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Do not deface books by marks and writing. John Russell Young. .Engraved by William Klasen'fTom a photograph by Gilbert, Philadelphia, Digitized by Microsoft® This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Corneii University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in iimited quantity for your personai purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partiai versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commerciai purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092914617 '^ Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® MEN AND MEMORIES PERSONAL REMINISCENCES BY JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG EDITED BY HIS WIFE MAY D. RUSSELL YOUNG VOLUME I. g'f-'"""""'""MV F. TENNYSON NEELV 1 1 4 Fifth Avenue NEW YORK 96 Queen Street LONDON Digitized by Microsoft® Copyright, 1901, by MAY D. RUSSELL YOUNG, in the United State* and Great Britain. Entered at Stationer's Hall, London.' All Rights Reserved. Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS. VOLUME I. PASS Preface v Foreword ix Sketch of John Russell Young's Life xiii John W. Forney 2 The Battle of Bull Run 6 The Battle of Manassas— Beauregard's Trap— The Midnight Retreat from CentreviUe to Washington 6 Bayard Taylor 17 Bayard Taylor and Grant 20 Daniel Dougherty 23 Edwin Forrest 36 The Union League 41 Abraham Lincoln 48 Lincoln! 72 Walt Whitman 76 Tribune Days. 109 Horace Greeley. 112 Dickens 120 Charles Dickens as I Knew Him 121 Charles Dickens 122 George W. Curtis 149 Impeachment 151 Letters from Wendell Phillips 153 The Tainted Verdict 154 Henry J. Raymond 161 The Commune 164 John Russell Young on the Commune 166 Commune of Paris 196 James Gordon Bennett 207 Roscoe Conkling 214 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® PREFACE. In presenting this volume to the public, it is but just to the memory of the author, as well as due to many of his friends, that a word of explanation should be given of its apparent desultoriness. The original plan of "Men and Memories" was laid out in 1891, and the first article written, at my own ur- gent insistence. Mr. Young's personal acquaintance with eminent men, his interesting experiences and reminis- cences seemed too valuable to be lost; and after much persuasion, he began the series with the article upon "Lin- cohi." His original scheme included 'TlecoUections of Charles Sumner,"— 'TVendell Phillips,"— "James G. Blaine and his Times," — ^longer papers upon "Horace Greeley," — "The Gary Sisters" and "Tribune Days,"— "Edwin Booth and the American Stage during the past 35 years." To- gether with "Eeminiscences of 'English Friends,' " — among whom were "Eobert Browning," — "Wilkie Col- lins,"— "George Eliot,"— "William Black,"— "Miss Mu- lock" (Mrs. Craik), — and "Henry Irving and His Influ- ence upon Acting." Mr. Young's original plan was never carried out. Many duties pressed, and while he was still making notes upon those who had passed on, other friends, near at hand, were falling from the ranks. Of these he sometimes wrote hurriedly, but always with the intention of making fuller Digitized by Microsoft® vi Preface. studies at a later day. That day, in turn, never came. The Silence that had fallen upon many beloved friends, laid its swift touch upon the teeming brain and eloquent pen; — and his work was done; but not as we had longed to see it, who eagerly watched for the fulfilment of cherished plans already begun and builded upon, and needing only the much-coveted leisure to complete. For years this favorite quotation had been almost a daily prayer with John Eussell Young: "Until my work is done, I cannot die. And then, I would not live." His work had been of almost inconceivable magnitude during the forty-two years of literary life ; and remember- ing how fixed was his faith in the "appointed time," one must believe that the "rest" was better than further la- bor; — ^that his genius is still a living force; — and quot- ing his beloved Carlyle, that, "this long-continued prayer and endeavor may now and for some time coming, have something to say to men." The articles included in this volume appeared original- ly in various papers and magazines. They were copy- righted by such periodicals. In gathering them together, I desire to extend my earnest thanks for many courtesies and privileges accorded me by the New York Herald, the North American Review, The Review of Reviews, Munsey's Magazine, Lippincott's Magazine and Mc- Clure's Magazine. I am more than grateful, also, for the constant interest expressed by friends throughout the country and even across the waters in this, and in possi- ble future volumes, which shall include the more impor- tant of Mr. Young's political writings and editorial work • ■ • "work like/^gj3ib«i^^eSFo§9ft¥im^°H recognition of what Men and Memories. 35 Rome had done for civilization; of what his dear Mother Church had given to Christianity ; of what Columbus, an- other apostle, had done at the bidding of Eome, to dis- cover, and bestow upon mankind. The discovery of Amer- ica should be the apotheosis of Eome, and to the elucida- tion of this thought, he would give his genius and power." It was never to be written. The summons when it came found him busy upon it, but the summons would have no abeyance, and the task was unfinished. I am sure, if the gentle believing spirit of Dougherty had been taken into the Supreme Councils, nothing could have pleased him more than to know that when the word was spoken, it was to find him honoring his church and doing what he could for its glory." There lie before me many letters of appreciation of this eulogy, but the following from Hon. Noah Davis seems to express the heart of all: — PocANTico Hills, Sept. 29th, 1892. My dear Mr. Young : — I have this moment finished read- ing your recollections of Daniel Dougherty. The article is a poem of great intrinsic beauty, and external adornment. If Dougherty can read it, in his new existence, he will be quite reconciled to have paid the price which only could have purchased it, — his life. I knew him well and loved him much; but my personal knowledge of him only covered the brief period of his residence in New York. * * * * You seem to have been, all your life, taking photographs on your heart, of the merits and beauties of his nature ; and now, that his death has set you free to do so, you give impressions of singular excellence, upon which 11 ™ ™ 11 Djsitizedby MSrosoft® , ^ _^ all men may look ancr see now true a man he was. You are 36 jMen and Memories. entitled to thanks, copious and warm, and I hasten to give mine with the most cordial wishes for your own health and happiness. Your friend, Noah Davis. EDWIN FORREST. Washington, Dec. 17th, 1864. My dear John: — I have just arrived here, having read as I came on in the cars, your sketch of the Oil Eegions. It is perfectly splendid ! By far the best of yours that I have read; and I question whether there is in all the country to-day one of your age who could write anything its equal. My friend, Ford, of the theatre, with our friend Forrest, will spend next Wednesday evening with me, and I want you to make the quartette. Your friend, Daniel Dougheett. Out of the intimacy with Dougherty in those young years sprang a curious friendship between Mr. Young and Edwin Forrest, the great actor. This friendship was al- ways affectionately dwelt upon, and is thus described: — Forrest I came to know as intimately as it was possible for one to know another who was old enough to be his grandfather. I must have been one of my friend's fan- cies, remembering, as I do, his extreme kindness to me when I was brought home from the Virginia swamps ill with a fever superinduced in McClellan's peninsular cam- paign. The afternoon calls during the days of convales- cence, the many drives, the unvarying attentions, the hu- man interest of the man are gratefully with me. Forrest rests in my memory with so many tender associations, the Vigitized by Microsoft® ' Men and Memories. ^y Forrest I knew is so unlike the Forrest of biography and dramatic annals, that I have long since ceased to lead what is printed about him. The rough side of Forrest I never saw, except in a vehemence of speech which was phenomenal. In this he would recall Boythorn as drawn by Dickens in "Bleak House." There was the lion roar when tempted or teased. I am afraid, and not without remorse must the confession be made, that some of his young, irreverent friends, once they had found the trick, would now and then essay it for the fun of roaring. It was like having Niagara on tap. An artless question, asked with the innocent deference due from youth to age, as to whether Edmund Kean re- sembled Macready in his school of acting; or whether Charles O'Conor recalled the forensic oratory of England ; or whether William Stuart, then rather famous as a dramatic critic, was like Hazlett or Lewes; this, or any possible allusion to the jury system, as an agency of Juris- prudence, and Niagara was at once in play. It was a sorry business, but Forrest in a flame. Forrest in a Vesuvian state of eruption, Forrest declaiming on the English critics, or assailing Macready with that marvelous power of mimicry, this was something to have seen and studied as though it were among the wonders of nature. Forrest was sincere in his anger. It was living and gen- uine — real fire and burning more from the very depths of his nature, no pyrotechnics or stage flame. Talleyrand tells of Napoleon's anger as rehearsed, mimetic, arranged for effect, and if I remember aright, Mettemieh records the same experience. Andrew Jack- son, as one of his close friends once told me, kept his anger where it could be decanted when necessary. The art of temper was to Jackson like Lincoln's art of story-telling, and served to wan^6!ff^!f(^j'^'afi=?S^ortunate deputation. 38 Men and Memories, But Forrest never acted except when on the stage. I have rarely known a man who wore his heart so noticeably upon the sleeve. He had no compromise in him. The world was composed only of his friends and enemies. As the years pressed upon him he became indifferent to society, to new faces or associations. Always prudent, conscious of the value of money, his thrifty habits became those of painful privation. It was difficult to meet him. Unless you had an appointment a day or two ahead you could never see him. And an appointment with Forrest was as hard to secure as with the German Kaiser. When I used to see much of Forrest he lived in a large, roomy house on Broad street, Philadelphia, now given over to a school of design. If you had your rendezvous he would himself open the door, for among his aversions were domestic servants. Once in a house and the stem master became a very baronial lord of the manor. You could pay him no higher compliment than in answer to the first invariable question, what wine you would drink, to name an obsolete Tokay or some rare imperial brand from the Ehine. It was the old man's fancy that the finest wines in the world were in his cellar. Then the nights in that noble library. Daniel Dougherty, his com- panion, friend, executor, who was loved by- Forrest with a Damon's affection, should put some memories of them on record, as he alone can do. There was his 1623 folio of Shakespeare which you must adore as the old man petted and fondled it. You were blessed indeed if he gave you, as I once heard him, the third act of "Othello," after the manner of Edmund Kean, whom he had supported as lago. Kean was described to the minutest touch of his stage business, and Forrest told me that his own Othello was largely a study of Kean. I recall a dissertation as to negro melody which was not, according to the tragedian, Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 39 what it had been in its better days. And to show what it should be, Forrest must needs go limping around the parlor in Jim Crow fashion, chanting negro melody and winding up with a breakdown. He would analyze and demonstrate the subtlest moyements of the art of Kemble, Talma and Lemaitre. Toward Booth, indeed toward all the Booths, toward Maeready, Murdoch, Cushman, Davenport, he was never just. And, therefore, it was no pleasure to hear him speak of them. He saw in Barrett, as he once told me, "the hope of the American stage." He admired John McCullough. He wanted to commend Edwin Adams. But some indiscreet friend had repeated a ludicrous story told by Adams, of which Forrest was the hero, and far from his advantage. Forrest would answer any enco- miimis upon Adams with a growl and the remark that "that young man Adams will never become an actor until he stops his monkey-shines." He was fond of Adams at heart and did not dislike the indirect flattery implied in the exquisite travesty of his mannerisms. It was in reading, in critical analysis of the higher poetry, that an evening with Forrest was memorable. Never again can we hope to hear a voice so wonderful as that which in low tones read Shelley's "Skylark," or Wordsworth's "We Are Seven," or "The Idiot Boy." The Don Juan scenes with Haidee, as Forrest declaimed them, seemed to give a new genius to Byron. Evenings never to be forgotten, memories that linked you, as it were, with another century — with Napoleon, and Byron, and the Kembles; glimpses of the art of the other days, as illustrated by a master; art that seemed quaint and old-fashioned, but with a beauty, a truth, a sincerity of its own, which in these times of change it would be well notD;^;tf^jeiJiei?crfe9o/pit aside. ^d Men and Memories. Here it was that he was at his best. He was a lonely old man, but not exactly complaining. He was in a state of war with a large portion of mankind. All women, with the exception of his sisters ; the Southern Confeder- acy, jurymen, domestic servants, Northern Democrats who sympathized with the rebellion, newspaper writers, with a few exceptions; the law. Irishmen as a general thing and especially those of the clan O'Conor, the writers of modern verse, and whoever had unfavorably expressed or failed to express a favorable opinion as to the merits of his domestic troubles — these were his enemies. It was not a wholesome nor a cheerful existence. As the years came his thoughts turned toward the home he proposed to found for actors. It was the one theme about which he never wearied. He was the last of his race. All had preceded him, and no one lived to bear his name. Passionate in his love for children, it was not appointed that he should preserve his line. The love that was denied that fulfilment went out to his comrades in art, His life of labor should make easy the lives of those to whom unprovided old age had come, or who had fallen by the wayside, or who had bent under the heat and bur- den of the day. How often I think of this when I hear words of severity in regard to Forrest. He was harsh and stern. His hand had fallen heavily upon many men and women. He could cherish an injustice until he felt it was a virtue. He could compass the rage of hate, in- vective, anger, bitterness and scorn. But under all there was the love for his fellows, and when he turned away from the strife and contention of the world, it was to think and plan how best all that he had to give of life should go to make happy the lives of others for generations to come. Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 41 Of many letters from Forrest, the following shews the man's strange aversion to publicity: — Philadelphia, Feb. 10th, 1865. Dear Young: — Will you please be my almoner? I en- close you a check for one hundred dollars, which I wi^h to be applied to the relief of the sufferers by the late fire, at the corner of Washington and Ninth streets. I do not wish to be known as the donor. Your friend, Edwin Forrest. It seems a curious trick of fortune, that thirty-five years after the following letter was written, Mr. Young should have occupied the position of Librarian of Congress with his dear and ever honored friend, A. E. Spofford, still at his side: — Office of the "Press," Philadelphia, 1862. My dear Forrest: — Mr. John Eussell Young, with the Librarian of Congress, Mr. Spofford, are coming out to see you this evening. Mr. Spofford is very anxious to meet you and get a look at your library. If you have no special engagement, I know you will be happy to see them. I send you a copy of the North American of Monday. It shows how your letter was received. Ever truly yours, Daniel Doughektt. Edwin Forrest, Esq. THE UNION LEAGUE. One of the finest tributes ever paid Mr. Young was that pf Col. A. K. MeClure on the occasion of his elec- Digitized by Microsoft® 42 Men and Memories. tioD, in December, 1892, to the presidency of Philadephia's famous social and powerful political club, the Union League. He said: — "Mr. Young will recall the venerable institution to higher and nobler aims and actions. He is one of the ripest scholars of the land ; he is one of the most sagacious politicians of his party; he possesses every charm of per- sonal grace and dignity; he is more widely acquainted with the distinguished men of this and every other coun- try than any other man in Philadelphia." It was in November, 1862, that Mr. Young (the young- est member), assisted in founding the Union League, of which he was President, thirty years after. The story of the Union League touches so nearly the history of our country that it may not be out of place to repeat the im- pression of its beginning, as it remained in Mr. Young's memory. "I remember well the beginning of the Union League, and the first meeting, and the circumstances under which it was my fortune to be present. The late Benjamin Gerhard, who, with Judge Hare, Mr. Binney and others, used to visit the Press ofiiee (then on Fourth street, near the site of the present Bullitt building), on critical nights to hear our bulletins from the war, came in one afternoon in November, 1862, and said that some friends were to meet at his house that evening, and would I be of the company? Things were going badly for the Union. The war news was gloomy. New York had been carried by Seymour, Pennsylvania had gone Democratic, and the time had come when public opinion should cen- tralize, when even social lines should be drawn between those who loved and did not love the Union. When Mr. Gerhard told me the names of his guests I begged off under the asBuran^^.^a^ J^hou^ not be missed. Jut Men and Memories. 43 no, in the first place there would be oysters and chicken salad, and in the second place it was important that the Press should know what was afoot, and that there should be a strong editorial to boom the cause. So in the cold November night I went to Mr. Gerhard's house to a meeting which was to organize one of the grandest and most potent influences in the war. Mr. Meredith had sent word that indisposition prevented his coming; Mr. Gerhard presided over the salad and oysters, and around the table were Horace Binney, Morton McMichael, Charles Gibbons, Charles Gilpin, Judge Hare, George H. Boker, and myself. It was an earnest company, the conversa- tion largely led by Judge Hare, who explained the pur- poses of the organization. It was to be a center of senti- ment for Union men. Mr. McMichael, with his fine prac- tical sense, thought that weekly meetings at each other's houses, on the plan of the Wister parties, with sumptuary laws to prevent extravagances and rivalries in the way of meat and drink, would be a good beginning. This advice was accepted and it was agreed that there was to be no champagne, and but two dishes in the way of en- tertainment. The early meetings would be at the houses of Mr. Paul, Mr. Boker, and Mr. Borie. The meeting over, I went with Boker to the Press, and we worked out the article which had been promised to Mr. Gerhard. It was a leader, and as I read it again some months since it seemed a harsh, vindictive, insensate bit of invective. I am afraid I read it with pain. But we were angry in those days, and the heavens were red as with blood, and our hearts were laden with resentment and revenge. The meeting at the house of Benjamin Gerhard, on South Fourth street, near Walnut, on that cold November night in 1863, was the inception of the movement which ger- minated in the Union League. Of that company, Ger* Digitized by Microsoft® 44 Men and Memories. hard and McMiehael, Gibbons and Binney, Boker and Gil- pin have gone. Judge Hare and myself alone survive. Wo nobler work was done in its time, toward the perpetua- tion of the Union. We who live should ever remember what those friends did with gratitude and pride. Two months later and we had the meeting at the house of Dr. Meigs, when the Union League was formally organ- ized. I remember the occasion well. That brave, true, strenuous company — how few remain to recall the trials which were to become the triumphs of the Union League. We had assembled to formulate the articles of association. The report had been assigned to Charles Gibbons. Gibbons represented the intensity of Eepublicanism. His earnest, close-knit, imperative face; his hatred of slavery and es- pecially of Democracy, as the outcome of slavery; his in- tolerance of what ever might seem a recognition of the crime; had brought him into the League movement with a kind of ferocious joy. He read to the assembled com- pany the proposed articles of association. There was to be no wine, no game others than billiards, and no one should join who did not give an unhesitating support to Mr. Lincoln and all his measures. It was the spirit of Loyola. There were no half-way beliefs; no compro- mises ; no reservations in the mind of this determined man. And having read the articles of agreement he paused for the assured and anticipated assent of every one in the room. I was sitting next to Dan. Dougherty in a corner, the group around us, Boker, Milliken and others I do not re- call. As Gibbons read the stern averments which were to bind us to the Kepublican administration and its work, Dougherty muttered his dissent : "Not for me ! Not for me ! I am for the Union, — not for any Eepublican Presi- dent." — Boker made some earnest whispered deprecation. Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 45 but it was of no avail. And when Gibbons paused Dougherty arose. With his habitual courtesy, but at the same time habitual firmness, Dougherty explained his posi- tion. He was a Democrat. As a Democrat, every fibre of his being thrilled for the Union. He could not, he would not believe, but every Democrat in the North would unite with him to support it. As a Democrat he came into the Union League because he saw a powerful agency to- ward the success of the war. He would support Mr. Lincoln in whatever was necessary to save the Union, but no more. He could not throw off his Democracy like a garment in the night, and recant what he had just been saying, on many a hustings in favor of Douglas. With a mere political club, having no other aim than the in- tegrity of the Eepubliean organization, he could have no part, and therefore, the pledge proposed by Mr. Gibbons was one that he could not bind upon his conscience. The firm, courteous but unmistakable little speech came like a bolt from the blue. Gibbons, his eyes flashing haughty anger, and to whom the denial of even the elementary truths of Eepublicanism, was even as a sin against the Hold Ghost, — Gibbons flashed back a scornful taunt. This was no time for paltering, for seeking a half-way house between loyalty and treason; no time for people facing both ways, faint-hearted patriots, who came into the fold but still held on to the gate. And if (the resolute Gib- bons growing angrier) Mr. Dougherty, or any one else, could not come into their association without reserve, with- out faltering, — why there was the door — ^the work would go on without them. Dougherty sat in silence, his face pale, his lips compressed, his head thrown back with that look of unbending defiance which his friends knew so well. For a few minutes it seemed as if our modest argosy of the Union League was to be wrecked in the launching. Digitized by Microsoft® 46 Men and Memories. The sentiment of the company was with. Gibhons. With few exceptions, we were Eepnblicans and had supported Lincoln. We were glad to have Dougherty, we were glad to see Benjamin H. Brewster, Forney and other brilliant Democrats in our company. But after all, when the truth was told, were they not prodigal sons? And here they were coming back, not content with fresh raiment and the fatted calf, but claiming to run the household. In time Judge Hare arose, and I have always regarded the speech then made by that amiable and accomplished jurist, as the foundation of the Union League. With exquisite, tact, with a moderation of tone and calmness of statement in contrast with the pale, defiant Dougherty and the scorn- ful Gibbons, he presented the whole case. He was in sympathy with Gibbons. And if this were a social club, or even a political association, he would vote with him. But what had we come to do? As- suredly to form a league that would aid the cause, and unite the friends of the Union against its foes. Was it not, therefore, our duty to take whoever would contribute to that high purpose? And if we could persuade eminent Democrats like Dougherty to join heartily, was it not a marked advance toward a sacred consummation? He could well under- stand how gentlemen could support Mr. Lincoln in war policies, and at the same time dissent upon other measures. He could comprehend differences on popular sovereignty, or the homestead law, or the tariif. But why concern our- selves with these academic variances of opinion if our friends would contribute with zeal to the immediate work of saving the Union? He understood Mr. Dougherty and those of his faith to come with that intention. There- fore, while agreeing with Mr. Gibbons, his best judg- pient .was with Mr. Dougherty, and he proposed that the Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 47 only test of admission to the League should be a support of the Union. Horace Binney, the younger, Mr. Gerhard, and Mr. McMichael supported the amendment of Judge Hare. Those gentlemen were the fathers of the League in those early days. Their will was law and against our judg- ment the amendment of Judge Hare was accepted. Gib- bons was incensed and in a few vehement words of re- pudiation of the half-hearted policy left the room. I do not know that he came back that evening, but his anger was simply an expression of the intensity of his patriot- ism, and he soon returned, to be one of the most earnest and intrepid of the membership. The storm blown over, peace was assured and we signed in a group — the signature of Dougherty being, as I saw it some weeks ago, some twen- ty or thirty from the top, — ^where rested the honored name of Stephen Colwell. Experience showed the wisdom of Dougherty's objection, — and in pressing what may have seemed a personal preference or pique — ^he was broaden- ing the lines which made possible the splendor and power of the Union League, and its mighty work in the prose- cution of the war." Ct. Com. Pl., Oct. 38th. My dear Mr. Young: — Your tribute to Dougherty gave me much pleasure and carried me back to the days when I was young and ardent and full of the great cause for which we were conscientiously working. I recall the scenes you have so vividly described, and the friends with whom I was acting: Gibbons, McMichael, Gerhard, your- self and the best man who ever lived, — my brother-in- law, Horace Binney. Dougherty deserves all you have said of him. He had genuine scorn for all that was low and ignoble in professional politics; — ^thought for hini- Digitized by Microsoft® 48 Men and Memories. self, put charity above party; acted disinterestedly for what he thought right — in short was "True." Yours sincerely, J. I. Claek Haee. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Mr. Young's recollections of Lincoln begin, as I find them, early in 1863. He writes of Lincoln : — "I saw a great deal of Lincoln from time to time during the war. For a time I was the private secretary of John W. Forney, who as secretary of the Senate and owner of the Administration newspaper. The Chronicle, was near the President. I saw him with the eyes of a boy, vividly, however, as our vision generally is in these plastic observing days; had when requisite familiar, ready access to him — recall many incidents of good will and recog- nition. There remain to me many memories of Lincoln, which with somewhat of a sense of duty, I gather up and add to the discussion of the hour. I scarcely venture to speak of Lincoln as a friend. Years and our stations made that an impossible relation. But as I looked upon his cold, white brow — and the peaceful, deeply-lined face — lying in state under the Capitol dome, I felt that a friend had passed from me, and as such I have ever held him. If there is any logic in the drift of political action, I should say that Mr. Lincoln could not have desired the renomination of Mr. Hamlin in 1864. To go back to the beginning, Mr. Hamlin was an after-thought at the convention of 1860. When Seward was defeated and the enthusiasm of the Lincoln people abated, the first question was: "What shall be done to please the Seward men? Give them the second place; give them anything, Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 49 so they will go home and work for the ticket." Horace Greeley, as a New Yorker, and a leader in the Seward overthrow, was deputed to go to the Seward people and offer them any olive branch, an olive grove if necessary, if they would accept Lincoln with good will. They had simply to name their Vice-President, and he would go with a whirl. Mr. Greeley, as he told me the story him- self, went to one of the Seward leaders, if I remember to Edwin D. Morgan, then Governor of New York, with the peace offering. Morgan himself might run! But no! The Seward people were implacable. The Lincoln people, with their wigwams and rail-splitting and all too lavish outpourings of beer, had bowled down their divine Seward, and so they must make or mend matters with their rail splitter as best they could. The Seward army had lost all but honor. That honor should not be bar- tered for a Vice-Presidency. Eather let it be carried to the feet of the sage in his Auburn home, and they would contemplate the campaign with the quiet dignity due to their great leader and their own lacerated hearts. If not a Seward man, was there no convenient Demo- crat, some convert from the Democracy? John Hickman, of Pennsylvania, was pressed, but Pennsylvania was torn by the Montagues and Capulets under the respective ban- ners of Curtin and Cameron. Hamlin, as so often hap- pens when a convention lapses into indecision, was the first to come to mind and so was named. It was a nomi- nation without strength, and in the Vice-Presidency Mr. Hamlin was an unknown quantity, so far as aiding the Administration was concerned. When 1864 came other Democrats were in dazzling prominence. Other States than Maine had become the battle ground. And more- over, and this assuredly could not have escaped the keen, watchful eyes of LiflM!P,''^o1ffia'=Ef®nlin as around Chase 50 Men and Memories. there were crystallizing elements of an opposition. Keen, watchful eyes, that knew when to open and when to shut, as Chase, and McClellan, and Hooker and others saw when the decisive moment arrived. So far, therefore, as the wishes of Hamlin for renomi- nation were concerned, Mr. Lincoln felt undoubtedly that everything should give way to the Presidency, and that the Presidency was his ground. He had no illusion about it, was in no way insensible to its attractive belongings. Simon Cameron said to me that Lincoln, had he lived, would have had a third term, and that he had told Lincoln so. "No one," said Cameron, "could have cleaned up the war-belongings in four years, and while Lincoln lived the country would have allowed no other hands to make a mess of the job." This, however, was a far away specula- tion, even when it was made. I note it as a tone of the political color at the time. Here was a worn, ever-driven, kindly President, his mind upon the war; held at bay by the mendacity, ambi- tion, chicanery, sentiment, hope, treachery, devotion of the hour. What dreary, barren days, with a tone of base- ness about it all, that one cannot recall without pain. "I saw so and so go down stairs." "Yes," said Lincoln, "I have just made his son a general !" "A general !" "Yes," was the weary answer. "You know I must have time to do something else." Indubitably true, as told me by one who was present. Strifes from the camp, — over rank, pay, promotion, allowances, — no end to that sad business, — something that one does not like to recall on Decora- tion days, but a part of the time, — a part of the work ap- pointed to this man, and to be considered, even if with remorse and shame when we study his character and the conditions in which it flourished. They call him a humorous man. Sq)i^tsi^ ikSMM^ira. A flippant man. Men and Memories. 51 This I heard, never saw. Would read Artemus Ward at Cabinet meetings. This I was told by Secretary Chase. As I see it now, I can well feel that but for this humor he would have died. That rare, unspeakable blessing was given him by the gods to save him from a daily assassina- tion. The estimate of Lincoln by Horace Greeley, printed in a recent number of The Century, I read with deep in- terest, more especially as between the lines you see Greeley's distrust of the President. This I remember was the im- pression made upon me when I read it at the time it was written by Greeley. "Lincoln," as I have heard him say, "was half a statesman and half a horse jockey." Greeley was recalling Mr. Lincoln's sudden disavowal of him in the Niagara Falls negotiations. He felt as if, in the Biblical phrase, the pit had been digged for him, and that he had fallen through the contriving of the digger. The Niagara Falls business was undoubtedly seized upon by Lincoln for the emasculation of his most powerful and persistent critic. And as Lincoln was entirely human, where the humanities came into play, he could not avoid the fact that his critic was at his mercy, under moral bonds to keep the peace. Whether this was the Presi- dent's intent or not, it was the result. With Greeley, however, the Niagara Falls disagreement was not the cause, but a culmination of many causes. To Greeley more than any other Eepublican Lincoln owed his nomi- nation. He especially could defeat Seward, and although in doing so, so far as New York was concerned, Greeley committed political hari-kari, the profit went to Seward. For the rival he had slain, recognition ; for himself, isola- tion. Something not to be endured by so brave a leader. Lincoln saw, however, that he had simply profited by an act of revenge, thatD]^/zW(SiSyDi«ifgfijs(Mfeany sense a selection 52 Men and Memories. of Greeley, who wished Bates, and never, I think, cared for him. He therefore bound New York to the car of his administration by giving confidence and authority to Sew- ard. This Mr. Greeley never forgave. As the war clouds went down, and political policies supervened, he would have become as severe a critic of Lincoln as later of Grant. A proud rival with a memory like steel, from a race which never forgives and never forgets, the Niagara Falls busi- ness would have been fought out by Greeley, had time served, under conditions which would have cost the Presi- dent many a sore and anxious hour. The estimate which Grant formed of Lincoln was per- sonal. I printed it during the General's life, and may recall it. "The greatest," said Grant, "I have ever known, and the day of his death the darkest of my life." So grateful that Lincoln's last free breathing hours were spent in his society. Those rides around the lines, and the President's fine horsemanship, assuredly not to escape eyes ever keen in that regard. "The greatest I have ever known." Grant's words to me again and again. Mourn- ful on one occasion because he did not go to the theatre on the fatal night, as he had appointed. "Might have reached other conclusions." Perhaps! I have sometimes tried to fancy what might have been, had fate not swayed Grant from this engagement. An infuriated young actor, maddened with brandy, with the blind rage of a frenzy worse than insanity, in the presence of a young soldier of forty-three, fresh from the army, in the fullness of alertness and strength, famous for his personal courage in an army of brave men. Grant believed that Booth could never have unlatched the door of the stage box, latched it and drawn his pistol without his hearing him, an impression morii)/|fe3ife;^ifitei4^(ej®remembering Grant's Men and Memories. 53 phenomenal acuteness of hearing and observation. "Might have reached other conclusions." Undoubtedly, — ^but why dwell upon it now? Lincoln always seemed very much of a man. I have never read a description of him that recalls him quite as I knew him. Something always beyond and beyond. Kor has fame been kind to him, in the sense that fame is never kind unless it is just. There is little justice in much that is written of Lincoln. There comes the dismal fear that he is to live in an apotheosis, to be treated as Washington by Marshall. His sad fate may invite this. Assassination is ever a consecration, for thus do the gods appoint their compensations. We see it in Caesar, Henry IV., William of Orange, Garfield. The figure vanishes into mists, incense vapors; a vision, not a man. For of such is human sympathy and human love. I can think of no one who would care to be known as he was so much as Lincoln; to have posterity remem- ber that he had muscle and brawn, and not become a fan- tasy like this we call Washington going on his knees from elm tree to elm tree in a state of moral indecision and despair, painted to us as if there were but one honest, clear-headed soldier in his day. And as these incense mists float and form into clouds and the real Lincoln vanishes into a kind of pantomime divertissement, one might hear him say: "Save me, save me, friends, from this slush called history; from this miasma of adulation, misconceptions running riot; from this murrain of falsi- ties — for in truth I was a man, very much of a man, a man of my day and hour, living with my duties and opportunities and striving with them as a man should do." The atmosphere about the White House in those Lincoln days was unnatural. It is hard for those of u» Digitized by Microsoft® 54 Men and Memories, who are accustomed to ways of peace to understand the Washington of the war times. Mr. Lincoln did not im- press the Capital as a welcome personal force. Living in an element of detraction, he was not a popular man. It would be hard to recall his friends or favorites. I presume Forney was as near to Lincoln as any one of those in politics or journalism. He edited the leading Eepublican newspaper in the Capital, as well as in Phil- adelphia — was a brilliant writer, an eloquent speaker, and an earnest, intrepid friend. Yet I can never recall in my observation of Forney, any other feeling but that of doubt as to what the President might or might not do. This was the tone which pervaded many of the political circles which surrounded Forney. It was not a coterie of the opposition, but, on the contrary, very much a coterie of the President's friends. Simon Cameron was there every day, and yet when Mr. Cameron resigned the War Office and Mr. Stanton was nominated there was no one more surprised than Forney. The President did it alone. What I confess, and, as reflecting the feelings of the elders around me, was a distrust of Lincoln. It comes back as an evidence of the strength of the man. I take it that great genius is always solitary — ^that we attain the Alpine altitude whenever we ascend. Lincoln meas- ured the men about him at their value. He knew their worth, their fidelity, and in no sense distrusted them. But it was every one to his duty. To have descended among them would have brought his administration to the level of that of Andrew Johnson — where every puny whipster of a political adventurer or parasite could flout and jeer and strike him on the cheek. With the Union ever before him, and its salvation the one duty. One also can see excuses for what on the part of Mr. Lincoln seemed Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 55 an abuse of patronage. He was racing for his life with the wolves afoot and the wolves must be fed. Only upon the theory that all interests however despicable must be considered and conciliated can we understand many of the military and some of the Southern judicial appoint- ments of Mr. Lincoln. The wolves were afoot and the wolves must be fed ! For the very life of the Union they must be fed! Throw out a judgeship, a brigadier's com- mission — ^they must be fed ! There was a humorous story of the President in vogue in those days which seems to indicate that his clear mind was not insensible to these hard conditions. "A brigadier general has been surprised and captured." "Yes," said Mr. Lincoln, "but what be- came of the horse?" "We don't know. The general has been taken to Eichmond." "Oh, don't trouble me about the general! It's about the horse that I am worrying. I can make a brigadier any day, but a horse costs money to the Treasury." It was not a wholesome outlook, as one sees it now, however it may have fallen upon the wondering eyes of young men who found themselves in Washington and face to face with generals and ambassadors. Washington was the rear of the army. Since armies have been we know what trails after them. I recall no invective of Sher- man more amusing than his description of the rear of the army at Shiloh of the mules, contrabands, the teamsters, huddled up, trembling at the roar of the guns they could not see, intoxicated, frightened, going from worse to worse. "No wonder," said the General, "that so-and-so (naming a well-known correspondent) fell into a panic when he saw the sight, and began telegraphing our defeat all over the Union. Why, it was like a fellow down in one of Dante's first-class divisions of Hades telegraphing to his newspaper tJ^f/^¥?fi^iit*9ftsi^ affairs above." This 56 Men and Memories, rough illustration will give a relative idea of Washing- ton during the war. In a sense we lived among the mules, contrabands, teamsters, the impedimenta of the army. No it was not a wholesome outlook ! The air was suffused with hatred, distrust and fear. There was no love for the Union among the Washington people. "Oh, you vile Yankee !" as a comely maiden hissed at me one Sunday morning, on her way to church, as she saw me come out of the quarters of the Third Infantry, on Lafayette Square. The maiden could not help it. She was modest, fair and pious, but the animus was there! It pervaded Washington. She could no more help it than the lark could help its singing. It was not the heroic side of the contest that those of us saw who remained much in Washington. In this sombre trade of war the heroic is only seen in the flash of the guns. Washington was the rear of the army, much as what Sherman described the rear at Shiloh. It was a city of dissipation. The gambling houses were in bloom. Among the heart-breaking experiences in my young proc- ess of becoming acquainted with public men was the sight of several heroes of former political dreams hovering over a faro table or submerged under the fascinations of roulette. As General Sickles said to me at a later day when recalling the impressions and experiences of the war: "It was a Whisky Eebellion. Whisky everywhere — in the committee rooms, private houses, at a hundred saloons. There never was a State that seceded that did not secede on whisky. The debates recked with whisky. The solemn resolves of statesmanship were taken by men whose brains were feverish from whisky. If one-tenth of the whisky drank in Washington in one day in those war times, and especially when secession was in develop- ment and culmination, were to be drank by the French Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 57 Assembly, there would be war with Grermany in a day. Yes " continued Sickles, "we have had two Whisky Ee- bellions in American history, but the second was the greater." As we recall it now there could have been no atmosphere more unwholesome, and amid these fetid sur- roundings how could we, even with eyes of trust and hope, see the true greatness of Lincoln. He stood in the mists. He was nebulous, uncertain, trying to the eyes. When the mists lifted we saw him as he was, — and that what were apparent clouds, black and trembling, was Mont Blanc in its mighty splendor, the eternal sunshine resting on its head. Of the infinite patience of Lincoln, and that exquisite politeness which an extreme occasion alone can show, I recall one experience. During the after midnight hours, on the Washington Chronicle, there came a newspaper from a correspondent at the front, taken from a Southern picket. It had news of the fall of Charleston. We had not heard of it in the North. News then came over the grape-vine, and if this were true it would be the news of the generation, — "Charleston fallen." So after deliber- ation, accompanied by Mr. Hart, the chief of the journal, I went to the White House, two in the morning, perhaps later. But it was such news as would irradiate even a President's dreams. The faithful keeper, a well-known North of Ireland personage, with the soft Scotch brogue, finally announced our errand. Mr. Lincoln, who was in bed, came down to the magnificent reception room, half awake, hair tousled over a sleepy face, in slippers and night gown. Curling up on the lounge, eyes half-closed he listened to the news. "Charleston surrendered," "Yan- kees in the sacred city," "Town given over to rapine," "Southern valor exhausted," and so on. Mr. Lincoln lis- tened, slowly nursing his knees, and said: "What is the Digitized by Microsoft® 58 Men and Memories^ date?" "December 20," or some such day. "December 20th. Well, 1 have news from Charleston, December 22d, and then the bombardment was going on zealously." We felt as if we had committed leze-majesty or some other dreadful crime, this dragging a President from his slum- bers at 2 in the morning to hear news that he knew to be untrue. But so gentle over our regrets, so courteous, so much obliged for our coming — for did we not see it might have been news — and then what hopes and happy dreams, all so gently, softly bestowed, that we came from his pres- ence as if we had been dowered and not as unseemly visitors who had robbed him of his peace. Why should one write all this? I knew him, and yet seem never to have known him. When we approach Lin- coln, it is as if we were on enchanted ground, into an at- mosphere of incense and repose. Memories of him, more than of any of the famous men of the day, crowd upon me. At Independence Hall, raising the flag ; at the famous review of Munson's Hill; in almost daily sight at Wash- ington; in beleaguered road ways through the camps; in lonely striding walks to the old War office; at midnight disturbed from his slumbers; in that window recess of the Cabinet room which I never see without a hush as if he were there; at Gettysburg; in his coffin when the lilacs were in bloom and the great star hung in the evening sky. Memories, all sacred to me now — but what better recog- nition than silence? In silence, yes; but with gratitude, humble, devout, that even these eyes were permitted to see and know him. In that spirit, as somewhat incum- bent upon me, and let this be my excuse, I have sought to recall Lincoln as I found him, and in doing so, with reverence, with a sentiment akin to worship, once again to pay tribute to his pure, undying fame. Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 59 In "Further EecoUections of Lincoln," I select a few- paragraphs, descriptive of "The famous day at Gettys- burg," — and Lincoln's speech. It was my duty to report the speech on behalf of the Philadelphia Press, to sit at the side of Lincoln as he pronounced the immortal words, and write them down in shorthand as they came from his lips. My memory of of the event is as clear as it could hope to be after so many years. In some idle, silent hours I have gone over mem- oranda made at the time. So far as these may serve I will tell the story as it rests with me. The celebration of Gettysburg took place on Thursday, the 19th of November, 1863, a little more than four months after the famous battle was fought. When we arrived the rainy afternoon settled into a soggy November night. Gettysburg was in chaos over the new invasion, and a comer in a tavern was a crowning mercy. The Presidential party came in about sunset, and we were all on hand to do them honor. They were a straggled, hungry set. Lincoln, with that weary smile, which a poet might have read as a forecast of destiny; Seward, with an essentially bad hat ; John Hay, in attendance upon the President, and much to be troubled by the correspondents, handsome as a peach, the countenance of extreme youth; Usher, Secretary of the Interior, if I remember, with heavy, reserved features, and a capacity for silence ; Denni- son, of Ohio, smiling and courteous ; gruff Tod, from Ohio ; Pierpont, of Virginia; Montgomery Blair, with his face in which fanaticism was tempered by enthusiasm; John W. Forney, in the flush of his winning manhood. Secretary of the Senate and rather in the lead of the Washington party. Lincoln became invisible to us, and could not be enticed even by serenading parties, who were bewildering the night with music. Seward was more amenable, and as Digitized by Microsoft® 6o Men and Memories. he came to the door I recall my trouble in reporting him. Nothing better than the note book and a stone step. I remember the impression of the speech, "What a voice for the Ghost in 'Hamlet/ " my first thought as the Secre- tary, speaking in a slow, artificial, metallic tone, threw his sentences like clanging oracles into the night. It was an optimistic speech — Seward I should say in a temper; how he had seen it all ; how much better it would have been if his advice had been taken forty years before ; with a great deal about our dibtressed and erring brethren, of whom so many had been slain on those hillsides, and what an im- mense country we should have when this latest of rebellions was suppressed. This was the blending of the seer with the pugilist which those of us who were radical and im- patient with his conservatism saw in Seward in those days. I remember that I did as well as I could with the speech and was studying my notes mournfully with a view to transcription, when Seward's secretary gladdened us with the news that it had been prepared beforehand and given to the press associations. Seward's speech done, the crowd must have Forney, who spoke with Pennsylvania enthu- siasm. His theme was the war, and especially what Douglas had done to bring Democratic support to the Union. The proud, gallant Forney! The banner of the dead Douglas was in his keeping, and it was ever un- furled. Curtin came with his party from Harrisburg. He was our Governor and a star of the first magnitude, having just won a notable political victory in his re-election, and therefore an influence which these Washington people might as well treat with civility. The relations of Curtin toward the Washington people were those of criticism at least. "A good deal of Cameron about this Adminis- tration, and wise politicians, who do not like being troddea Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 6i upon, must vait and see." He was host, streaming, spon- taneous in his courtesies. With him were Wayne Mac- Veagh and a brilliant staff. Wayne, then the rising hope of the exuberant young Eepublicans of Pennsylvania, had led the party to victory, was much sought after at county fairs and gatherings which yearn for eloquence, and might have become a wretched party boss, or some other dread- ful possibility, had he not switched off toward reform and scholarship and the less truculent pursuits of the law. He gave us a rattling good speech at the serenade, which I helped to cheer. With him a silent young official named Quay, silent then as now, but to become the cause of speech to a considerable extent among others. I think I was indebted to John Hay, assuredly to some kind friend, for a special audience with Edward Everett. We of this generation do not realize the space which Ed- ward Everett filled, at least in the imagination of the younger men. He was the embodiment of a noble and stainless fame. Webster, Clay, Calhoun gone, he was the last of the orators. No more great men left to us, only Everett. He had welcomed Lafayette ; his scholarship was our envy and admiration ; he had been the friend of Byron, the guest of Walter Scott, Minister to England, Secretary of State, and we, even we were permitted to see him. We were crit- ical, some of us, not always friendly to the Lincolns, the Sewards, the Seymours who swarmed around, but here was one who had outlived calumny, misrepresentation, even fear and hope — who had belonged to the serene days, when pa- triotism was hand in hand with peace, — one almost in touch with the Kevolution. He was only one remove from Washington, whose glory had been the theme of his noblest oration. The fame of Everett is now somewhat faded. In the tapestries of our Pantheon the war colors darken all others with their fiery splendor; he has gone to be with Digitized by Microsoft® 62 Men and Memories. Madison and Euf us King. But to us at Gettysburg Everett had an apostolic fame — and I know with what awe one of that company came into the presence of the sublime and venerable man. Everett had not been visible at the serenading and other noisy festivals. That might do for the youngsters like Curtin and Seward, but he was an old man, and had a speech to make, and that, too, in the open air on a cold November day. He had been carefully put away, as it were, in rooms that felt to us uncomfortably warm, as though he were an exotic and needed precious care. Everett was state- ly, exquisitely courteous, the hair the whitest and softest that I had ever seen, and as he talked, caressing a cambric handkerchief, which seemed somehow a part of his elocu- tion. He expressed but little interest in our personality; indifferent, I fancied, to the tremendous power of the press which we were supposed to wield; sat as one whose fame was in sovereign security. One of the company — Wallace, I think — among whose many enthusiasms was Lord Byron, could not resist the current of his though swaying toward the famous poet. Everett rather welcomed the interrup- tion. It was a relief to him, kept away political and other themes of irritation, appealed to his memory rather than his observation ; was, I presume, a compliment, as he went at once upon Byron. "Oh, yes, I knew Lord Byron, and can never forget his kindness in London and Venice." Think of that for an experience in our young enthusiasm ! To hear the immortal Byron spoken of as though an every- day friend whom the speaker was in the habit of meeting at his club. Everett spoke a good deal of Byron, rather in an academic fashion; nothing new as I recall it, in the way of actual knowledge of the man, but a general recapitula- tion of the courtesies the peer had shown him, and how much the friendly forethought of his lordship had helped Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 63 Everett in Greece. The Byron talk was grateful, and we took it as from an oracle of the Olympian gods. There was some effort to bring Napoleon and Walter Scott into the conversation, but my impression is that Everett had missed seeing Napoleon, who was fighting Waterloo while he was in London. If anything useful was said about Scott it has passed away. I recall the impression made by the man rather than the conversation. The antique, courtly ways, fine, keen eyes, a voice with a singular charm, old- fashioned tones of pronunciation, perhaps only old-fash- ioned to our uncouth ears; the soft, white hair, sunny, silken, clinging, and that caressed handkerchief, which helped to turn so many a phrase. It was really not a call, but a tribute — a visit of ceremony, feeling as if we would say, Oh, master, oh my king ! — homage and reverence duly paid, and accepted with a soft, sovereign dignity. As Everett sat in the low roofed Gettysburg chamber, to my young revering eyes he seemed like some stately comrade of Adams and Jay, stepped out from the sacred past. This memory of him rests with me as I write. The procession from the town was a ragged affair, we all seeming to get there as best we could. -A regiment of cav- alry, a regiment of infantry, a couple of batteries clatter- ing about, added to the confusion, and not much to the dig- nity of the day. Everett had been carefully conveyed in sheltered fashion. He was prudently not exposed to the vicissitudes of a crowd, and that oration impending and the sore task for a raw November day. We gathered about the house where Lincoln resided, and waited — ^led horses restlessly in attendance. The President came to the door, a fine flush and smile coming over his face at the rude welcome. "Three cheers for Old Abe," "Hurrah for Lin- coln," most heartily given, as he mounted the saddle, sit- ting there to appearances a perfect horseman, his tall form Digitized by Microsoft® 64 Men and Memories. towering above the escort. As he rode away Seward half mounted, went scurrying after to find his place. Many of the distinguished guests, Curtin leading, Simon Cameron among the number, walked off, a brisk tramp over the country road, the most conducive to comfort on this cold wintry morning. It was about 11, as I recall it, when we got under way — cavalry, soldiers, statesmen, governors from other States, wounded soldiers, country folks who knew all about the battle, and teeming with narratives of its horror and glory ; Horatio Seymour, then Governor of New York; Schenck, a good deal of a hero from his wound — all streamed along, and reached the cemetery in time. We journalists of the party, who had work in hand, forged ahead and were in place before the procession arrived. A rude platform looked 'out over the battlefield. On one side sat the journalists, John C. New, our Consul-General in London, among oth- ers. The eminent people had the other side, the President coming late. There was some little trouble over a Demo- cratic reporter who did not admire Lincoln, and insisted upon standing near the front with his hat on and smoking a cigar, and jeering now and then at the ceremonies. No judicious remonstrance had effect, the reporter claiming his rights in a free country ; even the right to stand around with his hat on and smoke whenever and wherever he pleased. A summary proposition to treat him after the manner of Daniel, and throw him over the rails among the lions, adjusted that incident, and there was nothing un- seemly to disturb the President's reception. As he slowly came up the steps with his famous company we arose, and as he took his seat there were loud voices of welcome. He sat between Seward and Everett, near him the venerable chaplain of the day. It was an illustrious company, men of national, world-wide glory ; others then unknown who were Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 65 to have in time their own renown. The brilliant, shy young Hay in attendance on Lincoln, unconscious of the fame that was to await him in other fields than politics and ad- ministration, Morton, Governor of Indiana, fashioned in giant mould, his harsh. Berserker face, to whom this war was a serious business, silent, watchful, scowling; Seward with his eagle nose and half closed eyes, as in a dream; Seymour, open, bland, courteous, expectant, might have been some peer of the realm rejoicing in his rent rolls and his hounds, willing to show his loyalty, his patriotism, his sympathy for the fallen, but not smiled upon by that earnest company. These were stern days, my friends! There was the Puritan spirit abroad, and you can imagine the feeling with which a company of Eoundheads would have welcomed a prince of the Cavaliers. There was none who made a deeper impression than the clergyman as he arose in prayer, — Thomas H. Stockton, the chaplain of the House. Stockton was celebrated as an ec- clesiastical orator; had a fame as wide as that of Everett, but which like Everett's was to pass into obscuration. He was of the New Jersey Stocktons, elder brother to Prank, whose stories are among the joys of current existence ; also of John D. Stockton, for several years one of my most cher- ished friends, a brilliant, refined, lovely character, doomed to leave us in the very morning of his days at the early age of forty-one. Eeverend Thomas was tall, gaunt, with a manner that recalled to those who could make the com- parison that of Henry Clay. His face was thin, worn, like one gone in disease, the great eyes peering out from under his finely arched forehead, peering, staring, bent upon fu- turity. His bearing was that of one who seemed charged with a special message from the Holy Spirit, and I was told by those who knew him that he lived in rapt assur- ance of that sacred responsibility. He was supremely elo- Digitked by Microsoft® 66 Men and Memories. quent, could produce effects with his voice that I have heard in no other orator but Gladstone. I recall the so- lemnity of his "Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts," his Jeho- vahs and Halleluias, that came like chants from a far off angelic choir, and such a recitation of the Lord's Prayer as would bring tears to the unbelieving. It was eloquence in a state of tropical luxuriance. The adjectives, the invoca- tions, the metaphors, the superb incisive command of speech, the current of thought like some steady, densely flowing, ever shining stream ; the winds, the stars, the He- brew anthology, the mythology of the Greeks, nature, the gardens of roses, whatever typified beauty, sensibility, piety, peace, all came forth in the sermons of this extraordinary man — eloquence tumbling suddenly into metaphysics and transcendentalism, and the intonations so strangely moving — "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, whose Eighteous- ness endureth forever." The sun was at meridian when Everett arose, and there was as much of a welcome as the sun could give on a stern November day. It was an effort, too, this two hours' declamation, bareheaded and in the open air, and we were not without concern about him. The brave old statesman seemed imbued with the genius of oratory. No Demos- thenes, no Cicero, no Patrick Henry pleading for his coun- try's fate, could have been more thoroughly impressed with the solemnity of the hour. I sat within a few feet, on the second bench of the press people. And as his oration had been prepared and was in type, was not compelled to re- port it, but could listen, as I gratefully did, to every word. He spoke without notes. Now and then he would take a sip of water, and at times that white cambric handkerchief would come into oratorical play. His voice was clear, sat- isfying, every note in tune, no signs of age. He never hesi- tated for a word, and as his oration was historical, and ar- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 67 gumentative, with no special flights of eloquence, showed a marvelous memory. He was graceful with his hands. They were never in his way, as is so often the case with un- developed orators. An effective way of impressively raising them, and gently bringing them together as they came down — ^this I recall — ^this and the handkerchief — which at times he would drop from one hand into the other, as I used to see Disraeli do in the House of Commons. Everett spoke for two hours and was heard with the deepest attention. There was little applause — no invita- tion to applause. I felt as I looked at the orator as if he was some antique Greek statue, so finished, so beautiful, so chaste, so cold, the lines so perfect, the exquisite tracery of the divine manhood — all there — all evolved and rescued from stone — ^the masterful art, something that you ever dwell upon with freshening wonder at the capacity of hu- man genius. But so cold ! If it were only alive ! If only some immediate trenchant thought, spoken as if it came from the very throne of God ; if only some living thought could go out over these hillsides to the millions beyond — a trumpet call and an incentive ; if only the spirit, the fury of the war, the thought in all men's hearts could come from those silver lips, and that voice of harmony and persuasion ! But so cold, so chaste, so exquisitely beautiful, that even the mighty fact that we were at Gettysburg — ^that we were standing upon our Marathon — seemed lost in our wonder at the speaker's genius and skill. The voice was from the past. This orator came frpm the past, even to speak to us. Not to him the abrasions and wrenchings of the hour, the mighty wars and the tramp of armed men, the noise and the fighting, the terror and fury of political passion. Get- tysburg was as far from him then as it is from us to-day. He looked at it even as we might now, as one of the events of the ages, to be^^^j^^^^^^^opher and historian. 68 Men and Memories. There were none of the "effects" of public speaking, but you might as well have expected an effect from a symphony of Beethoven, or a statue of Michael Angelo. There was no applause other than that of courtesy and deep personal reverence for the man. The peroration was calm. One noted rhetorical effect comes back to me. "Pericles," said the orator, "looked upon the whole earth as the sepulchre of illustrious men." Then pausing and raising his voice into solemn, measured emphasis, he added : "Yes, and all time will be the millennium of their glory." This, as I quote with reserve, because from memory, but with a dis- tinct remembrance of the impression it made, as the one effect of Everett's oration at Gettysburg. But if the voice that might have spoken did not come from the silver lips of Everett it yet was to be spoken, and here and now upon the hallowed ground of Gettysburg. When Everett ceased, exhausted, excited, the two hours' talk telling on him, there was a moment of rustle, hands extended in congratulation, the President and Secretary of State among the first, then loving hands carefully en- folding and wrapping him up in shelter from the insidious purposes of the cold November air. The music ran on a bit and the President arose. Deliberate, hesitating, awkward, "like a telescope drawing out," as I heard some one say, the large, bundled up figure untwisting and adjusting itself into reasonable conditions. I do not recall Lincoln as in appearance an imposing man — but impressive. You would turn and look at him a second time on the street. And there was that in his face when you looked closely that might well give one pause — a deep, unfathomable sense of power. He stood an instant waiting for the cheers to cease and the music to exhaust its echoes, slowly adjusted his glasses, and took from his pocket what seemed to be a page Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 6g of ordinary foolscap paper, quietly unfolded it, looked for the place, and began to read. My own personal anxieties at the moment were as to whether he would or would not make a speech. Colonel Forney had promised me a ride over the battlefield in the afternoon, along with Senator Cole, of California, and an army officer who had been in the engagement, and we were to have the story of Gettysburg. I had an easy time with Stockton and Everett; prayer and oration in type. But what would the President do ? My outing was in the hands of Lincoln. Would he speak an hour? Would he speak from notes and memory or read his address? An extem- pore effort meant a long evening transcribing notes and no Gettysburg battlefield, no useful afternoon of the solemn study of a mighty drama — aught else, for that matter, but close work in a dingy tavern. I am afraid I pestered Hay on the subject for an advance sight of the manuscript, were there one; but Hay, ever generous and helpful, as I remember, either knew no more than I did or would not tell me. So when the President arose there was my uncer- tainty. I took up the pencil and began to take him in shorthand. The sight of the single sheet of paper was not reassuring. It could only hold the heads or threads of a discourse — a text as it were — and the outing over the bat- tlefield dissolved into the gray wintry skies. Therefore the emotions with which I took down this immortal address were entirely selfish. To my surprise, almost it seemed be- fore Mr. Lincoln had begun to speak, he turned and sat down. Surely these five or six lines of shorthand were not all. Hurriedly bending over the aisle I asked if that was all. "Yes, for the present," he answered. He did not think he could say any more. Lincoln, as I was saying, when he arose, adjusted his glasses, and, taking out the single sheet of paper, held it Digitized by Microsoft® 7© Men and Memories. close to his face. He began at once in a high key, voice archaic, strident, almost in a shriek. He spoke slowly, with deliberation, reading straight on. I did not write the report which appeared in the Press, as the manuscript had been given to the Associated Press, and the transcription of my notes was unnecessary. This report was studded with "applause," but I do not remember the applause, and am afraid the appreciative reporter was more than gener- ous — may have put in the applause himself as a personal expression of opinion. Nor in fact was there any distinct emotion among those around me on the platform after the prayer, and when Lincoln was speaking, but one of sym- pathy for the forlorn photographer who failed to take his picture. This enterprising artist, by dint of persuasion and making interest with the crowd, had managed to place his camera in front of the President. And as he began to speak the workman began his work, peeping through his lenses, adjusting them, dodging his head to catch a favor- able position, fooling with the cloth that covered the lens, staring wistfully at the President, in the hope to make him "look pleasant" in true photographic fashion. But the President was not a good subject. Whether conscious or not of the honor thus impending, he drove on with his speech, ever holding the paper before the face, the dismayed photographer vainly hoping for one glimpse of the face. And as the President summarily turned to sit down, he desperately uncovered the camera, but too late ! The flash of sunshine brought him nothing. There was a general ripple of laughter at his dismay. I have read many narratives of the scenes, of the emo- tions produced by the President's address, the transcendent awe that fell upon every one who heard those most mighty and ever living words, to be remembered with pride through the ages. I have read of the tears that fell and the solemn Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. Jt hush, as though in a cathedral solemnity in the most holy moment of the sacrifice. Nor am I insensible to the power of oratory, nor to the rapture that came from hearing Gladstone and Phillips and Castelar. There was nothing of this, to the writer at least, in the Gettysburg address. Nor were the conditions such as to invite it. Mr. Lincoln was an orator. Even as I remember him, there were no flights of oratory to which he did not and might not as- cend. But he needed to warm up to his subject. This im- pression was confirmed by what was said to me in later years by a very dear friend, who had followed Lincoln and Douglas in their famous debate of 1858, hearing and re- porting the speeches. "Lincoln," he said, "never began to be an orator until he had been talking a half hour, and then he was great, especially if any one interrupted him." At Gettysburg he only spoke three or four minutes. The long oration of Everett had made people restless. Bits of the crowd had broken away and were wandering off toward the battle scenes. We were tired and chilly, and even the No- vember sun did not take the place of the heavy wraps. Lincoln, as I said, began at once in a high, strident key, as one who had little to say, and would say it so as to be heard and seen. The two emotions of that memorable scene were first the wonderful prayer as chanted by the chaplain, the rich Hebrew phrases and intonations rever- berating like organ music, and the dismay of the poor artist, who failing to outline the President's picture, was fain to bundle up his tools and take his barren journey home. Sept. 3rd, 1891. Dear Young: — But this is preface to what I wanted to say about your paper on "Lincoln at Gettysburg," some weeks ago, which I consider one of the most valuable and Digitized by Microsoft® 72 Men and Memories. interesting things I ever read. The Lincoln legend grows and expands as it recedes, and will soon become fabulous, like the Washington myth. Such contributions as yours, rescue it from fiction, and what is worse, — ^history. When I was at Gettysburg last year I talked with MePherson about that dedication ceremony and he mentioned many of the incidents you describe ; notably, his putting on a pair of spectacles with short bows, clasping on the temples just behind the eyes. McP. thought the oration was studied and elaborated, and had been the subject of consultation with Seward the night before. Faithfully yours, John J. Inoalls. LINCOLN ! Editorial in Herald upon Lincoln's birthday, says: — It is eighty-five years since Lincoln was born. In the words of Stanton, while closing in death the eyes of the departed President — "he belongs to the ages." And yet he seems to belong to some immemorial period. He entered upon his public work in the Congress which saw the close of that of John Quincy Adams, and was probably on the floor when that venerable statesman fell at his post stricken with death. As Adams began his career with a commis- sion signed by the Father of his Country he might be re- garded as the link which bound Lincoln to Washington. Yet, if Lincoln were to return he would find welcome from Eobert C. Winthrop, who was Speaker of the House of which he was a member. Eobert M. McLane, his col- league, would meet him with Maryland hospitality, while his greeting in the Senate might gracefully come from Morrill of Vermont, who was born in the same year. Like Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 73 them, he might be still with us as our fellow citizen, and yet, somehow he seems to us as having ruled and lived in the infinite past. History is coy as to the acceptance of great men at the estimate of their contemporaries. Eome waits half a cen- tury before beatification, and centuries may elapse before canonization. The Sacred Congregation still puzzles over the sainthood of Joan of Arc, although nearly five cen- turies have elapsed since she was burned at the stake. The most austere historian will not grudge the place of Lincoln. In the world's Parthenon he stands by the august shade of Washington. No second comes to light without a new illumination of his fame. His enemies in the war are among his fervent eulogists. Even the silent lips of Grant spoke of him with enthusiasm. "I have no doubt," said the General, "that Lincoln will be the conspicuous figure of the war — one of the great figures of history. He was a great man, a very great man. The more I saw of him the more he impressed me. He was incontestably the greatest man I have ever met." Lincoln's career, as a part of the story of the war, is known, and we need not dwell upon its details. It was fruitful, and its infiuence will widen and spread, like those majestic grow^ths of India, where the seed dropped into the ground becomes an ever extending forest. Without his far seeing statesmanship the war might have had another close. So long as we held to the paths blazed by Lincoln through the wilderness of public policy we walked wisely. With what gratitude we recall that patient wisdom which has been to us for a generation the cloud by day and the pil- lar of fire by night ! The high water mark of a generation's civilization is found in its heroes. The combined forces of Europe might conquer Napoleon, but Napoleonism was not to die. His * ■*■ 'Digitized by Microsoft® 74 Men and Memories. influence is the most potent factor in the destiny of mod- ern France. You might dethrone him, but the Code Na- poleon is still the law. You might send him into exile, but you could not undo the material transfiguration of France. Lincoln holds somewhat the same relation to the United States. The hero is a people's heritage. We can answer slurs upon our country by pointing to Lincoln and Wash- ington — to the founder as well as the savior of the Union. We have our past in the splendor of these shining names, and we are true to their admonitions when we live in their example. Lincoln fell in youth, or what, as statesmen go, might be called his youth. He had lived fifty-six years, of which but six were in public affairs, two in the House of Repre- sentatives and four in the Presidency. From the Presi- dency came a body of statesmanship surpassed in fullness and fruit by that of no other American. Whatever he touched ripened as with the wisdom of the ages. His work was as pregnant as that of Cssar, and as masterful as that of the elder Pitt. Study whatever he bequeathed to us, and feel the master's touch. Read the debates with Douglas, in which will be found the very jurisprudence of Republicanism ; no page that is not fresh and vital. Take the first Inaugural, with its tones of justice and patriotic invocation, its solemn entreaties to the angry men of both sections which were to fall unheeded upon war jarred fac- tions. Take Emancipation, which rises out of the table land of history, a shining Sinai peak. Take the second Inaugural, with its words of infinite pity and magnanimity toward a crushed and crumbling South. Take the address at Gettysburg, which might have been composed by Ho- mer, and will live while Homer endures. His example can never die. It should never grow faint and cold. We fol- low his watchwords as the British troops in theii Egyptian Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 75 wars when tliey marched over the midnight sands were guided by the constellations. With day they knew there would come combat and victory, and they marched with confidence and joy. In his words Eepublicans should find an inspiration. "It is for the living," said Lincoln at Get- tysburg, "rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- vanced." We accept the lesson of a precious and immortal life in the master's own words. The work is still "unfinished." It is for us to be dedicated to it. The cause for which our he- roes gave the last full measure of devotion — the cause which Lincoln sealed with his blood, is the same to-day as when it was an issue at n°ttysburg. The men who then fought to preserve the Montgomery constitution are now fighting to recover and impose upon the Union the prin- ciples of that constitution. It rested upon slavery and free trade. Mr. Cleveland in signing the disfranchisement of the colored man in the South legalizes slavery in its worst form. We gave the negro freedom ; we now stab that free- dom to the heart. Free trade is as potent in Democratic counsels as it was in the Confederate Congress which en- grafted it upon the Montgomery constitution. Mr. Cleve- land would approve it with the truculent haste with which he signed the instrument meant to be the doom of an honest franchise. The issue is unchanged. Those who forced it upon us, as the alternative of a fearful war, were in earnest. They are in earnest now. Therefore, if we are true to the memory of Lincoln, if we apply the lessons of this honored anniversary, the issue will again be resisted. We shall win if we have the spirit which conquered at Gettysburg — "if we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this na- tion, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and Digitized by Microsoft® 76 Men and Memories. that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." WALT WHITMAN. A picturesque figure in Washington during the war days was Walt Whitman, that eccentric genius, whose work has provoked more discussion and contrariety of opinion than any other American poet. But whatever may be the quality of the man's genius, and it will probably engage discussion until the "youngest critic has died," there can be no ques- tion as to his attractive nature. A deep and genuine af- fection existed between Walt Whitman and John Eussell Young, the result of many years' acquaintance and pro- found admiration. His crude and bold signature frequent- ly appears on letters, an original manuscript, or a tumbled card, thanking his "dear friend J. K. Y." for a book, or some kind attention; and toward the end, affectionate ex- pressions, almost pathetic, in their tenderness. The follow- ing recollections of Whitman appeared in 1892 : — "Among my earliest indiscretions was Walt Whitman. So at least I was summarily informed one day by the fa- mous Shelton Mackenzie, Doctor of Civil Law, literary ed- itor and miscellaneous magnate on Forney's Press, a con- siderable and shining figure in his time, with a large place in criticism and current affairs, and memorable to me al- ways for many friendly words and deeds. I had written something in an ambitious vein, and decorated the theme with lines from a book I had tumbled over in literary wan- derings — a thin book, with solid, square type, wide mar- gins, the frontispiece a figure in shirt sleeves, brawny, spry, nonchalant, one hand on the thigh, the other in the pocket ; deep eyes, a sorrowful face and lips of expectation. Out of this book I had dug something — I have long forgotten what Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 77 — which seemed to beautify my composition. Mackenzie gave me due monition. No gentleman ever read such a book. No gentleman ever referred to it in the presence of ladies. It was unspeakable. And if I had ambitions, as the good Mackenzie pointed out in his emphatic, pater- nal way, I must never have it known that I had kept c»m- pany with such a writer. Were there not Thomas Moore, and Clarence Mangan, and Thomas Davis, and all that radiant galaxy of Irish poesy, beautiful with the gems of genius, that a young writer like myself, a well enough meaning reporter, who might even some day be an editor, could not accept with profit to my fame and no peril to my immortal soul, not to speak of my standing in society? Whitman was the author of the lines, and my quoting them among my earliest indiscretions. I accepted the ad- monitions of Mackenzie, and for a long time literary rela- tions with Whitman were maintained under furtive con- ditions. The wise, prudent Mackenzie spoke his own con- servatism, which was likewise the literary judgment of the hour. Whitman was not respectable. Mackenzie also had high, antique notions as to what was proper in one's lit- erary sympathies. He had lived when George the Third was king. He had been the friend of Moore and Southey, had supped with Sir Walter Scott. Deep in his heart he saw much that might be mended in Tennyson, as well as in Thackeray and Bulwer and others of the "new writers." Whitman had come upon him, — somehow, — no one knew whence or wherefore ; — how did he come ? "One book last summer," wrote Emerson to Carlyle, "came out in New York; a nondescript monster which yet had terrible eyes and buffalo strength, and was indisputably American, which I thought to send you. But the book throve so badly with the few to whom I showed it, and wanted good morals so much, that I never did. Yet, I believe now again, I Digitized by Microsoft® 78 Men and Memories. shall! It is called 'Leaves of Grass,' was written and printed by a journeyman printer in Brooklyn, New York, named Walter Whitman, and after you have looked into it, if you think, as you may, that it is only an auctioneer's in- ventory of a warehouse, you can light your pipe with it." I cannot find that Carlyle ever received the book. The Bos- ton impression referred to, that Whitman "wanted good morals," had permeated Philadelphia. This was what Mackenzie felt, and so my wise preceptor, — seeing that I was not only reading but quoting him, awakened me to a sense of the indiscretion. Yet, somehow, there were things in Whitman that I found in no other book, unless I went back among the He- brew prophets. The wanting in "good morals" never oc- curred to me. Then, as now, when I look at Whitman with maturer eyes, when I see him accepted and ruling as one of the influences of the nineteenth century, I was never in sympathy with those who deemed him an immoral writer. He was an exemplification of nature. I should as soon think of finding immorality in his writings as in the antique statutes of the Louvre, in the paddocks of the Derby, or the Zoological Gardens. In Byron, yes! In a dozen other writers, in exultant and in rose-tinted hues; the immorality that would weaken by mockery or invective the delicate sense of right and wrong, which underlies the devotion we call love — ^this with too much abundance. But Whitman, as I read him, never gave a thought which could awaken the sense of shame in those not prone to shame. We were a long time coming to this recognition. I am not sure that we have reached it in America, but it will come, as it did in England years ago. The most original writer of our day, a generation since won across the sea what had been denied at home. I saw Whitman in war times and later with an experi- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 79 ence aKin to that of some Athenian who had known Soc- rates, and perhaps followed the grand png-nosed old loafer from place to place to hear him talk. If ever the loafer may come to his own, and we amend our Christian legends, Saint Socrates will he his patron. Even as I had fancied the shaggy-powed Socrates, floating ahout Athens, the eyes of the police upon him with their own thoughts as to his means of support, there was the suggestion of a parallel in Whitman. He had a conspicuous, massive figure, inva- riably in frowsy, picturesque raiment. You ran against him in out of the way places — riding on the front of horse cars in conversation with the driver, giving pennies to ragged groups of negro children ; sailing down Pennsylvania ave- nue, with that wonderful hat, that collar that was never buttoned, like some slow old three-decker of ninety-four, or trailing out toward the camps in suburban Washington with packages under his arms or in his coat pockets, pre- sumably for the hospital. There was something of a rude, enviable splendor in his superb, rugged health, — the body dominant with wholesome conditions ; something also of the Horace Greeley in this personality — the same shambling, go-as-you-please gait, Whitman rather the sturdier of the two ; nothing of the inspired childhood ; phenomenal touch of genius, as in the famous journalist. You were apt to find him silent, civil, not communicative, but cordial when you could reach him. He had no apparent companionships, apparently alone with his teeming soul. A sincere, ab- sorbed man, whom you never saw in what was called so- ciety, or at the rude homely routs of war days ; nor at din- ners — rather a gentleman of the pavement, even as Soc- rates must have been, when he loafed about Athens and said such living, wonderful things. Whitman was in those days likewise a martyr and his sufferings were much talked about in our independent cip- Digitized by Microsoft® 8o Men and Memories. cles, although they seemed to sit blithely upon the shaggy, lounging wayfarer. The secretary of something or other, and by some odd twinge of fortune in the Lincoln Cabinet, had been told of Whitman's book, "the nondescript mon- ster which had terrible eyes, and buffalo strength." This secretary, as I well remember him, was of the dumb species, with an obtuse faculty for believing everything he heard, and a good deal more than what he saw. He lived in an advanced, uneasy stage of Wesleyanism, and had as Senator represented a proper people. He was, as rumor ran, among the statesmen who had discovered that Grant's habits un- fitted him for high commands. One White House story comes to me of his leaving Lincoln in wrath, "slamming the doors behind him" because of some Presidential ob- tuseness in regard to Grant. I think also that he was the hero of the famous whisky story of Lincoln, now an undy- ing part of the literature of American wit. "Tell me. Sen- ator, the brand of Grant's whisky, as I want to send a bar- rel to some of the other generals." One day his eyes opened to the enormities of Whitman's lines, and the poet was sent about his business. No such unholy hands should pollute the sacred records of that department. Whitman went, and might have been a gentleman of the pavement indeed in the saddest form, had not the poet Stedman, if I am sure in my remembrance, and John Hay found him access into another department. Here he toiled at small wages, living in humble lodgings, pacing Pennsylvania avenue of the afternoons on his daily errand to the hos- pital and camp. I do not think that I ever heard Whitman refer to this halo of martyrdom incident, nor do I see any trace of it in his writings. He was not a man to nourish enmities nor recall dark remembrances. It was his nature rather to respect as a solemn dispensation the bereavement of intel- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 8i lect which could see sin in his poems, to regard it with the sympathy we give to the blind, the halt and the dumb. Whitman was never in the idle throng. Occasionally glimpses of him at theatres. Of the noisy, frothy world he never seemed to be a part, was more at home with the chestnut trees and the shady lanes. I do not think that we knew then, as it has come to us since, that he was living a life of renunciation. He was very poor. His salary was small. Unfitted for the camp he had devoted himself to the hospital. He lived in reserved, honorable penury ; prac- ticed personal abstinence that every penny might go to the hospitals. You will know what this involved if you knew the hospital life of Washington in war times. Those days after Manassas and Gettysburg! Was ever anything so pitiful under the sorrow-laden heavens? The long trains of the wounded, the slowly driven ambulances, each with its burden of pain ; the public buildings, the churches, the private houses, the Capitol itself one vast hospital. Then it was that love and sympathy came to succor valor. Gentle women threw aside the cares of the nursery and drawing room to attend the wounded and dying. There was scarcely a Washington maiden, certainly no one of high degree, who did not have her daily mission to the wounded; her awn little group of sufferers, whose pain she soothed, for whom she wrote letters and read the heavy hours away. Those days of Manassas and Gettysburg! We shall never know the depth and meaning of war until we know all that they involved. It was not for our poet to go to the wars, and his life was given to the camps, and especially to the hospital. It was humble work. I have seen nothing of it in canvas or stone, and somehow it has never found a note in the trum- pet of fame. It meant everything to the stricken hero away from home. There were potions to be mixed, and wrap- Digitized by Microsoft® 82 Men and Memories. pings to be released and bound again. There was a mother who must hear from her boy, some sweetheart who must know how the battle had swept through her hopeful, trust- ing life ; for in those dreadful days it was not alone those slain in battle who really died. Here is a glimpse of it in Whitman's own prose : "I walked on to Armory Hospital," he writes, "took with me several bottles of blackberry and cherry syrup, good and strong, but innocent. Went through several of the wards, announced to the soldiers the news from Meade, and gave them all a good drink of the syrups with ice water, quite refreshing ; prepared it all myself, and served it around." The news from Meade was about Get- tysburg, "a big flaming placard on a newspaper office an- nouncing the victory," and "a sort of order of the day from the President himself, quite religious, giving thanks to the Supreme Being, and calling on the people to do the same." Meanwhile the bells of Washington rang out their sun- down peals — ^joy for the victory; joy over the Fourth of July. Then — the misery of it all — "a string of ambulances moving up Fourteenth street north, slowly wending along, bearing a large lot of wounded to the hospitals." The blue and the gray, side by side. Valor had done its work. Love and sympathy claimed its devotees their own. In this humble work Whitman spent his war days. It is, believe me, no want of respect and honor for the clamorous doing of the battle — the onset, the rally, the retreat — ^that makes me feel there was a singular kind of heroism in what this laboring clerk in the departments did for the suffering. Whitman himself, frank as he is about everything, has little to say of it in his poems. I recall the dead cavalryman, shot through the neck, and who could not live : — "Come, sweet death! he persuaded, heautiful death! In mercy come quickly." Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 83 There are likewise some further lines in one of the few references to these scenes. As a rule, however, silence upon what even his admirers will regard as the noblest episode in his life : — "I thread my way through the hospitals. The hurt and the wounded I pacify with soothing hand; I sit iy the restless all the dark night, — some are so young. Some suffer so much. I recall the experiences sweet and sad. Many a soldier's loving arms about this nech have crossed and rested, Many a soldier's Iciss dwells on these bearded lips." I never was submerged by the Whitman enthusiasm, even in earlier days. I saw, as Emerson wrote, that in his book were incomparable things incomparably said. I recognized the wit of what I once heard from Wendell Phillips, that there were many kinds of leaves among the "Leaves of Grass," but no fig leaves. It was an indolent book, so much that might have been weeded out, if the author had foreseen that his work was to be something more than a daring experiment. Ben Jonson's regret that Shakespeare, instead of never blotting a line, had not blotted a thou- sand, applied with more force to Whitman than to any great writer of the century except Southey and Byron. And even the improprieties which barred it from the bazars, the leaves, which were not fig leaves, were the mere saying of things so obvious, that it seemed such a waste of time to say them. Why rob me of night and silence and medita- tion, and the self respect of my thoughts ? Nor could one accept, without protest, the caprice which denuded his poesy of harmony. Whitman himself is my authority for the fact that he carefully culled out all touches of rhythm Digitized by Microsoft® ^4 Men and Memories. and metre and held to his rugged, uneven lines. This is a loss to literature. ISTo one can read "My Captain" or "Pioneers" without seeing that there was capacity for music in this man, as definite and sweeping as in Swinburne or Poe. I know few lines with more harmony than these on Lincoln : — Hushed be the camps to-day. And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons. And each with musing soul retire to celebrate Our dear Commander's Death. No more for him life's stormy conflicts. Nor victory, nor defeat — no more time's dark events Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. Whitman's work was never apart from the charm of his personality. He was always Socrates loafing about the streets of Athens, and I never saw him in the war days without the idea that he was a revelation of the old Greek. And as I was out of the range of the worship, with perhaps a tint of heresy, the exclusion of his books from circula- tion, attorney-generals of Boston issuing warrants, Cabinet ministers chasing him out of departments as noisome things are chased with a broom, — this was such an igno- minious business. Eeasons of revenue and personal com- fort were to be considered, as Whitman was poor; what he could save from his hire as clerk going to the soldiers in the way of syrups, tobacco and stationery. This justified such an editing of his works as would pass the muster of the police. It had been done abroad. Eosetti's edition, as decorous as Watts' Hymns, with the Eosetti pruning, I had found in England. Other editions were among the current literature of the railway stall and the shop. I was among those of Whitman's friends who hoped in some Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 85 Buch manner for his larger, truer and more remunerative recognition. In this mood of thinking I one day ran against Whitman sailing down Seventh street in his majestical, three-decker way, opposite the little brick house in which Jefferson had written the Declaration, then a sacred landmark of Phila- delphia, but now crushed under the grinding heel of trade. He was steering for Forney's office, at Seventh and Chest- nut streets. I was glad to hear that he meant to print his book, believing that the world was ripe enough to receive it and that it meant mended fortunes. But why not omit the "Children of Adam" — not above seven or eight hundred lines in that, and perhaps two or three hundred in addition, and then have such a book as was classic in England, what might readily be accepted in enlightened Sunday schools and in the apparent regions of fashionable society ? And so on, with emphasis as precise and courteous as I could be- stow upon one I so much admired and in whose material fortunes I had so deep an interest. Whitman, who was always gentle and kind, a free, spon- taneous nature, who never argued, but rather listened in benevolent, complacent wonder to argument, heard my speech as if it were by no means a new story. I saoii dis- covered that I might as readily hope to have the Sphynx throw the Egyptian sands from her person and go into the mazes of a country dance, as for Whitman to change, elim- inate or reserve one line. He had had it out with Emer- son, he said, years before, and his mind was settled. What he had written he had written. It was his message to the world. If men and women would not have it as it came from his lips, it was not worth the having. As for the Eng- lish editions which Eosetti and other friends had clipped and patched together, that was their affair. He had made a Digitized by Microsoft® 86 Men and Memories. statue or nothing. There ehotild be no torso in its place by his grace or leave. There was a modest, resolute pride in all this, a sincerity I could not but respect; nor was the subject alluded to again. The fact that the book never had other than a lan- guid circulation, may have come from the agility of the police ; or it may have been that it was ahead of its time ; that the Whitman taste had to be formed. I thought of the weary years through which Wordsworth waited for re- cognition ; and how poor Carlyle hawked "Sartor Eesartus" around London, only to find the reluctant, eleemosynary hospitality of some second-hand magazine. Yet Words- worth is now with the sovereigns, in their spheres; and "Sartor Eesartus" is sold by the thousands every year. I had known also of a similar experience. That estimable gentleman, my dear and honored friend, Henry George, had written in those years a book which he felt, as Whit- man and Carlyle before him, to be a solemn message to mankind. Composed under depressing circumstances in California he had managed by heroic sacrifices to put it into type. Now if some one would read his book ! Henry George was then unknown beyond the threshold of his Pacific home. I was going to England, and took a dozen copies to peddle for him. I tried an old-fashioned bookseller at the Haymarket, who had exalted people for customers — a royal highness, Lord Beaeonsfield and the like. In a few days I called only to see the books on the shelves, and the bookseller debating with his conscience as to whether he should not go to the Old Bailey and plead guilty to the condonement of a conspiracy for overturning society. All that was left was to take the volimies and ask the ever willing Smalley, of the Tribune, to name some ad- vanced thinkers of the "crank" species at whom I might throw them and have the rubbish well out of the way. This Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories, 87 book was "Poverty and Progress." In a short time its sale in London had reached to sixty thousand a year. It gave its author world-wide fame as one of the foremost men of the time. Whitman was no farther from the spirit of the age than Henry George, and the party which came around him was as devout in its allegiance, although much smaller than that which now follows that eminent and intrepid man. I know of no writer, except it may be Carlyle, in prose who has affected literary style more deeply than Whitman. The directness of expression, the cogency of thought, the precise, unmistakable sense of meaning which we see manifest and growing in current literature, is largely due to Whitman. His influence is rather with those who write than read. Prom the thinking world has come his appreciation, even as those on the mountains see the sun long before its glory iloods the valley. No poet since Byron ever went more di- rectly to his theme. No arrow ever left his bow without go- ing home. Poe had this power when he had honesty and courage enough to use it. As in "Helen, thy beauty is to me," how surely the arrow goes home. I should say, how- ever, that even above Byron — above all English writers since Goldsmith and Dryden, the faculty of clear, definite thought rests with Whitman. You are never lost in his pages. You never pause over a word, nor listen for the echo of a double meaning. The refinement refined of Ten- nyson — ^the mysticisms of Browning — the lush and over- ripened euphony of Swinburne — ^there is nothing of this in the American. The sea is the sea — the sun is the sun — and you go with him to stream and meadow and waterfall, and disentangle the constellations, and sit by the fireside over the singing kettle, and read of old Kissabone, the sailor, who lived until he was ninety, and died watching the brig circumvent the winde. Digitized by Microsoft® 88 Men and Memories. In this simplicity, this sinewy strength will be found some of the reasons for the steady growth of Whitman's power and fame. Others will be found in the fact that more than any other poet he identified himself with the civil war. I recall no writings which contain so much of the war as the thousand lines he has given to it in verse; not to speak of much that is valuable in prose. "Calamus" and the body electric, the "Sea-Drift" and "Birds of Passage," much of this we should be loath to spare. Still it could be spared, while the loss to American literature of the war passages would be irreparable. The Song of the Banner at Daybreak, and President Lincoln's Funeral Hymn, reach the high water mark of American poetic genius ; are as precious at least to the writer of these lines as Wordsworth's ode to Immortality, which in his humble opinion is the ^highest reach of poetic genius that has been attained since Shakespeare. You have the soul of the war — ^its majesty, its strength, its Titanic grandeur. "War! — be it weeks, months, or years, an armed race is advancing to welcome it." Nq anger, no truculenee, no vindictiveness toward the South, no belittling the mighty lesson that the ages will find in that gigantic struggle by obtruding the wrath and vanity of the strife. Eather tenderness to the vanquished foe, at in these lines : — My enemy is dead — a man divine as myself is dead. I look where he lies, white-faced and still in the coffin, and draw near. Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin. Whitman never troubles himself about the mere policies of the war, not eve^.w^Uh, ^ijj^nc^^ion. There ia no al- Men and Memories. 89 Inaion, not even in the Lincoln poems, to the breaking of the shackles, or setting the negroes free, no swelling the current note of Lincoln adulation. Nor does the freedom appear in any part of the poet's noble vision of the restored Union. This cannot be attributed to indifEerence as to slavery, as one of the author's few bitter poems refers to the surrender of a fugitive slave by the Boston Federal courts. That it was a mere emancipation war, that these tremendous battles and sieges were for a negro's freedom, Whitman will have no such thought ! Emancipation is an incident, like the invasion of the Shenandoah or the bom- bardment of Charleston; a political policy, unworthy of poetic consecration, an expedient to break the power of the South. Its moral value is embraced in the higher value of a restored Union. It was a Union war, the war of men, the war of the private soldier. There are few tributes to heaven-directed genius, — some lines on Grant, as "man of the mighty days and equal to the days," the exception. The soldier is the theme. Our Pete hit in a cavalry skirmish, and to die; the boy shot in the abdomen, and about to die; "face as white as a lily;" — the soldier found dead in his blanket ; the great drum pounding ; the small drums whir- ring, — the dead at rest, the wife, the child, the nusing comrade ; the ones to live and to suffer ; the unnamed sol- diers fallen in front in the lead; to whom he would rear laurel-crowned monument, high above the rest: — "Brave, brave were the soldiers (high-named to-day) who lived through the fight; But the bravest pressed to the front, and fell unnamed and unJcnown." The last time I saw Whitman was on November 2d, in company with Sir Edwin Arnold and Major J. B. Pond, Digitized by Microsoft® 9° Men and Memories. of New York. Sir Edwin had arrived in Philadelphia to read in public from his poems. I had had a note from Whitman as to some proposed courtesy toward the actors Florence and Jefferson, and also in pursuance of a promise to Carpenter, the artist, that I would try to persuade the poet to sit for a portrait. As a small side light on the ways of the man, I may venture to give this note : — Camden, N. J., October 24, 1891. Dear Friend J. R. T.-— Yours of 23d received. Many thanks for the invitation, and affectionate regards to you and to Jefferson and Florence. But I am too dilapidated and cannot think of trying to come over. If you see Frank Carpenter, tell him I am willing to sit for the picture, which is all I can do, and I send him my best compliments. Am sitting here now in great armchair with wolf skin spread over back for warmth — cannot get across the room (from paralysis), but fair spirits. Just had a pleasant call from Jeannette Gilder, N. Y., and some charming girls. Walt Whitman. On the edge of the orange-tinted sheet upon which the note was written were these printed lines, as a quaint scroll, a motto or emblazonment in social heraldry: — From the Boston Evening Transcript, May 7, '91. The Epictetus saying as given by Walt Whitman in his own quite utterly dilapidated physical case is, "a little spark of soul dragging a great lummux of corpse-body clumsily to and fro around." We inferred from the tone of this note that while Whit- man was not going about, a visit might not be unwelcome. Sir Edwin had a profound admiration for the poet, and was Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 91 the bearer among other things of a message from Tenny- son. He could not, he said, pass as it were through the very dominions of the master, without for the moment turn- ing aside to pay him homage. It was arranged that we should visit Whitman in the morning. There was a long ride over Delaware ferry and through silent Camden town, one of those suburban developments of modem growth which have no apparent reason for being. Camden had been among my earliest problems and I think Sir Edwin Arnold showed self-command in not expressing what must have been in his mind, when repeated inquiries from policemen and wayfarers in Camden failed to reveal any knowledge of the very existence of their illustrious townsman. This self-command was not shared by Major Pond. We had not thought of taking the address. It would be so much like going to Weimar with the address of Goethe. The cabman in a mood of despair reined us up at a chemist's with some sad fancy I am afraid that the temper of Major Pond required medical advice. In time, through the Major's diligence, we attained the modest house. I had written Whitman that he might expect us, and he gave us a cheery welcome. The attendant said he had not been downstairs for many a day. We climbed to the upper story, found him in a bed chamber lookrag out on the street. He sat in an ample chair, with a white wolf skin from the Mongolian plains over the shoulders. The floor was littered with papers, some with wrappers unopened, others partly read, higgledy-piggledy everywhere. There was a broad table littered to the edge with books and pa- pers, a remnant of two or three inches for writing. There were some scattered photographs on the mantel, faded, dusty and stained, one of John W. Forney, with an affec- tionate message of farewell as he was "off to Europe." The Digitized by Microsoft® 92 Men and Memories. humblest, plainest lodgings, a home of penury. And yet there the proud old man in royal wolf skin robes, with hii thin whitened hair and flowing beard, calm, resolute, rather dimming eyes, voice clear, loud, just a touch of weakness in his hearing, and unable to rise from the seat, because of the paralysis, received us with quiet, sovereign dignity. Arnold saluted the venerable poet with affectionate ten- derness, as a subject might salute his king, and the honor was received in grave royal fashion. Why should not those subjects of mine come from over the seas in answer to my message? If it had a meaning they would surely come. And this is as it should be, even as appointed. This as if you read it in his eyes. Here was the poet of the elder world, the interpreter of the mythologies and creeds of the infinite past, the scholar from the Indies and Japan, never so eloquent as when in praise of moss-covered, medieval, aristocratic England, and in honoring church and crown, — here was the very poet of conservatism, caste and privilege, a most probable Poet Laureate, in homage before the poet of Democracy. The Light of Asia, the Light of the World — face to face with the Light of the Prairie. Sir Edwin had only the other day left Tennyson at his English fireside, and had been charged by the Poet Lau- reate with a special message of regard for Whitman. "Ten- nyson has always been kind to me," said Whitman. "His voice was one of the first that came with the sign of en- couragement — the superb old man !" He must hear from Arnold in detail about Tennyson's health. How did the heavy burden of years rest upon him? Tennyson could walk, could go out on the cliff, and look out on the downs, and see the mists that sheltered his England from conti- mental rapine. Well, that was a blessing, and such a com- fort to hear it. As for his own legs, they were in such a bad way — paralysis down on one side, and helplessness except Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 93 to sit and read and think and talk. It vru a comfort that this had been spared "the fine old fellow at Farringford." Apart from a certain haziness of the eye, and what seemed to be an idle fragment of catarrh. Whitman seemed mentally and relatively physically well — might readily have been taken as younger than seventy-three. He would hear of no suggestion of an early leave-taking, or that our coming might invite weariness, or discomfort, but evident- ly wanted to talk. His mind was clear, vivid, and he talked in the quaint old way, recalling Washington days, and days in Forney's rooms. To the intimation that we might like to treasure a memory of his reading, that no poem could be truly read except by the poet, and that per- haps he could be persuaded to recite "Captain, my captain," he pleaded fatigue. "Oh, you like that, do you? Well, I am afraid I cannot recite it." Not in a petulant tone, but decisively — ^no! The name of Eobert IngersoU was men- tioned and Whitman had many questions about him, must know just how he looked, and whether he was well and doing well, and how he could never forget the Colonel that had come over and lectured in his behalf, "which brought me," he added, "a very useful bit of money." He was pleased, but still and always in reserved sover- eign fashion, to hear from Arnold of his growing fame in England. And about it he had his own thoughts. Eng- land was more tranquil, the minds of her people freer from immediate cares than the New World — no building cities and cutting away forests — and could hear what he had to say. As to America, he was afraid she was too busy for poems. He saw America in its future. In that he be- lieved — ^how profoundly he believed! Through what troubles and tribulations and volcanic eruptions and out- breaks we should come to it, he could not say. He had seen one of them in the Civil War. What would be Digitized by Microsoft® 94 Men and Memories. the next? The greed for money was not pleasant, the hurry scurry after the Material, the deadening of finer thought, was distressing. But we would come out of it; yes, we would come out of it — ^triumphant, fruitful, although he would never live to see it! It was often in his thoughts that America of the future, conglomerate, composite America, melted, fused; the glowing mass with its Magyar, Saxon, Hebrew, Slavic, even Chinese ingre- dients embedded. What would it be? What would be the type of the ideal America when the twenty-fifth cen- tury was in bloom? This was evidently a favorite speculation, and it came trather as a philosophical thought, the meditation of an old man, with only his thoughts for his companionships, face to face as it were, almost in touch with the "Que scais- je" of Montaigne. There was no real abatement of the enthusiasm, which in the earlier days had sung the glory of En Masse, the resonant song of Democracy. There was no such change as between Locksley Hall as it was to the young poet and "Locksley Hall sixty years later," but rather looking beyond the noise and the mists for the glorious future. The message from Tennyson through Arnold was the leading theme in the earlier part of the conversation. Whitman was anxious to know if Tennyson had any pieces on hand — ^things written at leisure, to ripen to their fullness and come to light after he had gone. I do not recall that Arnold had such in- formation. Whitman hoped that Tennyson knew how much he was appreciated in America. Arnold said that this was well understood. There was a comment from one of the company upon the fact that Longfellow was better known in England than in the United States, while Tennyson had a fame in Amer- ica that he had never enjoyed at home. The theory was Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 95 advaqced that the absence of an international copyright had permitted cheap editions of Tennyson here and of Longfellow in England, and that their widest fame was where they were most widely read. It was something, however, for "the grand old fellow" at Farringford to know that a nation which had never looked on his face had no greater delight than to hear his words. And the strength of his genius, as Whitman remarked, singing with as much freshness and truth as when he wrote In Memoriam. One of the company was not sure that his latest were not his best lines. A noble thought, said Whitman, as Sir Edwin recited the latest lines of the Poet Laureate: Sunset and evening star. And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar. When I put out to sea. But such a tide as moving seems asleep. Too full for sound and foam. When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell. And after that the darTc! And may there he no sadness of farewell. When I embarh; For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar. Digitized by Microsoft® g6 Men and Memories. Sir Edwin referred to the profound beauty of iome of Whitman's own poems, no clearer touch of genius since Homer. Then to emphasize with an illustration he leaned over, and resting his hand on the old man's knee, recited these lines: Come lovely and soothing death. Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving. In the day, in the night, to all, to each Sooner or later delicate death. Praised he the fathomless universe. For life and joy, and for objects and Tcnowledge curious. And for love, sweet love — hut praise! praise! praise! For the sure, enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet. Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song, that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. Whitman heard the reading, which was exquisite, with partly closed eyes, and when Arnold had finished, simply said, "You like those lines, do you?" An allusion was made to the growing influence of Poe, especially on the continent. Whitman said he had had one , interview with Poe, and the man was clearly before him, gentlemanly, quiet, reserved, with a tired aspect. Saw him on the streets again, but remembered only the one interview. He was inclined to think better of Poe than he had done in earlier years, although one could see that Whitman had little sympathy with the harmonies and rhythm and euphony of the elder poet. He recog- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 97 nized the intense personality of Pee, and could recall no author who had so deeply impressed himself upon men's thoughts; wonderful, considering how little in the way of verse Poe had done. The weird in nature, the demo- niac in imagination, the horrible, the impossible which seemed to animate the strange genius of Poe, were foreign from Whitman. Yet there was a fascination in it, if fascination were the highest aim of verse. An allusion to Emerson, led among other things to an anecdote of the Concord seer, when he was once in Philadelphia. "I want to know," Emerson said suddenly, "something about Dorgan? Who is Dorgan?" There was silence. "John A. Dorgan of Philadelphia," con- tinued Emerson. "He sends me a thin, almost shivering book of poems, with some lines on Fate which are Napoleonic : These withered hands are weale. But they shall do my bidding though so frail; These lips are white, hut shall not fail The appointed word to speak. Thy sneer I can forgive. Because I Tcnow the strength of destiny. Until my task is done I cannot die. And then I would not live. "I should like to know," asked Emerson as he con- cluded the recitation, "what Philadelphia has done for a man who could have written such lines?" The answer was not only had Philadelphia done nothing for Dorgan, but had never heard of him. Whitman eaid, "i^^e^m9Mom^'^^^ ^^^m Napoleonic 98 Men and Memories. lines. They have a noble thought — especially at the end. And did Emerson ever find Dorgan?" My impression was that he never did. I had a moderate acquaintance with Dorgan, a clear memory of him as a young convey- ancer's clerk, who died shortly after the close of the war — at most a year or two. I recalled him as a delicate, sensitive genius, with sorrows in the way of personal suffering. Much in his life, its promise, its cares and its early efEacement reminding you of Keats and Henry Kirke White. There was talk of Lowell, and especially of what he had done in England as minister. Sir Edwin had his narration about this — ^the ambassador not alone from the Republic of Politics but the Republic of Letters — and whose example and influence literary England would not soon forget. I could not observe any point of special sympathy with Lowell — ^not so manifest as toward Long- fellow. Sir Edwin dwelt upon the perfect form of Long- fellow's work. Whitman referred to his having had a visit from his New England friend in this very home and of the warm personal regard. Longfellow, he be- lieved, sang the time in which he lived, breathed its con- servative spirit, had placed us under obligations for what he had secured in the way of translation from the finest things in German, Italian and Scandinavian literature, was the poet of gentleness, as Byron was the poet of nature. Sir Edwin again invited Whitman to England. "Ah, my legs; look at my legs," he said with a half mournful smile. "Let me have a month of you, sir," said Arnold, "and take you out of these rooms, and submit you to the treatment of some of the skillful Japanese, who know the needs and anatomies of the human body. I would have you in the air, and again in the company of the sea, and you could take counsel with Tennyson and the others, who Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 99 may keep their years and their genius for a century." Then came a gentle upbraiding of Whitman for his se- clusion, rally and banter, which the poet received in a mild, serious, smiling, human way. When the time came to leave. Whitman took one of his books, and said: "Ar- nold, this is all I intend to say to the fellows on the other side. When you see them you will tell them it is all here." Sir Edwin asked him for his autograph and a line of remembrance. "How shall I write it?" said Whitman; "Sir Edwin?" "No, omit the Sir— from you let it be Edwin Arnold." Whitman slowly wrote the name and date in a clear, heavy-lined hand — and for a moment paused. "I don't think," he continued, "that I shall add any inscription. You know all I would say to you and to Tennyson and all the other fine fellows, who are so dear and kind to me. The inscription is inside. And when you see them all, you will give them my loving regards." As we took our leave, which was affectionate and cheerful, Sir Edwin in accepting the hand of the old man reverently kissed it, even as if it had been that of his sovereign and queen. Of the influence of Whitman upon the age, a word or two may not be out of place. Has he any message on higher themes? Is it paganism after all, paganism un- relieved even by the poetry and art of the pagan days? Let us see. Here is the future life accepted in some brave lines: Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death I should die now. Do you think I could walTc pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation ? I swear, I think there is nothing hut immortality j lOO Men and Memories. That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the neiulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it; And all preparation is for it, and identity is for it, and life and materials are altogether for it. In the prayer of Columbus, one of the most solemn of Whitman's writings, there is what might be regarded as a direct recognition of a God, as a form of personality to whom the sorrow-stricken and heavy-laden might come : Thou, God, my life has lighted. With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee. Light rare, untellable, lighting the very light. Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages; For that^ God, be it my latest word, her a on my hnees, Old, poor and paralyzed, I thanh Thee. My hands, my lips grow nerveless. My brain feels racked, bewildered. Let the old timber part^ I will not part, I will cling fast to Thee, God, though the waves buffet me. Thee, Thee at least I Icnow! The thought of the future life has even a more definite expression in some lines that Whitman must have written after his seventieth year: No thing is ever really lost, or can be lost. No birth, identity, form — no object of the world. Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing; Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain; Ample are time and space — ample the fields of Nature. Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. loi The body sluggish, aged, cold — the embers left from earl-> ier fires. The light in the eye grown dim — shall duly flame again; The sun now low in the west, rises for mornings and for noons continued; To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns. With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn. "Thanatopsis" could not be more comforting than the thought which underlies these fervent lines. At the same time Whitman keeps from formulas, dogmas and ab- struse theology. There is no teaching that seems to have influenced him more than the simple, spiritual doctrines of the Society of Friends. If I were to sum up his theology in a sentence, I would describe him as a Socrates immersed in Quakerism. There is always the coming back from the contemplation of spiritual to the Heaven that we make or unmake; to the divinity of love; to the sacredness of comradeship ; to what he might have learned from Confucius, and the earlier Chinese poems and anthologies; the supreme sovereignty of fatherhood. "Our father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name." Yes, yes, with reverence and humility let us breathe that prayer. But our father who art on earth, whom we have in our daily life, by the fireside and in the market place, is there no reverence for him? Or let Whitman express the thought in his own words and not in my paraphrase: Having studied the new and antique, the Greeh and Ger- manic systems. Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato, And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ Divine having studied long. Digitized by Microsoft® I02 Men and Memories, Yet underneath Socrates dearly see, and underneath Christ the Divine I see The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend. Of the well married hushand and wife, of children and parents^ of city for city and land for land. Home, friendship, love, patriotism — what else? In these few extracts, taken at random from the writings of Whitman, I have given the hest synopsis of what might be called the theology of this extraordinary man. Per- haps it will be found best summed up as foUows: Lover divine and perfect Comrade Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain — Be thou my God! Thou, thou, the Ideal Man, Fair, able, beautiful, content^ loving. Complete in body and dilate in spirit. Be thou my God! O, Death — for Life has served its turn, Vpener and usher to the heavenly mansion. Be thou my God! All great ideas, the races, aspirations, ill heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts. Be ye my Gods! Or Time and Space, Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous. Or some fair shape, I viewing, worship. Or lustrous orb of sun, or star by night. Be ye my Gods! Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 103 I am afraid the reader will find himself confronted with a strange philosophy. For a generation this Outlaw has roamed the forests of Literature a very Eobin Hood, keeping to his woods and streams, lawless, irretrievable, daring, seeking companionship and amenities in his own firm wayward soul. I know of no such figure in Litera- ture, nothing akin to it, unless perhaps Carlyle. And although Carlyle likewise went to his Craigenputtoch moors to be an Outlaw, a law unto himself, to war upon the generation, in time London sucked him in, and you saw him at routs, at the feet of Lady Ashburton and among the hero worshippers around mumbling, shuffling old Wellington. Whitman in literature is apart from the laws and conditions of man, and has lived by his own cross-bow. Of his seventeen thousand lines which I have striven faithfully to read, and many of them again and again, there is scarcely a stanza that does not pulsate with the very insolence of triumphant freedom. It is a magnificent monotone, the eternal Ego always; call it Democracy, call it En Masse, call it Walt Whitman, the Ego is always there. There are no tales, as in Dante or Chaucer. No appeals to the imagination, no romances, nothing but the Man, for whom the world was made, for whom were summer and roses and clover that he might "loaf and invite his soul," — the creation of this world expressly for Walt Whitman, in itself the most beneficent of the Providences. You look in vain for humor, for narrative interest, for harmonies or studied art in these wonderful lines. Out of the pages of Shakespeare what a multitude of men and women come with greetings and even with friendships. Milton gives life to the above and beyond. You take from Pope where has been preserved with the fidelity of the Pompeiian ashes the world in which he lived, Digitized by Microsoft® 104 Men and Memories. and see Betty with her patches, and my Lord on his morning stroll. What pageantry, what troops of knights and cavaliers, serfs and peasants and maidens high and lowly come from the luxuriant genius of Scott. The pirates, and the women proper and improper, of Byron, are creations. The pages of Whitman are as barren, so far as the creation of ideal persons is con- cerned, as some tumbled continent heaved out of space, before man was made. There is no invention — no por- trayals. Lincoln — yes, in a fashion, but Lincoln is some- thing between the radiance of a drooping star and lilacs in bloom — an influence, a memory, not a man, as Shake- speare drew in Csesar, or Victor Hugo in Cromwell. There are but two or three semblances of stories, the letter an- nouncing the dead soldier; and one of the most exquisite things in literature, the romance of the two feathered guests from Alabama — a mocking bird down in Long Island that lost its mate, and the distress of the boy mingling with the distress of the bereaved singer: — "But my mate no more — ^no more with me, we two together no more." Electricity, joy, purity, courage, health, laughter — these are the Outlaw's prophecies, which he sends us from the woods and streams. They are the outcome of this divine enfolding earth. There is no weakening in the strain, for no singer ever sang with a more incessant, resonant note. Give him Life, all the joys of life, life whose every moment a sensation. Give him Death, beau- tiful Death — Death in Life, Life in Death — it is the same in this strange philosophy. "Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it." And when life takes social form what higher expression than Democracy ? In all greatness, ^Wigl^J'i^f MPo%iW^ ^^^ich suffuses the Men and Memories. 105 world with glory, what do we see but En Masse, the Demos, Democracy. Lincoln was but a man, the wisest, sweetest soul of all his days and lands, but a man withal, "gentle, plain, just and resolute." What best he saw in Grant, as he walked with kings with even pace the round world's promenade, was that the prairie sovereigns of Illinois and Kansas walked with him and were "all so justified." The death of Garfield awakened only sob- bing bells and the heart beats of a nation in the night. Washington was but courage, alertness, patience and faith, and his monuments wherever we find Freedom poised by Toleration and swayed by Law. Of the mere men who had lived, the Napoleons and the Alexanders, the poet has nothing to say. I fancy an olive tree at the base of Mount Olympus, or a spreading chestnut dowering with its blossoms the woods of Pontainebleau, meant more to Whitman than the sovereigns who once reigned over them and aimed to conquer the world. Our Outlaw had no interest in the dramatic movement of life. This green earth with its multitudinous seas had other meanings, and is not to be given to any cata- logued groups of men. It belongs to Demos, to the Ego, to Democracy. God is good, and good is God. That he sings ! Man is the one supreme creation — ^the perfect man and the perfect woman the nearest approach to Divinity. In its passions, appetities, necessities, its every essential this body is divine and to be worshipped. Pa- ternity, maternity, the sacred laws of nature, should com- mand our devotion. Original sin and eternal punishment — the law of expiation — ^nay, even the thrilling law of salvation, — none of them, none of the old theologies, not even the Greek law of compensation. Yet under all an ever-flowing devotional spirit. Praised be God for life — praise for the splendid, silent sun; praise for mice and Digitized by Microsoft® io6 Men and Memories. squirrels sitting on their haunches; praise even for wal- nuts, and grains and for the roar of Broadway. There is no man who is not his brother ! The stricken, the blind, the fugitive from justice. Nor scrofula, nor leprosy, nor intemperance, nor the loathsome diseases of sin shall deprive that brother of the fraternal kiss. The good time is coming. Life is joy, and living an advance of civilization. The woman will come, — chaste, affectionate,, compassionate; the man will come, — beautiful, gigantic, sweet blooded, we shall have races of splendid and savage old men. Eaphael Sanzio, said a famous critic, was a greater artist than Claude Lorraine, but the world will see many a Eaphael before another Claude. So we shall see many Whittiers before we have another Whitman. Much that he has written will be forgotten. Many of his apostrophes will die away even as the waves upon the shore, living in the splash of the moment to break with the rush and roar of the sea. As in the diamond we rub and polish and cut — destroying the bulk for the splendor within — so Whitman will be rubbed and clipped and pinched, and much of what we read will pass into silence. But even as robbing the diamond of the accretions of the im- memorial ages reveals its august and thrilling beauty, so we are persuaded that of what this memorable man has written there is a great deal that those who come after us will not permit to die. I have known no manlier man. Prom those lips no lie has fallen. Prom those deep eyes only sympathy for his fellows. This was my thought as the other day Whitman gave me his kind farewell. This has been my thought as each returning morning brought tidings of hope and fear — of the strong man indeed with death. If it were to be farewell — then farewell ! With thanks and gratitude for what he has done, for the life of Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 107 reiiunciation ; for the chants of humanity; for poverty, proud and uncomplaining; for that courage and integrity which are the truest and most inspiriting of poems. For this, and for all, remembrance and gratitude, and again — Farewell ! We shall see a Eaphael before we see a Claude Lorraine. So shall we have many a messenger with music from infinite harmonies before we hear so over- mastering a singer of Democracy and Home; of the Dignity of Man and the Divinity of Love. I have reason to think that the following lines by Whit- man have never appeared in print. They were sent to Mr. Young marked, "personal," — "don't print." A PONT OF TTPB. latent mine! unlaunched voices! passionate powers^ all eligible. Wrath, argument, praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout, or love's caress, {Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer, merely,) Shores, oceans, roused to fury and to death. Or soothed to ease and sheeny sun, and sleep. Within these pallid slivers, waiting. — Walt Whitman. This short verse was also written for the Herald, and does not appear in his volume of poems: — BEOADVTAT. What hurrying human tides, or day or night! What passions, winnings, losses, ardors, swim thy waters! What whirls of evil, bliss, and sorrow stem thee! What curious questioning glances, — glints of love! Digitized by Microsoft® io8 Men and Memories. Leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration! Thou portal, — thou arena, — thou of the myriad long-drawn lines and groups! (Could hut thy flagstones, curbs, facades tell their in- imitable tales;) Thy windows, rich, and huge hotels, thy side-walks wide; Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet! Thou like the parti-colored world itself, — like Infinite, teeming, mocking life! Thou visor ed, vast, unspeakable show and lesson! — Walt Whitman. It may not be out of place to touch upon a little per- sonal incident in this connection. The name of Whit- man always brought up in our home circle, a quaint and humorous discussion. After a struggle with my own deficiency of appreciation of Whitman (except in a half dozen instances), I boldly declared against poetry that was not even good blank verse, to say nothing of the absence of all rhyme. Whereupon I was always fetched a volume of tender nursery jingle, or some nonsense from our "Early Lady Poets," and possibly before the day was out I would receive, in my own room from the "Den" upstairs a "hurried despatch," bearing every indication of importance, which, upon opening, might read: — "If you love me as I love you. No knife can cut our love in two," To the Lady who is "after" Whitman ! Nor will this humorous imitation of Whitman, written by Mr. Young during the awful blizzard of 1888, betray Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 109 any confidence, for it is here set down, from my own scrap- book, for the first time. To J. C. Personal and Affectionate! (Montana Blizzard, Manahatta, Month of Winds, 13, 1888.) Roaring imperial beauty, Julius; icieular, valvular, ■pant- ing, Dacotah blizzard, — Montana blizzard, tremulous, blizzard from the Buffalo Lands; Julius, weather prophet, stormy, accurate; Arctic in sun- shine, tropic amid snows; Herald-governing, salary-raising, ever accurate Julius, Lord of the cable, the wire, the thin, clammy type, mil- lions of whitened sheets; No bananas, nor oranges, nor feathery pines nor odorous pine cones; Nor mint juleps, fragrant with spices and fruits and hur- ried tumbling ice; But hyperborean night, sombre, deadening night; 0, Julius with the weather-prophet eye! (After) Walt Whitman. (24 hours). TEIBUNE DATS. The following sketch of Jno. Eussell Young, at the beginning of his Tribune career, is from the pen of an old friend, and colleague, Geo. 0. Seilhamer: — "Never was the truism that journalism is a calling for young men, better illustrated than in the case of John Russell Young. Even the younger Pitt, as Prime Min- ister of England at the age of 23, had not greater re- eponsibilities or power than the boy editor at the man- Digitized by Microsoft® no Men and Memories. ager's desk in the Tribune office. Althougli Mr. Greeley was still in the plenitude of his intellectual vigor, Mr. Young was practically supreme in the direction of the paper. This supremacy applied not only to the news management of the Tribune, but to the organization of its staff and the control of its politics. A boy he was almost in years, but a man in experience, ripe in judg- ment and acute in his knowledge of men. I have often wondered whether his almost unerring prescience in the selection of particular men for particular tasks was in- tuition or whether it was an acquired art that came with his own development as a newspaper worker under the guiding hand of Col. Forney and the apprecia-tive en- couragement of Dr. Shelton Mackenzie. In his Tribune days Mr. Young was of slight and boyish figure, but his face was marked by a sedateness beyond his years. It was a face that in repose showed the intellectual power of maturity. As he went in and out among the Tribune men of that time, old and young — almost all of us older in years than he — ^he never created the impression of youthfulness that in most men at his time of life would have impaired their authority. When he took charge of the paper in 1866 its working force sadly needed the infusion of new blood. Without any violent displacements of the older men a younger ele- ment was introduced that was in effect new wine in the old bottle. A number of these new men were from Phil- adelphia — ^none of them famous, but all of them news- paper workers of unusual gifts and perfect training, but it was not true that Philadelphia received any undue favors. Smalley, a New England man, was sent to Lon- don to organize the European service. Clement, for many years the editor of the Boston Transcript, and White, afterwards the Washington correspondent under Whitelaw Digitized by Microsoft® (Men and Memories. iii ^id's^management^were, like myself, accepted without any favoritism except that of opportunity. Amos Cum- mings, now the Hon. Amos J. Cummings, of New York, was promoted. The same thing was true of J. E. G. Hassard, an exceedingly graceful writer and cultivated gentleman. Of the Philadelphians there were only four who were Mr. Young's personal selections — John D. Stockton, a lovable man and a writer of rare gifts; Kane O'Donnell, a Girard College boy and a born critic of music and art; James McConnell and James Eankin Young. The influence of a temperament like Mr. Young's, serious but not severe, sympathetic when the occasion called for it, and appreciative when opportunity offered, was a spur to intellectual effort in every part of tho activities that he directed as if with the wand of a magi' eian. He was one of the few men that I have known to whom jealousy of his instruments was impossible. He never failed to commend a successful article because it was too brilliant — he never praised an article when it was not brilliant enough. For these reasons his letters of commendation were scarcely less prized when they came without than when they came with an extra check enclosed with them. Even before I obtained one of the coveted missives I knew the standard it was necessary to reach in order to get one and I knew that one was coming when the article that brought it was only begun. I felt that I had touched the right chord, and I was not disappointed. In these relations to his fellow craftsmen Mr. Young's position was peculiar and exceptional. I never knew a similar relationship to exist in the case of any other journalist, and it only ceased when his sympathetic heart stopped beating. In my own case a tie was recognized by both of us in the unbroken friendship of a lifetime." Digitized by Microsoft® 112 Men and Memories. Mr. Young's various changes in the Tribune, at the time of his appointment, were strongly endorsed by Greeley as the correspondence shows; and as the many '^eade^s," by the young editor began to attract atten- tion, Greeley was often congratulated as being the author. The personal relationship also grew to be of the most intimate order; and as the years went on seems to have been almost like that of a father and son. Of Horace Greeley Mr. Young writes: — HOEACB GEEELET. Horace Greeley was a leader. To him journalism was not merely a vocation, an honorable means of earning daily bread, but a profession. He gave his newspaper, in calling it The Tribune^ a self-conscience name. Ben- nett was content with the busy, noisy office of a herald; Greeley had something to say and must say it. The sell- ing of news and narrative and literary criticisms, the im- parting of precious truths upon deep ploughing and en- silage, — these, indeed, were grateful offices, but disputa- tion was the higher duty of man. So during the busy years of his life from the early thirties when he was in the New YorJcer and the Log Cabin, until the sad un- necessary end in 1873, Greeley was ever in argument. His moral aims were high. This was an atrocious world — that he knew very well. It was permeated with Demo- crats, and free traders, and idle folks given to drink! There were evil men and evil women; but that was no reason for giving it over to fire. It should be converted. There should be regeneration through the spirit of daily reproof and objurgation. Greeley labored with the world to better it, to give men moderate wages and wholesome food, and to teach women to earn their own living, and Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 113 that it -was better that they should learn how to make shoes than to play on the piano. Greeley inherited from his Scotch-Irish ancestors plain- ness of speech. "I can/' he used to say, "write better slang than any editor in America." He knew the value of words. The traditions called him profane, and nowadays one rarely hears a story of Greeley which does not turn upon some quaint archaic use of an improper phrase. Yet he was far from being profane — ^was pure-minded, and chaste in speech, as a daily intercourse of years en- ables me to testify. He was impatient of ignorance or frivolity. He had a complaining way, generally amus- ing from its quaintness, apt to become petulance if any- thing teased. He had the capacity of spontaneous aver- sion — formed opinions of people by a kind of second sight. I knew one noted man whom he disliked, as well as I could make out, for no other reason than the color of the hair. He never forgave another for being a college graduate. Life and its employments were an earnest purpose; there should be no trifling by the wayside, no lolling over vanities, no giving way to meretricious appetites; and therefore the greatest of crimes was drink. A man's troth was sacred; it was the human expression of a divine attribute; and therefore, next to drink there was no crime so great as marriage infidelity. His dislike to tobacco, as to wine, was an indication of personal discomfort. There was no virtue quite as desirable as thrift, and thrift was best served by small salaries. The material happiness of mankind was a care. The Jersey marshes that stretch from Hoboken to Newark dis- tressed him. "Is there no way — are there no lessons in the economic conditions of Holland to teach us how to reclaim these wasted square miles of marsh and over- flow, and make th.