committee 
 of the Examiner Club, to which is given the con- 
 sideration of a plan for a Weekly. 
 
 "Be this as it may, Godkin proved to be an agree- 
 able person, the least possible slow perhaps. He 
 is a great friend of Olmsted of the Sanitary and 
 knew the pros and cons of his going to California." 
 
 The most characteristic experiences of the War, 
 however, occurred in the year 1864, when he made 
 a visit to General Butler, then in command of a 
 force lying at Bermuda Hundred on the James. 
 The occasion was one that gave him the greatest 
 pleasure. Like everyone else he was glad to have 
 a chance to see something of the fighting forces 
 which he and so many others at the North had 
 toiled so arduously to help. He was always curi- 
 ous about the way public affairs were managed, 
 and was delighted at the opportunity to see some- 
 thing of the routine of army life at close range. 
 The life under canvas revived in him all the old 
 happiness in the outdoor life which was so strong 
 in him. 
 
 "to his mother 
 
 "May 22, 1864, Curtis House, 
 "Bermuda Neck, Virginia. 
 "In company with the whole of General Butler's 
 staff, I have been riding along the lines at which 
 this army is stationed, and while he and General 
 Baldy Smith and General Brooks and Gen. Weitzel 
 are in the cupola of this house, which is a signal 
 
THE WAR 369 
 
 station, the staff and I and the escort are lounging 
 away an hour on the piazza and in the grove and 
 in the interior of the unfinished house. The Cur- 
 tis family seems to have begun a new house on a 
 somewhat extended scale, but to have left it for 
 some reason before it was finished. It is on a 
 beautiful bluff of land commanding a view of this 
 royal James River, which is a magnificent stream. 
 A fleet of three monitors and three or four other 
 gunboats lies below us in the stream. 
 
 "No sight or sound of the rebels, in my humble 
 opinion has been had by anybody in this command 
 for the last forty-eight hours. Last night a furi- 
 ous cannonading of gunboats for a few minutes waked 
 up everybody and has been traced to nothing. 
 But it does not become watchful soldiers to be- 
 lieve there is no enemy. The army is on a sort of 
 island — one side is made by the James River, 
 one side by the Appomatox, one by both, and one 
 by two long ravines which run towards each other, 
 which we have united by very heavy forts and 
 bastions. We should be quite safe from attack 
 if 100,000 men were in front of us instead of the 
 number I have indicated. 
 
 "These people themselves who surround me, 
 interest me even more than the military opera- 
 tions. They are mostly very young men, very 
 simple and straightforward, and with a few ex- 
 ceptions very interesting in the sort of frank way 
 in which they give themselves up to their present 
 business. This habit of implicit obedience is a 
 most excellent illustration of what higher Faith 
 
370 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 would work for men. Just before noon we stopped 
 in this place, a hundred men, staff and escort. 
 Everybody made himself comfortable, nobody 
 fretted. No one has wondered what we stopped 
 for. If we were in these piazzas a week as far as 
 I can see, it would be the same. Capt. Puffer, 
 an aide I was talking to till I began this note, has 
 just received an order which he is to carry to Gen. 
 Ames and get an answer. He mounts his horse 
 and goes off in the hot sun, affecting to have no 
 thought whether he wants to do the thing or not; 
 indeed I think in fact he has none. He has very 
 little to do and is glad that something turns up, 
 perhaps, but in the main it is the blunt feeling that 
 his likes and dislikes have nothing to do with the 
 matter. They do not swear, they do not drink, 
 they do not brag. They tell little simple stories 
 and laugh at them pleasantly, almost as the nuns 
 in a convent might do. Indeed they impress you 
 as living very much out of the world, as indeed 
 they do." 
 
 TO MRS. HALE 
 
 "It is exactly like life in the White Mountains 
 in its physical and moral effects on me. The early 
 rising, the early bed-going, the open-air exercise, 
 the indifference to newspapers (this I write as 
 Gen. Butler throws down papers like an editor) 
 the insouciance to all but duty which I have been 
 trying to describe in a letter I wrote to mother at 
 Curtis's to-day, all this is just like vacation life at 
 the mountains. 
 
THE WAR 371 
 
 "I am sure for myself that only the twenty-four 
 hours that I have spent here have been to me an 
 invaluable piece of education, not in war or its 
 science, for of this very little is thought or said, 
 but in character and feeling of men isolated from 
 the world and intensely excited by the work which 
 they have to do. There are some admirable men 
 here — some very young men, all of them men to 
 whom this is the beginning of a liberal education. 
 To see the way this works is profoundly interesting. 
 