&i§itiii§i%ym§imM homes?" This was 114 M^" ^^^ Memories. a frequent inquiry. His dislike of slavery, when you sifted it down, was rather an earnest of sympathy with the white man who was undersold in his labor than senti- ment for the negro. The anti-slavery atmosphere surrounding the Tribune was not inspired by Greeley. It really came from the gifted young men who were attracted to the Tribune be- cause of its independence and high literary standard. Greeley was generous to honest well-meaning thought, whether he accepted it or not, and he was a purist as to form. So in time, beginning with the advent of Eipley escaped from the ruins of his Brook Farm — or as Carlyle, if I remember, called it. Potato Gospel — experiment, until the coming of Sidney Howard Gay, who had been Gar- rison's co-laborer' in anti-slavery, the Tribune in spite of Greeley — rather by reluctant, grumbling acquiescence than his judgment — ^was governed by men who had a fanatical aversion to slavery. They were resolute, brilliant, capable, irresponsible, intolerant — not above setting things on fire for the fun of seeing them bum. They attracted Greeley by their sincerity, and charmed his keen literary sense with their gifts. They won the Tribune and carried its editor with them. I fancy the attitude of Greeley toward the Tribune in the early days was a blending of wondering admiration and despair — something of the feeling with which, as we read in children's story books, the ailectionate mother then sees that her chickens are, after all her brooding cares, ducks, and will go quacking into the streams. I can conceive no ^ider divergence in intellectual opinion as to the means of obtaining moral and political results than between Mr. Greeley as a leader and thinker, and the wayward forces which surrounded him in the Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 115 making of the Tribune. "1 never," he once said to the writer, "opened the Tribune in those days without a terror as to what they might make me say after 11 o'clock at night." Greeley was loyal to his journal. Consistency was the corner stone of its credit. He governed it as the wise ruler governs a state, — not according to his predilections, but by precept. Once a policy was laid down, and the course marked, he stood by it. He never fettered those who took his place, with contingent instructions. They must act according to their light. He might, therefore, walk the deck, his heart heavy and wrathful, but the vessel headed, so must she go, until there could be some reason to be justified toward men for the course being changed. I remember his narrative of the Somers mutiny, the hanging of Midshipman Spencer, son of a cabinet ofiBcial, and with a boy's craze to be a pirate on the Spanish Main, and the excitement when Commander Mackenzie returned. Greeley was away, and young Eay- mond in command. Eaymond, swift, instant, bold, swung out the Tribune irretrievably upon the side which hap- pened to be the reverse of Greeley's views. Intensely as Greeley felt about it, — for he was intense in everything — ^he would not change the Tribune nor ex- plain. Eaymond might be headstrong, impetuous young- ster and the Tribune wrong, but right or wrong, it must be consistent. In this apparent inconsistency was pro- found wisdom. It was the courage of genius. The Tribune must have character. It could afford to make a mistake; it could not afford to be a trimmer or time- server. The Somers incident is remembered as a tradi- tion told by Mr. Greeley himself. I recall another in- stance even more remarkable. When President John- son's administratiog. ^|^ga]lj^„^eg|me (as stem Eepub- ii6 Men and Memories. licans viewed it), that of a Christopher Sly iu the White House, Greeley, not without impatience, came to see it in the same light. He believed, however, that it was good politics to let Johnson alone. "All that Andy wants," he would say, "is rope enough and time enough, and he will save us trouble." The Tribune was rather in this temper when Greeley went ofiE to lecture in some out-of- the-way region, — ^no telegraph, no communication. Sud- denly Stanton was removed, and the issue with Congress came, as if a dynamite bomb had been thrown from the White House into the arena before the Speaker's chair. The party arose in passion, and the answer was "Impeach- ment." The Tribune led the way. "Impeachment is Peace," it cried, and there was a session of turbulent public opinion which recalled the seething days of the French Eevolution. The Tribune leaped and bounded. The circulation swept onwards. There was joy in the exchequer. Greeley returned in grief from the Minnesota woods. He did not believe in impeachment, "Why hang a man who is bent on hanging himself?" "Hadn't Andy the requisite rope, and was he not making the best use of that rope toward a welcome ignominious end ? And why should Elihu Washburne and Ashley of Ohio, and Thad. Stevens in- sist upon transforming a case of desirable suicide into one of undesirable martyrdom? And, moreover, was it not perilous — ^was it not even flying in the face of God and defying the warnings of history — to introduce these crazy reprehensible French methods into a composed American legislature?" As I have since read in the narrative of Mr. Blaine and the Memoirs of Grant, these leaders came in time to the same opinion. Blaine and Grant favored impeachment when in vogue, but were grateful upon reflection, tha^t^a^^f^led.^ Jheir maturer thought Men and Memories, 117 was that of Greeley at the moment. Grave and earnest were his lamentations as he returned to the deck of the Tribune to find his ship surging ahead in the mad Im- peachment seas. As in the Somers mutiny, however, Greeley was loyal to the Tribune. He never changed its course. Only those in his confidence knew how he grieved over that precipitate venture. Under similar circumstances, the elder Bennett would have dismissed the staff, dictated three or four historical leaders, fraught with allusions to Julius Cassar, a dozen cynical mirth-provoking squibs, and steered the paper into line with his own thought. Mr. Eaymond would have written a series of misty philosophical articles and persuaded his readers to go about with him. But with Greeley the Tribune had spoken. Moreover, it had spoken the voice of the party, — the deep, angry, perhaps rash voice; but it had spoken. He saw the material gain, the bounding circulation, the smiles of his chancellor of the exchequer, but, as in the case of the bailing of Jefferson Davis, had he been at home, and in command, it would not have weighed a feather against the higher voice of his conscience. The signing of the bail bond of Jefferson Davis was an act of moral courage characteristic of this extraordinary man. When it became known to a few of those near him that Mr. Greeley meant to visit Eichmond and enter into recognizances for the appearance of Mr. Davis to answer the charge of treason, there was sore dismay. The night before leaving he came into my room, and, other matters out of the way, talked about it. He was impatient over the dissonance of friends to whom he had spoken, for it wa^ not in his nature to endure dissent, or to be reasoned with when he had made up his mind. He recited their arguments. The Tribune was never more prosperous, and that would Digitized by Microsoft® ii8 Men and Memories. be injured. There were the soldiers who subscribed to the Weekly Tribune, keeping it up in the hundred thou- sands, and who had not tired of singing about "hanging JefE. Davis on a sour apple tree." They would desert his standard. There was "The American Conflict," — ^his two-volume war-book, with its enormous sale, from which, for the first time in his life he had the assurance of a good deal of money. There was his canvass for the United States Senate, the consummation of that, assuredly in sight. Here were three distinct reasons, any one of which would have disturbed the Judgment of an ordinary man, and each crying in trumpet-tongue against the proposed sacrifice. Greeley, however, had thought it over. Mr. Davis would be bailed, whether he signed the bond or not. That he knew. They might assign whatever motive they pleased. There was a duty, — ^that of stilling the after storms of this horrible war, of giving the Southern people an earnest of one Eepubliean's desire for fraternity. The seas might rise, or the mountains fall, or the incumbent heavens compass him about, but he was going to Eich- mond. And he went! It came to pass as was feared. The WeeTcly Tribune received a staggering blow. Thousands abandoned it in anger. The sale of the "American Conflict" ceased, and never recovered. The canvass for the Senate, — a canvass, as it seemed, with every certainty of success, — ^went down into darkness; and even the Union League of New York was summoned to protest against a fellow member bail- ing the Confederate chief. The losses to Mr. Greeley in money, newspaper hopes, and revenues, and the consum- mation of a proud ambition, dear as the ruddiest impulse of his heart, were immeasurable. He had counted them. He knew the temper he braved, the resentments he awak- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 119 ened, the force of Eepubliean anger, but he went his way as Luther of old, smiling and brave. Those of us be- hind the scenes, saw the sublimity of this self-renunciation. We might question its necessity, its timeliness, but it was the act of a patriot who felt that the dearest of his life were as nothing when the country could be served. Horace Greeley once said to me that he pined for the hour when he could go and lose himself in the vast soli- tudes of London. The fame of Mr. Greeley and his picturesque striking personal traits, denied him any soli- tude in the United States, other than what came from personal isolation. A man who could never stroll up Broadway without being stared at as a freak or a scare- crow, might well yearn for the independence of Pall Mall. Of the various friendships, which began during the Tribune days, many evidences endure of their strength and fidelity to the end of life; and where Mr. Young sur- vived such ties, he wrote many gracious words, that speak their "love and friending." Charming letters, too, re- main as silent witnesses of cordial relations, — and humorous incidents and jokes that have passed into tradi- tions. It was with the most affectionate admiration that he always spoke of Alice and Phcebe Gary, the talented nieces of Horace Greeley; and two of the most attractive forces in that coterie of brilliant writers who made up the literary circle of the day. I recall how tenderly Mr. Young described the frail appearance of Alice, who through long years of invalid- ism, bravely kept in touch with the world, and regularly held her Sunday afternoon "receptions," where one was sure to meet the most distinguished strangers, or local celebrities, and from which Greeley himself was never. Willingly, absent. Jov^ta^^oi^.to J^ "Sunday Teas" were 120 Men and Memories. eagerly sought, and Mr. Young was wont to compare the simple household, over which these gracious women pre- sided, and the clever company gathered there, to the simi- larly unpretentious home of Huxley, just out of London, where on Sundays during the "season" the crowded little drawing-room held the choicest and latest in the world of letters, politics, drama or art. The following half bantering little note from Alice Gary is one of the few signed with her full name, a rare occurrence, for her initials, A. C, were almost invariably used. 53 East 20th St., Wednesday. My dear John Russell: — I have put off my tea hour till seven all for your sake, or rather, for the sake of your company; so pray, don't put me off much longer. . . . About that euchre, I have been obliged to say "Faith- less," "faithless," and "he cometh not," she said. MY BOY JOHN. "He that went to sea, — What care I for the ship^ sailor? My hoy's my toy to me! Why should 1 speak low, sailor. About my own boy, John, If I was as loud as I am proud, I'd sing him over the town!" And now, pray, why didn't you come to euchre? What care I for the Tribune? I want to play euchre! Now "sailor of the sea," didn't you get my letter? Alice Caky. DICKENS. It was during Tribune days, in 1867, that Charles Dickens made his ^m§di}4^Mo^ United States. Of Men and Memories. 121 that event, and his subsequent friendship with Dickens, Mr. Young wrote a few years since, the following article: CHARLES DICKENS AS I KNEW HIM. I have been reading in a recent number of the New York Times a narrative of Eichard B. Kimball, author of "St. Leger," to whom our literature is indebted for so much that is useful, of the two visits of Dickens to the United States, — that is to say, in 1843 and in 1867-8. In regard to the second visit, Mr. Kimball writes without that fulness of information requisite to the entire value of his narrative. I saw much of Mr. Dickens when in the United States, — was his friend and became somewhat in correspondence with him. He rests with me as a mem- orable figure. What Mr. Kimball has so gracefully written may justify me in recalling some memories of the man as I saw and knew him. It was one snowy Saturday afternoon in December, 1867, as I place the date, when I found myself in the dingy editorial rooms of the Tribune, under engage- ment to dine with Horace Greeley. He had letters to write and I was to await his leisure. T!here were no Sunday newspapers in those days, and the editorial rooms were deserted. Greeley in a small ante-room writing, nothing better to do than to pace up and down in front of the worn desks of Eipley, Bayard Taylor, Winter and Clarence Cook, look out upon the snow and watch the falling in of the night. A desolate, sobbing day; all nature under drifts of the ghastly deadening snow; the park as bleak as a bit of Nova Zembla. Mr. Greeley's own invaluable Dennis, drowsing in the corner in attend- ance, awaiting to take the mail, brought me word that a person below named Dickinson desired to see me. I had Digitized by Microsoft® 122 Men and Memories. a profuse knowledge of Dickinson; recall him as an en- thusiast in patents; had several machines with a vital money-evolving principle, which had only to go, to make the world go with it, when he would build colleges, and in other ways elevate and bless mankind. There was, how- ever, a conspiracy to rob him, and the only way to defeat it was by elaborate expositions in the press. Dickinson was a weary, dreary, cheerful, sanguine soul, whom I had avoided with assiduity. So when his name was given, my impulse was to ask Dennis to rid me of him, with as little burden to his conscience as possible. The afternoon, however, was shuddering in its dreariness — skies dark as despair — and perhaps poor, sanguine, cheerful Dickinson had a new idea, and anyhow it would be a kindness to see him. Moreover, Greeley was scratching away, and no knowing how long that process would run, and time had to go, and better the Dickinson enthusiasm than being alone with the sombre night. In a few moments up the stairs and out of the shadows came a furred figure, sprinkled with snowflakes; ruddy, teeming cheeks glisten- ing with snow, which whitened a full and already frosty beard. A very Kris Kringle stepped out of his sleigh, who shook hands in the clasped, hearty American fashion, as his companion, Osgood of Boston, famous bookseller then as now, introduced him as, — CHARLES dickens! I was living at the time in bachelor quarters on Irving Place, Mr. Greeley likewise with chambers in there, and Dickens at the Westminster a few doors above. The next morning, while shoveling together some newspaper work and arranging for the day, Dickens came in with hardly the formality of a card — came in, as it seemed, almost Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories, 123 tumbling over the maid servant who announced him. He had only heard — ^how jolly — had only heard from Palmer, friend of both (his hotel keeper), that Mr. Greeley lived so near. We could be neighborly, and all that ! He was so sorry to hear that Greeley had gone to his country place, as he wanted to say to him — he was not sure he had said with due emphasis the night before, but it was something that he must say — how grateful he was for the very great kindness the Tribune had done him, — how much he ap- preciated it and how much it had to do with his coming. And this Greeley should know, and I should know, and he could not be at peace until it was well understood. I have tried to recall the special incident which had im- pressed Dickens, and to which I owed a valued and memorable friendship. I believe some foolish story, dis- paraging his motives in coming to this country, that they were vulgar and mercenary, had floated over. Picked up in some London coffee room, some foolish truculent im- agination had magnified it to the chagrin of Dickens, and the Tribune had set it right. I remember Fields, of Bos- ton coming one afternoon in a mood of dismay, with a cable or a letter from Dickens, then in London — cable, I think — to the effect that the story was despicable, and must be stamped out. It was a pleasure and a duty so to do; would have been done for one less estimable than Dickens. However, he must come and say how deeply the incident had impressed him, and how handsomely Greeley had behaved. It was a long call ! Dickens, with many apologies for breaking in, would run away if I gave a hint, for he knew the value of Time. If I gave a hint! This royal visitor from the land of romance, the master and king, his presence making the atmosphere sovereign. If I gave a hint! The eager, joyous man, with those fine, gleam- Digitized by Microsoft® 124 Men and Memories. ing eyes, and how he tossed at once into journalism, had had deplorable days at it, could not endure the day in and day out never ending grind, asked me a hundred ques- tions about journalism in New York. They were direct, leading, thorough, — questions about pay, the division of labor, the powers of the editor, our relations with public men and afEairs, and all that pertained to the inside economics and ethics of the press. If I knew aught of Journalism which was not bestowed upon Dickens the fault did not rest with him. The effect of the war upon journalism interested him, the white paper problem and the imminence of the cable. He saw with his discerning eyes what the cable meant. "Farewell to the adjectives," I said. "Yes," he replied, "to the adjectives and ad- verbs and all the horticulture of newspaper genius." The relations of the editor to the business departments were strange, and especially when I said that I could not see how such a relation as that of Delane to the Times would be permitted in the New York press. "Ah!" he said, "your newspapers are properties. Ours are institutions. The editor, as we understand him, with his royal attributes and powers, will come to you with time, as many other things will come. There can be no real editor without it, and no true journalism where the editorial prerogatives are impaired." I must tell him, too, about our report of his first read- ing in Boston. How could it have possibly been done., Straggling, ragged, rubbishy, hysterical, jerked narratives in other papers, and here a perfect essay, written with the grace and finish of Addison. And yet it was late before he had finished his reading, and this must have been telegraphed to New York, hundreds of miles away. The report to which Dickens referred, and at the time a memorable newspaper event, would be quite an obvious Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 125 incident now, and hardly worth the telling except to note the advance in journalism. When Dickens came to Bos- ton it seemed that the one only thing that could be done was to report his first night in a manner worthy of his genius and his fame. I took counsel with Clarence Cook, then as now one of the most accomplished and graceful writers in American journalism, and laid my purpose before him. That he must hear the reading, that he must absorb the color and incident, and going to the telegraph write it with all the care and style possible, even marking where the paragraphs belonged, and aim in the whole narrative for striking, finished rhetorical effect. This was the time when telegraph tolls were dear and condensation was the rule. Cook accepted the mission, and that done there should be absolute secrecy. Once it was known that a writer of his eminence were to do the work, and other writers would be sent from our rivals, and there would be a competition of rhetoric. My hope was that the first Dickens night in Boston would be treated by our rivals as an ordinary news reporter incident, a street affray or an elopement. I am afraid that to encourage that hope one of the most indifferent of our police news reporters was sent to Boston with some show of ostentation, at least there was no instruction that his mission should not be the theme of the nearest beer saloon. Cook went to Boston. No one knew of his errand but myself. His despatch was, of course, the only one used. I remember it as a masterpiece of brilliant composition, so far be- yond any other report that comparison" was useless. In this idle, little story, Dickens was profoundly interested, said that the journalism of England could not have sur- passed the story of Mr. Cook, and it was not alone be- cause of the compliment to himself, but as a step forward in journalism that he valued it. "If we only knew how Digitized by Microsoft® 126 Men and Memories, narrow the distance between the good and bad in our craft," he said, "and that the one is almost as easy as .the other — if we only knew it." This was the first of what were to be many meetings with Dickens, and how clearly it stands before me. The hearty, easy, direct, spontaneous, cheery man, with those sovereign, searching eyes. Yet, somehow it was a disap- pointment. There was something about Dickens that I did not like; that deterred me, as it were. His genius I had held in sovereign reverence. How much he had been to my life, as he had been to so many millions in those innocent believing days. No spirit from the infinite reaches of our love and hopes and dreams, not even Byron, or Shakespeare, or Bums, could have been more welcome. And here, even here, in my chamber — to look into the eyes that had seen Agnes and Micawber and Little Nell — to hear the very tones of his voice that had given the world so many precious lessons of joy and hope. Why the very gods were dowering me with Olympian splendor. In soul I long had worshipped Dickens, and if I could have made worship then and there, it would have come from my soul. But somehow I did not like Dickens. Here he was, but where were the illusions? Can the fancy never be satisfied? Are our idols ever to have the feet of clay, and men never to be what they seem? What was it? Something awkward, unnatural. Could it be that certain condescension of the foreigner toward Amer- icans about which Mr. Lowell has written an essay? There was no want of heartiness nor tact, nor came there between us any point of controversy. He seemed rest- less, artificial, like one on his guard; began his sentences as though he had been waiting a cue; was acting rather than talking. There was an impression of showiness, and the thought came over me, how much more agreeable the Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 127 man would be if one could only see the man. There wa« now and then what seemed to be an effort to adapt himself to circumstances, to be entirely agreeable, to seek themes that would interest or please me, so that instead of being spoken to, as man to man, I began to feel as if I were being caressed, soothed, being put quite at my ease. I dwell upon this strange impression, because it is a part of my memory of Dickens, and because it was so soon to pass away. I spoke to Greeley of it when we met in the evening, and I gave him the various messages of Dickens, spoke perhaps with disappointment, as I recall Greeley's remark, that such a manner was almost in- separable from such a fame. "This having to live ever in full dress," he said, "plays the devil with one's deeper and better personality." It was soon to pass away, and I came to know Dickens as the most natural of men, sim- ple, direct, straightforward, with the very gaiety of genius. Among the messages which Dickens left was that Greeley and I should come and dine with him at his rooms, the next evening. When we arrived we saw there had been some mistake. Dickens had named one hour for the din- ner and ordered it for an earlier hour, and we found in his manner the dismay which comes with the consciousness of cooling soup. There was the hour noted in a pencil scrawl by Dickens himself. How well I recall his laugh- ing self-condemnation, his walking across the room and striking the table to make his remark more emphatic. "It is always a mistake to give a friend a verbal invita- tion and not confirm it with a written note confirming time, day, place, hour and minute. Then there can be no mistake. I always do it in London ; always insist upon friends doing it, and then "you are sure to be right." Boythorn himself could not have been more amusingly- Digitized by Microsoft® 128 Men and Memories. boisterous as he arraigned himself for this neglected duty and laughingly pointed us to our seats. I could write of many meetings, but one evening, when we had been at Delmonico's with Greeley and two or three friends, and together walked home. There was just a film of snow and in the air a keen invitation for a walk, a challenge I was never loath to accept. Dickens lingered a minute at the door of his hotel. It was so fine a night, even with the melting streets and the snowy clouds, that it was a sin not to do it honor. So out and around Gramercy Park and toward Third Avenue — "Your Tot- tenham Court road," as he called it. I do not know how far we walked, recall ourselves near the far end of the park, and looking sharply to see that we were on our way. He spoke of his books with simplicity ; like "Copperfield," could hardly understand my enthusiasm over "Bleak House," wished I had seen more in the "Tale of Two Cities," to which he had given his best work. However, I had not then been in France, and I would comprehend what he was striving to say when I saw France. I was to see France, indeed, and to know the truth of the master's own criticism. Dickens craved all I knew of Lincoln, said Carpenter's book on Lincoln had taken a night from him, and that there was something weird about Lincoln — a fascination. He had met Stanton and admired his strength, and told me that the Secretary could repeat pages from his works. I recalled what Stanton had once told me, that during the war, when he was harried and worn with his super- human struggles, his invariable source of comfort was Arthur Helps' "Friend in Council." "What Helps?" ex- claimed Dickens. And this I had to repeat to him, until it was fixed in his mind so that Helps might hear of it — "there being," he said, "no truer man in England." I Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 129 was coy about Thackeray, and cannot recall any opinion from Dickens as to his rival. He seemed to dwell upon Irving and Poe among American authors; was disap- pointed when I referred to Irving as the genius of his own generation, rather dimming under new conditions. Dick- ens could not see how we should rise above the high-water mark of the genius of Irving. The compliments paid by Dickens to American authors seemed as if given rather in a general spirit of compliment, with no attempt at analy- sis or criticism. He doubted if there were any more growth in Poe, fearing that years with conservatism would have dwarfed rather than developed his genius. People, however, he thought, could not very well write books and plant trees, and no critic, however severe, should be im- patient with America. I am afraid it was in a sense disappointing that Dick- ens did not share in some of my own foolish literary en- thusiasms. He was quick with sketching outlines of who- ever came into our talk — Tennyson, Moore, Browning, Shelley, Wordsworth and the rest. Bach one limned as alone the master could do it. When I came to inspect my company of heroes, as retouched by Dickens, they did not seem improved. There was scarcely a remembrance or an estimate that did not have what I may call a sting. "Yes, yes, quite so — but," and with the "but" would come anec- dote, phrase, epithet or comment — ^brilliant, grotesque, ir- resistibly amusing. So my poor heroes had little good, in my eyes, from the Dickens touch. Illusions vanished. Harmonies became discords. The gods wore wooden shoes after all. We could hear the patter of their feet and their garments were not sound. The judgments were those of a just and true man. I have never questioned them. Over against my modest Pantheon the Dickens decrees must rest, never to be disturbed bv. any appellate tribunal. 130 Men and Memories. A notable exception was Carlyle, and especially Mrs. Carlyle. "Carlyle, yes— but Mrs. Carlyle !" he would say. "Old Carlyle," he said ; "what a man. I was reading the Trial shortly before I left London, and while doing the Buzfuz speech became conscious of peal after peal of laugh- ter, that seemed to come from some cavern below the stage. It was so noticeable that people in the audience began to laugh likewise. I could not make out the source, but in the course of the declamation managed to edge toward the end of the platform. There, sure enough, on the first bench was old Carlyle, head bent and wagging, laughing peal upon peal, and muttering, 'Buzfuz, Buzfuz, oh, Buz- fuz.' It was by the severest restraint that I coidd keep from laughing, too, and brealring down in my work." Of Carlyle, Dickens never spoke but with tenderness, enthu- siasm and affection, and of Mrs. Carlyle as among the most gifted women he had ever known. I have heard famous talkers, — Greeley when in vehe- ment mood; Grant when among his friends, say at one in the morning; Conkling, with a grievance, Bismarck, Bea- consfield, — ^have been under the spell of perhaps the most exquisite of all, even the silvery spell of Wendell Phillips; have talked with Tribune Smalley and Gen. Sher- man, Eobert IngersoU and Henry George, but the talk of Dickens was unique, an art in itself. The supreme dramatic power, dramatic expression in repose, as in Wen- dell Phillips; his way of settling himself in the chair as his narrative proceeded, head rather bent forward, the eye archly turned upon you, partly sidewise, glancing with its ascending look, as if studying the effect. This is as I re- call him. A Dickens story was ever finished and minute. Occasionally an effort at mimicry, as when I heard him once describe Carlyle's unconscious self-communing, de- scription in the broadest Scotch, of some other one at the Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 131 table, as "a puir, feckless creature," but not as a general thing mimetic. N"o contrasts or surprises, or odd fancies so often summoned for conversational effect. Yet at times the humor of the man would stream, and picture after picture would be thrown at you, as though he were some wandering silhouette artist at a county fair. One occa- sion, for instance, when he had returned from Phila- delphia and we met at dinner, a handful of Philadelphians, whom I knew, and about whom I made friendly inquiry, were each one sketched in an airy, bantering way. Mr. Childs, among others, a graceful etching, reminding Dick- ens, as he stood at his carriage, of one of his characters in his books — ^name escaped me; a quizzical sketch of Du- Chaillu, somehow his heart going out to the gorillas as he approached the famous explorer ; the boys that would trail after Tennyson, as if ever bgys were bom that could help trailing after such a cloak and hat — an invitation to boys quite irresistible in its way; a solemn quizzing of Sum- ner, whom he admired, yet as if he were afraid he would surprise himself when he was with the Senator and for- get to be solemn ; little bits of portraiture, vivid, acute, as though drawn upon the thumb-nail, would flutter out of his talk, and keep alive your wonder at the incessant genius. "Shakespeare with some threads of the negro minstrel running through him," as Shelton Mackenzie said to me of Dickens in an impatient mood, endeavoring to forget, I fancy, some frailty in the way of recognition on the part of Dickens in London. A tendency to showiness, personal decoration, scarfs and pins, and other bits of innocent adornment. This, I presume, is what Mackenzie meant; and although I could see no reason for the criticism in ITew York — as I have read of no reason why it should have applied in London — yet Dickens, as I knew him, might Digitized by Microsofm 132 Men and Memories. be called a somewhat over-dressed man. In this, however, he had preserved what we read of the manners of Bulwer, Disraeli and the brilliant young bucks who came after Alvanley, Brummel and Byron. If there was an exu- berant tone in Dickens it belonged to his nature. If we are never older than we feel, as I have read in the pages of some consoling French philosopher, Dickens was a young man, even at fifty-six, when I knew him. I should eay among the youngest of my friends. His face seemed free from care. Sorrow had kneaded no lines around those radiant eyes. A very living human man, amenable to comforts, putting aside, at least not without inquiry, whatever the world might bring him in the way of sensa- tion and experience; a hearty, wholesome man, who as he came swinging into your room seemed redolent with life; to have exacted tribute from nature whatever her mood; and if he could not bring the scents of the clover field, to reek with the fallen rain or the stem blustering winds. I had a good deal to do with the famous dinner to Dick- ens, now recorded in his works; found myself in a sea of trouble before I was well out of it. Some of us, the work- ing press people, met one day at the Park Hotel to talk it over. The thing to do was to dine Dickens. Assuredly, but would he come ? Among my fellows in a small way an authority upon Dickens, knowing him at all events, when appealed to was compelled to say that I did not believe he would come. His one refrain when we had met, that he was in America for reading work, and all else must give way. An occasional dinner, under the rose, as it were, to Greeley or some definite favored one, — well, that would not count. As working newspaper men, in presence of a working newspaper man whom we would honor, there would be no harm in asking him to dine. The invitation went from Croly in^^g^^-^P^igJ^ns was not only will- Men and Memories. 133 ing, but eager. It was the one invitation that he could and would accept — only let the dinner be on the eve of his going away ! And thus it fell, that on the Saturday night preceding his departure, he dined with his newspaper friends at Delmonico's, on Fourteenth street, no banquet in my remembrance more notable and brilliant. I was chairman of the committee that arranged the din- ner. Charles E. Wilbour was a member. Wilbour, then a Tribune shareholder, and spasmodic writer — a thorough, scholarly man, who had won fame as the translator of "Les Miserables," and was to go off into the fascinations of Egyptology, and to become a professor of hieroglyphics on the Nile — where I vainly tried to find him some months ago. D. G. Croly, manager of the World, a quaint man of genius, striving ever in a whirlpool of ideas ; kind, ap- preciative, angular, with strange formulas of governing mankind upon some Ollendorff plan of learning the phi- losophies in six easy lessons. Sheppard, of the Times, a steady headed Canadian, then right hand to Eaymond, and for a small space to succeed him, long vanished from jour- nalism in New York into railroads and measurable af- fluence in London. Amos J. Cummings, I think, then journalist, now shining with political splendor as a kind of Tammany magnate and Congressman, completed the com- mittee. About Cummings I am not sure. We resolved that it should be a dinner worthy of Dick- ens, and representative of whatever was clever and good in our calling. Upon that there was instant agreement, and we went about it in a severe, unrelenting way. I shall, I presume, never know, until I have access in the eternities to the books of Time, the enemies I made as Chairman of that Committee in repressing young ambition and sup- pressing rising talent that would shine and astonish Dick- ens, No Eobespierre — Carnot, Kevolutionary Committee Digitized by Microsoft® 134 ^^^"^ ^"^ Memories. of Safety was more implacable in the resolution to sup- press the self-glorification that the occasion would awaken. Who should preside? Who but William Cullen Bryant? Of the host of those who had known and welcomed Dickens when he came in 1842, Bryant alone remained. When Bryant was sought with the purpose of extending the in- vitation, he was in a state of offended dignity. Dickens either had not called upon him, or, as is more probable, Bryant had called on Dickens and the courtesy had not been returned. I fancy there must have been a mistake, as Dickens seemed exemplary in such social pieties. At all events, he had taken no pains to see Bryant. The poet, therefore, would not preside, nor would he even attend the dinner. Bryant out of the way, there was no special sorrow in my mind in that regard, as I was anxious for Greeley. The professional renown of Greeley justified the honor, and more than that, he was friendly to Dickens and much esteemed by him. There was a battle over this — some of my colleagues afraid of the consequences. Greeley was not popular. His hand had fallen heavily upon many, whose society would be grateful. Some, Thurlow Weed among the number, would not come because of Greeley. He might object to wine; people unacquainted with him did not know what he would do. Once in the chair, might de- claim upon bran bread or a vegetable diet, or insult the Democratic guests. One thing was sure — Mr. Bennett would never let such a dinner pass without an arrow flight of sarcasm. And more and more of this, the end being that no chairman ever presided with more grace and dig- nity than Mr. Greeley, and no incident of the banquet waa more striking than his persuasive eloquence and humor. Among other things out of this famous dinner came the celebrated association of ladies which now flourishes in Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 135 New York as Sorosis. Dickens was to be honored by the brethren of his craft, the working men of the press. But where were the working women? Whj' should not the gifted women of America be permitted to do honor to the master f Fanny Fern was moving in her eloquence in that regard; the proud, sanguine, high souled Fanny, with a spirit like Tudor Elizabeth, coming to me so often in these later years. Dear Alice Gary, her genius as exquisite as when it commanded the proud admiration of Poe, with the shadows of her soon to be good night softening her gracious presence; dear Alice Gary could not endure that Dickens should leave with no recognition from those like herself who loved him. I was with the women. It seems the strangest thing possible that there should have been a ques- tion. When it came before the committee the unanswerable argument was that there was no room. The men had helped themselves — ^where was the place tor the ladies ? I was dissatisfied with the argument and voted for the ladies, but with the minority. As a result, the ladies, under the leadership of Alice Gary, Mrs. Groly, Miss Kate Field and others, resolved to form a club of their own ; to exclude the men from their festivities, as they had been excluded from this dinner; and when Dickens or some other of relative fame came to the United States, they would honor him in their own sweet and gracious way. They named their club Sorosis, and even as determined upon by the justly angry ladies who were denied admission to the Dickens festival, it has flourished and flourishes even to the present day. Among other contributions to the happiness of mankind it was appointed that Dickens should indirectly give us Sorosis. To return for a moment to the narrative of Mr. Kim- ball. I read that when the guests assembled there was some apprehension that Dickens would not come, that Digitized by Microsoft® 136 Men and Memories. there was a panic, that "the committee felt specially com- promised," and "finally sent word to Mr. Dickens through his most intimate friend that come he must, if he had to be brought in an ambulance." The impression that there was any hesitation on the part of Dickens in accepting the splendid tribute that had been arranged with so much care, does his memory grave injustice. Dickens, as a matter of fact, took a deep interest in the dinner, and when I saw him, as I did on occasion in a neighborly way, was curious as to the details — wanted to see the list of guests and to be told who was who. And when he heard that from all over the Union men of the highest station were coming to do him honor, he was deeply impressed. Brilliant as I felt our dinner would be, I knew he would rise to it. I did not know, as we all do now, that he meant to make as far as was in his power his farewell a grand recantation of the severe and absurd things he had said and written about the United States. The afternoon of the dinner, when I called to arrange some minor detail, time of coming and so on, I found Dickens in great pain, lying on the lounge, his right foot bare, Dr. Fordyce Barker bending over it. The foot had troubled him ofE and on, he said, but he put it down to our "dreadful weather." "That morning while writing to Lord Lytton," pointing to an unfinished letter on the desk, "the pain smote into helplessness." Dr. Barker pronounced it neuralgia of the foot, and was afraid the exposure of the dinner would be too much. Dickens, in his earnest way, said that he would go if he had to be carried by "Dolby and the rest of them," as the Pope was carried into St. Peter's on a throne, with a grotesque description of the effect it would produce, the bearing him aloft to bless the assembled journalists. It had been proposed, and for this reason the guests were bidden at an earlier hour than usual, that Digitized by Microsoft® ""' Men and Memories. 137 Dickens should have a little reception before dinner, with the chance of taking each guest by the hand to give and receive some friendly word. This was at once vetoed. Mr. Dickens must not stand, and as soon as he came dinner would be served. Mr. Greeley would meet him at the hotel, and the guests were prepared for what was in a way a disappointment, the impossibility of the reception. In time he came, looking ill, and as he walked into the room leaning on the arm of Mr. Greeley the company formed a lane, and with difficulty he kept his way to his seat. I had occasion to speak to him, and he said that Barker had swathed him in black silk, but he was in hor- rible pain. He was cheerful, merry even, and said that Mr. Greeley must protect him from violence if he should leave before the feast was over. We were all in concern about him, and those who knew the facts felt that his pres- ence was in truth a heroic thing, what alone a brave man could do. It was a noble gathering, ever to be remembered. Two hundred guests and from all parts of the Union — men of authority and renown. Horace Greeley, in the prime of health and genius, his almost sixty years resting lightly upon him, with a deep red rose in a wine glass whose per- fume he would now and then inhale, to the scandal of many near-sighted guests who saw with their very eyes that he was sipping wine. There was Raymond, the chival- rous, gracious, eloquent, tender-hearted man, in the early days of a brilliant career, and ere many months were to pass to fall stricken in the night; Boker, in the noble beauty of his young ripening manhood, but upon whose brow genius and fortune had rested the crown of achieve- ment and renown ; Bowles, of Springfield, then famous as the embodiment of virtuous journalism, with his pale Puri- tan face ; "Harry Franco Briggs," who had been the friend Digitized by Microsoft® 138 Men and Memories. and partner of Poe, the years resting upon him, one of the few who had known and welcomed Dickens a quarter of a century before ; Hawley, of Connecticut, soldier, Governor, journalist, in time to be and remain Senator; Charles Eliot Norton, from Cambridge, one greatly esteemed by Dickens; Parton, with his calm, fine face; the brilliant Hassard; young Stedman, the poet, hovering between lit- erature and finance, not quite sure whether he would be a Eothschild or an Addison, apparently still undetermined; George William Curtis, who was to make the speech of the evening; Charles Nordhoff, lieutenant of Bryant, sturdy, constant, earnest, true; Lester Wallack, the comedian; Prank B. Carpenter, the artist, likewise held in esteem by Dickens, studying our guest with the proud fond eyes that had rescued the features of Lincoln and so many great ones from the night we call life and given them to the day we call time. Philadelphia had sent McClure, heavy with the honors of having maintained the Eepublican ascend- ancy in Pennsylvania, unconscious of the greater honors that awaited him. Thomas Nast, then as now one of the most famous as he is now one of the most brilliant and worthy of our sons; Hurlbert, a eorruseating quantity on the World, and Whitelaw Eeid, who was about to close a noted career in the journalism of the West, and win an- other and more noted in the journalism of the East. These among the living and the dead come as the shad- ows from the Dickens festival. The committee had been imperious as to speaking. There was to be no buncombe, no fustian, no zoological eloquence over eagles and lions and other birds and beasts of prey. Dickens should see us at our best. But it was no easy task. Bryant had flown off irreelaimably — ^no Thanatopsis eyes to speed Dickens over the seas. Weed would not come but sent a quaint, elaborate letter, which with the other letters, be- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 139 cause of our guest's sufferings and the need of speeding things, was not read. Then at the last moment there was the fearful rumor that Kaymond would be absent. It was impeachment times, the political air feverous, and Greeley and Eaymond had taken to calling each other liars in the fond old endearing way, and what if the discussion would break out under these sulphurous conditions before the very eyes of our guest. What a sight for the master who had created Pogram and Jefferson Brick. But with Eaymond and Greeley, these tempters were the very foam at the beaker of wine, and underneath was the ever present chivalry, forbearance and kindly regard. A battle also as to whether Hurlbert should speak; certain grumblings from Boston in opposition. But upon this Croly came down in his firm Celtic way, and by all the gods that were ever overthrown by Saint Patrick, Hurlbert should speak or there would be no dinner. That settled it. Halstead was selected from the West, then not quite a field mar- shal, but welcomed by us all for his noble and princely qualities. There was Demers, of Albany, now no longer visible in my range of journalism; T. B. Thorpe, the lively, genial "Bee Hunter," who had been a colonel in the Mexican war, great on sporting themes, kind of painter, too, as well as soldier and journalist, to remain with us until 1878, and leave many gracious memories behind him. The speaking was about the best I ever heard. Greeley was crisp, quaint, original, told how he tried in a Floren- tine inn to read Copperfield in Italian, and gave a noble toast which made every glass ring — "Health and happi- ness, honor and generous, because just recompense to our friend and guest, Charles Dickens." Dickens spoke with an ease marvelous to those who knew his suffering. I should rank him high among orators, — certainly among dinner speakers. The presence, the grace, Digitized by Microsoft® I40 Men and Memories. the perfect self-possession ; the grave, kindly, rather husky tones of the voice, and the striking personality of the man were dominating. His speech was prepared, — you have all read it in his books, — for he decreed that it should be a part of them while his wishes had any power. He spoke from memory amid the closest attention, and at times en- raptured enthusiasm. There was a figure at the end, — it were better for the two nations to go back to the ice age and be given over to the Arctic fox and bear, than fight, that brought us to our feet, — and as he sat down in a storm of cheers the band played "God Save the Queen." Raymond spoke as he always did, with clear, courtly elo- quence. We cheered him a great deal because the news- paper people liked Ea3'mond and rather resented Greeley's having called him a liar in a recent Tribune. Hurlbert was classical; Hawley eloquent over his memories of the first Dickens visit. Boker was dragged out in some way as an afterthought by Mr. Greeley, and made a short, im- pressive address. Norton spoke for Boston, Halstead for the West ; De Leon, who had been in the Confederacy, rep- resented the South, while the gentle and accomplished Youmans answered for the journalism of science. There were some words from Demers and the Bee Hunter. The one speech was that of George William Curtis. I never heard that distinguished orator to greater advantage, and I remember the enthusiasm of Dickens over the address as we went home in the carriage. The peroration, spoken as only Curtis could speak it, in the low, musical cadence of his marvelous voice, leaning toward Dickens as in the attitude of farewell, aroused tremendous cheers. "Old ocean bear him safely over. English hedges welcome him with the blossoms of May ! English hearts, he is ours as he is yours. We stand upon the shore. W^ say farewell — and as he sails away we pray with love and gratitude — Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 141 may God bless him." The farewell of Curtis to Dickens can never pass from the memory of those who heard it, and saw what was possible in the supreme beauty of elo- quence. The rapture of applause, the glow and go of fellowship, the laughter and the wine, the sense that we were having ' a Dickens night ; so many ruling, true original spirits from our various sections, almost every face a notability, served to enfold our dinner as with a rare atmosphere. It irra- diated Dickens, as he sat there, the guest, the man, the master; one after another of us sidling up under the blazing lamps to do him homage. The unique splendor of the scene rested heavily upon me, knowing the condition of Dickens, and having been of the anxious conference that determined his coming, I went to his chair once or twice with suggestions of home. Greeley was sure that departure was humane and wise when the speech of Dickens was done. Eaymond, sitting at the side of Dickens, pressed for departure, and said that the company with proper knowledge would demand it. But how could he tear away from so splendid a feast ? "I fear," he said, "I am like the mummy that the Egyptians passed around at their din- ners. If the mummy, however, were not on duty as an entree, it would have been an imperfect feast." When Norton had spoken, Dickens, who was my vis-a- vis, beckoned to me. "The pain," he said, "is simply hor- rible. I think I will take the advice of Mr. Greeley if you are quite sure it will not be misunderstood." Before call- ing on Halstead, Mr. Greeley arose and said that he knew the expression of sympathy that would come from every one in that company when they were told of the suffering of the guest ; when they remembered that in spite of pain he had spent so much of the evening with them, and that they would excuse him now. with every loving wish for ' Digitized by Microsoft® 142 Men and Memories. his speedy recovery tnd favoring breezes home. The com- pany arose as if by instinct, and stood while Dickens shook hands with Greeley, Kaymond, Curtis and those around, and as well as the pain would permit him slowly moved out of the room. A cheer of farewell started by some hearty admirer awakened a whirl of cheers, continuous and resonant, until Dickens was outside the Delmonico walls. He was grateful over the company and for what had been said; dwelt upon the intellectuality of Greeley, Eaymond and others, and the inexpressible charm of the eloquence of Mr. Curtis. "ISTo orator in England," he said, "who could have surpassed Curtis in grace and feeling." When we came to the hotel Dickens insisted that I should return to the banquet, as his immediate concern was with his bed and Dr. Barker. Standing in the doorway he would not say farewell, for he knew I would come to England. And when I came let it be "when the hedges are in bloom," and I was to "report at Gadshill." I came, and the hedges were in bloom, but there was no master at Gadshill. Dickens was asleep in the silence of the Abbey beside Johnson, Maeaulay and Sheridan. I was never to see Dickens again. To the Dickens whom I knew, and the impressions of him as here crudely shadowed, I was to add, during my extended residence in London, even an- other Dickens — ^the man as he had been to so many who had known his life. From all came the one tribute — ^the recognition of his fine truth and nobility as a man walk- ing among men. I can give this sentiment no more elo- quent expression than what came from Carlyle, when the news of the sudden death of Dickens came upon him, as it came upon mankind, with the sense somewhat that one more glorious star had set, and that the heavens would never shine with the same splendor. "It is almost thirty years," wrote Carly^^.