 TO MRS. HALE 
 
 "In the Field, May 24, '64. 
 "Who should appear this morning . . . but 
 Willson. I cannot tell you how handsome he 
 looks, now he is burned so brown, nor what a nice 
 talk we had together. We went off into the woods 
 together, where we found a cool shade and lay 
 down together and had such a talk as I fancy two 
 school girls might have together. Different from 
 little men, he began at once on what was nearest 
 his thought and heart, the officers and men under 
 his charge. It was profoundly interesting to hear 
 him. It was really grand to see a man who does 
 not think himself well adapted to his work, who 
 has simply come out because he cannot stay at 
 home — must have his record right or die. You 
 see it was not as the others are, the eagerness to 
 hear from home or to talk about home. It was 
 the desire to talk with some one who would sym- 
 pathize about the thing that interested him so 
 much. 
 
372 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 "We lay there till nearly one o'clock and then 
 came up here and found Gen. Butler reading the 
 newspaper. We sat down and he talked very 
 freely and pleasantly about the campaign, about 
 politics, and indeed about everything. We dined, 
 and W. and I were going off again when he stopped 
 us while he told some story and smoked his cigar. 
 The detention proved to be a pleasant thing, as 
 it gave us a chance to see an experiment with a 
 newly invented cannon rather after your heart. 
 
 "An aide came in to say that he had just re- 
 ceipted for a Gatling cannon which had arrived 
 and where should it be put. I asked what a Gat- 
 ling cannon was, and Gen. Butler said we had 
 better have this brought out in front of his tent 
 for us all to see. So round it came with its am- 
 munition, and as it is an entire novelty everybody 
 came out from the kraal to see the trial. 
 
 "I think the feminine mind would like it because 
 it is a gun which is worked like a coffee mill. One 
 man pours cartridges into a hopper, and the other 
 grinds a crank and so it gives thirty bullets a minute 
 as long as a man can grind. A post was selected in 
 what was left of the fence whose boards make my 
 floor and that of every other gentleman here, and 
 the General sighted and ground away. We could 
 see the bullets strike; they are large minie balls, 
 — and by advice of the forty loafers the piece would 
 be aimed accordingly. An orderly mounted was 
 kept on the road to prevent people from riding 
 by 
 
 "Well Willson went away and I walked off to 
 
THE WAR 373 
 
 a cool place in the wood to my meditations and 
 my drawing. In camp it was hot, — in the woods 
 it was nice and cool. Very strange it is, the sort 
 of feeling of a watering place or mountain house, 
 which on such a day the whole gives you. Some 
 of the gentlemen were hard at work, on their maps 
 or papers. But these you did not see, they were 
 in their offices. The rest were lolling round for 
 air, talking under the tent-fronts (flies), lounging 
 the day through. The arrival of this gun was 
 just like the arrival of a pedlar's cart at the moun- 
 tains, — and people went out and practised at a 
 mark in just the same way." 
 
 TO ELLEN 
 
 "Headquarters in the Field, 
 May 25th, 1864. 
 
 "My dear little good girl; 
 
 When we write 'in the Field* we mean that we 
 are in an army ready to march, and only tem- 
 porarily staying here. But if you will look on the 
 map of Virginia for the places named in the map 
 I enclose and will imagine me in a tent not far 
 from the middle of the white space left to the east 
 of General Butler's lines, you will know where the 
 particular field is that our Headquarters are in. 
 I think you might pin on a blue cross there on the 
 map for mamma to see as she sits at table. 
 
 "Today I took a very pleasant walk and seeing 
 a house and well I stopped to see the people. They 
 had not run away and were very glad to see visi- 
 
374 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 tors. It was a farmer's house, and looked much as 
 such a house in the country would look in New 
 England, with a few well worn books piled upon 
 the bureau, and a good many high colored pictures 
 of Mary and Nancy and such, framed on the wall. 
 These were pictures painted as battle pictures are. 
 