^^|i^^^^j^uaintance with Dick- Men and Memories. 143 ens began, and on my side, I may say, every new meeting ripened into more and more clear discernment of his rare and great worth as a brother man — a most cordial, sin- cere, clear-sighted, quietly decisive, just and loving man — till at length he had grown to such a recognition with me as I have rarely had from any man of my time. The good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly, noble Dickens, every inch of him an Honest Man." At the time of the above written article Mr. Young re- ceived this letter from Judge P. 6. Gedney, of New York:— My dear Mr. Young : — Apropos of your article on Dick- ens, if you could look over the old assignment book of the Tribune, you would find: Gedney: — "Go down the bay with Dickens." I did. We were on a little tugboat. The late James T. Field, of Boston; Thurlow Weed, George W. Childs, William Winter, and I cannot now remember all. We went alongside the steamer, and I saw both Mr. Dickens and Mr. Dolby talking with an officer and sep- arated from the party. I had just time to say to Dickens, "Can I bear any answer for you to the Tribune ?" Shaking my hand in a hearty manner, Mr. Dickens said, "Tell Mr. Young that I shall never forget his kindness." So, per- haps, the last words spoken to an American in America by Mr. Dickens were the words I have written. Yours truly, F. G. Gedney. Gadshill Place, Higham by Eochestek, Kent, Monday, Fifteenth June, 1868. My dear Mr. Young : — Many thanks for your kind letter of the fourteenth o^^^jq0,]^^^§j^ for the copies of the 144 M^'^ ^^^ Memories. New York Tribune. I am happy to report that three or four days at sea vanquished both the catarrh and the neu- ralgia, and that I came home in great force. I am now looking out expectantly for Longfellow. With kindest regards to Mr. Greeley when you see him, believe me. Always faithfully yours, Charles Dickens. On the death of Dickens, Mr. Young wrote this editorial in the New York Standard, June 11th, 1870:— "Mr. Dickens concluded the last book which he gave to the world with this paragraph : " 'On Friday, the ninth of June, in the present year, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin (in the manuscript dress of receiv- ing Mr. and Mrs. Lammie at breakfast) were in the South Eastern Eailway with me in a terribly destructive acci- dent. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back into my carriage, nearly turned over a via- duct and caught aslant upon the turn, to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but otherwise un- hurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on her wedding-day, and Mr. Eiderhood inspecting Brad- ley Headstone's red neckerchief as he lay asleep. I re- member, with devout thankfulness, that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers forever than I was then, until there shall be written against my life the two words with which I have clueed this book — (the end).'" As though these words were a presentiment of his- own fate, the time came to write "The End" to his illustrious and noble career on the 9th of June, 1870, On that day, Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 145 Just five years after this strange event and its singular anticipation, Mr. Dickens died at his country residence, near London, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. With the exception of Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, no modern English writer has filled so vast a place as Mr. Dickens, and none since Burns will be so widely mourned. We question if Byron or Scott enjoyed a renown so rare and universal. There will be many who would regard the loss of Thackeray and Wordsworth and Shelley and Ten- nyson as a greater misfortune; but, without denying the claims of these men to higher grade of art, it is certain that Mr. Dickens came into a closer relation with the nine- teenth century than any writer who lived in it. His art was his humor and his sympathy. He amused as well as instructed. The children of his fancy have long been more than creations of fancy to nine-tenths of the general readers of the English language. Our current literature has drawn upon him for illus- tration more largely than any writer since Shakespeare and Bunyan. Like Shakespeare and Bunyan, his genius was universal. The dramatist and politician — ^the man of the drawing-room and the exchange, and society have come to know his characters as friends and associates — to give them speech and action, and make them a part of every- day existence. This is one of the highest attributes of genius. We know Hamlet and Othello and lago and Macbeth, and the fair Ophelia, as though they were our friends. The journey of Christian and the terrors of Doubting Castle, and the visions of the Enchanted Land, belong to our earliest and brightest dreams, and in the same life and the same dreams we have Micawber and Weller, and Little Nell, and Nancy Sikes, the Fleet Prison, the Circumlo- cution Office, the l^a^swjD^ o^^.^thej^edlocks, and the wild 146 Men and Memories. sea waves which never speak to us without something of the strange meaning they gave to Little Paul. This is what we have called the universal power of genius. Upon such a dominion he entered at the outset of his career and reigned to the end. How much we owe this man, even the best of us ! For in whatever place we walk, no matter how high in philosophy or sublime in poetry, we have all of us come within his hearty and imposing in- fluence, and known freshness and rest and incentive to loftier aims. The world is better because he lived in it. He has taught us patience, faith, the sweetness of do- mestic love, the peace of the fireside. Some one has said of him that he made the Christmas trees to blossom, and over all England and English lands the Christmas fires to burn merrily. His gospel has been simple, but truthful, — to eat, drink and be happy, to live peacefully, marry early, and be con- tent with our daily bread. He never went beyond society. He believed in lords and gentlemen, the sacraments, the gallows, power, the British Constitution, the old tradi- tions, and was a thorough Conservative. His world was the world we live in, and although he took us into the by- ways, and far down into the haunts of sin and misery, and threw broad, purifying, strengthening light and fresh- ness into many dark and noisome depths, he never as- cended. He had not the courage and sweep of Hugo, and gave us nothing like "Les Miserables." He was no wor- shipper of abstract ideas. The man who sinned should be punished; the women who fell should die; for the naked there should be clothing, for the hungry food, for the poor great content and an assured plum-pudding on Christmas day. Beyond this he saw nothing but society and the statutes. He never ventured upon dangerous ground ; nor did it ever Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 147 seem to him that our whole modem society, church, law, system. Parliament, the monarchy, under what we call religion and justice, there was a great wrong to be re- dressed, and mighty crimes, no less criminal because the world approved them. In nothing is this more painfully seen than in his view of the French Kevolution. We pass through marvelous scenes with a shiver, seeing nothing but the guillotine and the Jacquerie; the dripping heads; the wine that seemed to be blood; the men, black and swarthy and hideous; the fearful women knitting under the axe ; the king with a big face ; and France itself a land of terror and crime and death. This was all that our great writer saw in those glorious and memorable years, and those who look for an apostle in every teacher, may feel that a work which was limited and superficial was only partly done. We make no such criti- cism. Mr. Dickens did a good and glorious work — such as no man could do in his stead. Mr. Dickens had various gifts. He was a journalist, an aotor, a dramatist, a poet, a biographer and a historian. He had amazing industry. He died in the prime of life, and yet see how much he did ! His written works would make a good library — ^his edited works, even daily and weekly publications for many years — in themselves the la- bor of a man's life. As an actor and reader, he must have given as much time as the most industrious comedian on the London stage. This intense, absorbing labor, no doubt, cost him his life. Those who met him in America saw, beneath his rugged, manly face, the marks of hard, anxious toil. The bright and blithesome, curly-headed youth who came here in 1841 was prematurely old and gray and worn. He lived a generous and easy life. This is the saddest thought about the death of Dickens. He was in the aftemoog/^l^ft^l/JftgtSWjg? and glorious career. 148 Men and Memories. The time of rest had come — the time which came to Goethe, and Wordsworth, and Landor — a time for thought and contemplation, and some one work, perhaps, to crown and cap his edifice. But he had lived with too much intensity and he died too soon. It is not the time — standing, as we do, over his grave and sharing in the deep sorrow which to-day fills the heart of the English-speaking world — the sorrow of millions who feel the loss of Mr. Dickens as that of a personal friend — to estimate his position in our permanent litera- ture. Writers of fancy and sentiment are apt to live with their generation and die with the fashions and customs in which they lived. There was no more popular novelist than Richardson, and yet his books are as dead as the men and women he described. DeFoe has left one book which is a classic, and we may say as much of Goldsmith. Fielding gave us "Tom Jones" and SmoUet "Humphrey Clinker." Beyond this, their "works" are almost forgotten. The early novelists of the nineteenth century have passed into silence. Scott re- mains, but with a limited and dying influence. We fear we must say as much for Disraeli and Bulwer. Thackeray seems to gain with every year (there is no such book as "Vanity Fair!") and although Dickens has passed through two generations, his works were never more popular than to-day. Much of what he has done will, no doubt, share the si- lence and neglect that have come upon most of the books of Fielding and Scott, but we are greatly at fault in our estimate of his labor, if the time will ever come when the English world will cease to regard with classic veneration the "Pickwick Papers" and "Nicholas Mckleby." Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 149 GEORGE W. CURTIS. Of the distinguished company assembled at the "Dickens Dinner," Mr. Young wrote from time to time, in later years. Of George William Curtis, this sketch appeared at the time of his death, in 1892 : — The death of George William Curtis is an event. Many things are written about him, mainly in a spirit of igno- rance and exaggeration. I knew Mr. Curtis well. I should like to see his handsome, gentle face assume one of those cynical smiles his friends knew so well as he read the editorials in the Tribune and the Herald. Curtis has been for many years a shining light — in later days not perhaps the audibly shining light of the sixties. He had a unique position. Everybody admired him. We rejoiced in his eloquence. We were proud of the example of his pure and lofty life. But somehow few followed him. In political matters he did not always follow the logic of his own position. He had rare and varied gifts. His figure was comely, his face handsome and refined. He took care of both. Art and courtesy were ever handmaidens to his genius. His voice was as musical as a fiute, and he held it in ex- quisite command. He never wasted himself on impulses or emotions. He was ever deliberate, and deliberation was among the reasons why his genius did not soar. What are the winds and clouds to one who has so much in common with his looking-glass ? He was not a great, but a charming writer. There was lightning, but no fire. I do not recall a line he wrote, or a book that I would care to read again. "Nile Notes" are an echo of Kinglake's wonderful "Bothen," which once be- Digitized by Microsoft® 150 Men and Memories. witched the world. The "Potiphar Papers" were an imi- tation of Thackeray — "Prue and I" sentiment to order. The wonder in these books is that so true an artist should have written them. However, Thackeray wrote the "Yel- lowplush" and "Snob" business, and we cannot cease to marvel at the idiosyncrasies of genius. Curtis was close to the elect of the earth. He knew Em- erson, Lowell, Thoreau, Hawthorne, the whole galaxy. He was the Benjamin of that sovereign tribe. One would have hoped that from him we should have had such an estimate, say of Emerson or Hawthorne, as the world would cherish among the adornments of American lit- erature. It never came, and there is no sign that it is among his papers. It was in the man to have done this, but I fancy disap- pointments deterred him. The failure of Putnam's Maga- zine overthrew his ambition to become a literary monarch. The defeat of Seward at Chicago blighted his later career. His defection from Grant on the civil service business closed the avenues of practical polities. While his refusal to consent to the nomination of Arthur destroyed con- fidence in his political foresight and magnanimity. Yet it was a part of the genius of Curtis to make these mistakes. His opinions lacked in intensity, in considera- tion likewise for the sweet reasonableness of human na- ture. So when his blows struck they never went home. So far from being a leader Mr. Curtis became an actor. People admired him, studied him, revelled in the charmS of his eloquence and then went home and forgot him. When a crisis came, a time of stress and storm, and the consequent apportionment of great rewards, he was over- looked. Fenton glided past him into the Senate, while Conkling stalked over him to be Fenton's colleague. And Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories, 151 yet this honor belonged to Curtis, who was an older and better soldier than either. Curtis was a critic. In that may be found a reason for his failure in practical affairs. It is quite true that Dominus knows more than we do and can give us points on everything. But when Dominus insists upon telling us this every week, we are apt to vote him a prig or a bore. Some things were almost right to Curtis, but nothing was entirely right, and this ever-present supreme self-con-. Bciousness became in time maddening. As I have said, there was lightning in Curtis, but no fire. I see him as an auroral light — ^beautiful in the heavens while it lasted, looked upon with gratitude and pleasure — ^but only a memory. Those who knew him loved him; those who knew him by his work admired him. But I do not feel that he made any lasting impres- sion on his time. A high, serene, sensitive, aspiring char- acter, an ideal gentleman in whatever that name implies; he was in polities what McClellan was in war. Ever repining on the subleties of politics, ever spinning out problems that required a generation for their development, the world went on and he was out of it — battles were won and fought without him. IMPEACHMENT, Of John Eussell Young's political writings in the Tribune, the ablest and most powerful were those on the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. In his "Memoirs," General Grant devotes much space to Johnson's extraordinary efforts to thwart Congress, "his attempts to interpret the law; his continued opposition to the work of reconstegffifekanyMldiKb/i&c law; hi» maliciou* i^z Men and Memories. and illegal persecution of General Sheridan and final re- moval of that officer while in Louisiana, carrying out the provisions of the law; — all this so roused the loyal senti- ment of the country, that after General Sheridan went N'orth, he received the greatest ovation of his life." For more than six months the Tribune opposed impeachment, on the ground that it was against public policy; that Johnson's term of office would soon expire, and Greeley, himself, opposed it at first, as inexpedient and unneces- sary. But later, toward the close of Congress, the Presi- dent's acts became so arbitrarily illegal, that the impeach- ment was demanded. The Tribune, under Mr. Young's control, aggressively championed the movement; and he had the firm support of Secretary Stanton, the radical leaders in Congress, and the generals of the army. It was the beginning of his lifelong friendship with General Grant. For the impeachment editorials, Mr. Young received high endorsement and recognition. Stanton writes, — Private and Confidential. Washington, May 10, 1868. My dear Young: — With great delight I read your arti- cle in Saturday's Tribune. The hour of judgment is nigh at hand, and should the great criminal be condemned, the national deliverance will be due to yoii, more than to any one else. Yours has been the "White plume of Navarre." Yours truly, Edwin M. Stanton. Upon the same subject, in continual correspondence, — Schuyler Colfax writes : — Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 153 Washington, Feb. 25, 1868. My dear Young: — Your editorials have rung like a; trumpet blast throughout the land. . . . The Tribune is magnificent thesesdays^thanks to your prompt and decided action. Its white plume is at the head of the column, just where I am delighted to see it. I have heard scores of eulogies on Monday's grand paper. To- day's too, is' superb ! Yours always, Schuyler Colfax. LETTERS FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS. The following letters from Wendell Phillips tell their own story, but hardly indicate the extent of intimacy which existed for many years, between the famous Badi- eal and John Eussell Young. Of a magazine article that Mr. Young had J)repared showing why Johnson should be impeached, Wendell Phillips wrote: — Boston, Sunday, Sept., 1867. Dear Friend: — I have just got home — and have read over your article three times to-day, with the greatest satisfaction. It is just what ought to be said and must be said — of course it is too heavy a gun for the Atlantic. But you must not hide it in your desk. Certainly with your wide reach, you can find some channel. No matter what the channel is, if your name can go with it. — H. G. (Greeley) says in the Independent far more than he risks in the Tribune. Could you bear the Independent? De- vise some way. Don't bury so strong a statement of your ease ; and the sooner you sound the warning, the better — of course you know we will be glad to permit it in the Standard, — ^with or without your name — ^whenever you Digitized by Microsoft® 154 Men and Memories. despair of a better metliod, and are willing fo do ni tfiat favor. But, don't fail to let it see the light somehow, and with your name if you can see it to be allowable. I think it one of your best efforts. Most faithfully, iWENDELL Phillips. Boston, Aug. 24, 1867. Bear Friend: — Your letter of the 14th, I got on the 21st, my day for descending from these clouds into Bos- ton. Then, too, I got my seven Tribunes and fed on your articles. . . . Events come so thick we have to hold our breath. — ^But, I think, the sky clears a little — thank you for the first gun — perhaps we may turn the stupidity of this adjourn- ment of Congress, into advantage. What I fear is that Grant may submit — the instrument of all this mischief — (Andrew Jolinson's policy) in si- lence; and still cowards like Fessenden and Wilson, ad- here to him. Fessenden's mouth is stuffed with official fatness, that he can't speak — Wilson expects ! Go ahead — we'll follow your plume — make Grant speak out regarding impeachment, and take sides, or crush him back into his tent to smoke there. Yours cordially, Wendell Phillips. Below is the last of the Impeachment editorials: THE TAINTED VERDICT. (Ten days after Andrew Johnson's verdict of acquittal had been rendered, and subsequently canvassed, Mr. Young Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 155 wrote this summary of the trial and the means employed to save Johnson. It was generally sustained by the Ke- publiean leaders who had voted against the President.) "The Court of Impeachment has adjourned without delay. President Johnson stands acquitted of the crimes and misdemeanors for which he was arraigned. The second and third articles were voted upon with the same result as in article eleventh. Messrs. Grimes, Trumbull, Fowler, Koss, Fessenden and Van Winkle, acted with the Democrats, who we need not say voted as steadily partisan as through the whole trial. We presume that if votes had been taken on all the articles, the seven 'Eomans' might have endeavored to vote with Eepublicans on some of the articles. The failure of the second and third, how- ever, defeated the whole proceeding. "Andrew Johnson is morally condemned by the votes of thirty-five Senators. He is acquitted by a tainted verdict. Now that we come to review Impeachment, we find no reason to change any of our views as to the righteousness of the proceeding or the unrighteousness of the result. The newspapers that claim to believe that the seven Kepublican Senators who voted against convic- tion, represent the Eoman virtue of the party — ^that they are the Eepublican Catos, and that all the rest are parti- san and cowardly Senators — will find in the report of General Butler and the evidence of Thurlow Eeed, food for reflection. "We see in that evidence enough to justify the severest criticism and the gravest suspicions. It is not for us to make any exception. We have not the power. By excus- ing, we would be accusing. "All we know is that money was used to secure the acquittal of the President. We know that the President Digitized by Microsoft® 156 Men and Memories. was acquitted. The Senators that contributed to that result may take upon themselves the responsibility of show- ing that none of the money was paid to them. The ver- dict is tainted, and the men who made it must remove the taint in their own way and time." Before Grant had expressed himself on Andrew John- son's refusal to obey the law, the Republican newspapers were clamorous for him to speak. Mr. Young's article on the situation attracted much attention: Boston, 1867. My dear Friend: — My wife, who in my absence had the papers read to her, had lighted on your article and was in great joy over it. So your note coming to tell its source, was very welcome. 'Tis a most timely analysis, and will do immense good. The "piece" is in your finest style,— admirable! I am aware of that movement on Butler's side, and think it might be managed to secure great strength. . . . Will talk when I see you. Yours, W. Phillips. Regarding the editorials by Mr. Young on the Impeach- ment of President Johnson, Mr. Phillips wrote : — Boston, January, 1868. My dear Young: — You are leading the public thought and purpose grandly, and have, every morning, our fresh thanks for your fidelity; and fresh joy that your position makes it so effective. Faithfully, Wendell Phillips. Touching Mr. Young's appointment of Geo. W. Smalley, to the position of London Correspondent to the Tribune, Mr. Phillips (Smalley's father-in-law), writes:— Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 157 Boston, August, 1867. Dear Young: — Your kind note was handed me just as I stepped to the stage. I am just so well (and not an ounce too well), as will enable me to get through my evening's talk, — so I am in no case to see any one. . . . Soon I return to New York, then you'll let me come and hear the inside news. Smalley is in Paradise, and indebted to you, the Pope, who lifted him out of Purgatory, to that bliss. Good-bye. Yours cordially, Wendell Phillips. Boston, Not. 13, 1868. My dear Young: — I am indeed rejoiced that you agree with me about Tappan's views — something ought to be done to right the policy on the Indian question. I'll bear in mind your suggestion and slip into a lec- ture on it. — Thank you for the hint. Finance — revenue is indeed a near question — in my opinion the fretters against an untaxed debt, have got hold of a right principle, but apply it dishonorably. Ac- cumulated wealth ought to pay the debt — the masses have paid their share in blood. What you say of Smalley is very gratifying to me. I think and have some months, that his style had gained very much in vigor, variety, and point. I assure you that from quarters where he personally is no favorite, I hear very earnest praise of his letters. Parties who don't wish to conciliate me, and have scoffed at the Tribune in years past, — I hear of their lavish praise of the London Letters, and some of them having resided abroad a dozen years, have the best means to judge, and are abundantly com- petent. Dioing with Sumner at Motley's the other day, Sumner Digitized by Microsoft® 158 Men and Memories, used almost your own terms in speaking of the (Smalley's) review of Bright. He called it "masterly," "a work, not an article," "one of the finest things in journalism" — in which Motley joined. His Eeverdy Johnson lash, they rejoiced in. The Tribune was faithfully studied by Mot- ley, who read the Cox article to us with great fun. Yours faithfully, Wendell Phillips. Boston, July 17, 1870. Dear Young: — Thank you for so kindly sharing the "Gossip" with me — of course it made me watch the pa- pers with fresh interest and has another added to the many proofs of real friendship I owe you. I shall never forget the prompt and magnanimous jus- tice — ^generosity — with which you lifted us all out of the late perplexity — I know you so well, that it was no sur- prise: which can't excuse, but may explain, my never thanking you for it. What is F? (Fish) — enough to compensate for losing M? (Motley). Some time I'll drop in on you, and you'll tell me why Motley was dropped. At present I'm out in the cold — know only as much as the types of the New York de- spatches tell me. Cordially, Wendeh, Phillips. Mr. Young thus wrote of Wendell Phillips on the occasion of his defense of the Eight-Hour Movement, in 1870:— "Mr. Phillips has the honor of being one of the most generous men of his day. From the outset of his career. Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 159 he gave and has kept on giving, till he has grown rick in the very bounty of his mind and magnanimity of his heart. To the despised anti-slavery cause, he gave social standing, brilliant prospects and a priceless courage. To the bondsmen he gave money; to other struggling men, aid and comfort; to his associates, modest aid and great honor. Any man might claim the victory; it was for him to rejoice that the battle had been carried through to success, and that the slave had triumphed over the whip and the whip-master. To Mr. Garrison has Mr. Phillips ascribed with affectionate earnestness, the greatest glory of the Anti-Slavery movement, but we marvel that Mr. Garrison has lacked the eloquence to say, in fitting terms, what that cause owes to the brain, the conscience, the voice of Wendell Phillips. "This voice was like a sword! It rallied some men, and it slew the hearts of others. The noble aims of youth, the eommon sense and common honesty of manhood gathered round it and followed it against slavery. What- ever was sincere and high-minded, recognized its own best tone in that thoughtful voice of the great orator. He brought into eloquence something of the atmosphere which Emerson carried into poetry and philosophy. Every man knew him to be the spokesman of what was most generous in 'New England. He did not talk for snobs, or schoolmen, or dilettantes, but for negroes, and workingmen, and poor girls, and wretched Indians. We dare say any American will now take this ghost's word for at least a thousand ducats. So great is the capacity of intellectual and moral courage for outlasting envy and hate and calumny! Faith and fortitude make their own renown at last, and such men as Phillips are to be con- gratulated for building 'in pain and fear, not fame, but noble souls.' " Digitized by Microsoft® i6o Men and Memories. Among a package of "Phillips" letters this one from Charles Sumner appears. Charles Sumner, who was a neighbor and friend of Wen- dell Phillips, wrote this against court dress for American Ministers abroad: — Boston, Sept. 24, 1868. Bear Mr. Young : — Occupied by the pleasant things you said, I forgot two minor points on which I wished to say a word. (1) Why does G. W. S. Smalley, who is so splendidly true and liberal, advocate court dress for our Ministers? Did he read "Sartor Eesartus" ? The tailor is not to be disregarded. Our republic must be emancipated from the Clothes Philosophy of Courts ; not of society, but of courts. Until this is done we are but on an equality with other powers. The rule is fixed, that any power may appear before the sovereign in the dress which he would wear before his own sovereign. Accordingly, in London, a Hungarian wears the double jacket which is his national costume; a Turk wears his fez; and I insist that an American Minister should wear the simple dress of a gentleman in the evening. This rule of ours is a part of the sys.tem by which the Eepublic will make itself manifest in Europe. It will be followed. Cobden told me that he never had been to court and never would go, on account of tne dress required, which he would not wear. He would rejoice in our new rule. I am sure that Bright likes it. (2) The other point is one, briefly presented in my little speech at the flag raising of Nov. 6. Why not insist upon calling the Democrats "the Eebel Party"? Charles Sumner, Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. i6i HBNET J. RAYMOND. There was no name in those days more familiar to the younger journalists, more frequently mentioned with af- fection and respect, than "Eaymond of the Times." I first saw Eaymond on the battlefield of Bull Eun, in com- pany with Eussell, of the London Times. I last saw him standing on the steps of his office, in the joy of ripe, trium- phant manhood. That night he was to be found stricken and dead on the threshold of his home ; no loss in my day so untimely, nor meaning so much to our profession and the political welfare of the country. Eaymond was a young man, — not fifty, as I recall his years, — and Grant was entering upon his Presidency. Eaymond has been "Lieutenant- General in polities" to Lincoln, as Lincoln called him, and he would probably have held the same office to Grant, with what results in the shaping of the Grant administration and the avoid- ance by the new President of the mistakes incident to a want of political knowledge we can readily conceive. For several years I was on terms of intimacy with Eaymond, and as a young journalist in a minor sphere, lived like the rest of us under his fascination. He was the kindliest of men; he had an open ox-like eye, neat, dapper person, which seemed made for an overcoat, a low, placid, de- cisive voice, argued with you in a Socratic method by ask- ing questions and summing up your answers against you as evidence, that at last, you had found the blessing of con- viction. He was never in a hurry, and yet there was no busier person in journalism. Eaymond had the Eoche- foucauld sense of observation, and in conversation you found yourself in presence of a thinker in a constant state Digitized by Microsoft® 1 62 Men and Memories. of inquiry and doubt. He was a journalist in everything but his ambitions, and these tended to public life. I once asked him why he took the trouble to go to Con- gress and endure that atmosphere of idleness and irrita- tion, when he might have his beloved books around him and hear the inspiring clangor of the presses under his feet. "Well," was the answer, "it was a privilege to feel when you answered the call of your name that your voice was a determining factor in the government of the Be- public." Eaymond's constant attitude of doubt was against his success in legislation. He was conservative. He could not endure a caucus. There was nothing in this world entirely right or entirely wrong, — no peach that did not have a sunny side. There- fore to an impatient party, — to a party, for instance, mad with an impeachment fever — Eaymond was an impossible leader. In France he would have been a Girondist, and, riding in the tumbrils with Vergniaud, would have met his fate with a smile. And yet Eaymond had shown in polit- ical conventions, in legislation and in the press the utmost intrepidity. He was a brave man and liked the joy of a fight. But when it was over he had no skill in discussing its moral consequences. The fighting quality was in his blood, — ^in his clean-cut, condensed, incisive face, the clinched lips, the pallor that came with heat in controversy. But, after all, what good? There was always that other side, and in this wearisome world was anything worth an expenditure of temper and time? Yes, there was always the sunny side to the peach, and better spend one's days in looking it out than in brawls. This ever deepening criticism, this spirit of doubt and inquiry, made Eaymond challenge the theory that the press was a profession. He had no grand ideas about the Archimedes lever that moved the world. What was the press, the fourth estate, — what- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 163 ever we called it, without rhetorical frills and fribhles,— but a business, to be so treated, a means of livelihood and thrift and earning money? "There is nothing," he once said to me, "of less consequence to a public man than what they may print about him to-morrow." I have thought that it was this conception of journalism that deprived Eaymond of the moral force as a teacher which belonged to such a man as Greeley. If the press had a business as- pect to Greeley — aad he was not insensible to the duty of earning one's daily bread — it never appeared in his editorial admonitions. Greeley was the advocate, — stri- dent, implacable, vehement in season and out of season, resolved that mankind should not go to perdition, — not if it "ould be prevented by a generous circulation of the Tribune, and especially the weekly and semi-weekly edi- tions, with their admirable treatises on agriculture. Eay- mond was the quiet, critical, somewhat impassive man of affairs, who looked at the whole panorama like the lounger at the club-window, thinking only of its movement and color. In its entirety, I take it, we have had no more brilliant career than that of Eaymond. He was successful as a very young man, and I note no failure but what came from the misconception which threw him for a season into Congress. He had the undivided love of his fellows. From the tone of his conversations after he left Congress, I think he had resolved to return to journalism, never to leave it, but to love it with connubial fidelity. If this had been permitted, his genius would have achieved much, for the period was that of change. He might have anticipated the recent revolutions in the press, to the extent, at least, of foreseeing and grasping those stupendous commercial advantages which are among the trophies of the century. I can well believe that this was in his heart, — the ultimate reach of his ambition. He had named his journal The Digitized by Microsoft® 164 Men and Memories. Times, having its English namesake as his ideal. Im- proved by many trials, with the wisdom of experience and success, with an intrepid chivalrous sentiment in what he proposed and did, with the universal respect of his gen- eration, with an amazing celerity of action and clearness of judgment, Eaymond, in his prime, seemed better fitted than any man I have known to take up the standard and lead th^ journalism of America to its still unattained destiny. But Eaymond, in his prime, was to die, — a gen- erous, noble-minded, aspiring soul, whom those who loved sorely grudged to see lapsing into silence and night. THE COMMUNE. Mr. Young resigned from the Tribune in 1869, and in 1870 he founded the Standard, which ardently supported Grant and his administration, while Gen. Butler was one of the financial backers of the paper. The following letter is the first of a correspondence, which continued to the end of the great general's life : — Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C, Nov. 15, 1870. Dear Sir: — Though I am a general reader of the Stand- ard, as well as of the other leading New York City papers, I have not seen your issue of the 11th of November until to-day. I am much pleased with it. Mr. Greeley is an honest, firm, untiring supporter of the Eepubliean party. He means its welfare at all times. But he is a free think- er; jumps at conclusions; does not get the views of others who are just as sincere as himself, in the interest of the party that saved the country, and now wants to pay its honest debts, protect its industries, and progress to a pros- perous future, as well as himself. I have long desired a Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 165 free, full talk with Mr. Greeley, because I have confidence in his intentions. I have thought at times of inviting him to Washington for that purpose; but I have been afraid that the object might be misinterpreted. If he ever does come to Washington and I can find he is here before the hour of his leaving, I certainly will try to see him. But the keynote of your article is just right ; Fentonism in New York means simply a yielding of the Executive to Mr. Fenton for the punishment of all who do not agree that the Eepublican party has no higher mission than to place him in control of it. Yours truly, "D. S. Grant. In February, 1871, Mr. Young visited Europe on a con- fidential diplomatic mission for the State Department, at the request of Secretary Fish. It was at the time of the Franco-Prussian War, and he was in Paris during the last days of the "Commune," wit- nessed the overturning of the Column Vendome, the burn- ing of the Tuilleries and the fall of the Commune. Mr. Young's description of the closing scenes of the Commune, and its final overthrow by Thier's army, re- ceived the highest commendation. Wendell Phillips, in reviewing those days of terror, wrote : — "But the ablest, most brilliant and searching of all es- says on the Commune is Mr. Young's own letter from Paris. In fairness, breadth, feeling, profound insight and graphic power, it ranks with his two as yet, unequalled re- views of our political history, which gave such splendor to his administration of the Tribune. I had not for- gotten it. "But iti rar« merit lifted it far out of the range of or- Digitized by Microsoft® 1 66 Men and Memories. dinary correspondence. I should as soon have thought of grouping Channing's 'Milton/ or Macaulay's 'Machiavelli' with conamon journalism/' JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG ON THE COMMUNE. Paris, May 28th, 1871. My Journey lay in more northern lands, but as I was leaving London a friend proposed that we should visit Paris and see the fall of the Vendome Column and the ■aspect of the beautiful city in its grief and desolation. So we came ! We had scarcely crossed the Belgian frontier before we saw traces of the great campaigns. Here and there a few houses showed marks of artillery, while black and naked chimneys told of the war and its misery. The country generally was fresh and winning, and the farmers seemed to be busy with the soil. The railway stations were in the hands of the Prussians, who were apparently a deco- rous, sober class, under high discipline, attentive to their own business, and apparently upon good terms with their French neighbors. We had some talk with the Prussians and found them quite anxious to go home. They had "whipped the French" and wanted to get to work. One handsome, yellow-haired under-officer — sergeant, I should think — had a brother in the United States, and had notions of joining him. He had fought at Sedan, had one shot in his leg, another in his hip. He was a Saxon, but there were no more Saxons now, no more Prussians — all Germans ! As for the Kaiser, he was in his heart, but it was Deutschland after all. He wanted no more war, was assured this would be the end of the war, and was happy to feel so. He kept an apothecary store, and if he were sure of the demand for drugs and chemicals in our Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 167 West, he might come. Upon which point, however, there was a certain wife and two children to be considered. We had some embarrassment in our journey ings. The French were suspicious and critical, and as we neared Paris there was much questioning and examination of passports. M. Thiers had ordered Paris to be sealed up. No one should be admitted without a special warrant. And al- thought our warrant was special and regular, it was not enough in the eyes of a venerable French magistrate with a tri-color sash about his waist, who kept us for four hours at Pontoise, not exactly under arrest, but as he phrased it, under his "protection." Finally, after entreaty and negotiation, we were permitted to pass, and toward mid- night we rolled into Paris. It was my first view of the great city, and so any im- pressions I may give you will lack the value they might bear if I could speak of Paris in comparison with its for- mer beauty and splendor. It seemed hushed and dead. There was no traflBe at the station. The streets were silent. I strolled with Wilkes the next day into what, in peaceful times, would be the busiest sections ; but it was like walking in the city of death. Occasionally a carriage would fly along, but so lively that we stopped and looked after it in wonder. The shops were closed. Here and there a cafe was open; but few idlers clustered around; and as we walked up the noble boulevards, the only sound of life seemed to be the echoes of our own footsteps. Earely a red flag was seen; but many flags of foreign nations, mainly that of the United States; groups of soldiers shuffled along or gathered at corners, or marched in a huddled, careless gait to the tune of the "Marseil- laise." At the important street barricades were sentry- men, who permitted all travel and found their military duties to be the discussion of the affairs of France. A Digitized by Microsoft® 1 68 Men and Memories. little shop-keeper in the Palais Eoyal, who had oceasion to sell me a trinket as a memento for some home people, said it was the only sale she had made in two days. Our consulate was open, and although our legation had an office at Versailles, Mr. Washburne remained in Paris. Through his kindness I saw Paris thoroughly, going In one direction to-day, in another direction to-morrow. In sections where the poorer class lived, there was the utmost life and activity. The people seemed to be all in the streets. Mountebanks plied their calling ; large crowds laughed over the Punch and Judy shows; there were swings and wooden horses for the children ; street orators declaiming of the glory of France and selling broad- sides; street singers carroUing the "Marseillaise" or tune- ful gamins who sang about "Monsieur Bandiquet," and how the Prussians were brutes, and how in time, France would have its own again. While in the Pere la Chaise Cemetery — we could not have been there more than half an hour, — four funerals entered. They were the bodies of soldiers, or officers of the Commune. The hearses had a red flag upon each corner; there were the escort with muffled drums, and a trailing group of mourners. Around many of the tombs were sorrowing groups, who seemed, as the Irish would say, to be crooning over the dead. In the St. Antoine quarter, there was much life and gaiety. The Column of July, built on the site of the Bastile, was decorated with flags and wreaths. The people seemed to caress it with especial fondness, as the Vendome Column had been doomed. In that beautiful part of Paris, around the Arch of Triumph, and near the Bois de Boulougne, the shells were falling. Most of the inhabitants had gone away. The exodus from Paris had been estimated by some at half j Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 169 by others at a million. The Comiminists held that side of Paris beyond the Arch. The other side was guarded by the Prussians, who were in force; and who, during these military operations, have acted as the allies of M. Thiers. By holding that line firmly and permitting no supplies or reinforcements to enter, they made the tack of MacMahon much easier than it might have been. Without this Prussian assistance, M. Thiers would have been compelled to surround Paris, and to do what the Prussians themselves were many months in doing. I do not think the Prussians had much sentiment, one way or the other, but they wanted their money; and, as Thiers had promised to pay a good sum within thirty days after he occupied Paris, they had a motive for their alliance. I trust, therefore, that when the honors of the Versailles victory are divided. Prince Bismarck will not be for- gotten. The artillery fire between the outposts of the Com- mune and the Versailles forces was intermittent. We generally had some sharp practice about daybreak. Some- times in the evening there was heavy firing. Generally, however, it seemed to be intended more as annoyance than a real, steady, honest cannonade, intended to damage an enemy. I made one visit to the War Office in hopes of seeing Delescluze, to whom I had a letter, which had been given me by one of his American friends when he was a mem- ber of the Assembly at Bordeaux. The War Minister was not in his office, but the visit gave me an interesting view of Commune official life. One or two old men in attendance, who had probably kept watch and ward for the best part of their lives, natural-born door-keepers, who meant to remain there, whoever ruled. In the courtyard were groups of soldiers — like soldiers generally •^ ^ D^itized by Microsoft® ^ 1 70 Men and Memories. — dozing, smoking, singing, making coffee. There was a general looseness of discipline, which augured badly for success, when the time came for fighting and hard work. Every one was cautious, quiet, pleasant — ^but every cor- poral felt he was a citizen as well as the commanding officer, and entitled to as much respect. A great many messengers passed in and out during my half hour in the ante-room, mainly on the army business. They were principally young men, and I was much im- pressed with their intelligence and vivacity. They cer- tainly did not represent that debris of human nature which sometimes drifts into the army life, but had some- thing more than the mere animal capacity for rations and marching and gun-service. There was more discussion than labor. The ship seemed to go without a helm. This, in fact, is what I saw on every side during my observations of the Commune. It was a crew without a captain, manning a ship without a helm. Time meant for honest work, and very precious time, was wasted in conversation. There was no system. Within twenty paces of my hotel, on the Eue Neuve St. Augustin, it was intended to build a barricade. The operation was quite curious, and I watched it closely. First came an officer, followed by two soldiers, who paced across the street once or twice, drew an imaginary line on the side- walk with his sword, gave some orders and left. Two soldiers sat down on the doorstep to smoke and read La Para Duchene, which happened to have an exciting article that morning in favor of banishing the priests and destroying the Tuilleries. Then came a long discus- sion on the Republic. By and by, three gamins, bright, peach-cheeked boys from twelve to fifteen, with laughing eyes, badly clad and bareheaded, drifted along. One of the soldiers again Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 171 drew the imaginary line with a sword, gave the boys pickaxes and spades and went with his companions to the wine shop, while the boys began their work. They set to it with glee, for remember that the joy of the gamin is to build a barricade. He is the stormy petrel of all revolutions. The street was paved with the heavy, square Belgian blocks, larger than you have on Broadway. A half dozen stones were ripped out and laid across the street on the line of its intersection with the Eue de la Paix. Even a barricade has its laws, and one is that every passer-by shall stop and lift a stone. The request is made in a good-humored, bantering way, and generally complied with. Any exhibition of surliness or temper would be followed by an arrest and an hour or two of steady stone- lifting at the point of the bayonet. After an hour or so of work, the gamins became tired, and strolled off to the wine shops to spend some francs which a stroller had given them to escape the necessity of liftiag a stone into its place. For another half hour the barricade was de- serted. They all came back, soldiers and boys, and re- sumed work, accompanied by a woman, who seemed to throw some zeal into the enterprise. It became a very sensible barricade, with loopholes at the top; was well packed with sand, with a place for the knee to rest when shooting. It was night before it was finished. Two or three good soldiers under drill could have built it in two hours. This spirit of lassitude and uncertainty seemed to pre- vail through the whole Commune. Distrusts rested upon the councils of the leaders. Every one was suspicious of his neighbor. Some of the best men in France stood aloof. The leading French liberal would have nothing to do with it. Hugo was silent in Brussels — Louis Blanc Digitized by Microsoft® 172 Men and Memories. mourned in Versailles. In their eyes — and in fact it must be written as the calmest and best judgment upon the whole proceeding — ^the Commune was a scandal. It was either too soon or too late. It should have been in the Bonaparte days, or after Prussia had been satisfied. The Commune took France at a disadvantage. The duty of saving the nation was immediate, and Paris should have waited. M. Thiers was doing as well as he could. He was seeking to end a war which he had opposed — for which he was in no way to blame. A Prussian army had France under its guns, and many of the fairest prov- inces of France under occupation, and the leaders of the Commune should have postponed everything to the work of rescuing the nation from the German invasion. Let me say, in whatever I may now write of the occu- pation of Paris, that I shall confine myself simply to what I saw, or to such facts as come upon the responsi- bility of some trusty eye-witness. I have heard stories enough about one party and the other to give you a page of horrors. But, on sifting them and hunting each separate canard to its nest, I am apt to find exaggeration or falsehood. The air is electric and feverous, and if the spectator gives way one moment to the impulses around him, he is in a panic and fears that he lives under an- other Reign of Terror. The newspapers do little more than scream, and you wade through column after column with much of the feeling of stumbling through a morass or a field of briers. There is really no comfort in them, and the work is weary and hopeless. We had quite given up any hope of seeing M. Thiers occupy Paris, and many of the best friends of Versailles were in despair. M. Thiers would do nothing! He held his army back. He shrank from bloodshed and street wnrfare. It might be weeks before the business was over^ Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 173 if, in truth, it ever came to an end. So I made up my mind to leave for Germany on Monday morning, and made farewell calls upon one or two excellent friends who had been kind to me during my stay. On Sunday morning, the 21st of May, I sat up rather late conversing with General J. Meredith Eead, our Con- sul-General. We remarked that there was little firing from the Versailles forts. The night was unusually still. Well, we thought the troops were resting. In the morning one of the hotel people came hurriedly into my room, with large, eager eyes, and shouted "The Versailles troops are in Paris ; the shells are falling every- where ! They are fighting on the Place Concorde !" Sure enough, there was the deep, heavy sound of musketry, with the roaring of cannon, and the strange, tearing sound of the mitrailleuse, resembling the noise made in rend- ing a piece of muslin. I arose, thinking of the Battle of Waterloo, as described in "Vanity Fair" — How Isidor rushed to poor Jos. Sedley with the news that Napoleon had destroyed Wellington, and was about to fall upon Brussels and destroy the foreigners, and amused myself with the fancy. But the work was being done. France and Paris were grappling. The destroying angel had thrown his wing over the beautiful city at last, and a hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen were busily striving to do murder upon each other. I went into the street, as far as the barricade which my peach-cheeked gamins had built the day before. It had been strengthened during the night. The Commune troops were in possession to the number of twenty. The officer was courteous enough and well-posted. The barri- cade was simply intended to prevent a fiank attack upon the larger barricades in Place Vendome and at the Opera Digitized by Microsoft® 174 Men and Memories. House, where the artillery were. The Opera House barri- cade was made of vehicles, barrels, water-carts, bags of sand, stones from the street and asphaltum, with one can- non mounted. It was from ten to twelve feet high and rudely terraced, and stretched across the wide Boulevard. The barricades at the Place Vendome were carefully erected field-works, mounting cannon, and showed more care and engineering skill than any I had seen in the city. It was a most important point, strategically — commanding, as it did, the palace, many of the public buildings and the boulevard that led into the heart of old Paris. Our Commune officer sent a squad along the street with certain instructions to every housekeeper. All blinds must be opened, so no one could shoot through them. Any per- son appearing at a window would be instantly fired upon. Any one passing up and down the street would also be fired upon, unless known to the officer ; and, as the enemy might make a dash at any moment, no one could go into the street without risk. I went as far as the Boulevard des Capu- cines and looked in all directions. Not a soul was to be seen. Every house was closed. The Opera House barri- cade, at which I could only venture to peep, was dark, frowning, dead. The heavy roa' A musketry was behind us, and in time we came to the opinion that the line of the Versailles advance had reached the beautiful Church of the Madeleine and was engaged with the barricades around it. After the warning of the Commune officer, we retired to our hotel, which Isidor duly locked, and we found our- selves in a state of siege. We strolled around the court- yard, and tumbled over novels, and listened to the firing, following its course with the ear and marking its steady advance. Now and then some venturesome person would Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Membries. 175 Bteal to a window, or to the door, and peep and come back in exultation at his temerity and good fortune, and give a report, which was generally that nothing could be seen but little groups of soldiers. The balls screamed through the air so incessantly that it became quite a chorus, and small fragments of a vaga- bond shell which had been badly aimed, fell into the yard. Lest you might suppose this to be really a hair-breadth es- cape, and that my narrative has the romance of danger in it, I will say that it was something larger than a walnut, and was not in the least alarming. I must confess, indeed, that our imprisoned party were annoyed at the utter ab- sence of any opportunity for "a hair-breadth escape." If a shell could have fallen into the court and taken ofE a leg or an arm from one of the party, it would not have been without comfort, in its way, to the others. But no shell came. We were in the heart of a circle of war, and flame and death, but actually as safe as in Central Park. The night fell and we worried through as well as we could with talk and gossip. The firing was incessant, but did not advance. The result of the day was that Versailles held about one-third of Paris. It had still to fight its way into the approaches to the Hotel de Ville, Montmartre, the Place de la Bastile, Belleville, and the Pere la Chaise. Here the fight was really to be. For some hours of the night there was comparative quiet. Long before dawn the battle resumed its fury. The firing became heavier and drew nearer and nearer, until it swept beyond us, and we inferred that Madeleine had been taken, and that our barricades at the Opera House and the Ven- dome Place, which were so near us that we came to invest them with a neighborly feeling, were attacked. It was very important to have the Opera House, an immense pile in its way, and commandjo^^th^^^s^roui^ng avenues. 176 Men and Memories. We could see the Opera House plainly from an upper window, where, under the eaves, some of us finally came to look upon the fight. The afternoon was lengthening; the firing had deepened into a steady, plunging volley, neither advancing nor receding. And we said: "The attack has got into a riot, it does not move, and our little barricades are serving their masters well." The red flag defiantly waved from the top of the Opera House. I remember well when it was raised on Vendome Column day, and in the presence of twenty thousand people. A young marine climbed to the dizzy height and pinned it to the statue, holding a lyre aloft with extended arms. How they cheered the little marine, with his steady head and nimble legs. So it waves, a fit emblem of the sad scenes it looks down upon. While it waves we know the Versailles army stands still. But, as we are looking, an object appears on the top of the building, and we see shortly a file of soldiers — ^five or six, perhaps — crouching along the roof down to the balustrade. They take position and begin to fire upon the street. One of them, evidently an officer, for the sword is at his side, creeps toward the farthest statue, climl)B up slowly and pins the flag upon it. We see the red, white and blue — the tri-color of France — and know that Versailles has taken our poor barricade, and that at last the attack advances. The red flag still floats from the lyre, where my little marine with the nimble legs tied it so dramatically a few days back — still floats defiance to the tri-color on the other end of the building. The soldiers shoot at it as if to break the staif, but the staff will not break. Evidently to climb up to it is to invite a hundred rifle shots. So they consult, and fire at it from all directions, but with no avail. And in the end, evi- dently with a Legion of Honor cross or a ribbon of some kind in his eyes, the officer begins to climb. One of our Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. ijr^ partj thought the statue was about thirty feet in height, but I will make no guess except to say that it was many times higher than the officer and a very dizzy business at best, to say nothing of the rifle-shots, which seem to come swiftly, for he climbs slowly, carefully, and keeps, as well as he can, within the folds of the figure. He reaches it at last, snaps the staff, waves it in a defiant way to those below, and rapidly descends. This was my last view of the red flag in Paris. The tri-color waved in unchallenged supremacy, and we breathed free to feel that our siege was at an end. The hour when the red flag descended was twenty minutes past five. The night came up with pale, lustrous skies, as soft as your New England summer. The sharp, noisy mus- ketry, and the heavy chorus of great guns, had died away into distant, irregular, sobbing sounds. The Commune had fallen back — had certainly surrendered a third of Paris — ^had been driven into an inner line of defenses behind the palaces. The wing of the destroying angel had swept over our besieged dominion, and we were at peace in the lines of the Versailles army. The Place Vendome was still held by a dozen of Communists as a forlorn hope, and one persistent cannon in the captured barricade on the Place de I'Opera, continued to fire upon them, but in a fitful, feeble way, doing little more than the shattering of the shop windows on the Eue de la Paix. This forlorn gun, with its lonely continued fire, became a curiosity, and we climbed to the house-top, or quietly stole to the comer to look upon it as an unreasonable, shrewish creature; and we made it a jest, mocked it, and offered wagers as to the angle of its fire, and the destina- tion of each ball as it passed; slower and slower; more and more distant, the general fire became, the echo of each volley coming^b^ck^y^j^Jli^er and fainter sound. 178 Men and Memories. The Commune was retreating; and with easy and free speech, and not without comfort we said, one to another, "The end has come, and the morning will bring peace." Suddenly toward midnight we saw from the top of our hotel, where we sat with the great city at our feet, a cloud of smoke, tinted with flame and leaping sparks. A house, or a beacon perhaps; some poor Parisian's home destroyed by a straggling shell ! But the cloud of smoke became a pillar of fire ; the skies reddened ; the stars grew pale ; the young moon died away into a shadow, and through a light which was as ruddy as the blazing noon, the dark rim of the palace was seen, and one who knew Paris said: "It is the Tuilleries!" Surely this could not be? It is only some fancy — a vision — a deception of the shadows ! But there it was — ^too true for venture or hope — the farther pavilion of the venerable and majestic palace, fringed with fire, the flames enfolding it with caresses and leaping from wall to wall ! This palace of Francis I.; of the Fourth Henry; of Louis the Great and of Napoleon; the home of so much pride and majesty and splendor; of the glories of Bourbon and Bonaparte; of the sorrows of Louis the locksmith and his Marie An- toinette; this mighty tablet upon which so much of the history of France had been engraved, had met its fate, and we saw it bend and snap and crackle, and the stately central pavilion under which royalty had its domestic life; where it prayed and dined and sat in majesty — decorations by the eunningest artists — "carpets in three rooms alone worth 3,000,000 francs" — was now only a pyramid of corruscating fire. Terrible and fascinating was the scene, for it told us what this struggle really meant — ^this struggle between France the Behemoth, Paris the Leviathan, as Victor Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 179 Hugo called them. France might conquer Paris, and shoot the leaders of the Commune as its armies advanced. Paris took the palaces and threw them into the flames. "You mean, that defeat to us means destruction," said the Commune; "very well, destruction be it then, but, if we are to fall, these proud monuments of kings' majesty shall fall with us. You mean war to the end — the end be it !" For hours we watched the burning until the dawn really came — ^the flames mastering all. Euin beyond hope it seemed; the glorious monument of French genius and taste, only burning timbers, ashes and smoke. And we thought of some visions of Dante's hell, as it sank lower and lower, throwing its light over the soft morning sky. And it seemed as if anger and rashness rose higher in the breasts of these struggling Titans. The fight re- sumed. The Communists who were in force at the Hotel de Ville fired from their batteries and the fire was re- turned. The shells moaned through the air — ^that sad moaning sound, how familiar it has become! — and fell around the Opera House, the Place Concorde, where the Guillotine had stood in Robespierrian days, and probably one of the most beautiful spots of decoration and marble work and bronze and greenery in Europe, over the burn- ing palace and wherever it was thought the Versailles sol- diers were encamped. And we recalled what has been told us of the destruction of Eome, the pillage of Jeru- salem, the burning of Moscow, and mourned to see in this age of light and reason a sight as fearful as any known in history. For it truly seemed on that night of magnificent terror, as if Paris itself was about to pass away in flames, and become even as Carthage and Tyre and Babylon, and the desolated cities of the Nile. Other flames leaped up, Digitized by Microsoft® I So Men and Memories. here and there and beyond, until the whole horizon was a line of terrible splendor. We counted nine distinct buildings in flames, and it seemed as if there would be no end. The Palais Eoyal was burning; the palace of the great Kichelieu, the Eegent Duke of Orleans; of Eevolutionary Egalite; of Prince Lucien in Bonaparte days; of Louis Philippe after the Restoration; of Prince Jerome, the brother of the First Emperor; and finally of the Prince Napoleon — a beautiful pile of Ionic and Doric architec- ture, and in the rear inviting gardens with trees and fountains, and long rows of shops. The nursery maids and idlers of Paris will sadly miss the Palais Eoyal, as its gardens were among the most attractive resorts of this attractive city. Farther off burned the Pantheon, as the Jacobins called it, now again known as the Church of St. Genevieve, the work of Clovis, at the first said to be the resting place of St. Genevieve, the patron saint of this sad city, who was gathered to her tomb in 512 — a striking building with notable Corinthian columns, the tomb of Voltaire and Lannes and Mirabeau and Marat after he had been stabbed by Charlotte Corday, but who, with Mirabeau, was removed when France changed her mind, and sent to sleep in a common sewer. More sorrow will be felt for the exquisite Sainte Chap- pelle, whose fairy spire seems to welcome the flames. This building had more meaning and beauty to me than any I had seen in Paris. In the beginning, say about 1245, intended as the shrine of the crown of thorns and the piece of the true cross which holy St. Louis found in Con- stantinople — a Gothic work, with arches and buttresses, its tall spire deftly worked in quaint tracings and tinted with gold. Here Louis IX. prayed, and its windows pre- served the wonderful painted glass of the Middle Ages, an Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 181 m which had been lost to us in these wiser years. Many will moan at this irreparable loss, and we can only hope that the blaspheming fingers of the flame will spare the beauty which can never be restored. Nearer to us, so near that the heat and smoke of the flames make breathing an anxiety, we see that the vast Treasury building is burning, with a rapid, eager, con- suming flame, throwing into the night all that will ever more be seen of the financial records of France, its ledgers and books of accoimt, and imposing more embarrassment in the future afEairs than any other imaginable loss. The ponderous palace in the Quai D'Orsay where the council of State and some financial people did business, a coarse, heavy, meaningless building, simply vast, no more, what the nineteenth century calls art in architecture, is in flames. Something that Napoleon began and Louis Philippe completed, worth about 11,000,000 francs, we are told, and with some paintings of modern people, mainly warriors, to be regretted, but not with the tender regret that goes out to the little Sainte Chappelle and the Tuil- leries. With something of the same feeling we see that the Palace of the Legion of Honor has been doomed. Memorable in one way, that it had been put up at a lottery by the Eobespierre people, and won by a hair dresser, an eighteenth century work, with one of the many arches of triumph which surmounts Paris, a cozy little garden, a couple of colossal eagles and a little grouping of Ionic columns ; simply an ornament, and the home of a sinecure person, who was Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor ; money gone, and one ornament less for the beautiful city, but without old associations or value in art. But the flames continue and we cannot see what is burn- ing and what is not. The telegraph has told you. The Palace of Justice and the Hotel de Ville are losses in their Digitized by Microsoft® 1 82 Men and Memories. way apart from their value in money. The Palace of Justice was the oldest building in France — a public place before the invasion of the Franks — agoing to the time of the fourth century, according to the traditions. Here lived the first race of French Kings. Some of the work was the design of the original Capet. It has been built, and rebuilt, and strengthened until it came to what it was when the destroying train was laid. Memorable also in a bloody way from the neighboring Conciergie, as under its gates — ^the very gates that crackle and smoulder — ^the tumbril carried to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette and the Girondins, the sprightly Camille, and the audacious Danton. The prison stands, although the flames lapped and scorched it. The Hotel de Ville was the headquarters of the Com- mune, where they did the most of their fighting, and the surrender of which was the surrender of the stronghold of their cause. It was the City Hall of Paris, a vast and noble pile with mural statues, and courts and fagades and pavilions — rooms capable of entertaining as many as seven thousand guests at one ball— rquite bewildering in its vast- ness and the beauty of its decorations, and representing much French history. Here the poor, well-meaning, fool- ish Louis harangued the Eobespierrians with a red liberty cap on his head. Here Eobespierre himself made his last historical grasp at power, and shot himself and lay in agony until the hour for the guillotine. Here Lafayette having found his model king in Louis Philippe, presented him to the people from a balcony. Here Lamartine defied a mob in 1848 — by the famous declaration that his govern- ment would not accept the red flag for the new Eepublic — for while the red flag had been simply trailed in blood around the Champs de Mars, the tri-color had been carried in glory around the world. A great loss in every way, Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 183 and more keenly felt by the people than any building but the Tuilleries. We ventured out of our prison when the sun had fully risen. The morning was clear and bright, and groups of terror-stricken spectators were clustering on the boule- vards. Behind the barricades dead men were lying. The shell and shot had torn houses, trees, lamp-posts, plough- ing up the asphaltum pavement and covering the house fronts with holes. There was little damage to houses that could not be repaired, however, as most of the firing in the street was from musketry. Some houses had their fronts blown away; and one, especially, on the boulevard had the wall cut out and the chamber furniture appeared to view, like a great doll's house. The air was heavy with the smoke and heat of the burning buildings. We pressed to the Place Concorde, which we could merely look at from the Communist batteries at Hotel de Ville. The fountain was injured, but the obelisk of Sesostris, which had stood in the great Temple of Thebes fifteen hundred years before Christ, and had been brought here by Louis Philippe, was unharmed. The statues of the French cities were more or less injured, poor Lille having her head broken off. Beyond, the black, smouldering Tuilleries still burned, although the fire had done its work. The soldiery had passed on in their murderous business, and the people were eagerly rushing to put out the flames. Every one was compelled to work at the pumps; and, as there were perhaps twenty fires burning — for, during the uight, the shells and the flames from the public buildings had spread — ^there was work for nearly every one to do. And citizen and alien did it cheerfully. It is impossible to give you a description in detail of the scenes of the morning, as I should weary you with the monotony of saying over and over again what I saw around Digitized by Microsoft® 1 84 Men and Memories. my own quarter. What Paris had known in these twa days was a closely contested, bravely fought battle in the streets. The valor shown by both sides was splendid. Women fought in the barricades and young boys with fair, golden hair and cheeks of down. In this shop-keeping section of Paris, the Communists had few friends. So, this morn- ing, there seemed to be a blossoming of tri-color flags, which would have given a picturesque view to the streets but for the sad irony which looked out from the ruin and death around. We worked our way along the Champs Elysees toward the Arch of Triumph, now released from its two months' shelling, and out over the magnificent Avenue of the Grand Army. This was the exposed quarter during the assault of the Versailles batteries. The Arch had been slightly battered with shells, but generally speaking it was unharmed. Nearly every house in the vicinity had been entered or struck by shells. The house of our Minister, Mr. Washburne, was entered twice. When I say that this is the most elaborate and splendid part of Paris; where the wealth and aristocracy of the city had clustered, and that the mass of architectural beauty and finish, sur- passes that of any city in the world, you can imagine the ruin that has been done. This, however, was the work of the Versailles guns, and it is another odd phase of the irony of these extraordinary events that the Versailles Government was compelled to destroy the homes of its own friends, in order to repress the Commune. The Commune-quarter, the Faubourgs which generated this revolt, were on the other side of Paris. We visited Maillot, on the outskirts where Dombrowski, the Commune General, had had his headquarters. This was the keystone of the revolt, where the Commune had held Versailles at bay for the past two months. The Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 185 works were in good condition but the ruin was complete. It seemed as if a storm of shell and shot had fallen from heaven. Houses thrown down in chaos, walls rent, broken, tumbling. In one house-front I counted over thirty dif- ferent holes made by shells. We could not go to Ver- sailles, as all exit from Paris is forbidden, so we con- tinued our journey along the outskirts, taking the Boule- vard Lannes, and as it were, circling around a fourth of the city. We saw Mount Valerian, and Vanves and Issy; the heights occupied by the German batteries, and the havoc their gims had made on the exposed quarter. The Prussian guns were of greater caliber than those of Ver- sailles, and their shots, so far as we could observe the effect, were more destructive that those which had fallen at Neuilly. We saw enough of it. I rode for two hours through a series of ruins that I never hope to see again. Of course Paris will recover from this. A few days more and these crumbling walls will be taken down, the rents repaired, homes rebuilt, and the black stains of war erased. The Paris which suffered in a property sense, was that part of Paris which could af- ford the loss. A few more weeks and these streets, so de- serted, so gloomy, so shattered, so very awful in their solitude and desolation, these wide sweeping avenues and beautiful outlined boulevards will have forgotten the rude outrages of Prussian and French guns, and be as bright as ever, with the brightness of foliage and decoration, and the beauty of womankind and fashion. And now I come to write what I have been shrinking from writing, the attitude of Paris in victory. I have often thought of a nation as one man in its passions, joys and emotions, that the great Demos has really the condi- tions of our poor human nature. I have seen popular phenomena in our own country, which were almost trag- Digitized by Microsoft® i86 Men and Memories. edies in their way, with eloquent and deep sublimity. America, when Sumter fell, when Bull Eun was lost, when Eichmond was taken, when Lincoln was slain, was so moved that it can never be forgotten by those who saw the great Eepublic in anger, in despair, in ecstacy, in bitter sorrow. But this city of victory is swept with emotions BO wild that I cannot express them. I can now under- stand what was meant by the Eeign of Terror. I am trying to write calmly, and yet it is very hard. Here is an army pressing over Paris. When a barricade is taken every prisoner is shot. Any man with arms in his hand is executed. When a Communist is found he is simply identified, placed against a wall and killed. Life and death are in the hands of sous-lieutenants. In one street a house was entered. There were twelve officers and soldiers of the Commune. They were in hiding. They had no arms. But there was the official stamp of the Commune. They were evidently, as the officer reasoned, "giving orders." They were taken into the nearest Place and put to death. An officer of the line, hungry and weary with the fight, went into a restaurant and took a dish of soup. He was taken sick. Violent pains came upon him. They might have been the pains of some summer distemper, for they passed off in twelve hours, but, no — "He had been poisoned;" and the res- taurant people were taken out and shot. The army seems to lap blood — ^to dabble in it. I saw a fair young woman walking between two sol- diers, and followed by a large crowd, crying, "Shoot her ! shoot her !" She was comely, sedate, her pale lips tightly set, with no color in her cheeks, but firm, calm and scorn- ful. She had gone up to an officer and fired at him. Yet there was no murder in her face — only the fanati- cism and passion that seem to have swept over this Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 187 strange, fascinating people — perhaps revenge for some dead lover. Well, those pale lips will never again be kissed in love and tenderness, for as I left her she was marched into the Place and shot. I saw another group who were surrounding a woman. She was about fifty, very large and stout, and waddled as she walked. Over her red cheeks poured bitter drops of terror and apprehension. Her eyes staring wildly around, looking for some sympathizing or rescuing face — the uttermost expression of agony and despair. Well, she had "poisoned somebody with soup also," it was said, and the cry was "Shoot her !" I hope she was saved ; for this "poison" cry is very madness, and none but a French- man would listen to it for a moment. And events like these I might write in columns. Some minutes ago, before I began this page, I was strolling with Mr. Huntington along the Boulevard des Italiens for an after-dinner walk. At one of the two cafes which were open, we sat down to a cup of coffee. At an adjoining table an elderly person, with gray Van- dyke beard, was calmly discussing the events of the day. He was a "man of order" most certainly reaetionnaire, anything in fact but a believer in the Commune. "I tell you," he said, "we must so thoroughly punish this re- volt that there shall not be any more revolutions." At this instant another elderly person, carrying an umbrella and not unlike a banker, paused, and advancing toward him, cried out: "What do you mean, sir, by saying there will be more revolutions?" Vandyke turned and said, with emphasis, "I was not saying there would be more revolutions. I was " "Kot saying, sir!" shrieked the banker: "did I not hear you speak of more revolu- tions?" and so on^ with a volley of the most offensive Digitized by Microsoft® 1 88 Men and Memories. phrases known to the French tongue. In Tain Vaiidyke sought to explain. The stream of invective from the enraged banker rose higher and higher, until he talked in a scream, and a crowd certainly of a hundred gathered around. Van- dyke, who was very cool, tried to explain — ^to appeal to those around him — ^to rehearse his argument. The run- ning shriek kept on, pauseless, intense, summing up phrase after phrase of condemnation and wrath. Then came the cafe-keeper, a fat, kindly person, with an olive face, double chin, and a little black-clipped moustache turned up at the end. "Sir," he said to Vandyke, "you had better go away. You will be arrested. You are mak- ing a riot." "I am not making trouble," was the response, "I am not going away. I have lived around the comer fifteen years. I have said nothing, done nothing." "Ar- rested !" shrieked Vandyke, "to be sure ! You are right !" "He shall be arrested!" said the Banker. "Where are the soldiers?" and off he tripped into the darkness. The crowd remained, Vandyke sipped his coffee. There was a confused whirr and chirp, and in a minute or two we heard the tramp of armed men. There came six sol- diers, with an officer at their head, and the banker at his side. The banker pointed savagely at Vandyke. The officer, removing his hat, said with courtesy : "Well, Mon- sieur, do me the honor to accompany me ?" "With pleasure," said Vandyke, raising his hat, and falling into line. So the squad marched down the boule- vard, followed by the crowd. I have no doubt he met some temperate officer, explained himself, and was re- leased. The cry of "Poison" soon gave way to the more terri- ble than all — "Petroleum!" Petroleum had been used to set fire to the palace, and instantly there was a panic. Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 189 "Paris will be destroyed with petroleum ! Let every man look to his home! Keep guard over it day and night! Close up every crevice or aperture, cellar gratings, key- holes, letter boxes, every crack of fissure through which one drop of the oil can be poured." Some wild donkey of a magistrate wrote a proclamation to this effect and put it on the walls. In an hour every housekeeper was having his house tinkered and plastered, and "protected" with sand bags and masonry. At night you were ordered to walk in the middle of the street, away from the houses, lest it might be that you were an incendiary of the Commune. I see by the journals that many have been shot for being found with petroleum in their keeping. The houses are searched for it and for arms. My room was visited by a very courteous officer, anxious about my business and my possessions. I sim- ply showed him my passport, and he at once went his way. While Versailles is so thoroughly stamping out this Commune — shooting the leaders, disarming the people, and making a terrible example of the insurrection — even more dreadful scenes take place within the lines of the desperate cause. In the prison of Mazas, the model prison of Paris, a number of clergymen, army officers, and suspected citizens, were confined by the Commune. Among them was Monseigneur Darboy, Archbishop of Paris — a prelate universally beloved for his eloquence and piety. M. Gustavo Chaudy, the editor of the Siecle, the curate of the Madeleine, and several Catholic clergymen of eminence — especially of the Jesuit order. Much in- terest was felt for the Archbishop, and every effort was made to release him. Our Minister, Mr. Washburne, who remained in Paris during the days of terror, and whose courage, energy and Digitized by Microsoft® igo Men and Memories. ability entitled him to the highest thanks from his coun- trymen, insisted upon seeing him — a request which Gen- eral Cluseret, of the Commune, finally granted. The venerable prelate was in poor health, and by the persist- ent resolution of our Minister, he was placed in a more comfortable cell, and supplied by the Minister with some necessities. An effort was made to exchange him for Blanqui, a Commune leader, who was in prison at Ver- sailles. The Commune offered to release the Archbishop and four other of the clergy for Blanqui, but M. Thiers declined, and he was left to his fate. When the Commune fell back the Archbishop, with thirty-five other prisoners, was taken from Mazas to La Eoquette, the prison of the condemned, near the Cemetery of Pere la Chaise, and in front of which prisoners met the doom of the guillotine. On Wednesday morning the Commune had been driven to its last lines. Versailles had executed all of the lead- ers who had fallen into their hands, and it was plainly known that no quarter would be allowed. At seven o'clock in the morning the Archbishop was summoned from his cell, and, with five or six of the lead- ing clergy, was led to the yard, when a platoon of sol- diers of the Commune was drawn up, and told that he must die. The prelate advanced a pace or two, said a few words to his murderers, forgiving them for his blood, and praying that they might have that forgiveness which would come from the mercies and intercession of Jesus Christ. Two of the soldiers fell on their knees and asked the old man's blessing. The other soldiers seized the two penitents and dragged them away, the ofiBeer saying with oaths that they were brought there not to pray, but to shoot. The six clergymen were then shot, one by one, dying with calmness and religious dignity and courage. Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. igi Their bodies were placed in a wagon and thrown into a ditch in Pere la Chaise, where they were afterwards found. After this formal execution the greater portion of the remaining hostages were massacred. A few managed to escape, but the most part were slain. M. Thiers might have saved the Archbishop, but he really thought there would be no strife in Paris ; that the city would surrender without a blow, and that the imprisonment of the clergy- men was a menace. Many of the best friends of his government are bitter in their denunciation of his failure to release Monseigneur Darboy. No event has made such a deep and painful impression, an impression only deep- ened by the remembrance that the work of shooting prisoners and unarmed men in cold blood was begun by ■the Versailles army. On Monday they began to shoot the prisoners of the Commune. The Communists began their dreadful retaliation on Wednesday morning. It was really war without mercy on the part of both combatants ; on one side the Prussians and the Versailles army, on the other side the desperate Commune. I have referred to Mr. Washbume and General Bead. Let me break my narrative to say a word that is due to our representatives as a matter of simple justice. The world knows what Mr. Washburne did during the siege; how in company with General Eead he remained at his post, when other diplomats fled, and sufEered the privations of the siege to protect his countrymen and the Germans who had been committed to his care. His condemnation of the insurrection was unmeasured, but he remained here, and compelled the Commune to respect his authority, and the integrity of his flag. No one ever sought him in vain. By day and night he labored to protect his fellow citizens in their rights and property, as well as the rights and property of other nations, Digitized by Microsoft® igz Men and Memories. Instead of dancing diplomatic attendance to M. Thiers in the palaces of Versailles, he spent most of his time in Paris, where his duty called him. If his advice had been taken the Archbishop would have been saved, and the result of his labors was that in the days of terror, his flag was treated with courtesy by every party in Paris. There was no passport as sure as that which covered the American citizen. Mr. Washburne gained great honor for what he did during the siege, an honor publicly echoed in the House of Commons. He deserves greater honor still for what he did during the domination of the Commxme. And what I said of our Minister should also be said of General Eead, the Consul-General, who remained with him at his post, and who well represents his government. I have spoken of the scandal of this Commune revolt, of the great wrong of taking Prance at an advantage. But I beg you will not consider me as writing in the wild shriek of denunciation which seems to sweep over Europe. There is a cause for all this, a cause somewhere, and it cannot be reached by grape-shot. "You will understand it better," said a grave and wise friend who knows Paris, "when you remember that there are one hundred thou- sand people here whose wages for eight months in the year average a franc and a half a day. For the other four months — nothing." When Vesuvius burns expect the lava. I have no doubt that there were many conservative Pom- peiian philosophers who sealed their windows and hid the mountain from sight. But it burned, and one day the lava came. The Commune is suppressed; but if the rulers of Prance will only calmly and patiently seek out the cause of these revolutions, and find a remedy, there will be a blessing to France and to Europe in the end. With the Commune it was desperation. No word of conciliation had come from Versailles. Grood mea, mod- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 193 erate Eepublicans, delegates from Free Mason Lodges, Eepublicans of 1848, had gone thither in hopes to find some middle ground of conciliation or surrender. M. Thiers had only the lives of his suppliants to offer — pun- ishment for the leaders — with the added intimation that for a week after the occupation no questions would be asked. In other words, the leaders might run away to Belgium, to Holland, to England — anywhere; but in France they could not remain. Versailles seemed in a frenzy of horror and wrath. Here was an assembly chosen by a country which had been under the Bonaparte palsy for twenty years — ^by that France which had been left by corrupt leaders unarmed, unequipped, undisciplined, to the mercy of the most powerful army in Europe-^by France in misery, dejection and despair. This Assembly was the cowardice and bigotry of France taking refuge in submission. Here were the deputies who had been buried for a quarter of a century, waiting for an angel of God to come upon the waters with some Henry the Fifth or Count of Paris under his wings, and bring healing and peace — old men, "five dukes in a row," said the writers — men of the time of Louis XIV., mourn- ing old institutions and the good days of legitimacy and the Bastile, and who seemed to say, like Lear, as they crept into the presence of France, "You do me wrong to take me out of the grave." Here was Paris, which for four months had saved the honor of France, while army after army had been swept into prison ; which had known starvation and bombardment and the unspeakable privations of the siege; which had struck the only manly blow for France, and simply de- manded municipal freedom — surely Paris had earned the right to receive courtesy from France. "You have given us kings; you have elected emperors; Digitized by Microsoft® 1 94 Men and Memories. you have covered us with what you call glory; you have slain our sons, burdened us with debt, destroyed all hon- est, true thoughts; you have made Paris the home of luxury and sensuousness — a city for the latter Caesars; you would bring us more kings, with your five dukes all in a row," but we do not want them. We want freedom. You say we are not legitimate, not constitutional — ^that we do not speak for France. Well, granted ; and what are you? Was Bonapartism legitimate? Eemember the Eighteenth of Brumaire and the Second of December. Was Orleanism legitimate? Eemember that Louis Philippe himself had no right to the throne — ^that he was the king of the barricades. Why, even your most legiti- mate Christian successor of Saint Louis was brought back to us by the allied armies of Europe, after we had whipped them again and again for twenty years. What right had you to proclaim the prerogative of this Third !N"apoleon — ^your Jules Faure and Picard ; your oaths of allegiance to him and his dynasty, but recently sworn in the Legislative Assembly. And now, elected under the term of a Prussian occupation, simply to make the best terms of surrender, you forget that your work is done, and continue to legislate for France. We demand the Eepublic ! We demand the independence of Paris in her own domestic affairs; that independence which England gives to London and America to New York. We demand that Paris shall be something more than a royal park or an imperial household — a preserve for the creatures of the throne, and governed by order of Emperor or King. To Prance we give what is due; for ourselves we reserve what is our own, and mean to govern Paris ourselves. This was the logic of the movement which found ex- pression in the Commune, and when it is remembered that every usurpation had been made successful by the sudden Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 195 grasping of the power of Prance, wliicli centralized in Paris; that this whole municipal system was simply an engine to be seized by the successful adventurer and thrown against France, the world may see that there was some reason in the appeal. You will remember that it was the possession of Paris which enabled De Morny, upon the day of the coup d'etat, to enter the Home Office and telegraph to France that Paris had welcomed the usurper with raptures, and to counsel obedience from every local oflBcer in the republic. The rulers of France feel the necessity of Paris as a weapon of centralization and strength. Even the Jacobins were not free from the am- bition of ruling France by the power of Paris. If I mis- take not, Eobespierre was as much an advocate of cen- tralization and opposed to the theory of the Commune as M. Thiers. Modem Eepublicans have reached better thoughts, and whatever may be said of the Commune and the crimes and follies of its leaders, there was a logic under it all which should be heard. Of course this revolution, like any movement of the human mind which means an innovation upon its estab- lished customs, had its follies and crimes. Some of its leaders were enthusiasts. Others were adventurers. Some were young men, fresh from the school or the work- shop, who had read Hugo and Compte, and were bent upon an immediate reformation of society, and who gave the revolution impulse and life and headiness. Some were old men, like Delescluze, who had lived lives of sorrow and expectation, who had known exile and imprisonment, Cayenne and the galleys, for daring to question the divinity of the emperor ; who went into the Commune with a sombre fanaticism which our good old conservatives saw in John Brown — suspicious, distrusting, hoping against Digitized by Microsoft® 196 Men and Memories. hope, afraid of betrayal, their minds worn and subdued by years of disappointment and sorrow. What the Commune wanted was a head. What it could not possibly have was a head. Napoleon could have made it a success. It was the terror of Napoleonism which per- cipitated its failure. When a man like Eussell or even Cluseret, showed capacity and decision and a tendency to military ways, he was thrown under a cloud, arrested, removed or sent into banishment. Delescluze's last order was almost mournful in its confession of this — its hope- less groping for something which would answer the place of discipline, order, the spirit of command, the whole comity of war. "There had been enough of military- ism," he cried; "enough of strategy and tactics — of the nonsense of planning. The time had come for every good citizen to take his gun in his hand and go out and fight the traitors of Versailles." The stern old man had done his best to create victory, and finally he threw up his hands in despair, saying if Paris would be free the people must do it in their own way. Here, also, is the last order of the Commune, which I copied from a broadside the morning of the assault. It has a sadness and quaint simplicity and pathos about it : COMMUNE OF PAEIS. Liberte — Bgalite — Fratemite ! Federation of the National Guard, General Committee. Soldiers of the Army of Versailles: We are fathers of families! We are fighting to prevent our children from being one day like you — ^the slaves of a military despotism! You will some day be also fathers of families ! If you fire upon the people to-day your sons wiU curse you, as Digitized By microsoft® •' ' Men and Memories. 