 "The mother and the oldest daughter were sew- 
 ing and two or three boys and two or three little 
 girls were in and out of the house evidently quite 
 wild with excitement. The man was a shoemaker 
 and was mending soldier's shoes; two or three 
 soldiers were waiting for their turn and so there 
 was quite a little party of us. I borrowed the 
 scissors which the oldest girl had, and cut out a 
 nice ring of boys and girls. It seemed to be quite 
 a new invention, and the little girls were very much 
 excited by it. The smallest one was about three. 
 She could not talk plain. Her name was Nan. 
 When I asked her other name, she said it was Sissy. 
 But it proved it was really Bradley. The other 
 girl I talked to was about eight; her name was 
 Martha Bradley. I should like to have you write 
 her a letter. Then we will get some of those pretty 
 picture cards and send them all together. I will 
 contrive some way so they shall be sure to get them. 
 Do not send the letter till I come home. 
 
 "Then I went on to see the Union Church, I 
 am sorry to say our men had broken some of the 
 windows, and defaced the interior of it. It was 
 only the plainest little building in the world, but 
 they used to have a meeting there once every other 
 Sunday. If I should be here next Sunday perhaps 
 
THE WAR 375 
 
 I shall have another. But I shall probably start 
 for home before then. 
 
 "I had another visitor last night just before I 
 went to bed, and tonight his little brother or sister 
 came; I do not well know which. It was a little 
 toad, on the floor of my tent. The floor was dry, 
 and toads do not like wet, and the grass was wet 
 with a shower. So the little man jumped in here. 
 Then he did not like my light, so he jumped all 
 round the tent and up on the canvas to get out 
 again. At last he came to the little open chink, 
 — and I shook the board and he hopped out. To- 
 night, when his sister came I took her in my hand 
 and put her out bodily, so as to give her no anxiety. 
 The name of the first was Bat, and of his sister was 
 Rachia. 
 
 "It has been the quietest of summer days here 
 excepting the thunder storm. I took this pretty 
 walk, but have had no other adventure till this with 
 the toad came. Yet we had at breakfast the news 
 of Gen. Grant's great success in driving Gen. Lee 
 across the North Anna. But we are all so busy, 
 that I found the two surgeons just now at nine 
 in the evening had not heard the news. This it 
 is to have no newspapers. 
 
 "Write till I tell you to stop. Give my love to 
 my dear boys and Mamma. 
 
 "From Papa" 
 
 TO HIS SONS, ARTHUR AND CHARLES 
 
 "This is the way the camp looks from my tent. 
 This only shows part of the camp. The first tent 
 
376 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 is the fly in front of the chief of staff's tent. A 
 fly is a square sail stretched above or over a stick, 
 and here it makes a porch in front of the chief of 
 staff's tent. The chief of staff is writing at his 
 desk in his verandah or porch. Next comes the 
 General's tent. It is the grandest of all. A fly 
 is stretched over it to keep off rain and sun. He 
 is not dressed yet, so it is closed in front. But 
 when he is dressed it will be opened and a flag like 
 this will be set up in front of it. One stripe of the 
 flag is red and one is blue. There is a star in the 
 middle. But the red has faded so that we must 
 have another flag. In front of the flag walks a 
 sentinel day and night to guard the General. You 
 see him next a post. I do not know what are the 
 next tents to the General's. In front of the next, 
 in the fly some of the staff dine. I believe the tent 
 is Col. Kensil's, and the next Capt. Davis's. The 
 next I do not know. 
 
 "On one side of the General's tent there are 
 thus stretched eight tents, — most of them with 
 flies in front for verandahs. On the other side are 
 nine much like them. Then the tents begin to 
 run down the hill on one side, — not on their legs 
 for they have none, but in a line. There are about 
 ten more here which front on the field which the 
 General's fronts on, but are on the side of it. The 
 last but one is mine. On the third side is a little 
 separate camp of little soldiers' tents, — the tents 
 are small but the soldiers are not. Their tents 
 are not grand and have no flies. Mine has a fly 
 on it, but none in front. 
 
THE WAR 377 
 
 "The soldiers' tents are directly opposite me. 
 They look something like this. These soldiers are 
 the General's escort or bodyguard. If he were 
 attacked in riding I hope they would close up 
 around him, with him in the middle, and fire their 
 little guns till the enemy all ran away. They are 
 the First New York Mounted Rifles. When the 
 General goes to ride, all his staff goes with him, 
 unless they have been excused. This makes 
 twenty or thirty. The escort follows behind, — 
 and one man carries the big head-quarters flag. 
 So you can tell if the General is here by seeing if 
 the flag is here, unless he is asleep or unless it rains. 
 If it rains I observe the flag is taken in. The es- 
 cort, does not always go. If it is dusty they are 
 rather more plague than profit. 
 
 "As I write the black men who are servants 
 are getting the breakfast. The different officers 
 eat their breakfasts in little parties which are called 
 messes. There are three doctors who make one 
 mess. The negro man sets the table in the fly 
 in front of the tent. The table is sometimes a 
 little table, but generally it is a few boards laid on 
 a box. When I took tea with Dr. McCormick's 
 mess their table had been borrowed and the tea 
 was served on some boxes of medicines. Almost 
 every one has tin plates. 
 
 "But first I must tell you how we know what 
 time it is. When it is time for the First New York 
 Rifles to get up, their bugler blows on his horn a 
 sweet little tune which is called by a French name 
 which means the wake-up tune. Then from other 
 
378 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 camps of cavalry regiments you hear the sounds 
 coming over very sweetly. Then if the wind is 
 right you hear the drums of the infantry and ar- 
 tillery regiments beating their get-up tune. I have 
 not heard this but once. Then your black boy 
 comes in with your water, and blacks your boots 
 and brushes your clothes, and you turn over and 
 go to sleep again. But in about an hour the bugler 
 blows another little tune for the cavalry men to 
 have their breakfast. And by the time he blows 
 his third, we generally have ours. I am now wait- 
 ing for Stephen to come and tell me that breakfast 
 is ready. I take my meals with the General be- 
 cause I am his guest. No one else does, — unless 
 there is some visitor. Today we have a visitor 
 for whom the General had a bed made in his tent. 
 
 "After breakfast there will come round a Pro- 
 vost-Guard to clear up the camp. For we like 
 to have it very neat. First will come a sergeant 
 or corporal, then two soldiers carrying a barrel 
 like this. Next them will be two men with shovels 
 and every scrap of paper and stick and rope-end 
 and other disagreeable things which they see they 
 will throw into the barrel for these men to carry 
 off. So every day the field looks as if we had but 
 just come. 
 
 "Now I must put this up and go to my breakfast. 
 
 "So good-bye. Kiss the baby and mamma and 
 Nelly and grandmamma for Papa, 
 
 "And be my own good boys." 
 
THE WAR 379 
 
 TO CHARLES 
 
 "Nov. 8th, 1864. 
 
 "I write at the end of our Election Day. More 
 exciting, it seems to me, the last days of the can- 
 vass have been than they were four years ago. 
 But tonight every one is in good heart and spirit, 
 from that pervading sense of good news, I trust, 
 which anticipates even the Castor and Pollux 
 that brings it. Up to this afternoon there had 
 been no mob in New York, and that has been at 
 heart the seat of our real anxiety. . . . 
 
 "The McClellan canvass has, me judice, been 
 losing strength every hour since the nomination. 
 In Boston, of course, there was the disgusting 
 snobbery of people who really do not believe in 
 popular institutions. I wish you would read my 
 lecture to them in an article on Curwen I wrote in 
 the Advertiser, which has been a good deal compli- 
 mented. People in the midst of this often get 
 badly frightened about the campaign. But I am 
 enough in the wider circle of the people themselves, 
 — not to say of the State itself, — and I have 
 learned so well that Milk Street is not Massa- 
 chusetts by living ten years in Worcester, that this 
 glamour does not deceive me. You see we had 
 the real trump cards on our side — ■ if you will 
 read the lists of Vice-Presidents and such. Poor 
 Winthrop's only intelligible account of his folly 
 is that he did not want to be in the same boat with 
 Henry Wilson. Disgraceful for a man to admit 
 that a personal prejudice should influence him when 
 
380 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 the National Life is at issue. But perfectly char- 
 acteristic, and as far as he knew true. The real 
 difficulty with him is that he did not and does 
 not believe in the people, — or in short that all 
 men are brethren. . . ." 
 
 "Nov. 22nd 1864. 
 
 ". . . . Not a word yet of politics, because after Elec- 
 tion Week we all settled down to such absolute 
 satisfaction that we have said nothing of politics. 
 The McClellanites who have any sense are mighty 
 glad they are beaten. You will have observed 
 that my statement of the East and the West do- 
 ing the thing 1 proves true, and as your old friend 
 Banks suggests, it is mighty well they did. I believe, 
 however, that if all New England and New York 
 had gone wrong, the West would have still been 
 the corrective. I commend you to Lincoln's own 
 speeches, which are admirable. In one of them he 
 repeats an epigram from his first message which 
 I have steadily quoted, but have heard from no 
 one else: — that the War is to decide 'Whether a 
 government strong enough for its own preserva- 
 tion is necessarily too strong for the liberties of 
 the people/ or I believe he puts it better, the other 
 way, — 'weak enough for the liberties of the people 
 is too weak for its own preservation/ We have 
 no secrets about the war. We do not know where 
 Sherman has gone/' 
 
 We may close this series of letters by two which 
 commemorate the end of the War. 
 
 1 I.e. without the assistance of the Middle States. 
 
THE WAR 381 
 
 "Boston, April 12, 1865. 
 "Dear Charles, — 
 
 "We are wild with victory. The sense of it 
 comes again and again and again and yet we do 
 not feel it. I give up my postage to the despatches, 
 because they tell the story as nothing else can or 
 does. The cleanness of the thing was in the way 
 they came. The capitulation was made some 
 time Sunday, I do not yet know when. At mid- 
 night Sunday the despatches I enclose began to 
 arrive here, so that they were all in the morning's 
 paper. Grant had said from day to day he thought 
 they would surrender, but except that, the news 
 announced itself without other omen than steady 
 victory every time. Sheridan struck their retreat. 
 Fayetteville, — -where Lee's headquarters were at 
 our last date, is the head of batteau navigation 
 on the Appomattox two miles S. W. from Rich- 
 mond, the largest village in Prince Edward's county. 
 Our telegraphs must have been laid to that neigh- 
 borhood in the seven days between the fall of Rich- 
 mond and the surrender. 
 
 "I got the news in the paper yesterday morn- 
 ing. They had been firing salutes since 5 o'clock 
 in Chester Square, but none of us had waked up. 
 All day long we did nothing that we ever did before. 
 The enthusiasm of the time was splendid. I send 
 you by Millar my Thanksgiving proclamation. 
 We had a very good impromptu service at church, — 
 which seemed the natural thing to do. 
 
 "Dunbar is at the South, and I had the pleasure 
 of writing the leader of exultation, which, rather 
 
382 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 badly misprinted you will find if your paper 
 comes." 
 
 "Boston, April 15, 1865. 
 "Dear Charles: 
 
 "I write to you in the first gloom of our great 
 calamity. To think that it is in the same world, 
 and in the same week of our victory and gratula- 
 tion. It is a picture on the largest human scale, 
 of the eternal and divine contrast between the 
 triumph of Palm Sunday — and the wretchedness 
 and glory of the Crucifixion. The dates, you 
 know, are absolutely these dates in the calendar. 
 
 "The news was brought into our house by the 
 man who makes the fire. They told him he might 
 be mistaken and the poor fellow said he wished 
 God he were. But there was all the fatal pre- 
 cision which there was in Grant's despatches of 
 victory. 
 
 "The rebellion dies true to itself. And in this 
 act — it leaves a seal and illustration, which will 
 stamp it in all time — after each separate memory 
 of barbarism and cruelty beside is lost. Almost 
 the last word I said before I went to bed, was to 
 the editor of the Savannah Republican, under its 
 new status. I said this had not been a work against 
 slavery but against barbarism; it was civilization 
 against barbarism. It has been impossible to make 
 your English friends understand this. Nor do I 
 suppose they will understand it now. But this is 
 very patent illustration of it before man and God." 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 RETROSPECT 
 
 1 HE War makes a point in my father's life at 
 which we may look back and forward as at no other 
 point. He said himself some years afterward : 
 "Until 1861 I was only known in Boston as an 
 energetic minister of an active church. I didn't 
 want anything else. I believe now, as then, that 
 if anything is going to be done it is to be done 
 through that agency. Then the war came along. 
 I was in the Massachusetts Rifle Corps. Then 
 I was in the Sanitary Commission. To save 
 the country — that brought one into public life, 
 and I have never got back into simple parish life 
 again/' x 
 
 He appreciated this change in a general way 
 at the time. While he was in England, looking 
 at his working life from the distance of a leisurely 
 vacation, he saw that his attention was being dis- 
 tracted from the more particular duties of his call- 
 ing, and made up his mind that when he came 
 home, he would devote himself more particularly 
 to his parish work, especially to his sermons and 
 his parish calls. When he did get home, he began 
 to carry out this good resolution, and the business 
 
 1 From an interview with Mr. Herbert D. Ward, in McClure, January, 
 1893. 
 
 383 
 
384 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 incident to the building of a new church kept him 
 up to the mark. But then the War came. He 
 could not enlist, but he found much else that had 
 to be done. With his eyes open, as he says him- 
 self, he took up one outside duty after another, 
 
 — the Sanitary Commission, the Freedman's Aid, 
 the Soldiers' Memorial Society, — though he saw 
 that he was thereby prevented from carrying out 
 what had seemed so necessary a change in his plan 
 of life. At the end of the War he found himself 
 in a different position. 
 
 Just what the difference was he did not perhaps 
 wholly perceive. But he gives a very curious 
 summary of his own thoughts on the matter. 
 
 "Sunday night, Sept. 24, 1865. 
 "Dear Charles. 
 
 "I said as I closed my last letter, that I would 
 write soon about myself. I said this half with a 
 consciousness that such letters as I am apt to send 
 give as little idea of my personal or interior life 
 
 — as if I had a clerk write them, partly because I 
 have been greatly roused lately by a sense of grati- 
 tude to the thought that while we are sure to speak 
 of any accident or misfortune, a sprained ankle or 
 a sick child, if on the other hand, everything is 
 perfectly halcyon its history is not written as Mon- 
 tesquieu says and leaves no record on the after 
 history of life, certainly none on its distant history, 
 when that history is read by one as far away as 
 you are. 
 
 "Simply then I have a right to call this summer 
 
RETROSPECT 3§5 
 
 and autumn halcyon days; — storm breeders, if 
 you please, but for that God may care and will. 
 What I know is that I am well, successful and 
 happy; that my wife and children are well and 
 happy, that I am as near out of debt as a man of 
 my temperament is likely to be, and am on the 
 way to be farther out. That so far as I know or 
 care, good men think well of me, and that so far as 
 I know or care, I have no enemies." 
 
 It seems a good thing to omit a part of this 
 letter. "This is a thing," he says of one remark 
 in it, "one may say to his wife or to his mother 
 possibly, or to his confidential brother, but hardly 
 to any other man or woman." But most of the 
 letter, and especially that part about his particu- 
 lar position in the world, seems no more intimate 
 than much which it is quite right to publish. 
 
 "Going then into the radii of the outside circles, 
 to speak first of my profession. I entered my 
 profession with little ambition for success in it. 
 I soon abandoned what little I had. I entered it 
 with no theory but to take it much as I found it. 
 I soon abandoned that, I mean that I was soon 
 satisfied that the New England minister who 
 thought that theology was his province because he 
 must be a theologian, was as much mistaken as the 
 soldier would be who thought mathematics was his 
 province because every soldier must be a mathemati- 
 cian. I soon satisfied myself that the profession in our 
 time could not subsist on or by or in its old standards. 
 For myself, I understood that my work of the 
 ministry should be carried out with certain dif- 
 
386 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 ferent methods, in search of certain results not 
 aimed at in the ministry of the generation before 
 me. 
 
 "Or without saying that I started upon any 
 definite plan, I soon saw that the man who meant 
 to move the community by moral agencies for its 
 good, needed a wider base for his operations than 
 any deference given to the pulpit, even in its best 
 successes, would give him. My theory is that 
 the pulpit gives a man the influence which he must 
 use in other walks and spheres than the pulpit 
 alone. All which I say only by the way in this 
 memoir, which is not a memoir of my plan of life. 
 I say it only that I may say that this theory of the 
 profession, has so far as I am concerned succeeded. 
 I do not know that it would find any imitators. 
 I even doubt whether it would. But [bottom of 
 the sheet worn away] the largest protestant church 
 in Boston. And thus while no one would call 
 me what 1 never aspired to be, the most distin- 
 guished preacher in our communion, I suppose I 
 would be popularly called our most successful 
 minister. Whether called so, or not, in an attached 
 congregation eager to forestall my wishes I have 
 the evidence of that sort of success, so far as I 
 can ask for it, of the deeper evidences of the more 
 true professional success I do not care to speak 
 here. 
 
 "Now to go outside what is personal to me, on 
 which I have lingered unwillingly enough because 
 these are confessions of gratitude. Perfectly sat- 
 isfied myself that this country is to be made a 
 
RETROSPECT 387 
 
 civilized nation by the practical application of the 
 Christian religion, I was of course dissatisfied that 
 this Unitarian body of which I am conscientiously 
 a member and minister, should sulk on one side 
 and leave to accident or providence the propagation 
 of such views, and their practical introduction 
 in politics, in education, and the other functions 
 of society. So soon then as I found I had any 
 influence in the more general councils of this body, 
 I exerted myself to see an effort made that we 
 might assert ourselves as a communion as the 
 advance body in Christian civilization not satis- 
 fied with any position in the rear. This theory of 
 our position is certainly getting itself recognized 
 in our churches and throughout the country. The 
 apologetic vein of speech on our side, and the 
 condescending tone on other sides have wholly dis- 
 appeared. We understand ourselves and other peo- 
 ple understand us as being a leading power for 
 good or for evil in the working out of the fortunes 
 of the land. It is a great thing, it is a great source 
 of personal comfort and happiness to see such an 
 advance in the self respect of the Ecclesiastical 
 body to which in conscience one belongs. 
 
 "In that body just now circumstances make me 
 a leader. Such sort of leadership is lost as it is 
 won, without any effort or any fault of one's own, 
 and I know that this will fly away as idly and 
 foolishly as it came. While it lasts it is a satis- 
 faction to have it, not to grumble because 'they' 
 do not do this or that, but to have quite as much 
 right and opportunity as any one to say whether 
 
388 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 'they' shall or shall not do this or that. While 
 I certainly expect to yield this with a good grace, 
 I will not fail to insert among these satisfactions 
 the present hold on it. 
 
 "I must ascribe to the same accidental hold of 
 that influence the position which I have in the 
 councils of the Freedman's Aid, the Emigrant 
 Aid, the Soldier's Memorial, and which I have 
 had in the Sanitary. The reconstruction of the 
 country is, in my point of view, much more in the 
 hands of these agencies, if they be bravely and 
 broadly administered than it is in the hands of 
 the Government itself. I am certainly glad, there- 
 fore, to be of counsel in the administration of their 
 affairs. 
 
 "For any influence on the community which 
 their affairs may demand, I have as good an influ- 
 ence with the press, or as warm an entree as one 
 can ask for. Accident rather than desert has 
 made me a contributor and a favored contributor 
 to the Daily, the Examiner, the Atlantic Monthly, 
 and the Register. These journals are glad to have 
 me write for them as often as I will, and except- 
 ing the Register compensate me for writing, the 
 Daily and the Atlantic Monthly handsomely. God- 
 kin who edits the Nation and Norton who edits 
 the North American have urged me most cordially 
 to write for them. If I do not do so, it is because 
 I like my other organs better, and do not need 
 those vehicles to the public ear. 
 
 "And I will not close this memoir, written as 
 a detailed expression of gratitude and, God knows, 
 
RETROSPECT 389 
 
 without a thought of boasting, without saying one 
 thing more. All such real satisfactions as these 
 may be embittered after all by a tight shoe, or a 
 bad corn, or by those moral or mental annoyances 
 for which these are the metaphorical names. A 
 man may be harassed by his neighbours, by his 
 parish, by this party, by his rivals. I am not 
 conscious of any such harassment. First of all, 
 I am eager to say that the body of men with whom 
 I have most to do, viz. my own parish and its 
 officers; are eager to find out how I can be most 
 at ease. In the way of money, in the command of 
 my time, in leaving me free from surveillance, in 
 satisfying themselves to let me do my own work 
 in my own way, and in persuading themselves 
 that I am doing it when they do not see that I am, 
 they give me all the freedom so far as I can see 
 that a man has who has an 'independent fortune 
 so called/ In giving virtually to my direction 
 the expenditure of more than $10,000 a year in 
 charitable or benevolent undertakings, they give 
 me most of the satisfaction which a man of for- 
 tune would have in expending that amount on 
 his charities; they take away the only annoyances 
 which can connect with life on a salary paid by 
 other men. 
 
 "If I had not already sent you the first half of 
 this I should probably never send the rest, for 
 I see how of necessity it runs into the tone of self 
 conceit. But I say again, what indeed you know, 
 that it is not written in that tone, but that I may 
 not be guilty, by the accident of correspondence, 
 
390 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 of dwelling only on the minor annoyances or in- 
 terruption of the current of a very happy life. 
 
 "Finished at Tremont R. R. station in Ware- 
 ham, I believe Bristol County, waiting for the 
 Hyannis train."