197 we curse the soldiers who tore out the hearts of the people in June, 1848, and in December, 1857! Two months ago, on the 18th of March, your brothers of the army of Paris, their hearts incensed at the cowards who had sold France, fraternized with the people. Imitate them! Soldiers — our children and our brothers — hearken to this appeal ! Let your conscience decide ! When you are ordered to do deeds of infamy — disobe- dience is a duty! The Central Committee. 5 Prairial, An. 79. This order was a confession of defeat. The men who wrote it had no alternative but death, and it only re- mained for them to die with arms in their hands. I happen to know this was the feeling of the leaders them- selves. On the morning of the assault one of the military Com- munists, who held a high command, visited the house of a friend who had taken no part in the movement, but with whom he had had friendly relations in America. It was early, before the attack had developed. "Is there anybody here?" he said anxiously. "No," was the reply. He sat down and rested his face in his hand. There was no hope, he said. The forces could not defeat the army coming against them. Nor would the leaders surrender, and if they did there still would be no surrender. The men would not obey them. The cause was in the hands of the followers. If he could escape he would. He was asked if there was any way of avoiding bloodshed. "Only one hope," he replied ; "if M. Thiers will proclaim pardon to all who surrender, there may be a surrender; if not, the day will see bloodier scenes than were ever known in Digitized by Microsoft® igS Men and Memories. Paris." He departed and was killed in command of his barricade. During the Commune occupation there were nightly clubs where political questions were discussed. They were generally held in the churches. I visited one in session in an old Gothic church, which had known the same gather- ing in the time of the Jacobins. As we entered an at- tendant held a box in his hand, and asked for a small contribution for the wounded. The church was really a noble edifice, one of the most perfect types of Eenais- sance, going back to the middle of the sixteenth centujy. It was nearly filled with men and women — the women predominating. Near the altar were the officers — a Presi- dent, who seemed to have no trouble in keeping order, and a number of women, some of whom were knitting, re- calling the Tricoteurs who were wont in the other days to sit all day near the guillotine. In the pulpit, a workingman was talking in a ram- bling way, but with that grace which seems to be natural to Frenchmen of Liberty and Equality, and more especially of the courage of the regiment to which he belonged. It was evidently a stupid, purposeless speech, but the audi- ence were quite docile and polite, and chatted away about every topic, and wandered in and out, and looked at the pictures and monuments. Probably if I had remained long enough, I might have heard an address or two upon the division of property and the duty of general pillage. But I heard nothing of the kind, nor indeed have I heard anything of the kind since I came to Paris. And here I should publish certain testimony which is due to the leaders of this dead cause. I was freely ad- mitted into Paris. I visited every part of it. I strolled in and around barricades, attended the clubs, walked in the faubourgs of St. Antoine and Belleville, mingled with Digitized by Microsoft® ° Men and Memories. 199 the soldiery, went into the camps of the Tuilleries, and was always received with attention and courtesy. I never saw a more orderly city. In Montmartre, for instance, there were no police. Montmartre is what might be called "the worst part" of the capital. I walked. over it, looked at the works, and no one troubled me. I was not even questioned. I saw no drunkenness, no ruffianism, no pillage. I saw one crowd at least of thirty thousand men and women, and it was orderly and good-humored as though it were a gathering at a New York county fair. I remember standing for four hours on the balcony of a hotel on the Eue de la Paix on the day when the Ven- dome Column fell. The streets were filled with people, and I studied the crowd critically and commented upon it, with an American friend more accustomed to such sights, especially in England. "Why," he said, "if that were an American crowd it would be shouting and hustling, and there would probably be a fight or two and squad after squad of police. If it were English there would be rude, savage jokes, men bonneting each other, bantering the women, or jeering some one who had a strange hat or a peculiar costume, crowding, fighting, shouting, with a company of Life Guard to keep order." What we saw was a talking, cheery crowd — ^men in blouses, gamins, women, with nursing children; quiet old nensioners, who talked politics to a group of a dozen or ■30. If anything, it lacked the buoyancy and movement of a real crowd, and was subdued and saddened. But the ruffianism I read of in almost every English journal never came to my eye. I know it is proper to believe that these men are scoun- drels, infidels, the scum of the earth, with hideous notions about property, meaning the overthrow of all law and gen- eral pillage. I have sought in every way for information Digitized by Microsoft 200 Men and Memories, since I came here, but I have heard but of few instances of pillage. A few churches were robbed, I was told. Well, I went into the beautiful Church of the Madeleine, expecting to see it a stable or a wine cellar. I found an officer of the Commune quietly pacing up and down. A few stragglers were at prayers. Soon a hooded Sister of Charity came in, followed by a line of children, who filed into the pews and began their devotions, and left un- disturbed. The Madeleine received more harm from the shots of the Versailles soldiers in combat than from the Commune during the siege. The demolition of the house of M. Thiers was childlike and petulant. But it was an evi- dence of what I have said these Commuists always showed — the absence of any political sense. M. Thiers, they said, had been shelling Paris for a month, and was destroying the houses of the people ; let him know what it is to have his own torn down. So, also, with the proposed demolition of the Chapel of Expiation. This striking chapel was built by Louis XVIII., over the ground containing the remains of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette and the Swiss Guards who were massacred at the Tuilleries. The Communists regarded it as an insult to the Eevolution, and declared its destruction. The work was not accomplished; and although the proposal was certainly absurd, it was meant to defend a principle, and was not simply van- dalism. So with the falling of the column in the Place Ven- dome. I saw this column fall and I confess it was with a sensation of sorrow that I looked upon it for hours and hours, as it was girded with ropes and machinery and chipped at its base. Nor could I fail to remember all the glories of Prance and the great Emperor as I saw the soldiery climb to the top and tie a tri-color ilag to the Digitized by Microsoft® ° Men and Memories. 201 Imperial feet that it might fall with him into the same degradation; for there is much to love in that beautiful tri-color, and it deserves all the honor it has received from art and poetry. "Surely," I said, "France has nothing more precious than this." And when the ropes snapped and twirled around the heads of the workmen and the column still stood and seemed to defy the energies of the soldiery, there was a sense of comfort. But it came. As it trembled a moment, with a shudder, and leaped into the aar and fragments of stone and bronze rose in a cloud of smoke, and the dull, heavy thud told it had fallen, and the crowd marched forward and mounted officers pranced around, shouting "Vive la Commune!" and the cluster of red flags blossomed out on the stump with sol- diers dancing a carmagnole around them, and an orator declaimed upon the horrors of war, and the crimes of the great warrior whose Caesar-image lay rent and shattered, I could not but appreciate the emotions of another Amer- ican who stood near me on the balcony, when he said with choking voice, "I am trembling with rage ! The scoundrels ! I could kill every one of them!" I say I could not but appreciate the emotions which found this strong expression, although beyond and above all came this thought: is there really nothing better for a nation as great as France than to send her sons out to murder and devastation, and when the work is over to build a monument to assassination and misery and woe? For what is it, after all — these Vendome Columns and this aurora of Napoleonism, that has covered France with a lurid splendor for seventy years — but the apotheosis of murder and woe? This was a noble Column. The men who made it were cunning in their work. As it loomed up in clear and sharply cut symmetrical lines, with Cassar at the top, it was in itself a victory of taste and industry. Digitized by Microsoft® 202 Men and Memories. And although no human being has ever read the legends which encircled it in animated bronze, we knew that they told of great wars, and that this was the bronze of twelve hundred cannon taken in the German countries, and that it meant the unspeakable glory of the great Emperor. And I said, great is Napoleon and beautiful is the column, and this bronze tracery has a deep meaning to those who read history. But the thought that to-day a people have been brave enough to root out a monument to murder ; to say that there is a higher mission for nations of valiant people than Eepublieanism ; that the time has come 'for people to do what statescraft has failed to do as yet, namely, to make peace and courtesy and living in the world which God sent them to occupy, without, of neces- sity, cutting their neighbor's throat ; the thought that this poor Commune, with all its recorded knaveries has been wise enough to see this, and brave enough to bear witness to it, will live for ages as its best contribution to humanity and brotherhood. The falling of this column will be heard throughout the world. But yesterday, and France was maddened and panting for a new war with Germany. Frenchmen were called upon to take their children to the altar and make them swear the oath of Hannibal. To-day Frenchmen wrench from its base the great monument of French triumph over Germany, and say, "So far as we are concerned, there shall be no more war. We mean peace, nationality, the brotherhood of nations, the rights of labor against aris- tocracy, of the people against the kings!" It may be a dream, but oh ! friends, is it not something to really dream these things ; to strive to do them ; to signify to the world that we mean what we say? I am far from defending this dead Commune. I am merely giving you some thoughts and observations that Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 203 come to me as a spectator. I know the Commune com- mitted great crimes. For instance, they deprived the American of his Paris. To plain folks at home, who do not know how necessary his Paris is to the true European American, it will be difficult to comprehend the extent of this enormity. Your American here is a type in him- self. He is patriotic. His strongest political conviction is that we should whip England. I don't know why, but I suspect it is on account of the ale or fogs in London. He accepts the axiom, which, I believe, nobody will deny, that America is the only country in the world really fit for a Republic. You may point him to Switzerland; but that is not an exception, for, you must remember, there are mountains in Switzerland, and somehow or other the mountains ac- count for the difference. Probably the country most un- fit for a Eepublic is France. See what Prance has done — ^the guillotine, riots, massacres, robbing churches — ^no end of crimes ! I suggested to an esteemed friend the other day, as he was making the true old American speech, with a fine Bonaparte ring through it, that really Prance was so desperate a scandal that it should be abolished; and there might be some human system of annual deci- mation, poisoning the children, and so in ten years have no more Prance. But I found that, scandalous as the French were, they were really necessary to the American in his Paris. They had taste, they knew vintages and silks, could make coffee and salads and toothsome dishes. They were skilled in boots and apparel. They were a bright, cordial people, and they had created such a Paris for the American, such a noble, inviting, splendid city, that they could not be spared. Instead of decimating, therefore, the one solution was Bonaparte. He knew the people, their ways and Digitized by Microsoft® 204 Men and Memories. whims ; when to give them music, when to give them grape shot. Mr. Fetridge, the able author of the Harper's Handbook, a volume that should be in every family, and a good authority on the subject, says: "Agitators, repealers and socialists were paralyzed by one bold stroke such as Crom- well and Caesar had struck before him" — meaning the coup d'etat. "Napoleon having restored order and se- curity to France, came to the wise determination, that, for the good of his country, his actions must be free and without hindrance." I use the italics in order to give the fullest emphasis to Mr. Fetridge's meaning, for I should despair of stating the case with so much clearness and force. The crime of Paris, therefore, in overruling the "wise determination" of this Heaven-appointed Bona- parte, the crime of this Commune in presuming to ask for Paris the municipal freedom of London and New York, the added infamy of so disturbing and unsettling his Paris, that the American was driven to the gloom of Lon- don or the hotels of Brussels, cannot too strongly merit the execrations of mankind. Then again, there was the question of respectability of what Carlyle had called somewhere "Gig-manity." Not one man of these Commune people kept a gig. Nobody knew who they were. They had no time. They had never been heard of. They were apes, like the ape of Erasmus, who, having seen his master shave, took the razor himself one day and made a sorry sight. Who were Delescluze and Courbet and Milliere and Paseal-Grousset that they should dare to sit in the seat of rulers by the grace of God, of men who had the gift of government? No wonder that any Frenchman who owned a gig turned away in shame from the spectacle, remembering, as he must have remembered, that the seats thus profaned by Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 205 these canaille had boen filled by Louis Napoleon and his fascinating brother, DeMorny, and his cousin-in-law, Prince Napoleon and Walewski, by Marshal St. Arnaud and Gen. Fleury, by Persigny and Piabault and the Due De Grammont. These great and wise men came into France poor, and they left it, rich — not only rich in their right, but in the right of their bastards and mistresses. This showed what it was to rule by God's grace ; that they knew what power was and how to wield it. This base ca- naille held Paris in their hands and left it poor with their bodies in the streets. If they had been traitors, they might have secured ten millions from Thiers ; and, if cor- rupt they might have taken twenty out of the storehouses and escaped to England or America. My friends, let us be just, and see what is really true and false in these tragic scenes. This Commune is dead. I write these lines on a beautiful Sunday morning, while over the Christian world, in Europe and in dear America, men and women are kneeling to the God of mercy and peace, seeking the intercession of One who taught us charity and forgiveness and good will; that there was sal- vation for the beggar; for the woman who had fallen; for the thieves on the cross. Here in Paris the heavy cannon of Montmartre echoes again its ceaseless, heavy, life-destroying sound. Two miles off, in the venerable and beautiful cemetery of Pere la Chaise, among the tombs of Beranger and Moliere and Leplaee, of Abelard and Helois, over the dust of the noblest and bravest and best Frenchmen of the last generation, this Commune army made its last stand. For six days it has been driven back, back, until it can retreat no further. Its one leader Delescluze, lies dead in a ditch — dying with a musket in his hand. Behind its lines is the Prussian army of occupation, and Digitized by Microsoft® 2d6 Men and Memories. a line of Prussian sentinels, whose orders are to permit no one to escape; they have shot some for attempting to escape, for, remember, that Bismarck wants his money, and that in the holy work of punishing these ruffians, Bis- marck and Thiers are in an active military alliance. In front of them is an army of over a hundred thousand men — an army released from Germany, commanded by a great captain, even MacMahon, the trusted lieutenant of the Heaven-appointed Bonaparte. The fight goes on. It may end to-day or to-morrow. Let us pray for the end! M. Thiers is master of Paris. He is a humane man, and would close the business with the loss of as few lives as possible. But these men will sell their lives dearly. Die they must, for France is mad ; and they might as well meet their doom with arms in theii hands over the graves of their brothers and ancestors, as in some barrack-yard at the hands of a shooting party oi Zouaves. So I close my story of this week of civil war and desola- tion, and trust that it may be the end of the sadd^t and awfullest year that France has known in her marvelous history. A coimtry overrun by a foreign foe, its industry destroyed, its armies captured, its territory rent asunder, its people burdened with an appalling debt, its palaces in ashes, its capital torn by civil war, men and women shot down in strife, venerable priests massacred in prison, massacred in cold blood by Frenchmen ! Oh, it is pitiful, pitiful beyond all conception — as sad a sight as was ever seen upon this woeful earth! Out of it all I believe France will rise again, strength- ened, purified, chastened— to be in the future what she has been for so many years, the cham.pion of liberty and humanity and progress. And whatever the passionate im- pulse of the hour may be — we may mourn the crimes and Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 207 follies of the day — I am confident the time will come when Frenchmen will look back with pride and emotion at the men of Paris who fought Prussia for four months after Prussia had left France at its feet, and who for two months longer held at bay the combined armies of Bonapartism, legitimacy and reaction — dreaming a dream of liberty, equality and fraternity and giving their lives in a desperate endeavor to make it true. Mr. Young's experiment with the Standard was not a success, and his connection with the New York Herald began shortly after his retirement from the Tribune. In a "journalistic series" of articles which appeared in Lippincott's a few years since, Mr. Young thus sketched the elder Bennett: — JAMES GORDON BENNETT. I have been requested to contribute something to these noteworthy papers on journalism. Of personal experi- ences, I recall little that would be useful, remembering what has been written by the gifted gentlemen who have prepared this series. My own career in the press has been that of a humdrum laborer in a calling full of trial, opportimity, and fascination. I fell into it in early boy- hood, and kept with it many years, following various roads in its service, at home and in lands beyond the sea. In later days circumstances have made me a truant in my devotions to the press; but I have no feeling toward it other than gratitude and pride, as a noble calling with every incentive toward charity, patriotism, and achieve- ment. And as I look back I see, as it were, a long pro- cession of journalists I have known; so many of them no longer with time, but in step with the music of eternity. Digitized by Microsoft® 2o8 Men and Memories. Some of those who were memorable to their fellows, and etill with lis in spirit and tradition, I knew in their day and when they reigned. When the war came, journalism in the Bast was governed by Horace Greeley, James Gor- don Bennett, and Henry J. Eaymond. I knew Greeley and Eaymond upon terms of intimacy. I saw a great deal of the elder Bennett in his old age, when no longer in the stress of the battle he could look on with a philosophy beautiful to the young men who were permitted within his circle. James Gordon Bennett is a name which for sixty years, has had a dynastic place in the kingdom of journalism. The founder of the Bennett dynasty lived for the latter part of a generation in the TJnited States, suitor to varying fortunes, until he saw that there was more inherent value in a penny than in a sixpence, and founded the Herald. My earliest impression of Ben- nett was that of a vast, sinister shape which had come out of the infinite, like some genii of the Arabian Nights, to overspread and darken the heavens. There was an as- pect of terror in what young eyes saw of this, a lawless, eccentric influence sweeping a wayward orbit, and above human conditions and limitations, breathing wrath upon those who would not bow down and worship. I first saw the elder Bennett one bleak snowy night toward the close of Lincoln's presidency. A guest with my ever hospitable and gentle friend, Mr. Haskin, at his Fordham residence, nothing remained after dinner but that we should speed over the snow with tingling sleigh-bells to the Bennett home on the Hudson. If my imagination had gone into darkened fancies over the ideal Bennett, the man as I saw him drove them away. Hair white and clustering, a smooth face soon to have the comfort of a beard, promi- nent aquiline nose, a long, narrow head with abundant development in perceptive faculties, a keen boring eye Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 209 which threw arrowy glances; bantering rather than hearty laughter, a firm masterful jaw, talk in a broad Scottish accent, which he seemed to nurse with a relish. His speech had the piquant, saucy colloquialisms which stamped his individuality on the Herald. His manner stately, courteous, that of a strenuous gentleman of unique intelligence giving opinions as though they were aphor- isms, like one accustomed to his own way. Whatever he may have seemed in the columns of his journal, the man as he welcomed us was wreathed in courtesy and good will. I was to see Bennett on many occasions between this winter's night encounter, in 1864, until our last meeting in May, 1872, one month before he died. You felt in his company, the impression of a man of genius; humor, apt to run into mockery, — until it seemed almost, as if it were the spirit of Voltaire breathing through him. His mind teemed with ideas, which streamed into his talk — saucy phrases, invectives, nick-names, keen bits of narrative surcharged with cynical pessimism, which re- mained, one might fancy, as a legacy of early days of dis- appointment and trial. For this man had fought the world — ^had fought it down ! The world would not come to his need, and now he reigned apart, looking down upon it with scorn. Bennett admired Andrew Jackson, and next to Jack- son his admiration was Grant. He was the first of the great editors to recognize Grant. There was the affinity of the Scottish blood, and the attraction of Grant's Scottish tenacity of character. The editor had an eye for results, and the campaigns of Grant were ripe in results. Bennett did not have a cheer- ful view of war; he could see no outlook but irretrievable bankruptcy, against which, as he said with a smile, he had provided by %^^^ ^^^ legiayeposit of gold in the 2IO Men and Memories. Chemical Bank. When the bottom fell out he would have swimming-gear of his own, and substance likewise, and not go down in a sea of paper currency and inflation. There were no reasons in those days why even a more cheerful man than Bennett should be deep in gloom. The concern of Lincoln was lest the Union would be destroyed in a self-imposed bankruptcy before the army overcame secession. The military problem was solved, when I saw Bennett in later days, and no one could have a more cheer- ful view of the national future. I remember some Herald articles published in the weeks succeeding the surrender of Lee, which I used to dig out of the files and read for the splendor and breadth of their foresight. And, in many conversations in his closing years, I recall the enthusiasm with which the venerable man would dwell upon the as- sured glory of the Eepublic. This was shown especially on one of my last visits. He had surrendered to his son the practical control of the Herald, and received his friends in a small richly-garnished corner-room of his New York house, in the second story, looking out upon Thirty-eighth street and Fifth avenue. He was very old and feeble, — old in everything but genius. The face was scantily bearded, and, as he sat folded in the ample chair, with quilted gown, his head bent with years, his keen eyes gleaming through heavily rimmed spectacles, and heaped about him a pile of newspapers, there was a sense of maj- esty, even as that of the king on his throne. On this oc- casion I found him reading a report, several columns long, from a military officer, detailing a reconnaissance in the Yellowstone Park. And had I read it? I presume not. Some immediate story of the foolish fleeting hour had intervened, and military reports were not exhilaratingi But I must read it! What a marvel that Yellowstone, and what a land, and what a country, with those awaken- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 211 ing wonders day by day ! — ^geysers spouting at times, and ceasing to spout, radiant clays with their pinks and blues, their crimson and saffron and pearl, and the rainbow pheno- mena; the hot steaming springs with healing in their waters. Such fertility, such beauty! and not the half was known. What this wise man saw in the officer's story was an object lesson. Living in his serene atmosphere of hope and contemplation, there was no romance like a fact. The things we called men, and the grasshopper brawls we called events, how small and mean to one who revelled in this revelation of Nature in sumptuous, gaudy moodl Bennett, as I used to read him, was the intellectual child of Walpole and Cobbett. He was an accomplished man. Although, for the first generation of its existence he made the New York Herald a journal which the humblest could comprehend, — although he understood the value of the journalistic axiom never to shoot above the heads, of the people, — I question if any of his peers were better edu^ cated. He had lectured on political economy, had taught the language and the higher mathematics, had written By- ronian verses, and stories of the Maria Edgeworth school. He had studied the world from the moors of Scotland^ the wharves of Boston, the academies of Charleston, the com- posing rooms of Philadelphia, the lecturer's pulpit in New York, and the Congress galleries of Washington. The lesson he had learned, — ^the stem lesson, that the world was a masked battery which must be carried at the point of the bayonet, — ^the fierce lesson that his one appointed duty in this existence was in the fortunes of James Gor- don Bennett, — this he preached in the Herald. He preached amid derision and contempt, amid misrepresentation and personal violence; he preached and won. The world knelt to his sceptre, and when I saw him he leigaed as no man has reigned since, or, to my fancy, ever Digitized by Microsoft® 2 1 1 Men and Memories. will, in the kingdom of journalism. A pupil of Walpole and Cobbett in literature, the political ideas of Bennett were influenced by the tremendous upheaval of Napoleon- ism. He was a contemporary of Napoleon, and his plastic mind had taken from, and hardened under, the bewilder- ing influence of the French Emperor. Napoleon, — what he did or would be apt to do — was among Bennett's fa- miliar forms of illustration. He told me that one of the flrst articles he had ever written was an editorial upon the battle of Waterloo and the fall of Bonaparte, for a news- paper in Aberdeen. After Napoleon, Bennett, like most students who had studied under the super-classical traditions of the earlier century, was immersed in Eoman history. His parallels and illustrations, his moral and historical reflections were apt to come from Plutarch and the classic fathers. He would cite them in defence of a paradox, for his genius was quite capable of believing one thing in June and the contrary in July. "I print my paper every day," he was wont to say, when charged with inconsistency. And when some strange unexpected sensation in the Herald would burst upon the town to its wonderment, Bennett would tell the story of the dog of Alcibiades whose tail was docked to the end, that Athens might talk about its master. Almost immediately upon his connection with the Herald, Mr. Young was sent abroad as special correspond- ent, with editorial power seldom granted to such a position. He began a series of interviews with such men as Thiers, G-ambetta, Castelar, and Napoleon; with pen pictures of scenes and conversations which were the sensation in the journalism of the day. Sumner and Motley said of them, — "they were not only news, but literature" — as fascinat- ing as romance. In a letter to a member of his family at Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 213 this time Mr. Young writes, — "I came over to do Napoleon. I have just written 77 pages, — the editorial is mine also. My new arrangement with Mr. Bennett leaves me nothing to desire in journalism. I am astonished at his appre- ciation and his princely way of exceeding my own ex- pectations." — We dined together one evening in Paris; — Stanley and others were present. — Edmund Yates re- peated many compliments to me afterwards. I mention this to you only, because I know it will please you." — Of the yoimger Bennett, Mr. Young wrote at this time, — "Mr. Bennett is a man of strong character. He has cour- age, clearness, a quick mind, a thorough knowledge of his profession, generous and resolute qualities, and great in- dependence." In 1873, the famous Grant Articles on "Csesarism" in the Herald, created a sensation in political circles. Mr. Young gives Mr. Bennett full credit for their inception : In Washington the administration organ. The Repub- UcoM, explained how the articles on "Cassarism" came to be written ; saying that Mr. Bennett had had a conference in Paris with representative Americans. The policy of limiting the office of President to a single term was dis- cussed, in view of the possibility of a third term. It was then agreed that the Herald should print a series of lead- ing editorials, warning the country of the danger of "Caesarism," and Mr. Bennett instructed Mr. Young to write these articles. Mr. Young consented, but confin- ing them to an argument for a constitutional limitation of the Presidential succession, as was contended by Jeffer- son in his letter to Washington. In reply to certain com- plaints from eminent political sources, Mr. Young sent this answer to be conveyed to Cameron and Conkling: — "I wrote in the Washington Chronicle, at the beginning of the Western campaigns, the first article that ever gave Digitized by Microsoft® 214 Men and Memories. Grant his recognition. I made Greeley support him for the Presidency. I have written in England the best de- fence of his course, and I have never asked him for a favor, and have never secured one. I have supported Grant because I believed in him." Of the stirring events at that time Mr. Young gives a vivid pen picture, in an article upon Eoscoe Conkling, from which portions are here quoted : — EOSCOE CONKLING. A gifted friend, not long since, suggested that I should write something of Eoscoe Conkling. I knew him well, and for many years. I recall a friendship, picturesque and instructive. I recall a statesman of eminent, original, in- trepid genius, whose place in our political system was akin to one of those tremendous phenomena we read of in the tropics, or when nature is in volcanic lands. I recall a career, one of the most notable, as it was among the most stormy in our political history ; a friend whom I ever hon- ored and admired, even when I could not fail to wonder, the contrasts of whose character were Shakespearian, as the cast of his genius was Miltonic ; with an eloquence such as no man in my observance surpassed, even when trend- ing to grandiloquence ; narrowed in his usefulness at times, from the limitations of his appointed sphere of action; who passed away too late for his peace of mind, too soon for the recognition of his enviable fame. And yet I am coy to write about Eoscoe Conkling. His influence yet re- mains, and his influence is a burning theme. In no such spirit, however, I will give some vague impressions and remembrances of the man as I knew him. I began to know Conkling well during the first adminis- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 215 tration of Grant. I had known him before, in a far-off, civil fashion, but never to become in any special manner his friend, until through the good offices of Mr. Arthur, the ex-President, we came to know one another and to have many political purposes in common. The close relations between Grant and Conkling arose some- what late in the first term of the Grant admin- istration. When Grant attained power in 1869, Mr. Fen- ton was the political ruler of the State of New York. I have always thought that it was the Fenton domination, and the active support given to it by Mr. Greeley, of the Tribune, that led Conkling and his friends to contribute as they did to the enterprise of Mr. Dana in the founding of the Sun. In skill, patience, tact, a recognition of the limitations of human nature, with a firm, unyielding will, and a technical education in the business aspects of politics, Mr. Fenton never had a superior. A contrast to Conkling in every attribute, their antipathy became ir- reconcilable, or rather I should say that of Mr. Conkling, as Mr. Fenton was without antipathies. He was a prac- tical man, with an eye to material results. He wanted the crops to grow, the sun and rain in their seasons, and had about as much sentiment over political relations as a farmer over his barnyard. The rivalry ran high. Fenton was the point of many a sharp, brilliant phrase. "Can go around in his stockings during a heavy shower and dodge among the drops without wetting his feet," as I heard Conkling on one occasion epitomize a Fenton campaign. So when Grant became President, the political fact, so far as New York was concerned, was that Fenton was master of the State. Conkling was Senator. As he was not prone to push himself or to wait in the ante-chambers, he was soon lost in the crowd that swarmed around the new Caesar. Fenton had no false pride as to securing Digitized by Microsoft® 2i6 Men and Memories. "needful recognition," and would have waited on the door- steps all night in a rainstorm, and in the most amiable mood, if he could have helped a friend into a post-office. There was the nomination of A. T. Stewart to be Secre- tary of the Treasury — ^the new President's first attempt at an ideal administration — "no beer on the premises; no politicians need apply." The obstacle to Mr. Stew- art's confirmation was an antique statute, going back to the Alexander Hamilton days, forbidding the Treasury to a citizen in trade. Grant, keen for Stewart and for such an administration of the finances as could only come from the presence in his Cabinet of the most successful mer- chant of the age, wanted the law repealed. I do not re- member that Penton had opinions on the subject, would probably have voted for anything that would please the new administration. Senator Conkling was a lawyer, and among his not very many objects of reverence were old statutes. Time and experience gave dignity to the law, gave it authority, and should this be rudely put aside by the uncouth hands of the untrained soldier? This is what Conkling could not endure, and he made an earnest appeal to Grant for the withdrawal of Stewart's name. "This gentleman in the Treasury, Mr. President," as he said in his stateliest manner ! "He may go out of the busi- ness ; he may transfer his almost royal dominions, his com- mercial empire to the regency of Judge Hilton and Mr. Astor; he may abandon the semblance, not the reality of his power. And that power ! Do you comprehend it ? It is as if you put his hand on the thermometer of the na- tion's property, which would rise and fall with the tem- perament of the unconscious blood which coursed through his veins." This and other arguments ia the proud Conk- ling way, and Grant receded. Stewart's name was with- drawn. Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 217 While Stewart's name -was withdrawn, the circumstances leading to it were not of the character to commend those who governed liis action to Grant. It was in Grant's nature to turn out of his path if compelled, but not to go about and walk arm in arm with the one who had cheeked him. So in the earlier Grant days, the relations of the President to- ward the Senator were those of mild, distant esteem, and as Conkling's velvet-footed colleague was taking in slice after slice of the Executive patronage, the Senator was not in the best of moods. One heard mutterings, criticisms, phrases with a double meaning, phrases which would have been as clear as the stream and as resonant as the water- fall, but that Conkling had a vast admiration for Grant, and could not escape from it. Still admiration is one thing and human nature very much another to a public man compelled to endure the sight of a blithe and gracious col- league loading his vans with Executive bounty and his own followers in hopeless hunger. The feeling ran into the State of New York. Eepublicans growled here and there. Fenton was "Spotted Tail," and Conkling "Eed Cloud," and while Eed Cloud was sulking in his tent, Spotted Tail was decorating himself with scalps. I have often thought that if Horace Greeley could have met the advances of Grant, which were marked and dis- tinctive, Grant having the old Henry Clay Whig blood in his veins, and more of a Greeley man than the great editor ever dreamed, political events would have taken another turn in New York and Conkling would have drifted off in the secession which carried away Sumner and Sehurz. But Grant was one of Greeley's aversions, was "a soldier,'" and the man of peace never loved the man of war. I brought Greeley and Grant together at breakfast one morning — a party of four at Delmonico's — and the talk ran into farm- ing. Greeley, I presume, took up farming because he Digitized by Microsoft® 2i8 Men and Memories. would avoid immediate trenchant themes. Grant was sat- isfied, because farming was one of the subjects he knew all about, and upon which he could give even Greeley infor- mation. Nothing came from the breakfast, nothing tangi- ble, even so far as a complete understanding between the two gentlemen. So matters did not go on well. Fenton was taking everything and giving nothing. What could he give — with Greeley in his mood, unchanged and un- changeable? And as for Conkling? Well, even the most indifferent observer could not fail to hear as he passed the mighty Eed Cloud's tent a sharpening of the war Imives and a crooning of the war song, which boded no good to the Administration. Matters were in this unwholesome state, the keen eyes of the silent watching President observant, when it oc- curred to a modest Eepublican gentleman, a kind of wor- shipper of Conkling, and at the same time in familiar re- lations with Grant, to see what could be done. "I am sure," said this friend to me, "that if Conkling and Grant ever knew one another there can only be one result. But were there ever two men so hard to be made acquainted?" Difficult indeed, for Eoscoe toward Grant was in one of his Conkling moods. The idea of his dawdling about the White House, while his colleague was sitting on the garden porch perhaps, pouring out tea for the family. No, never, for above all things he was the Senator from New York, and would never forget it, and even as with the President a Senator had some rights. But patience has its rewards if we are honest. My modest, kindly friend had his way. The meeting was arranged. Conkling and Grant were brought to a knowledge of one another, into touch. Out of that came a memorable political friendship, none closer since that of Washington and Hamilton, or of Jackson and Benton. On the side of Grant it was a sense of the splen- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 219 dor of the Senator's endowments, a recognition of his courage, chivalry, varied brilliant gifts. At the same time, a consciousness of his limitations, that anger was not always wisdom, and that there were wiser counsels, such, for in- stance, as those of Hamilton Fish and Senator Edmunds, when graver matters were on hand. On the part of Conk- ling toward Grant it was a feeling of absolute confidence and affection ; admiration to the point of renunciation, and surrender; a perfect belief in his friend, such as it was not in Conkling's nature to give, and which he gave alone to Grant. Now that time and change and death drape it all as if in a mist, and it can be seen no longer in the glare of party flame, this friendship remains as a beautiful revelation of what man may be to man — ^none more beauti- ful in my remembrance. At the close of the Grant administration I was deeply interested in the nomination of Conkling as his successor; was in the confidence of Conkling's friends in that regard, and recall now many incidents of that novel campaign which might belong to the comedy of political history — comedy in its time, but to flourish into the deepest tragedy, the effects of which linger with us to the present hour. Above all things in that eccentric canvass was the now historical quarrel with Blaine. And if Conkling was to be an available candidate for the Presidency, it was im- portant that there should be a reconciliation with Blaine. Among the legends of those days was their animosity. The active forces of Republicanism were under the banner of one or the other. The Morton movement was handi- capped by the attitude of Morton on the currency. The Bristow movement was never other than a sentiment, poli- ties in lavender or camphor, not in active use. President Grant took no part, hoped for the nomination of Hamilton Fish, had written a letter in favor of Mr. Fish, to be used Digitized by Microsoft® 220 Men and Memories. when the political strength of the active combatanta was exhausted and dark horses were in order. The letter was never read and the dark horse was named Hayes. As I was saying, however, it was essential that there should be harmony between Blaine and Conkling. They had been in a row since their early days in the House. I have a dim, rough remembrance of the outbreak, as I was in and around the gallery of Congress at the time. Conk- ling and Blaine were young members, not especially no- ticeable, and had their fame to make. The cynics in the press gallery, ever merciless in their judgments, looked upon Conkling as rather an amusing personage than other- wise, from his dramatic ways, and his hardly suppressed consciousness that the gods had endowed him with a beauty and a presence which might have excited the envy of a Lacedemonian in the days when men children were born. "That New York member of yours walks down the aisles as if he were not sure that he had made God Almighty, or that God Almighty had made him," as a free-spoken Ohio cor- respondent said one morning as Roscoe moved majestically toward prayers, looking as though he felt the world had been created and it pleased him. The speech of Blaine I hold in remembrance as rather brisk than otherwise, with an allusion to Conkling as claiming the mantle of Winter Davis, and being somewhat of a turkey gobbler or a pea- cock. It did not commend itself to the cynical judgment of the boys in the press gallery, rather disposed to take sides with Conkling, whom they knew and who, at least, amused them, and not with his keen antagonist, a clever Yankee from Maine, with bewildering eyes, but whose force was an unknown quantity. I have not read that debate since I heard it — ^never got over the then formed impression that it was a trivial, colorless affair — a hasty scrapping match — ^like two naval Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 221 cadets fighting in the sick bay of the school ship, to be the best friends forevermore, as soon as their eyes were patched. This, I think, was the feeling of the House, and undoubtedly of Blaine. It came also at a time when Conk- ling had a controversy with Elihu B. Washburne, then a member from Illinois, a controversy which never entered the official reports, although it came near finding work for the sergeant-at-arms ; Washburne bursting all bounds under the deliberate opposition and maddening sarcasms of Conkling, rushing upon him with fury, the air reso- nant with denunciations, terminating by Washburne yield- ing to gentler persuasions, and delivering the peroration of his wrath to friendly ears in the cloak room, Conkling sit- ting at his seat pretending to read a letter, as if uncon- scious of the impending rage. I remember it all as in a dream, a foolish, wild dream. These incidents, so colorless at the time that I ques- tion if they had even a gossiping record in the press des- patches, made a deep impression upon political events. The quarrel of Conkling and Blaine cost them both the nomination for the Presidency. They, with Washburne, cost the latter in the long run the friendship with Grant, and whatever he might have craved as a career in the Ee- publican party. It was Grant's partiality for Conkling, as shown during his second term, which planted in the breast of Washburne the seeds of the distrust and suspi- cion, which, to the grief of all who, like the writer of these lines, knew and loved the men, was to end in bitterness and pain an enviable and beautiful friendship. This, on Washburne's part, I saw in Paris, coming long before it came — saw and mourned. But so it is, and by such imperceptible currents do the gods sway the fates of even those who should be the rulers of men. However, a President had to be nominated to suc- Digitized by Microsoft® 222 Men and Memories. ceed Grant, and, as I was saying, the path was close to Conkling and Blaine, unless the memories of the youthful scrapping match on the floor of the House could be calmed down. There was no trouble about Blaine. That brilliant, magnanimous soul, to whom a row over politics was of about as much consequence as the results of a chess game, who always seemed in politics what Morphy was in chess, was ready to take the hand of Conkling in friendship, to contest his nomination for the Presidency, and if beaten support the Conkling canvass and administration with heartiness and good will. Yes, Blaine was amenable, but how about Conkling? There was a problem. To approach the rugged Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrean tiger, would have been a morning stroll among the daisies compared with it. The late William Orton, one of the kindest, most judicious, as he was the gentlest of men, near to Conkling, had grave conversations with me about it. Efforts had been made in a coy, shrinking, almost zoological way, to ap- proach Conkling with this message of peace with Blaine, thus far with disheartening results, and the canvass in other respects blooming into imperial fruitage. And as one after another had made the desperate experiment and fallen, it was appointed that I should tread the ominous path with such fortune as would fall. I do not remember that I had any enthusiasm over the task, although I saw its importance. But then I had no special fear. Holding, as I did, terms of intimacy with Mr. Conkling, holding him in supreme regard, and with the most loyal appreciation of so much of his character and so many of his gifts, I never could bring myself into spe- cial awe. His mannerisms, his sudden petulancies ; his out- bursts at impatient or impertinent politicians; his dispo- gifion to pin you against a wall and throw knives all about Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 223 your person, like an Arabian juggler; his positive convic- tions upon trivial subjects, which few painstaking people would trouble to think about; his hourly discoveries of plots and conspiracies; his spontaneous likes and dislikes, which made him at times oppressive as a companion or a counsellor, were never more than the outer leaves which held the kernel within. In any mere controversy between Blaine and Conkling I should have taken no part. But here were high issues, and as the work had to be done, I told Mr. Orton that I saw no reason why I should not try like the rest. "No friend has ventured," he said in that stately, measured way, "has, I might say, presumed " This said in the grand, dramatic manner, and in elaborate, co- pious way, with a sense of wonder, perhaps injury, to which I was not responsive. The matter concerned him more than any one else, and it was a cold, political fact, in no sense an emotion. The grand, hurt manner, soon lapsed into that of a serious, shrewd statesman, dealing with empire. He had no antipathy toward Blaine that was not based upon the consciousness of his self-respect. While, therefore, the attitude of Blaine and the persistent malignity of Blaine's friends, who would never have so acted except under due inspiration, had made personal re- lations impossible, he knew the position of Blaine in the party, the rights of leadership that had been accorded to the Maine statesman, and should the Presidency devolve on him, neither Mr. Blaine nor his friends would ever have reason to complain of ample recognition. I said that this was an assurance that his political friends had taken for granted. They knew that the chivalry of his nature would make him give the most cordial support to whatever candidate was his successful rival in the con- vention. At the same tinie it was felt that if there was Digitized by Microsoft® 224 Men and Memories. was any possible way for explanations that would lead to an understanding, it would be a relief to many of his friends and an immense gain to his nomination for the Presidency. That, after all, it was only a cold allowance to the Blaine people that they should have simply a tolerated position under the Conkling administration ; that Blaine himself could be at best only a sublime ticket-of- leave man, and that his prestige as a leader would be im- paired. That the troops in a battle were more comfortable when they saw their Generals shake hands, and that there could be no assurance of that support from the Blaine peo- ple without which a campaign was impossible. Conkling was inflexible in his purpose. The first step toward a reconciliation with Blaine would be taken when Blaine arose in public and declared that he had wilfully told what was untrue in his famous turkey gobbler speech ; that it was not the raillery or the personal invective that stood in the way, but the imputation upon his honor, an imputation that could only be removed when Mr. Blaine made a public contrition. The idea of poor Blaine going up into the scaffold like the sinning clergyman in "The Scarlet Letter," to make confession, not to his paramour and the resentful, angry clouds, but in broad daylight to the townsmen, was of course not to be considered. I saw that the theme had no further vitality, and we drifted into more limpid currents. When I saw Mr. Orton I told him that I knew of no enemy, assurerlly no friend of Mr. BlaincyVwho would approach him with the Conkling ulti- matum. It was a bitter disappointment to Mr. Orton, but the imperious pride of the resolute Senator was not swayed by the hopes or emotions of friends.. So ended, as far as history or remembrance serves me, the last effort to make peace between Conkling and Blaine. I was absent from the United States during the Tilden- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 225 Hayes campaign, and saw it only in the press. When Conk- ling came to London in 1877, a few weeks after Grant's memorable arrival, he sent me a message, and I found him at Long's Hotel, on Bond street, the famous Long's, not in its now renovated condition, but as it must have been when Walter Scott and Byron had their breakfast of re- conciliation, after the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Conkling was fresh from the Hayes-Tilden Electoral Com- mission business, and full of the English reception of Grant, at that time a sort of nation's guest. He was ill ; "malaria," he said, had been compelled to write a speech lying face on the floor, the books around him ; sitting at a desk was impossible. His mood toward Hayes was angry. There were so many causes of complaint, but in the main the Hayes letter of acceptance, when nominated for the Presidency. Hayes had said something about a re-election, which Conkling translated into a reflection upon General Grant, about whose candidature for a third term a great deal had been said. The letter of acceptance was bad enough in Conkling's eyes, but Hayes had at the same time written a private letter to General Grant deprecating any translation of the public document that could be con- strued into a reflection upon the General, or the efforts of the General's friends toward a third term. At a later period Grant told me that Hayes had written such a letter as Conkling had described. The impression it made upon him, however, was what Hayes had intended, containing, as Grant read it, to intimate duplicity or insincerity. Conkling, however, was in a fine, picturesque, magnifi- cent rage, the malaria doing its part toward the develop- ment of his emotions. Evarts in the Hayes Cabinet was bad enough, but Schurz was unendurable. How could any friend of the party, how could any loyal Republican, enter a White House and run the risk of rubbing against these Digitized by Microsoft® 226 Men and Memories. traitors of 1873? As for the Electoral Commission, its verdict was not that of the people. He commended the pa- tience and submission of the Democracy, and especially of Mr. Tilden, in accepting it peacefully, and said with feel- ing that the Eepublicans would never have endured what had been imposed by them upon the Democrats. I saw a good deal of Conkling on this visit, was rather his guide in a small way to the famous and curious places of London town, which I knew somewhat in detail. The im- pression his conversation made upon me, so far as his fu- ture political action was concerned, was that his career as a Kepublican leader was ended ; that he had drifted as vio- lently from his old associations as Burke when he tore himself from Fox and Sheridan, or Gladstone, when he left the Carlton Club, rather than incur a second time the danger of being thrown out of a window by the angry young Tories, talking of his political treason over their wine. I re- member conveying this impression to Tilden one evening at the Reform Club, where I saw him a good deal, and his recurring to it one afternoon as we were strolling in St. James' Park. "You Democrats," I said to Tilden, "may as well arrange to welcome Conkling as your new leader. Where else can he go? He is out of relations with the Re- publican authority, will have no terms with Blaine, and scarcely conceals his belief that Mr. Hayes is not the law- ful President. Where else can he go — and who is to chal- lenge his leadership ? Mr. Seymour has withdrawn. You decline all advances toward remaining in public affairs, and Mr. Conkling would bring you youth, eloquence, the splendor of parliamentary success, a proud, stainless name. Moreover, there is that in the Democratic party — ^the do- cility and discipline — which would take kindly to his im- perious nature. The Democrats are a party — the Repub- licans a debating society." Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 227 What I said to Mr. Tilden was rather in the way of ban- ter, humoring a paradox, as it were. There was much that was speculative in the mind of this eminent leader — one of the most extraordinary men it has ever been my privi- lege to know, and about whom I am at times impatient that nothing serious has been written by Mr. Marble, or Mr. Watterson, or some of the brilliant men who had his confidence and could understand him. For while I had the honor of knowing Mr. Tilden well, and while I held in ad- miration his subtle and original character, his clear, ana- lytical mind, his political foresight and courage, yet I was never in sympathy with him nor his political views, and can only speak of him rather as a spectator than a friend. As I tossed about the paradox of Conkling as the coming leader of the Democracy, Mr. Tilden suddenly stopped, and with that impressive, low, almost inspiring voice asked: "Have you any personal reasons for this anticipation?" It then flashed upon me that Mr. Tilden looked upon me as a kind of volunteer ambassador; that Mr. Conkling had in a moment of weakness perhaps charged me with the selling of his soul to the political devil, and that I was in a fiduciary capacity, seeking to know what Mephistopheles held to be the ruling rate for souls. I recall the flash as it came, and the grotesque fun of the sit- uation, the Democratic Mephistopheles keen for another Eepublican soul, even the soul of Eoseoe Conkling. "None in the world," I said; "I was considering Conkling as a factor of a problem in the higher mathematics of politics. He lives in the strata where it is possible for men to change their political relations and remain statesmen, while others in a lower sphere would be renegades. As the political cant now runs, to leave the Eepublican party of Kew York is to enter good society, to have treble rounds of dinners Digitized by Microsoft® ?28 Men and Memories. on Fifth avenue, horses and yachts named after you, per- haps a commendatory leader in the Evening Post. Where can Conkling go ? He will have none of Hayes. There is no party large enough for Blaine and himself. Grant is a folded banner. He may follow Grant into exile or be- come a Democratic leader. What remains?" I remember the impression this conversation made upon me, and Tilden's going over it with his singular intuitions in politics. Tilden admired Conkling, was under the in- fluence of his intellect enough to appreciate, not to fear it. "Well," he said, "if Conkling follows Seymour, it will be in the family," with much that was instructive, and Mr. Tilden never spoke but with wisdom and authority, upon family influences in public affairs. Finally he said: "If Conkling comes, we shall be glad to have him. He will never come without Grant, and that is another affair." That was quite another affair. I have often wondered what the position of Mr. Conkling would have been had he not real- ized and welcomed the imposing personality of Grant, as it came from the journey around the world, and planned the third term. I had pleasant hours in London with Conkling. His illness made him critical and at times hard to please, and there was much to jar him. Among other thinj^ that the Londoners did not speak English. He liked to wander about, and as walking was rather inhibited be- cause of his convalescence, he saw London from a cab, but generally the top of an omnibus. The Temple interested him, and as he walked under the time-stained walls, he re- peated the passage from Shakespeare : "I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet." "I pluck this red rose with young Somerset," dwelling upon the venerable associations of the spot, declaiming in his wondrous tones : Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 229 "And here I prophesy this hrawl to-day Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden, Shall send, beneath the red rose and the white, A thousand souls to death and deadly night." As Conkling was declaiming these lines we came to a jrave, a lonely little mound with a modest stone, rather )ut of the way, as I recall it, over near the wall. "This is a nemorable man." Conkling paused and read the name of 31iver Goldsmith. "Oliver Goldsmith!" he said, with mpressive solemnity, and, taking off his hat, continued: 'I cannot stand by this time-honored grave without a feel- ing of worship." And thus he stood for some moments, md walked in silence away. Of the marvelous memory of Conkling something has been written, but as an extraordinary intellectual develop- ment, I recall no parallel. I have never known but two men who had his extraordinary gift — ^the late Bayard Tay- lor, and my long-valued friend, T. C. Evans, now in happy withdrawal from the fume and flurry of journalism, but in the Marble days a shining figure on the World. Tay- lor, when I had the fortune to have him in the mood, never c[uoted anything that was not classical, or at least with special merit, German rather than English, if permissible. The treasures of Mr. Evan were what he found in Emerson, Coleridge and the later writers. The memory of Conkling, like that of Macaulay, as I see it described in the books, sras like a lumber room, or some garret in an ancient castle. You never knew what was coming — a bit of rubbish or a gem. He would quote pages of Headley, descriptions of the French Marshals, Napoleon before the battle of Water- loo, or things about the burial of Moses, "Oh, had he not bigh honor !" until the marvel came, how could the ordi- nary human mind with limitations endure it, and was Digitized by Microsoft® 230 Men and Memories. there not some process by which it could be swept out or cleared, or even burned out, if nothing better served ? There would be a splendid declamation of the noblest lines in Byron and Shakespeare — rubbish and gems heaped in con- fused tumbling chaos. I used sometimes to criticise the lumber feature of Conkling's mental apportionings, and wonder why he bothered with such rubbish when the world had so much more worthy of preservation. But Conkling had a wayward pride in his odd mental belongings. Upon one occasion, having heard him at length, and in metre about the burial of Moses, and "Had he not high honor!" declaimed with such majesty, and in prose, about Bonaparte's Waterloo emotions, likewise declaimed, I ven- tured a word about Whitman. There was "The Burial Hymn of Lincoln," "Captain, Oh, My Captain," so praised by Swinburne. "Whitman! I cannot comprehend him. He makes my head ache." "But even the Captain." "I have never read it." Never read it, I thought, and ceased to interrupt the theme, allowing it to revert to Moses and Napoleon. I resolved that when we met again, Conkling should have no excuse for not knowing and appreciating that exquisite tribute to Lincoln — one of the few things done in these later days to give American literature a claim to immortality. Seeking out Whitman's books, I copied "Captain, Oh, My Captain," with the pious purpose of re- claiming Conkling from the Moses rubbish. When we met, as fell at an early dinner, I recalled our Whitman talk and handed him the poem. He read it twice over, grave- ly folded the paper, and returning it, said : "I cannot un- derstand it. It has no meaning to me. That nor anything the author has written." There was a feat of memory I may recall before I pass from this theme as illustrative of Conkling's ready gen- ius. We had been down in the city, Eastcheap, and the Digitized by Microsofi® Men and Memories. 231 ["ower, and in Southwark, after one of Chaucer's Inns, ^s we were crossing London Bridge, Conkling, the fer- 'or of the scene upon him, and a profound admirer of ilacaulay, was quoting the famous New Zealander's pas- lage, when some traveler from New Zealand would take lis stand upon a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch ;he ruins of St. Paul's. "Here is the bridge,'^ I said, look- ng out of the hansom, "but where is St. Paul's ?" True mough the church could not be seen. "But it must be," iaid Conkling. "No such artist as Macaulay would have nade the mistake of putting his New Zealander on an arch Erom which the cathedral could not be seen." So cabby was stopped, compelled to turn about and drive again to the Southwark side. There suddenly loomed up St. Paul's in its mediseval grandeur. It had been hidden by some barbaric railway station. "There," said Conkling in tri- umph, "I knew my man! I knew Macaulay. I knew he ffould not have put that New Zealander out of range of bis subject." And he quoted page after page of Macaulay on our way home. He was on fire with his theme, and with Conkling in that mood the flames must have their way. What I may call the "Garfield Episode," upon which so much of Conkling's career, and I might add, so much of his fame will depend, is not ripe for history. "How can I," as he said to me with anguish, "how can I speak into a grave ? How can I battle with a shroud ? Silence is a duty and a doom." After the catastrophe, Conkling rarely spoke about it, or if he did, with an expression of pain. It was not anger alone. No — not anger alone! For that emotion was no stranger to this memorable man. I might write of him as it was writ- ten of the prophet : — "Doest thou well to be angry ?" said the Lord. And the prophet answered, "I do well to be angry, even unto death." Digitized by Microsoft® 232 Men and Memories. It was not anger, but the sense of irretrievable injus- tice from which Conkling suffered. I have often thought recalling my observations at the time, and the effect of the catastrophe upon Conkling that the Garfield episode led to that state of mental excitement, or exaltation, so notice- able in later years, and which predisposed his constitution to the fatal effect of disease when it smote him. I was a good deal in the confidence of Conkling at the time. He had my sympathy in the cause of his alienation from the Garfield administration, however much I may have dif- fered from the manner in which he expressed it. Histori- cal justice, however, compels the observation that Conkling had little claim upon the courtesy of Garfield. He rarely took the trouble to repress his aversion to the new Presi- dent. In the atmosphere of tale-bearing and misrepresen- tation which enfolds the politician's life I can well believe that many a distorted rumor was borne to Garfield's ear, that many an idle sarcasm from one whose gifts in the way of sarcasm were exhaustless and who was prone to their use — was given wing. It was an evidence of the extreme amia- bility of Garfield, a virtue which with him was apt to be a weakness, that he kept his patience with the scornful Sena- tor. But the two men were so far apart. The laughing, rollicking, sensitive, joyous Garfield, complaisant, self-in- dulgent, anxious to see every one about him so happy, to whom politics was, after all, such a game ; flexible, impress- ible, dramatic, willing to make any sacrifice for peace; and, on the other hand, the stern, imperious, dominant Senator, to whom the slightest political incident had the gravity of the Magna Charta; austere, reserved, an an- chorite, never unconscious of his own personality, nor timid in asserting it ; of the world, but above it ; exacting, almost burdensome, in friendship, implacable in enmity. Ko two men could have been less in unison, nor can I con- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 233 !eive the possibility of a imiverse large enough to have permitted their existence together in a state of harmony )r recognition. When the Garfield Cabinet came, it vexed the Senator, ind among other acts of unspeakable folly, of giving way ;o crude, interested advice ; of once more surrendering his jwn judgment, which was never wrong, to the importuni- ties of those who were never right — how could he in a moment of unspeakable weakness have done such a thing as to go to Mentor ? It was so sorely against his will, for had the people not observed that Blaine did not go ? Think oi bhat! How he raved over it. Blaine not going to Men- tor ! Was there not enough in that to exasperate even the most patient of men, let alone this suspicious, irritated statesman? And such a cabinet! "A statesman — yes, heavily plated, to look like silver ! A politician, but shirk- ing his opinions when they were worth anything ! A name ! A brother-in-law ! Some clerks ! Why did not the Execu- tive, after he had agreed with himself that he must en- dure his Secretary of State, that he must even carry on his back this old man of the sea, send for the Treasury Ap- pointment Clerk, and ask him to detail some clerks from the upper divisions of the Treasury to complete the Cabi- net? It would have been as useful and representative." I remember this as a condensed summary of Conkling's commentaries upon the Garfield cabinet, intermingled with running descriptive phrases, intensely amusing, but not to be printed now. The incident shows that when the New York nominations were made, Mr. Conkling was in a state of unrest toward the Administration, which might flash into any form of commotion. When the New York nominations came, it was the gen- eral desire, even among those who had the fortunes of Mr. Conkling much at heart, to regard them with indifference. Digitized by Microsoft® 234 Men and Memories. My remembrance is that Grant was not of this mind. At least I inferred as much from a letter that Grant ■wrote to me from Galveston on his way to Mexico, alluding to the nomination of Eobertson to be Collector of the Port, which showed that it was not a killing matter, and expressing the hope that Garfield would soon be out of his patronage trou- bles and sailing over smooth seas to a successful adminis- tration. Grant did not return from Mexico until the bat- tle was on, and then the instinct of battle asserting itself, his heart was in the fight as he found it raging. But Conk- ling must have immediate war — ^had no patience with any policy of silence and indifEerence. "You can never," as I ventured to say to Conkling, "you can never successfully quarrel with an administration in its honeymoon. The people will shrink. They are out of an election fight, why plunge them into a patronage strife? Give them time to breathe. In a few months the appointments will be over and the outs in a mood for criticism and controversy. You can dig up or improvise some twopence-halfpenny question which patriotism will no longer endure. You will then fight with the hope of a responsive public sentiment. Now it is patriotism wanting office, — ^then it will be patriotism disappointed in office. Patriotism is now against you. Ke- member Douglas' war on Buchanan in his anti-Lecomp- ton controversy. Douglas had a grievance and in that found his pretext. Eemember how Sumner and Schurz opened up on the French Arms sale against Grant. It was their pretext. I believe in righteous indignation, but there is a time for it to speak and a time for silence. The time for silence is in the honeymoon of a new ad- ministration." I was furthermore strengthened in this opinion from the story told General Grant and myself, by the late Mr. Chaf- fee, of Colorado, that Mr, Eobertson had gone to the con- Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 235 ntion which nominated Mr. Garfield as an original Gar- !ld man, and that Blaine was a nominal, not a real choice, was the belief of Chaffee, and I know that he conveyed to Grant as a fact within his own knowledge, that Eob- tson, having despaired of driving the Blaine chariot over le fiery furnace of the Grant flames, had evolved Gar- 3ld as a possibility, had approached Chaffee with a re- lest for aid. Chaffee, however, was a Blaine enthusiast, id had no second choice. After Blaine, any one would do, id he was without animosities toward either Conkling or rant. With Eobertson, however, Conkling had risen to le dignity of a fanaticism. Eobertson opposed Grant, not 3cause he disliked the General, or had the slightest doubt E his patriotism, but because Grant's re-election meant his ivn political destruction in New York, and with him that I Husted, Depew, Eoberts, Bvarts, Bliss, Choate — whoever Bntured to breathe without looking with the Islam eyes of rayer and adoration toward the Prophet of Utica. But Eobertson meant Blaine to the angry eyes of Conk- ng. Never receptive in the matter of advice, he didn't ike mine, thus cynically given, in good part. For, said le prophet, "I do well to be angry even unto death." This as his mood. His temper in those day was so volcanic that studied my peace of mind and preserved my admiration )r Conkling, by keeping away. I had no heart in his rancils, not much belief in the policy they inspired. His isignation from the Senate was a surprise. I knew of it rst in the public journals. It was splendid and conclusive. ou must admire the scornful renunciation. Here was man who could afford to do right, no matter the sacri- ee. A sentiment of grumbling approval when we heard 3 had resigned. Here, again, was Coriolanus, the old Oman, once more, like an eagle in a dove-cote fluttering 16 Volsces in Corioli. But when the news came that after Digitized by Microsoft® 236 Men and Memories. the drama of the renunciation, there was to be the melo- drama of the re-election, — it chilled ! Coriolanus had be- come Buffalo Bill, and the finest political incident in the drama of American politics was to descend into a bar-room brawl, and the pitiful wranglings of a legislative caucus at Albany. And the friendships, the fair and noble friendships, which in their fruitage and their bloom had meant so much in the early Conkling days, when this comely young statesman, this superb, brilliant, chivalrous giant, came from proud, trusting Utica to lead the party in the spirit of the elder days ! ISTo such avatar in New York political affairs since Hamilton vanished in a pistol flash, and Seward had sunk into the Johnson maelstrom of self- abnegation and ruin. Now at last, a man ! And how they came around Conkling, attracted by the rays of his genius, and happy to rejoice in the splendor of his fame. Piatt, from the inner counties, with his wise, grave, intrepid char- acter; a master of the comities, courtesies, minute details of the body politic; who knew that there was no nerve so minute that it might not throb with the jar of exquisite pain; a man who forgot nothing and who was resolute in the integrity of every political obligation; Andrew D. White, the president of Cornell, who held in the politics of New York a position like that of Sumner in Massa- chussets — scholar, philanthropist, student, diplomatist and statesman; honored by Grant, who had him in reserve as Premier in his Cabinet should Governor Fish, as he at times feared, follow the bent of his craving for private life; Griswold,, of Troy, famous in early war days, who came with his Democracy to the Union cause and laid his fortunes on its altar. Alonzo Cornell, the heiir to a great name, near to Conkling, whom he followed with a fidelity that should have outridden the storm of any political Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 337 misimderstanding ; Woodford, from Kings, soldier and ora- tor, with the finish of Chesterfield united to a kind and winning nature. These and other names come to me as I write, and even as I might write for many a column. They gathered about Conkling. They made him Sena- tor, leader. They would have made him President of the United States. Yet the storm was to come in its fury, to rend them all, and to rend none that meant so much as the ties which bound the fortunes of Conkling and Arthur. The alienation from Arthur was an especial grief to those who knew the men. I was happily absent from the United States at the time, and never heard of it except as rumor. Of Arthur I may not write at this time, although I should ever welcome the opportunity of bear- ing my poor tribute to his name. We shall know him some day as he was, the first gentleman of his time. We shall know that blending of chivalry, humanity, knowl- edge and courage, which never came into your life with- out increasing admiration for his character. We shall know that fine courtesy which never waited when it could anticipate ; ever gentle to women, to children, to the hum- blest supplication. We shall know that devoted heart, its love for those to whom his love was a heritage and a bene- diction, and how the sorrow that feU. as a thunderbolt from an all too radiant summer sky upon the gentlest and most gracious of homes, brought a grief that never found consolation. We shall know that when the bullet of the assassin crashed into the joyous life of an eager, bound- ing, unsuspecting President, on the holiday wing to fields and streams, it carried agony unspeakable to the lofty spirited gentleman who would gladly have given his own life to have warded the impious doom. We shall know his steady devotion to duty; how he arose to every re- Digitized by Microsoft® 238 Men and Memories. quirement of the Presidency; how the courage of the political leader guarded and governed the conscience of the Chief Magistrate; how he was every hour, every mo- ment the President. We shall know that under him the civil service found its truest exemplification, and that no tempting of political ambition could answer even with a finger touch the resentment of officials who, like Collector Eobertson, used their patronage to his political overthrow. We shall know the conservative patience with which he met the pathetic problems imposed by the nation's grief over his predecessor's fate. We shall know with what a self-denial of personal ambition, political resentment or revenge, he overcame the distrust of the country, elimi- nated the apprehensions of those even of his own party who saw in his advent so many misfortunes — how he in- spired the confidence which averted a disastrous busi- ness panic. We shall know the wide and intelligent scholarship, the knowledge of books as well as of men, which made him the most valuable as he was the most agreeable of companions. We shall know the genius, the tact, the superb, patriotic common sense which made his term of office the most tranquil of administrations. We shall know the many disappointments which came with the refusal by his party of the renomination which he had won by his magnanimity and justice ; how it sunk into his heart, and as those nearest to him have told me prema- turely bore him into the grave. We shall know, when time and history and the just judgment of his fellow-citizens have spoken, that here was a man who deserved well of his country and mankind, and that Chester A. Arthur should have grateful remembrance among the worthiest of our Presidents, even as the successor of Garfield, Jeffer- son and Adams. I left the United States for China in the early months Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 239 of 1882, and years were to pass before I was to see Conk- ling. I left him in the unhappy tumult of the Garfield war, the strong man raging from one side to the other in the arena, breathing defiance, anger, death. When I returned his manner had changed. Time was telling on him. He had plunged into severe intellectual labor, and for the first time in his life was earning a large income. And money meant such an atmosphere of independence to this proud, strenuous man. Party feeling was turn- ing toward him. His countrymen seemed to be growing fond of him. His vanities, his faults, his whims and mannerisms, were after all — were they not — expressions of virtues not too often seen in American public life ; the faults of a superb, high principled, rarely gifted leader? There were Eepublicans who recalled the early days of their ascendancy, and who had grown weary of govern- ment by mobs of drunken adventurers ; weary of the buy- ing and selling of nominations, and who turned toward the man who was ever too stately to bend to an ignoble expedient. Time served to bring recognition, and in a measure vindication, and he had only, so his friends be- lieved, to wait until his party returned to him — returned bringing honors which he had won by his genius and lost by his integrity. I fancy Conkling was coming into sympathy with the mood about him — ^that he felt it ; that he once more could throw open the morning window and feel that there might be airs from heaven and not inevitably blasts from hell. "What, paint my picture!" as he said to Carpenter, the artist, on one of those sad, Garfield days. "What — paint my picture ? Who can conceive of such a thing f I would that every vestige of me were banished from the earth — that my very name might pass from men." The tempest- tossed, tumultuous soul! When I returned, this mood, Digitized by Microsoft® 240 Men and Memories. which I had so often seen, had passed away. There were Bunny days; no allusions to the angry past; a deep in- terest in polities, in the detail of events, the movement and drift of political action. The war horse seemed to hear the noise of the battle and the fighting, even as in the old days. He was opposed to the candidature of Colonel Grant, now our Minister to Austria, for Secre- tary of State, on the ground that he would not receive loyal support from the antagonists of General Grant. The canvass, however, although unfavorable to the Colonel, showed that the Eepublican vote had been given with heartiness and sincerity. He was impatient with Cleve- land, for some cause that I do not recall; hoped he would be known as "the Centennial President," if for no other reason than that Cleveland was as much as the country could stand in a hundred years. At the same time he retained his membership of the Manhattan Club. I found him deeply interested in the succession to Cleveland. He accepted Mr. Blaine's Florence letter in the spirit in which it was written; regarded Blaine as a spectator rather than a participant in public affairs. When questioned as to his preferences for the Presidency he named three candidates, Sheridan, Judge Gresham and Judge Miller of the Supreme Court. Sheridan was his first choice. Sheridan meant the glory of the war; meant all that was noble in the Grant traditions, with his own brilliant character added. To the objection that the re- ligion of Sheridan would injure him among the Protes- tant sections of the Middle and Western States, espe- cially the resolu+o Scotch-Irish people, Eepublicans, living in daily terror of the Papacy, Conkling made a forcible reply, contending that for every vote Sheridan might lose through the lingering remnant of a questionable religious ientiment, he would gain a dozen from those who admired Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 44 1 his character and genius, and who would be fascinated with the splendor of a mighty name. Alas, the unpausing hand of fate! How soon death was likewise to rend that fairest of friendships; that of the illustrious young captain with the statesman who never looked upon him hut with fond, approving eyes. In a few months — ^that is to say, in April, 1888 — before even the convention had met, the statesman was to die. And before the trees in their springtime bloom could know the then summer's ripening touch the earth was to take into its clear, sorrowful embrace the glorious ashee of Sheridan. As I was saying, I found Conkling once more concerned in politics. And if this religious opposition would not down in the case of Sheridan then in Gresham he saw an intrepid Eepublican. I inferred that Conkling had been drawn to Gresham by the high appreciation in which Grant had held the judge when Gresham served in the Western armies. Gresham was one of Grant's enthusi- asms. He had been placed suddenly in a position of trial and temptation during the war, and there was that in tES behavior of the man — some unique and shining quality in the way of honesty — ^that won Grant's heart. Conk- ling dwelt upon this. It was enough for him that Gres- ham had been under the Grant benediction. That to him was perpetual acceptance and absolution. If not Gresham, then Justice Miller, then of the Supreme Court, now unhappily before another tribunal; and Miller was sketched in the grand Conkling way. Whatever was sacred in the genius of the law was epitomized in Miller. We should take him while we could, as we would take Marshall or Jay, should the reluctant gods give them back to our keeping. There were outbursts of enthusiasm on gentler themes, Digitized by Microsoft® 242 Men and Memories. and I recall some evenings when Conkling was never more radiant, more brilliant. The last time I dined with him, as I read before me noted in a diary, was at a dinner given by John W. Maekay, among the guests Robert Inger- soU, Charles Crocker, of California, railroad magnate; Ochiltree, of Texas; Senator Jones, of Nevada; poor dear, ever to be remembered Lawrence Jerome — a dinner that can only bring sad memories, thinking of those pres- ent and since gone, Conkling so inexhaustible in his banter with Maekay for having provided such wonderful vintages for "temperance cranks" like himself and most of the guests present, and so on. These and other themes. The talk serious to the end — serious and memorable; the themes historical — no time or space to recall them now. As a general thing Conkling in those days was in a reminiscent vein. I recall evenings at his rooms when I would listen by the hour to a stream of extraordinary talk. One especially, from eight until one in the morn- ing, a monologue, — the human mind in wonder at the torrent, — and such talk ! One of his themes was poverty — which he dreaded. Would sweep with abruptness upon the theme of the misery of poverty in public life, and as the bane of public men. While he was in this vein one evening I recalled an incident from Greville, if I remem- ber, about Lord John Russell having to write magazine articles for income, at a time when his brother was one of the richest peers in England, and he himself had high place in polities. This I must send him, the whole story. Poverty! What he might not have done but for that, when he was in power. This dreadful poverty. Friends who heard these conversations marvelled, and I recall apprehensions from some who knew and loved him, that overwork — ^legal cares — something was preying upon his Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 243 most sovereign reason, and that there were in these odd phenomena what boded no good to the welfare of his body or mind. There were friends around him in whose companionship he rejoiced. John W. Mackay was close to hifm, and I have a letter from Conkling — ^nothing I ever read of his writings so eloquent — expressive of his disappointment at Mackay's refusal to be a candidate from Nevada, for the United States Senate. It was a political purpose near to his heart, and he inveighed against the obstinacy which, as Mackay said to the Senator, "would insist upon being at home in a silver mine rather than out of place in the Senate." Senator Jones, of Nevada, who had more in- fluence with him than any of his associates, was much with him. He had also found Mr. Pulitzer, of the World, and one evening he declaimed over this discovery. And although I had known Mr. Pulitzer for years, and had realized what was possible to the ravenous and abounding fenergy of that distinguished politician and journalist, I must have the biography all over — ^the wonderful story of what was possible to ambition in the United States. I could add other names, many of them, were it proper. But it would be unjust to close the list without writing that of the one friend dearer than others, the Jonathan to his David, the gifted, high-spirited, masterful, friendly George C. Gorham, of California. Much might be written of his trenchant, witty, flash- ing speeches. I presume every one of his friends has a special private vocabulary. But the point of Conkling's wit was in the manner. "So and So, yes," as he once said to me ; "the words So and So and perfidy are synony- mous terms." How I recall so many of these barbed winging phrases — ^that so far as this writer is concerned Digitized by Microsoft® 244 Men and Memories. must forever remain as shafts shot into the silence. He was prone to banter; not always considerate if fun were in the vocative, and even in amiable moods uncertain, not easy to get on with. "Put Eoscoe in a room with a half dozen friends, resolved to bewitch them all. He will quarrel with one or two before the evening is over." This was said by one of his earliest friends. He was impatient of contradiction, could be resonant over small annoyances ; lie awake over the idle newspaper adjective of some tipsy political writer. His life had developed under narrowed conditions, his horizon never expanded, and his judgment and opinions wanted in perspective. "This," said the Irish car-driver to Thackeray, "is the hill of Howth, the highest hill in all Ireland." It was the only hill the poor boy had ever seen, remarked Thackeray, and was therefore to him the highest in all Ireland. The Mohawk Valley was Conkling's hill of Howth. From there some- how had come the statesmen, the leaders, who had gov- errned the nation, and there only the supreme test of human greatness. I have sat with him in London, men of world-wide fame about him, and marveled at the sweep and finish of his eloquence; illustration after illustration coming with due felicity from that wondrous Mohawk Valley ; some allusion to Wellington recalling some Oneida corner grocery warrior, whose career must needs be told; some story about Peel or Beaconsfield reminding him of the eloquent Somebody called Smith, or the astonish- ing Nobody called Jones, whose eloquence had won even the admiration of such a man as Thurlow Weed, or had received the commendations even of such a critic as George W. Demers, whose writings in an Albany journal were familiar to Cabinets and Parliaments. I have speculated at the effect of this narrowed and narrowing horizon on Conkling. For here surely was a Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 245 mam broad and large enough to have filled at least the 3anvass of a Metternich or a Gortschakoff. In intellectual power, in ambition, in marked and singular gifts. Conk- ling in some respects exceeded any man I have ever known. His limitations seemed to chafe him, and may have explained, perhaps, something of the strange irrita- bility so trying to his friends. You felt sometimes as you saw him at Syracuse conventions; towering in the Fifth Avenue Hotel lobbies; in "conference" with inspectors of customs, police captains and gangers; sniflBing, impa- tient, censorious; the sympathy you give to some royal brute of a Bengal tiger, as he claws the iron bars. Surely this noble creature should have his roamings in the jun- gle and plains. I have sometimes thought that his inner aspirations were for the State Department; that in our foreign relations would be room for his genius, his au- dacity, and his imagination. He came into public life at the wrong conjunction of the stars — the Congress be- fore the war — and before he could make known his elo- quence and power the war fell and the statesman was overwhelmed by the soldier, his genius drowned out of recognition as surely as that of Canning by Wellington, or Chateaubriand by Napoleon. He must have felt the obscuration. He was not meant for periods of reconstruc- tiop or civil strife ; to bind up the wounds of a nation, or sow once more the wasted, harried fields. He should have lived in the Webster days, or stood with Sumner and Seward when reason and eloquence were fighting the battle of freedom, before reason and eloquence were lost in the fury and havoc of rapine. If we could only have had the opportunity our foreign relations would have given ! I fancy it is a mere impres- sion, with no tangible reason for so believing, but I have Digitized by Microsoft® 246 Men and Memories. thought the disappointment of Conkling at not being the Secretary of State under President Arthur was the cause of their separation. Unhappily, and under the sad surroundings, although Conkling was the one man who could never see it, this was the one appointment Arthur could not make. If it had been his time I feel sure that in the department he would have won as noble a fame as that won by Marcy and Fish. There is the weird Scottish word "fey" — ^taken from the Highland lore — that when one does something out of the range of his thoughts and habits, he is "fey," marked for death, is under the spell of his predestination, the thought of Lochiel in Campbell's verses, that coming events cast their shadows before. A weird, pregnant word, often in my fancy. "The last time I saw my father," wrote Carlyle, "was about the first of August. He was very kind, seemed prouder of me than ever. His eyes were sparkling mildly, vidth a kind of deliberate joy. Strangely, too, he offered me, on one of these mornings, knowing that I was poor, two sovereigns, seemed really anxious and desirous that I should take them, should take his little hoard — ^his all that he had to give. I said jok- ingly afterwards, that surely he was fey. So it has proved." The last time I saw Conkling, as I find on re- ferring to a poor memorandum of a diary that I pretend to keep, was on the morning of Friday, March 16, 1888, the fourth day after that historical blizzard, in which he had so wild an experience. He was in a radiant, gentle humor, described to three or four friends, his blizzard journey up Broadway, stood some quaint rallying on the whiteness of his hair from an out-of-town friend with un- accustomed patience — not apt to be in repose under banter of any kind, especially as to his personal appearance. I rwaember the conversation with sad distinctness, and his Digitized by Microsoft® Men and Memories. 247 reproaelies addressed to myself personally for not haraig signed an article I had written in the current North American Review. And although my excuse for not having signed it was that the leading thought had heen given me by General Sherman, and I hesitated to assume as my own what really belonged to that illustrious man, Mr. Conkling, among whose aversions was anonynimity in journalism, was explicit in his censures. No message was worth reading without a name given to it — a man behind it — and that there was no abomination so unendurable as the editorial "We," with such absurd variations on "We" as a theme — editors, tape worms, emperors blended in irresistible mockery. The out-of-town friend who had been commenting on the whitened hair, changed the theme to a reception that had been given to Henry Irving the day before, and a speech to Irving by George William Curtis, with certain criticisms and disparagements of Curtis. These came, as I fancied at the time, as a bid for gra- eiousness from Conkling, the speaker knowing that for years Curtis had been a picador bull-fighting theme in the Senator's eyes. "Well, let us say this about Curtis, let us be entirely just to Curtis, let us admit," and so on in words of eulogy, which I will not, because I cannot, re- peat, but content myself with the impression. The genius and character of Curtis never received more eloquent, more gentle recognition. It was a pleasure to me, with my own estimate of that eminent man, which differences and disappointments in polities had never dismissed, and which I had maintained at times in the way of deprecation of the invectives of Conkling in the days when the battle was on and the skies bent under the storm. As I heard Conkling's estimate of Curtis, the weird Highland fancy came into my mind, and I recalled the Carlyle story. Digitized by Microsoft® 248 Men and Memories. "Surely," I thought, "Conkling is fey." And so it proved. This talk, as here written in my diary, was March 16, 18.88. I turn the pages, and there likewise, under the date of April 18, 1888, is the sad, irreparable line : "Eos- COE CONKLIHTG DeAD." Eoscoe Conkling dead, and with him so much out of the daring forces of American statesmanship. There is much more to write- of him, but that duty belongs to the historian, who will narrate with cooler judgment the men and events of his tremendous time. What I said of Conk- ling, when he was lying cold and dead, his biographer has accepted and I may repeat now: "Conkling was to die, if true leaders of opinions ever die. The palpable man whom we saw but yesterday, with commanding mien, stern, deep set eyes, the brows Olympian, the over-whitened hair, the ruddy face eternal in youth and expression, vigor, genius, grace, personal beauty typified ; the orator, scholar, the implacable opponent and tumultuous man of affairs, has gone, but the impalpable spirit remains. We have lost the most aggressive leader in American politics since Clay and Webster, thirty-six years ago. But he is not dead. His life remains an incentive, an example, let us say an admonition. For it may be well to remember as an admonition that in any public career, pride, intolerance and the Swift-like gift of withering invective may retard or prevent opportunities of lustrous service to the Com- monwealth. But even so, generations will come and go before the example of this extraordinary man, his elo- quence and learning, his undaunted devotion to truth, his purity and courage, his uncompromising patriotism, his scorn of cant and deception will be forgotten. A masterful, imperial soul has passed away, leaving a name which Americans will not soon let die !" Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft®