Class _:RS_3_SjLS
Book t^)/aj96
Copyright N°.
'I'Z,
COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.
O Ivxx \^. ^K-*^
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
AND
MISCELLANEA
BY
JOHN G. WIGHT, A. B., A. M., Litt. D.. Bowdoin
Ph. D., Hamilton.
ITICA, N. Y.:
Pkkss ok L. (". ("iin.DS A- Son
xrxcxi I
-x ri, 3"
Coprighted 1912
By John G. Wight
0?Z'<^^'
£CI.A30!)7!)5
PREFATORY NOTE
THESE FRAGMENTS. GATHERED DURING THE BUSY LIFE OF A
TEACHER, ARE PUBLISHED CHIEFLY IN THE HOPE THAT
THEY WILL BE OF INTEREST TO FRIENDS. FORMER ASSOCIATE
TEACHERS AND PUPILS. THE BOOK IS. WITH SINCERE AFFEC
TION. DEDICATED TO MY WIFE.
JOHN G. WIGHT.
Clinton. Oneida Co., N. Y.
CONTENTS
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Chapter
I. Early Life and Education
II. Navy Experience ....
III. Teaching Experience
IV. Letters ......
Page
9
18
45
55
MISCELLANExV
The Teacher's Burden .
Virgil's Fourth Eclogue
The Teacher's Success .
Response
Joy and Rest ....
cooperstovvn centennial
The ]\Iaine Society of New York
^Iemorial Day Address
Apotheosis of Penn
Masters op Epigram
A Good Historical Noa^l
Rulers of England .
Prose -Poets ....
The Pleasures of Reading Shakspeare
English Orthoepy .
Horace
Walter Savage Landor .
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Literature and Life
Literary Parallelisms
87
100
101
116
117
119
121
122
134
137
138
140
141
142
144
146
154
171
193
204
Paqk
KpISTOLAHV lilTERATURE LM8
IjIFE in Letters
220
AVORK ......
. 225
KXTKAV.VGANTE ....
. 227
^Fax and I'atriot
228
Joint Honors ....
. '2:V2
The Star- Spangled Banner .
. 234
In Memoriam — Horace Lathrop
. 234
My Mother ....
. 234
The Girls
. 235
The Wadleigh Colors
. 235
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I.
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION.
THE earliest remembered incident of my life is of being
on horse-back, sitting in front of my father, on our
way through a narrow wooded glen. Our mission at
the time was to carrj^ salt to the stock — principally young
cattle — which were summering in a back pasture. The pic-
ture, still graphic after more than sixty years, is only a
glimpse of the horse and its two riders as they halted for a
moment beneath the sheltering branches of hemlock and spruce.
The little white salt-bag, which indicated our business, is par-
ticularly distinct in memor3^ Of what had preceded, as well
as of what followed, this brief resting spell, I have not the
faintest recollection ; nor can I imagine why this particular
mental snap-shot, taken during a morning ride, should have
left so indelible an impress. Why, it might with reason be
asked, should I not rather have retained (what I must have
witnessed) the spectacle of salt-hungry animals as they gath-
ered in rough-and-tumble impatience at the usual salting place 1
This incident must have occurred as early as m}^ third or fourth
year.
Inasmuch as my father died shortly after nly fifth birth-
day, my recollections of him are neither many nor very clear.
Strange to say. the few I do retain are chiefly associated with
riding and driving. One such recollection is of an early morn-
ing drive, in the course of which my father purchased a string
of beautiful trout, for which he paid a silver half-dollar. The
scene is now, after so many years, as if it were of yesterday.
Below us was the river, with its frothy eddy, where lurked
the speckled beauties. In the middle of the stream the water
was turbulent and foamed about what was called the "ford-
ing rock." This rock was «o named because it was possible
to know from its appearance at any time whether the river
lU AUTOBIOGRAPHY
was low enough to make fording safe at a place farther down
the stream. Another instance I recall was of driving with
my father when he was going to one of his farms six miles
distant, but on which occasion he decided to leave me on the
way at an uncle's, to play with two girl cousins until his re-
turn. This visit is memorable for the thorough wetting I got
by falling into a brook near which we were frolicking. The
sequel of this mishap was my being put to bed while my clothes
were drying.
My father's funeral is distinctly remembered. The funeral
service was conducted in the old unpainted meeting-house,
which stood on the other side of the Androscoggin directly
opposite our home. The scene, however, made but little im-
pression on my unreasoning years. It is to me a cause of
thankfulness that even a few glimpses of my father are among
the treasures of memory. I sometimes try to imagine what
his influence upon me would have been, had he not been so
early cut off.
Space must here be given for a few words about the old
meeting-house. At the time referred to it was the only house
for public worship in primitive Gilead, one of the Western-
most towns of Oxford County, in Maine. As w^as then the
ease witli most rural sections of New England, the Gilead
homesteads were more populous sixty years ago than they
are to-day; and it was the rule for all, so far as age and
doni(\stie duties permitted, to attend church. As there was
no ])ridge over the river, those living on our side, that is, the
north side, were accustomed, on Sunday mornings, to congre-
gate at the river on our farm, and, after making their horses
secure in the little grove that skirted the river-bank, to cross
in a large flat-bottomed boat, which was navigated by means
of oars and poles. The gatherings at church, at a time, it
must be remembered, when the Androscoggin Valley had no
railroad and but little communication with the outside world,
had not only religious but social attractions, especially in the
summer time, when at the noon intermission the people gath-
ered at a nearby spring to eat their gingerbread and indulge
in neighborly gossip. The congregations were large in those
days and were reverently attentive to the simple discourse
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION 11
of the preacher. The choir, hardly second in importance to
the minister (who was either a Methodist or a Congregation-
alist), was very large and had for accompaniment violins and
a bass viol. The last mentioned instrument to my eyes look-
ed abnormally big and was almost terror-inspiring for its
thunderous tone. Sometimes at the services there were amus-
ing happenings. On one occasion, after the choir had finish-
ed the usual voluntary anthem, the preacher, a stranger, turned
to the chorister and requested that they "sing another verse."
At another time, according to tradition, at the close of the
service a local exhorter, who was by no means a favorite in
the community, rose in the congregation and said: "If there
is no objection, I will occupy this pulpit next Sunday." After
due waiting, as naturally there was no expressed objection,
he proceeded to say: "Silence gives consent; you may expect
me to preach."
Gilead is not without its interesting traditions, relating
both to the sad and the mirthful sides of life. The Millerite,
or second adventist, delusion, of about 1840, is said to have
been taken Avith greater seriousness by the Gileadites than
generally by other communities. The most enthusiastic con-
verts to the teaching of Millei: (who, it is well known, had
set the very day of the "second coming") gave away their
stock, carriages, farming implements, and even their clothing,
under the belief that after the fateful day there would be no
use for them. The ludicrousness of the situation appeared
when, as at the expiration of the appointed time no cata-
clysm took place, these deluded ones were in the humiliating
position of begging for the return of what in their folly they
had given away. Apropos of the Millerite hallucination an
interesting hon mot of Emerson is related. He was one day
met by a disciple of Miller who said to him: "Mr. Emerson,
don't you know that the world will come to an end next
Thursday ? " To which Emerson replied : ' ' Oh, well, I guess
I can get along without it." Socrates never said anything
happier. Gilead, too, had its murder horror, known as the
"Wild River Tragedy." This occurred at the time of the
building of th(^ railroad, when a new and turbulent popula-
tion came like a flood into the humdrum town, producing a
12 AUTOBIOGHAPHY
state of disquiet among the staid natives. It was a double
murder, — in brief, the act of a jealous blacksmith, who shot
his handsome wife and then himself. The deed, so unheard
of in the town, was shocking in the extreme. The day of
the funeral, when both victims were placed in a single grave,
is still recalled for the breathless awe that hung like a pall
over the inhabitants. Nor is Gilead without its traditions of
odd sayiiifi's ol' (luccr people of the place. One such shall
suffii-c. A liali-wiltcd fellow of our neighborhood, one night
observing the clouds furiously blown across the face of the
full moon, giving an apparent rapid motion to that luminary,
ejaculated: ''Gosh, I've seen a good many moons in my day,
but I never see one go like that before."
I am not a little proud of the natural attractions of Gilead,
as being the place where 1 was born on the 2nd of March, 1842.
The landscape of the town comprises, mainly, a nearly straight
valley, extending east and west. Through the midst of this
valley flows a river of moderate size, which embraces in its
arms occasional islands of exquisite beauty. The valley is
guarded on either side by a considerable mountain wall, i>artly
bare and ledgy and partly wooded, and having sufficient va-
rietj^ of height and form to escape monotony and give pleasure
to the sight. The intervales that skirt the river-banks have
in right measure a sprinkling of graceful elms and other come-
ly trees, just enough, indeed, to complete the scene. Back of
the meadows, and reaching up the sides of the mountains,
are attractive pasture foot-hills, groves and grazing land com-
bined in fascinating harmony. Add to tliis a distant view of
Madison and Adams, the north-eastern })eaks of the White
Mountains, and the picture becomes one of unusual b(>auty.
The jiarticular liouK^slead of iin' nativity is a farm ex-
tending nearly lialf a mile along the river and reaching mount-
ainward almost indefinitely. It was the most westerly of four
contiguous fanns owned by four brothers. The liuildings oc-
cupied an elevated site fifty feet above the intervale, and had
as tlieir immediate backgi'ound a mountain called "Tumble-
Down-Dick," that in ]ilaces attains a height of 2,000 feet.
In one part this mountain has the appearance of an almost
vertical wall. The mountain received its name from a disas-
EARLY lilFE AND EDUCATION 13
trous fall had there by one Dick Feabody. Another part,
called "Seavey Mountain," is marked by the effects of a
nearly perpendicular slide, which left piled at the mountain's
base a vast heap of fragments of rock varying in size and ir-
regular in shape. Chance had so placed these massive stones as
to form a large cave, which bears the name of "Devil's Den."
This cave was generally shunned by the children, though they
dared to climb to the plateau above it, where an extensive
view of the valley is obtained. It is recalled as a charming
incident of my childhood, that one summer day the school-
mistress, a woman of unusual intelligence and imagination,
took us on an excursion to this picturesque outlook, where
we sang familiar school songs, among them "Ye banks and
braes of Bonnj^ Doon."
The schoolhouse, situated about seventy rods below the
aforesaid cave, was on my father's property. It was a small
unpainted structure, rude without and within. Its desks, made
of long pine planks, were fantastically disfigured with knife-
carvings. The building vanished long ago, leaving only traces
of its simple foundation — uncut stones now in druidical ruin.
A brook, convenient for damming and adaptable for the in-
stalling of little water-wheels, flowed past the dooi'. half en-
circling the school grounds. Midway between the sehoolhouse
and the brook was a large boulder, whose flat top was a fa-
vorite resort of the pupils. I remember that I once thought-
lessly left my Colburn's arithmetic over night on this stone,
to be found in the morning drenched with rain and nearly
ruined. The mishap was not told my mother at tin; time, but
the condition of the book necessarily became known when
brought home at the end of the term. The explanation I gave
of its pitiful coverless condition Avas, that the teacher had
used it to rap on the window to call in the pupils at recess.
This was. in fact, a half-truth — one of those subterfuges that
ingenious youths find it convenient to resort to sometimes
when in a tight place. Such luncheons as were brought to
that school in winter! The sight of them, as they still ap])ear
in UKnnory. makes my mouHi water. The contents of a cer-
tain tin pail two of my cousins used to bi-ing were, in par-
ticular, something most appetizing. In this pail were apples
14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
of Oregonian size and color, and of a liavor such as was never
dreamed of by dwellers on the Pacific coast. Then, there were
tempting doughnuts, large and savory, and intermingled with
them generous pieces of cheese of ambrosial quality ; and
apple and mince pie of surpassing excellence, "such as mother
used to make." This particular school luncheon, which, by
the way, was not exceptional, came from a home noted for
housewifely neatness, where, according to report, even the dog
was taught to wipe his feet before entering the door.
My mother, during nine years of widowhood, had the re-
sponsibility of bringing up a family of nine children, five boys
and four girls. Their ages, at the time of her bereavement,
ranged from two to eighteen years. 1 was seventh in the list.
It was a trust calling for wisdom and fortitude, qualities she
possessed in good degree, and which were happily supplement-
ed by unfailing patience. She submitted to her difficult con-
dition uncomplainingly, as to something providential.
As can well be imagined, the Gilead homes were but mea-
gerly supplied with books. They contained but few beyond
what were required for use in school. As I remember, our
home had in the way of a library almost nothing except the
Bible. I recall the scandal that was caused by the report that
in one family the daughters were reading a novel, "yellow-
covered."
In my fourteenth year, accompanying my mother, who had
contracted a second marriage, I was taken to a new home in
Gorham, N. H., at what was called the upper village, a mile
above the village proper. This place is on the Androscoggin,
twelve miles farther up than Gilead. Unlike its direct course
in Gilead, the Androscoggin, as it passes through Gorham,
bends in a sharp and graceful curve. Gorham, in appear-
ance, is mountain-walled on every side. I recall the appro-
priateness of a sermon once preached by a summer visitor.
The complete shut-in-ness of the place was happily suggested
by his choice of a text — "As the mountains are round about
Jerusalem." As we are now immediately in the "White Moun-
tains, it seems proper to give a brief description of the Pres-
idential Range.
There is an ever increasing fascination in this unique group
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION 15
of mountain peaks, the crown of the Appalachian system, in
its happy setting among almost countless minor elevations.
The visitor naturally feels an inclination to give expression
to the emotions awakened by what is here seen and admired.
But so faithfully and felicitously has the grandeur of this
region been depicted by Starr King, even to the minutest
details of valleys, rivers, and less pretentious surrounding
heights, that his "White Hills" comes nigh being exclusive
of further attempts at description. From a literary point of
view, it would l)e as vain to attempt to write another "White
Hills" as to try to improve upon Irving's Westminster Abbey.
Since King's day there has developed a new interest in these
New Hampshire mountains, an enthusiasm quite unknown in
his time. I refer to the practice of "crossing the range," and
to the more general climbing of mountains in the vicinity.
To-day it is not, as formerly, enough merely to ascend Mount
Washington. The almost endless variety of views obtainable
from the surrounding peaks must be added to make the en-
joyment of mountain scenery complete. To Starr King, how-
ever, does belong the credit of having taken the initiative in
traversing the Presidential peaks other than Washington. He
claims to have been the first to sleep on Mount Adams, near
its summit. He and his guide lay side by side on the bare
stones wrapped in blankets. Now, not far from their night
encampment, a comfortable stone hut is at the tourist's service.
The manner of naming mountains is an interesting study.
While it is the general custom in other countries to allow wide
diversity in respect to such names, in the United States moun-
tains are usually called after distinguished Americans. It was
but natural that our earliest national executives should be
chosen for this, perhaps our greatest possible distinction in
the bestowing of mountain nomenclature. Consistency in the
order of naming the four Presidential peaks lias l)een disre-
garded by placing Jefferson between Washington and Adams.
It is believed that originally Adams had the second place, and
that the interchange of names subsequently made may have
been out of deference to the juxtaposition of the mountain. and
the town Jefferson. New Plampshire's intellectual giant, her
orator and statesman, Daniel Webster, is obscureh^ reeogniz-
16 ArTt)B10GKAPllV
I'd ill the st)utlu'ni terminal of the range, and Henry Clay, the
idol of the Avhig party, is represented by an even less promi-
nent formation between Washington and Jefferson. These two
great Americans, Webster and Clay, would seem to have been
accorded each a humble place in the Presidential group, with
something of irony be it said, beeause of their inordinate de-
sire to be President.
Owing to its well detined isolation, the Presidential group
of the White Mountains olfers to the observer below a great
variety of charming aspects, according as he changes his point
of view. On the north, from the Androscoggin Valley, IMadison
and Adams are to the front : on the south, especially as viewed
from the upper Saeo and the Xot^'h. Wasliington is prominent;
on the west, or Jett'erson side, are seen, in (fuite distinct in-
diviiluality, all tlie members of the group, appearing as the
convex are of a great circidar Avail; Avhile on the east side,
from the Glen, a concave view of the same arc is obtained,
the different peaks being even more clearly individualized.
The Glen valley view, especially from a point half a mile north
of the Glen house site, surpasses in grandeur all the other views
of the four great peaks Avhich are obtainable from beloAV.
In Gorham I had better opportunities for schooling. The
terms were longer, the school building and equipment better,
and the teaching of a higher order. Besides, 1 had every year
the advantage of at least one short term of private school.
On my sixteenth birtlulay I began my tirst term of school
away from home. This was at (iould Academy, in Bethel. It
was at the time Avhen l)oys and young men were just coming
to think it the proper thing to wear shawls, the silliest devia-
tion from customary dress I have ever known young Ameri-
cans of the sterner sex to be guilty of. To me. ;it the time,
the affected manner of the self-conscious l)eshawled youths was
something of a burlesque. It should be mentioned in connec-
tion with this stage of my education, that through the influ-
ence of a Dartmouth junior Avho had taught our school the
previous winter. I had been induced to begin the study of
Latiji and to think about going to college. The effect of tak-
ing up this ancient language was one of the greatest inspira-
tions of my life. The lack of pecuniary means to warrant the
EARLY LIPM'] AND EDUCATION 17
thought of getting a college; education was made good by the
generosity of nii oldci- brollici-. Aftcii- four terms, not con-
tinuous by the way, at Bethel, 1 completed my preparation
at the Maine; State Seminary, now Bat(;s (Jol](;g(;, at Lewiston,
and entered Bowdoin ('ollege in the suniiiicr of ISJiO. It should
be stated that pr(;vious to this time 1 had already taught ojk;
term of winter school in my home district, wlusre I had been
a pupil the pr(;vious year, and wh(;re I had as pupils most of
my former school companions, several of them being older than
myself. To all tlie obvious disadvantages of th(; position there
was udded the drawback iHij)lied in the well Httest(;d truth,
tluit funiiliarity breeds contempt. The conditions were hard,
especially as 1 was young and new to the business:, and y(;t
I believe the trying or'deal is to be counted in many re,sp(;cts
a most valuabh; i)art of my training. 1 also, for earning a
little money by teaching, made availabh; the; winter vacations
of the freshman and the sophomore j^ears. These, it will be
recalled, were years of great unrest owing to the opening
scenes of the civil war. Many students, who could not (;ndure
the strain of contemplating the possibility of our national dis-
I'uption, left college to join the army. In the summer of 1862
1 also heeded the call, and in cons<;quenc(; spent my junior
year in the navy. The experiences of that year arc; to me of
such significance that I shall give them somewhat in detail.
CHAPTER 11.
NAVY EXPERIENCE.
TIIKKH \h, strictly speaking, no such thing as a history of
dill' civil Avar, but there arc Imiuirccls of thousands of
partial histories, most of which will never be read but
by individual hearts. Each participant in that great struggle
has his own story, unlike that of every other, — what he saw
in a peculiai' way of places, people, and stirring events in
which he luul a part. A single year spent in such a numner
surpasses in interest all the remainder of one's life. In view
of these facts, and having in mind the wish expressed by some
one, that avc had more biographies of obscure men, I am ven-
turing to relate how I spent the junior year of my college
course as a landsman in the U. S. navy, believing that the
narration will have sufficient interest to justify its appearing
in print.
Many incidents, mirthful as well as sad, are recalled in
connection with college at the breaking out of the civil war.
One touching occurrence at Bowdoin, which was doubtless
someAvhat common at the time in the colleges of the North,
was the sudden departure of tAvo students who were from
the South, and who, as soon as secession was proclaimed, very
naturally felt constrained to espouse the cause of their people
at honu\ The senior class, of which they were members, es-
corted them to the train in a body and bade them good-by
in the friendliest manner, well knowing that chance might
bring it about that they should meet as enemies on the bat-
tlefield. The war spirit, so suddenly awakened and so new
to that generation, with its attendant distraction, absorbed
the thought of all. The forming of student militia companies,
their almost constant drilling and marching, accentuated by
the suggestive beating of drums, forbade the pretense of study.
Every heart, uneasy with the sense of duty and feeling keenly
possible reproofs for indecision at such a crisis, was kept at
a high tension, and relentlessly urged the man to enroll him-
self as a soldier. It may be mentioned here parenthetically
NAVY EXPERIENCE ^^
that all the names of liowdoin students who at some time in
the course of the war answered the nation's call, and consid-
,vmg the size of the college the number is large, are inscribed
on bronze tablets in the memorial building on the college
campus. ., . T^. 1
The exciting war meetings, held almost dady m Brunswick
and thronged by multitudes, were enthusiastically attended
l,v the students and members of the college faculty, at which
meetings some of the latter made their first attempts at stump
oratory There comes to mind in particular, and with strik-
ing vividness, a ([uiet, soft-voiced, and exceedingly urbane
professor, who, to the surprise of everyone, became possessed
by the common enthusiasm. His sudd(m transformation from
a person of exceptional mildness to one of extreme md.tary
ardor presented an incongruity that provoked merriment
among his acquaintances. His zeal brought him as an orator
before these large, popular assemblies. At such times his
vehemence occasionally got the better of his facility m ex-
tempore speaking. Naturally he drew his figures from the
experiences of the classroom, some of which are remembered
for their aptness and force. Appealing to the young men
in his audience, many of whom he had instructed m rhetoric,
he would say, "The only gesture you have to learn now is,
down in front," intimating a sabre-thrust. One unpremedi-
tated comparison which he made was this: "The time has
come " said he, "when we are to determine whether we are
a naiion or a-or a-or a basket of chips." This man at
length received a Colonel's commission and went to the tront
with the 20th Maine. After he had gone, but before his mettle
had been put to the test, the boys, still doubting their pro-
fessor's soldiership, gathered in groups about the campus,
would jokingly picture to one another his probable conduct
in battle. They imagined that his instinctive politeness
would cause him to commence an engagement somewliat aft-
er the following manner. He would first cavalierly salute the
enemv and then say: "Gentlemen, if you please, we shall now
proceed to fire." But how completely his military record
belies these predictions. No braver man or better soldier
than Joshua L. Chamberlain served in either army. For he-
20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
roic conduct on the field, for soldierly bearing and honorable,
almost death- giving wounds, he rose to the rank of major-
general. AVith his brave troops, in a critical hour <\t Get-
tysburg, he held "Little Round Top." For a gallant charge
before Petersburg Grant made him a brigadier on the tield.
And finally, when the collapse of the Confederacy came, and
the great Lee was over-mastered by the silent man of Galena,
this modest professor was intrusted by his chief with the de-
tails of surrender at Appomattox.
The gathering of the students at the station to see the
train-loads of soldiers as they passed through the town, an
almost daily occurrence, was a memorable event. It was in-
teresting to note the cheerful faces and listen to the jovial
talk of these fresh recruits, who seemed wholly thoughtless
of the trials and perils they had voluntarily covenanted to
undergo. In particular, the occasion is recalled when Col.
Benjamin F. Butler passed through with his regiment. It
was the only time I ever saw the dauntless chief, whose char-
acteristic features have been so often pictured, sometimes in
a spirit of admiration, often of detestation. As he stood on
the rear platform of the last car, he made a brief speech, the
purport of wliich I do not remember. I do remember that
as the train pulled out, the regimental band played "The
girl I left behind me," the tones gradually dying aAvay as
they became more distant. One college episode of 1861, pa-
thetic as reviewed at the distance of fifty years, was asso-
ciated with the first Bull Run disaster. The president of the
college, the courtly and revered Dr. Woods, had, up to the
time alluded to, never given the slightest evidence of sym-
pathy with the union sentiment that was engrossing the gen-
eral thought. It had been observed, with much impatience
and some ill feeling on the part of the students, that never
once at afternoon prayers had the president made any allu-
sion to the civil disturbance that was threatening the nation's
life. On the afternoon of the day when news came of that
pitiful rout in July, the students placed, in conspicuous let-
ters, on a large canvas stretched above the chapel entrance,
these words: "Pray for the country." Since the president,
as he stood at the reading desk that day, had to fac(^ the uii-
NAVY EXPERIENCE
21
pleasant admonition, it could not escape his notice. It is need-
less to say that the hint was acted upon.
The academic year 1862-3, which was my junior year, had
l)(^en preceded by some of the momentous occurrences of the
war. ( hief among these events are the battle of Bull Run,
the Trent affair, the capture of Fort Donelson, the battle of
Pittsburg Landing, the fight between the Monitor and the
T^Ierrimac, the capture of 'New Orleans, and McClellan's ill-
starred Peninsular Campaign. During the summer of 1862,
when the national exigencies were appealing for renewed
activity in raising troops, there were enrolled throughout the
North, in addition to those already in the field, thousands of
college students, whose patriotism had become too profoundly
stirred to admit of their remaining longer in peaceful halls
of learning. In fact, young men in every calling throughout
the loyal states were in large numbers at this time deciding
that duty demanded their example and strength in maintain-
ing the integrity of the union. Not a little of their zeal, it
may be said, was due to a desire to have some personal share
in solving the question whether a republic like ours is capa-
1)le of self-preservation. In my own case, two motives in
particular induced me to prefer service in the navy rather
than in th(^ army. These motives were, ill health resulting
from a prolonged fever, it being my hope that life at sea
would be physically beneficial, and the possibility of enter-
ing that arm of the national service for one year only, after
Avhieh time I might hope to return, as in fact I did, to finish
the college course.
On the 16th of August, 1862, in company with five New
Hampshire boys of my acquaintance, I enlisted, or rather ship-
ped, at Portsmouth, choosing that place rather than Charles-
town, since I was desirous of being counted in the quota of
uKni required from the Ncav Hampshire town where I lived.
In my physical examination at the navy yard I got a first
taste of the gruff sea-dog, an old surgeon, who from his blunt
and coarse questioning evidently looked upon me as a veteran
man-of-war 's-man, and not as the greenest kind of landsman.
I might state here that up to this time I had never stepped
upon the deck of a sea-going vessel. All went well with our
22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
sextet until it came to signing the shipping articles. One of
our number, as it proved with too much assurance, proposed
that we write our oAvn names. Being the oldest, it was nat-
ural for him to sign first. As fate would have it, and no
doubt it was partly due to nervousness, he allowed a large
drop of ink to fall on the otherwise immaculate page, and
as a result' of the mishap, came nigh being petrified, as did
the rest of us, by a sudden outburst of nautical profanity,
the first, but by no means the last, we were to hear in our
twelve months' sailoring. The startling remark, as I clearly
remember it, was, "You fellows are so smart."
But the language itself, bad as it was, was nothing in com-
parison with its forceful delivery. It is well known that in
the vigorous use of profane oaths the sailor is siii similis.
Previous to reporting for duty at Charlestown, we enjoy-
ed two days of freedom in Boston, where at our hotel we met
officers of the San Jacinto, the vessel which nine months be-
fore had figured in the famous seizing of Mason and Slidell,
an episode that threatened to entangle us upleasantly with
England, and when Lincoln, with his neverfailing good sense,
checked the popular clamor with the timely warning, ''One
war at a time." Having purchased sailor outfits at Hanover
square, we at length reported on board the receiving ship
Ohio, at the Charlestown navy yard. The introduction to
this ship, with its tAvo thousand sailors representing more than
a score of nationalities, and with characters of every shade
peculiar to such a motley crew, gave me the greatest shock
of my life. Whatever ordeal I have been called upon to pass
through at any other time is dwarfed by a comparison with
this one. At the time of our arrival the Ohio was preparing
foi* a visit by the Secretary of the navy. As new recruits we
were stowed away in the background. Two or three among
the fresh arrivals, who, like us, were being introduced to strange
conditions, when ordered by a tall, red-nosed, pirate-visaged
lieutenant to "get amidships," were inclined to be facetious,
when he thundered out, "Damn you. don't you know what
amidships means?" The fact was, none of us did.
One of my early difficulties as a man-o-war's-man came in
connection with the lashing up of a hammock. This achieve-
NAVY EXPERIENCE
23
ment, when performed by an expert, is a work of art. My
first effort in this line of duty fell so far short of success, that,
instead of being neatly and firmly lashed, and, as a properly
lashed hammock should be, able to stand on end, it showed
the blankets painfully protruding at both ends, as well as
between the slack turns of the cord, and instead of being able
to stand erect, was so limp that, if held by the middle, the
two ends would have touched underneath. Such was my sor-
ry-looking hammock as I passed it the first morning to the
sailor standing inside the hammock nettings to stow it away.
He looked first at the hammock and then at me, and then made
the crushing remark, which was prefaced by a smart oath,
"You'd better go back to making hay."- It may not be gen-
erally known that "haymaker" is, with the sailor, a wither-
ing term of r.eproach.
"Well do I remember August 24, my first Sunday on a man-
of-war. The contrast between its attendant bustle and the
quiet of the church-going Sunday I had previously known
was extreme. Profanity instead of prayers. Hundreds of sun-
burnt faces on every hand. Feet pacing and repacing the
same planks times without number, aimless and apparently
automatic in their action. Such is the imperfect picture of a
holy day of rest on a receiving ship. But after a week of
this strange life I began to adapt myself to the new condi-
tions, and thus proved man's marvelous capacity for resig-
nation when forced to meet the inevitable. I soon found
myself fraternizing with these rough characters, and with
surprising readiness becoming accustomed to life and fare on
shipboard. Hard bread, cabbage soup, and colorless coffee
were becoming daily less repugnant to the taste. The grim
smiles of my companions, as we sat together by the hour in
some port-hole of the old ship, and conversed in a make-the-
best-of-it spirit, were somewhat comforting if in a measure
forced. Here for the first time I met natives of Greece, one
of whom carried with him a Greek poem in heroic measure.
He was communicative and congenial, and as he possessed but
a small stock of English, we played the part of teacher to each
other. He was a fine figure, tall and well proportioned, and
had a gentle and childlike spirit.
24 AUTOBIOGRAIMIV
Miu-li of llio disfoml'oi't 1 felt uas due to tlio uueeasiug
»lin prruliar to such a pent up company. If 1 sal down and
tried to tliink, the Avhisth^ and hoarse cry of the boatsAvain's
mate, a horrid oUl Dutchnum. Avoukl scare away my thoughts,
;ind iiHinediately my attention wouUl be absorbed with what
was going on around nu\ As 1 beeame bt>tter acquainted Avitli
saih^r character by actual intercourse, 1 found that, in excep-
tional cases at h'ast, he is not altogethtu- tlie despicabk^ crea-
ture I had been h^d to fancy him. In some of these rough men
there were disckised, boneath an uninviting exterior, traces of
culture and refinement, and sometimes iri their conversation
there was remarked a discriminating acquaintance with what
is best in literature: The presenc(> of such men in the navy
was in most eases accounted for by habits of intcinpcranee.
It may be noticed in passing, tliat Bunker Hill monunuMit was
in distinct view from the Ohio. tli(> sight of wliich started
grave reflections upon our national history and tlic making
of history, a business we were lunv intently engaged in.
(Occasionally, (ui visiting days, friends cann' on board the
Ohio, and among them once a young girl, who had been one
of my pupils the previous winter in a village school in JMaine.
At the first sight of my sailor attire, so strange to her eyes,
she burst into tears.
Nearly exery day sonu> vessel's crew Avas drafted from our
nund)er and sailed away to take part in the actualities of Avar.
Tavo of these ships, the Housatonic and Ossipee, are renuMU-
bered with special interest, as Ave saAv them later in Southern
Avaters and (exchanged greetings Avitli such of their ercAvs as
Ave had met at CharlestoAvn. As it happened, for several
months tlie t'olloAving Avinter and spring, the Housatonic had
anchorage next us on the blockade. She Avas a tine specimen
of a fighting shij) of the Avooden type. Sh(> at last met a
tragic end. Some time in the year 18B4, Avhile at her station
before Charleston, she Avas surprised by a Confederate tor-
pedo boat and sunk, and for a time lay Avith hei- masts shoAV-
ing above 1h(> Avater.
The only time in my lift> 1 have ever been guilt\- of resort-
ing to brib(>ry Avas in an endeavor to be draft eel for the Ossi-
pee. Sevei-al of us Avho had beeonu^ tiriMl of i"(>eeiviug ship
NAVY KXPKHIKNCIO 25
lil'c, l).v u coiiiinoM Hgrcciiiciil Iricd to iiilluciicc; tlie clerk in
cliiii'K*' <>l" till'
ii1 lliifc were evid(intly too many "in the game" for
all to succeed. Of this 1 am certain, \ n(;ver saw my five dol-
lars agnin. i\side Ironi the pecuniary loss 1 never had occa-
sion 1o regret my failure at "grafting."
It may be wortli recording that during the first two weeks
of my service in llie navy grog was served daily to the men,
and for the last tiine. I used to t;ike my phicc! in line with
the others, and with them mai'clied liy the loremast, re(;eiving
my allowance in a diininutive tin cup, but not to drink it, as
by a previous understanding its allaying infiu(!n(;e was to be
enjoycid as a second potation by the rmtn n(;xt in front of me.
By distributing this favor I gained }i new friend each day.
'^Fwo ol' our New lljimpshii-e cliums, l^^isk and Chipman,
who were musicians, wei'e derailed for* tin; band ol* the Ohio;
the four rcwnaining, — (Jreen, Hubbard, Ingalls, and mys(;lf,
were placed in a draft of 300 m(!n destined for Philadcdphia.
From Stonington to New York our trarisp(jr1ation was by
water, this being my introduction to a steambont. From New
York we went l;y rail through the ll;i,t .jer-sey count i-y, » route
to be familiar in after years.
If the Ohio had IxMm disagreeable, the I'rinceton proved
to be much more so. It was more ci-ovvded, and was filthy
b(;yond description. It had a more diversified and r(q)ulsive
collection of m(^n, ji mi.xture of all the elements I Inid left aug-
mented by "contrabrands." Here were iilso found blockade-
running shipmasters, str;iight-haired Southerners, who were
held MS prisoners of war. Tliest! ]att(!r were; naturally rest-
less, surly, and inclined to be uncommunicative!; but once the
ice was In-oken, they talked more frecdy, giving their views
of the war and of its probfiblc issu(!, to th(!ir way of thinking,
the dissolution of tin' (iiion. They h;id decided opinions re-
garding Southern conniuindets. juid pr-edicted that the two
Hills, one of Virginia and one of South Carolina, would event-
ually prove to be the great military leaders of the South.
1 found ga/ing on the Delaware River an interesting di-
\'ersion, and used to watch it by the hour in the daytimc!,
and at night, as 1 leaned on a broadside gun. would look
26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
through a port-hole at the silver path made across it by the
rays of the full moon. For a time, owing to the crowded con-
dition of the ship, 1 was obliged to sling my hammock be-
neath the uncovered timbers of a casual deck, with nothing
between me and the sky. I used to watch the silent stars till
they became dim in my drowsy sight, and then in dreams I
would leave the horrid ship and go away to a familiar moun-
tain land and have bright visions of home.
It was our fate to lie here on the Delaware for several
weeks, with the navy yard close at hand, w^here the govern-
ment's "sore task did not divide the Sunday from the week."
The usual din on shipboard was greatly augmented by the
clash of axes and the beating of hammers wdelded by ship-
wrights. The New Ironsides, preparing under hurry orders,
was but a few cable-lengths distant, and at that period of
our naval development a formidable fighting machine it in-
deed seemed to be. It sailed away the 22nd of September,
to be M'elcomed by us a few months later at a critical hour
before Charleston.
The battle of Antietam, the climax of Lee's first serious
attempt to invade the North, occurred September 16th and
17th. This Union victory revived in a wonderful manner the
spirits of the nation, which Pope's fiasco in the Second Bull
Run had brought to a low degree of despondency. The ex-
citing events occurring on land were watched by those on ship-
board wnth feelings of intense anxiety or glad relief, as the
issues were against us or in our favor. The greatest activity
Avas at this time aroused in the North, as was apparent in
the hasty equipping of troops and the hurrying of them to
the front. Within a period of a few wrecks I saw at least
one hundred thousand soldiers ferried across the Delaware,
each crowded boat appearing one solid blue.
After a time our blockade-running prisoners were remov-
ed to Fort LaFayette. They were to be congratulated on their
deliverance from the detestable receiving ship. Outwardly
and practically their imprisonment had been the same as my
own. The only difference was, that mine was voluntary while
theirs was forced. Sailor life on the Princeton made a last-
ing impression on my mind. The squeaking of the pump at
NAVY EXPERIENCE
27
the head, and the thick-lipped, long-heeled workers at it are
llilKr| <'ll\ Wllllr K'""!-' ili'WH I ln' I'l'lll
wiii'i' \\i' IIM I llh' II ; '. Iiifili' I'liw liiilliiii, il liii'K"' Hiilf u lii'clnr
\Vit Wi'l'r II II I I w il I ill III I III 1 1 Willi I'l'i'l Illj-'M III' I'i'l ii'l' (III I III' 1 1 lurk
iiilr I imw liiiiiiil III Wii'l r fii inly iiif.' i/i'o^'iiiiiliN li\ I lir In luini I nry
llli'l llllil, IIHll WIIH li'il I'lllllK pIlH'l'H liy till' I'Mlllllllill lull III' iil'l^'lllill
Muiiii'i'M Sli'iiii^i' IIM il limy Ni'dii, il llllil iir\rr IhIuit iir
I'i'il III nil' lliiil riiiliiililpliiti iM KM) iiiili'N li'iiin Mil' Mil
Al S |i III Mil' ruToinl ilii\ iil'lrr pnfiHiiip;' SinilliH iHluiitl
iiiiil ('ii|ir llriiiy w I' I'liiiii' III iiiirlior ill h'orlrrNH Moiiroi', a
|ilinr ul M|ii'rilll llllrn'hl ilfi lirliif-'; Mir Mrriir ul' Mir IMonilur
mill MrlllllUU H;-lll illl rli;'li;''rnh'lll Mill! I r \ u 1 1 1 1 lii 1 1 1 /I'l | iniU'llll'
W'lirrilir li\ Mill iiiliniii;' Mir llliirlril iruinliid llrrr I sil \\ uin*
ul Mil' niiiiiitur l.\|>i', ninl liinl Mir |>ii\ ilrj.";!' ul' \iNiliiif-'; il mnl
III' i<\miiiiiiiiH iIh wmnltM'riil liinil mul MiirliMMi inch kiiii. Il
WllN III l''urli'rNH IMunrui- llnil I lunl my I'h'nI drill \\ illi hiiimII
lirillN, 111 IUIiIii'IiImI' miiI^Ii' mI irK |inirtiri' llrrr iiInu I si'l'ill)
lii'il iii\ liiininiui Iv I'ur Mir lir:>l liiiir II W iin mi niiiI iirril uT
il W ii;ill llif." , ;iu lii'^> I inii'il Wii'. il Willi llirn' iiiuiillis' iirriliiill
liiliuii ul' I'l'iTiv iii^.' nIii|i lint All. I il wii-, hi'ii' Mini I iniidi'
iii\ IIi'hI iiiiIi' iiiilliiiill\ Mils jj;ii I'liiriil lunii'd uiil lu In-
nIuiicIin tiiid ill lilliiif llir \aiiuii.'. |tiirlN wri'f m.M'riiri'ly
lii'ld lu^'i'Miri li\ liiilnruu:il\ .rniln' Mlili'lir.s 'riim'Ndiiy, No-
\''iiil'ii '' I wii'i uiir iniliuiiiil riiii iiKs)jfi\ 111^.":, mid il ucfiisiuiit'd
llll\rd I lilt rl luir. Ill iii\ luc '' wliirli w il^ Ivi'pl sri'll |UlluUN
\\ MiruiiKliuiil Mil" yrur, I liinl Mii;, iiiIin '(>in' vnr n^u lu
dii\, ill nliuiil Mils liuiir I Wic mIIiiu- iipun n niuunliiiii side
III Oilriid iii\ iiiilivr luwn iii '.Miiiin' 'I'lic diiN w iis mii.li IiIm-
Mils Tlir Mim's Wiiinilli w ir. in'iirl.N lis J4irtil lis il is In-rc iiuw
NAVV lOXI'MKIKNOlO
39
ill a. iiioi'c Noiillicfii liililiulc 'I'licii my cyrs mikI ihiikI witc
fli^ii^^id ii|M»ii si'iiMS iiiiil I liKii^lils I'iir (IiU'ciiiiI I'lctin IliuSf
which arc I'di'ccd ii|i(iii my ii I Iciil imi imw . Then I walchcd
Ihc Niiiiil^c ciii'liii^' lip i'roiii ill) iilil rai'iiihdii.sc luur, which liiul
HhclliTcil my cliildliood, T'lom Ihc wiiidiiijj;' riMT spiirMiii}^'
rji,,VH cmillcd Irdm diiimoiids ol' lloaliiiK ;iiii'liii-t{\i\>i\\ m riiHilmcnl of a rumor lluil.
iiad prevailed I'oi' si'veral days, we starl('(| .south as a <'oiivoy
to Banks's expcdilioii, wliieli whn dcHtiiicd I'or the (iulT, and
we soon had a lastc ol' real life at sea,, a,n experienee sulll-
cicntly inlcnsilied when we were |)asHinf< iU\.\u' llalleras in a,
f^aie. Nearly all tin- en-w were seasicdc at llu* lime, I lie inex
peri<'iiced landsmi'ii naliirally siiCrerin^^' most. When Ihc stoi'iii
was al its Iieij4;lil and the sea roiif^hesl, I recall the a^^ony ol'
ilulihard who was I'or the (irsi lime slandin^' lookout at llie
masthead. As Ihe rolliiiji,' Aii^^iisla eansi-d him to make a
Icn^^tliy ai'<- u^ainsl lln* lieav<'ns, Iuh whil(^ I'aec and shrink
\U^ ii^lire were ohjeels pilil'ul 1o HCC. Al, lentj;l,li we passed
Ui(! Ii}»:lil house a,l IIm^ soul hern exlremily of H'lorida ami 'w
U-n'A\ Ihc Unit ol" Mexico, not, having in sif^hl. a sinj4l<' lians
porl of those we were supposed lo he Kal'e^iuirdint,^. TliiH
was on the elcveiHh (d' I )c<'ciiil»cr. 'The sea was calm diir
iii^^ Ihe suceeedin}^ I WO days' sjiil, unlil we rea<'lied Ship Js
land. This place we found low, Ka,ndy, forlorn, and in I'vcvy
r(!8pect uni/ilci'eslint^', Here, as oni- of the third eiilter's crew,
I had the opportunity lo K(» ashore. The occasion for IIiIk
was, that at some lillle disliince frpossil>le for youth as youth's natural inheritances are
irrelevant to age. ^lorever. what a store o[' nieniories old
age has! What friendships to be re-enacted in thought ! What
acquisitions by the intellect and the senses, derived from books
and persons, to be drawn from! The retlections of Cicero
in /)f Sencctufc support what is here at!irmed. He would have
it that old age even delights iu congenial activities. lie tells
us that Plato, iu his eighty-tirst year, died while writing, and
insists that the intellectual powers reuuiin. provided study
and application are kept up. Longfellow's Moriliiri Saliilanni,<
iu like uuiunev re-enforces the same idea, (^ne of the re-
sources that remain undiminished to declining years is a love
of nature, which shows itself iu such thiugs as practical gar-
dening and arboriculture. "God.*' says Bacon, "first planted
a garden." Another gratitieatiou that solaces old age, and,
it Avould appear, a crowning one. uuiy be found in having
descendants — children and grandchildren, in whom we shall
continue to live, anil who will in a manniM- inherit whatever
we mav have achieved.
(^IIAi»TER IV.
LETTERS.
St rat ford-on- Avon, Auj^. 2, 1895.
AT Jast luy eyes are b]<;ssf'd l>y the realization of a life-
loiifc dn;arn — the sight of Shakspeare's birth-place.
A few days ago when at Melrose, we were shown
within the preeinets of tliat splr-ndid old abbey riiin a stone
oij wljieh Walter Seott used to sit and muse and write, and
were told that he has in some mys1(;rious way eommunieated
such a virtue to the plaf-e that it inspires any one who sits
there. Hallowed as that spot is by the Wizard of the North,
J ehose to wait and do iny worshiping in a i>laee where every
stone and everything around in earth and air has been given
inspiration j>owf'r by the greater neeromaneer of i\\ii. Aug. ;?. 1895.
On our way to Seotlaud we stopped over at C'arlisle. and
through the kindness of northern twilight had three hours
to give to our first, and on the whole least interesting, ea-
thedral. It has a nuu'h praised window, elaimed by the ver-
ger to be the finest iu Great Britain, a distiuetion we found
not allowed by the vergers of at least two other eathedrals.
Here I first began to be bothered with ehureh arehiteeture.
Avhieh 1 had never seriously studied, and for two or three
(hiys the hM'ius used iiiadr eoufusiou in my tireil liead. After
sueli an experienee as 1 have had one feels under a moral
obligation to give attention to the study of the art of build-
ing. How some of our friends, seeing so nuu'li of eeclesias-
tieal interest, would revel in the '"deeorated.'' "parallel,"
"Norman." "Early English," "gargoyles," ''lanterns," "la-
dy ehapels." tombs of ''venerable Bedes," and all that sort
of thing. AVhat about Carlisle eathedral interested me most
was the faet that AValter Seott was married in it. The verger
with nuieh pomp showed us the exaet spot where the happy
pair stood at the altar. GlasgOAv greeted us witli a Seoteh
rain, and the day given to the journey through the lakes
to Edinburgh, instead of being the most delightful of onr
whole tour, as we had expeeted. proved the dismalest. The
rugged shores of Loch Lomond were enveloped in clouds from
the top of the mountain down, and their beauty was almost
wholly lost to us. Innumerable frothy streamlets coursing
down the ravines were all that relieved the general gloom.
Much of the time we were compelled to stay below, where
we saw little besides fog and water, and those through glass
windows. From Inversnaid to Loch Katrine we eoaehed it
under dripping umbrellas and were simply drenched. The
LETTERS 59
coach load of twentj^ was entirely composed of Americans.
One of them, a gentleman from Kansas, and evidently a little
Avetter than the rest, tried to take grief with a smile. In the
midst of the wild scenery of Loch Katrine, the clouds for the
time having lifted, while others were filled with admiration,
he calmly asked if I knew the geological formation of the
surrounding cliffs. A little while before, when several were
discussing the relative desirability of a quick or a slow pas-
sage across the Atlantic, he expressed most emphatically a
willingness to recross in just one minute. At the head of
Loch Katrine, near Ellen's Isle, we had a view of unusual
beauty. In my list I rank it with Lake Windermere for im-
pressiveness. Patience in wet buskins is said to have its lim-
its. Passing through the Trossachs in a thoroughly wet skin
is too much for even American enthusiasm. It goes without
saying that we were disgusted and unhappy when we descend-
ed to Aberfoyle.
Stratford-on-Avon, Aug. 5, 1895.
In my previous letter I had reached Aberfoyle, with our
distressed but good natured company, about the middle of
the afternoon of the one really disappointing day of our whole
tour. At Stirling we had three hours of most satisfactory
sight-seeing. The good impression made by this castle may
be due in part to its being my first castle of the kind : also
I may have been in an unusually happy frame of mind, just
having emerged from the unfriendly Trossachs. Evidentlj^
the conditions were all right at Stirling, and it is to be re-
membered that Ave always speak of the fair as our own goods
have gone in the market. The views from Stirling Castk
are very similar to those obtained from the heights at Edin-
burgh and Windsor. Each of these has, like Stirling, an ex-
tended flat landscape happily variegated with cultivated fields,
woods, and running Avaters ; but the Avide mouth of the Forth,
besides being too far away for the best effect, is not so charm-
ing as the same stream. narroAv and deep, as it Avinds with
grace beneath the monuments of Wallace and Bruce. Nor
is the Thames at Windsor so charming as the Forth at Stirl-
(iO
\l I'tMSlOdK- \rii V
iiisi'. Ti> A iiu'ricaiis, who Uiwc lirni t'ainil uir willi llic mn.icsiv
(>r I 111' Ihulson and llio hi'lawarr. Mnii'lisli rixcrs art- not nal-
nral (^li.icrls of yiral iinprt'ssix cnrss, liowrxcr nun-h lhc\ nuiy
lia\r l>('t'n liallowcd l>v porlfv ami historic associations, l>nt
the l''orth as seen I'loiu ihc top ol' Siirlino- ('astic is as a part
o{' Ihc natnral landscape the iiiosi i>lcasinL;' v'wcv scene I lia\e
met in (ii'cal lirilain. The 'I'hames nowhere', not e\en at Wind
siU', i>(|uals it. llowcxei'. ihal which makes Siii-lino' si> sn
pci'lat i\t>l\' interest inii' is siMuethini;' besides beantit'nl land
scape, with its i^reeii and cnili\aled lields, ri\er, and woodeil
tracts, displa\tMi in happiest condiinat ion In these respt'cts
the \alley ol' the Connectii'nt has places u> match il ; luiI they
ha\e no I winiu>cUl>nrn or hat t Iciironnd consecraled hv Wal
lace's luToism. 'These two Tamoas litdds ol' slril'e ai'c in plnin
siii'ht on o|>[>(>siie siiles ol" the I'astle and add to the place a
charm no! posscsscil l>y any other I'lirtress \isited. Near the
castle on the side toward the lield o\' UannvU'khnni are the
tournament i;rounds still preserved in their oriii'inal (ovu\ and
\ery nuu'li as they were when Mary <.^>neen o\' Scots, a cap-
live in the tower, used to walch the tillinii' kniiihts from a
narrow slit in the wall. In some form or olhei- this poor
(^■(leen seemed to lu' at hand wherever we went. .\t one time
we wei'c slunv n I he vooiu she occupied in a palace: at an-
other, one ol' the [daces o\' her incari'ci'at ion ; aiiaiu, anil this
Iretjuently, her pi>i'trait l>y some master; and aii'ain si>me
sliii'hl memento, as a cross or Kudx ol" hair. Near the castle
on a little and>itious hlutV is a splendid monument to Wal-
lace, a tit companion to that ol" Krui'c on the Castle's l''s-
plaiuuli'. 1 lose none o[' my enthusiasiu I'oi- Stirliui;' as ! am
removed from it in tiuie and space. No one ot" a hundrcil
intorestiiiir tliiuii's seen since has heen ahle to displace it in
my rcii'ard. We crossed the renowned l'\>rth bridiie, nearly
ti\e uules in leuiith, and at halt' i>ast nine in tlu' eveninji"
entered Ktiiuburirh, the Scotch Atliens. Three da\s had wise-
\\ heen apfnuM ii>ned to this superb city. llav iuii' faviM'able
weather, we made li'ood ust' o[' the time. We had hiiih e\-
piH'tatious o\' i\ city clainiinu' to be the tiut'st in the worlii
and were not ct>nscious (>t" disapp(>int Uu-nt. I piui emersiiuir
from till' Waverlv Statit>n one is easih c(>nv iuccil tltat Walter
i,K'r'ri;i{:-
(il.
Scolt owns 1ln' louii. as (;v<;ry1 liin^^ in IIk- ni'i(/lil)orlioo(l s«miiis
1<, l)c <-Mll<'d \Vav<;riy, Uw spl<'n(lid Wavcrly )n<)nu)n<;rjl <-loH'»*I '''A'''' '>^' '"■'' "'''''' '"^^'
wli<'1li<-r literary, military, or naval. She is i)artieidarly re-
{^ardJ'ul of the rnetnory of tliose who have foufrht her battles.
Nelson and Wellington an- honor-'il wilh Uk- most eoslly me-
morials. Si. I'aul's in Lond^<) into
any details n-j^ardinfi; it. We found l)arlinj4:'s Hold, ••••iitral-
ly situated on Princess street, a most satisfadory place of
.•ntertainmenl. I mention this facd in {gratitude for what I
found cxc.-plional. and Ix-caiise I believ<- it only rif^ht to praise
a good lliin^ when you find i1 in this imperfect world. Our
plans cont<'mplaled spending the Ilu-ee Sundays of our itin-
erary at Kdinburgh, London, and Stratford. We made the
Sunday at Edinburgh a full .lay, attending church three times,
at St. (liles's, Dr. .McGregor's and St. Mary's Cathedral. St.
Giles's is wh<;re the Queen worships in Edinburgh, and for a
Presbyterian church has a tendency to be English or 'high"
Presbyterian. We were attracted to \\u- military service at
half past nine, as hundreds of other Americans were. The
musical part of the service there is led or accompanied by
a fine military band, and th(! effect was inspiring and most
satisfactory. The preacher, evidently of only moderate abil-
ities, turned his back to us and preached at the soldiei- end
of the church; consequently we felt at liberty to study the
fine windows and tattered battlefiags hanging ai)Ove. The
manner of taking up a colh-ction was a revelation, a pouch
being passed from hand to hand. Probably everybody else
had known this before. • wonder thnt I had never read
about it. I>ut this is not the onl.s' thing I have in a similar
manner been surprised at within the past three weeks. How
does it happen that no one has ever told me witli adequate
emphasis of the peculiar charms of Lake Windi-rmere and
Stirling (Jastle? The service at St. Giles's was unique in
being just ;in hour long. It closed with "God Save the Queen"
62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
instead of the doxology, and as the opening notes of the band
gave a hint of our familiar air, we Americans had ready on
our lips the words, "My Country 'tis of Thee," but only sang
them in our hearts. By walking rapidly we reached Dr. Mc-
Gregor's church in time for another morning service. This
church has a name of its own, but just now it is forgotten.
This is an instance where the preacher is sufficiently renown-
ed to give his own name to his church. Beecher's Church
and Spurgeon's Church are other examples. I was sadly dis-
appointed in Dr. McGregor; in fact I usually have been dis-
appointed in great preachers. Phillips Brooks is about the
only exception. As a general thing the best sermons I have
heard have been by men not celebrated, that is. men not like-
ly to draw crowds merely by disjointed rhetoric and impas-
sioned oratory. In the evening we attended a very proper
Church of England service at St. Mary's Cathedral, a beau-
tiful edifice of recent construction, the munificence of two
wealthy but devout maiden ladies. I feel that in writing of
the grandeur of Edinburgh I am only repeating twice told
tales. We visited the wonderful castle and saw the Scotch
soldiers on parade. A sudden shower drove them and us under
cover, our refuge being little St. Margaret's chapel, which
for twenty minutes was crowded to the door with Americans
from every part of the Union. "We visited the haunts of John
Knox, met again Mary Queen of Scots at Holyrood Palace,
and saw with admiration the monument to Nelson and AVell-
ington on Calton Hill. I was interested in the house where
Hume lived and could not admire enough the princely Prin-
cess street. After all, the greatest thing in Edinburgh, as it
is also the greatest thing in Scotland, is Walter Scott. He
sits enthroned under the splendid Scott monument, which is
open on four sides of the base and shows the Wizard seated
as he has been pictured to the ends of the civilized world.
When taking the round of the "circuit" on the top of a bus,
I was shown by an intelligent gentleman sitting near me the
house where Scott, as a little child, met Robert Burns, it lac-
ing the only time he ever saw him. Few things in this fa-
mous city pleased me more.
It is not in my line, as has already been intimated, to write
LETTERS
63
up the cathedral towns. I must therefore be brief and avoid
technicalties. Naturally we visited the well-preserved ruin
of Melrose Abbey first and then Abbotsford near by. This
Abbey so much exceeds in interest for the tourist the ill-pre-
served Kenilworth, that the latter but for the pen of Scott
has no great attractiveness. Kenilworth is only a great sug-
gestion mantled with bewitching ivy; Melrose retains some-
thing of reality. Abbotsford, three miles from Melrose, has
but meagre help from nature, but abounds in the resources
of associations bestowed upon it by an inspired man. A vis-
itor once complained to the owner that Abbotsford lacked
picturesqueness. Scott told him that the very barrenness was
to him beauty. I asked the keeper of the place if I might
be allowed to walk across the narrow^ strip of meadow to
get a closer view of the Tweed, but was refused. The in-
terior of the house was to me intensely interesting. The rel-
ics, not too numerous to be examined without painful exer-
tion, I would rather see again than the crown jewels in Lon-
don Tower. Here we saw the sword of Rob Roy, really more
interesting than Cromwell's armor hanging on the wall at
Warwick Castle ; and the cross held by Mary Queen of Scots
just before her execution. On our w^ay to London we visited
the cathedrals of Durham. York, Lincoln, and Ely. Each has
its own excellence and peculiar characteristics. Durham, of
necessity, being nearest the border, has about it most of the
air of a church militant. Its elevated site admirably adapts
it for defense; its monks must have been good fighters. The
chapel, or the Galilee as it is called, contains the remains of
the venerable Bede. York with its antiquity, splendid Min-
ster, and walls both Roman and modern, is a place to tarry
in. We stayed but one day, getting the impression that its
chapter house surpassed everything else in England in the
way of fine carved ornamentation. At Lincoln it is the tower
they praise for excellence. Ely has the longest nave, is "low
church," is light, and has a modern look, as if a comforta-
ble place to worship in. Cambridge, where Ave spent a day,
quite captivated us. King's College Chapel and Old Trinity
interested us most of the university buildings. We Avere charm-
ed with the Cam and the "Backs," the latter being the well-
(i4 AlTOBlOCiKAlMlV
knoAvii park-lik(^ border of the river l)ehind the college on
tile fartlier shore, havhig a delightful walk close to the stream.
('aiiii)ridge and Stratford are the only places where we have
indulged ill I'ow-hoats. We were pi'oud of our ladies who,
having been ethicated at the source of the Susquehanna, step-
prd into a small boat with no sign of timidity, and feathered
an oar in the classic Cam as if to the manner born. Through
the K'indness of the "bed-woman" and the gentle persuasivi'-
ness of a sixi)encc we saw the rooms once occupied by New-
ton, ^lacaulay. and Thackeray at Old Trinity, and of course
the famous hole in the door for Newton's cat.
Stratford-on-Avon, August 5. 1895.
What most impressed me in London was in not being par-
ticularly impressed. Seldom have my preconceived notions
of a city been so true as in this instance, which was owing
no doubt to the abundant good literature upon the topogra-
phy and history of the place with which I have been con-
versant all my life. I seemed to be (juite at home in the
vicinity of Fleet street, the Strand, and St. Paul's. The de-
scriptions of Westminster Abbey, so vivid in Sir Roger de
C^ovei'ley and in the writings of almost numberless literary
men of high rank, in a measure prepared me for a recogni-
tion of everything within its hallowed precincts. Some of
these artistic delineations might, like Byron's description of
the Colosseum by moonlight. l)e i)ronounced better than the
reality. Piccadilly. Avith its sea of crowded human-freighted
busses, had a familiar" look; and I felt sure of having pre-
viously held my ear to the wall in the whispering gallery of
St. Paul's Cathedral and to have surveyed the mighty city
from its dome. After all, the things I didn't see in Loudon,
but of which I have learned from good winters, impress me
even more than wiiat I saw' there in one poor week. Truly,
as has l)een said, London is England. Here we find English
history centuries deep.
Hardly anything in Great Britain is more remarkable than
tlie abspreliension that he will crow." It was decidedly
impressive to stand in this room, whci-e Carlyle spent eleven
years in writing his Frederick the Great. Among othei- me-
mentos 1 was shown the great Scotchman's chair, cane, and
inkstands: but the back yard, a small grassy rectangle thick-
ly fringed with small tr(H's. interested me most of all. It
contains a dried stump which was Carlyle 's favorite seat when
he was engaged in deep meditation. Here he used to sit and
talk when receiving visits from Tennyson and other literary
friends. Close by the fence at the rear is the grave of Car-
lyle 's favorite dog. It seems that Carlyle, Landor. and Scott
were as partial to dogs as Shakspeare was to horses.
\Vi> had nnich difficulty in tinding Ceorgi- Eliot's grave,
which is in a cemetery at Ilighgate. where she rests near Mr.
Lewes. * As w(^ had not as yet tried the London underground
railway, and did not wish to leave the city without doing so,
we took at Victoria station this means of transit in going
LETTERS 67
to Jlighgalt!, though by au unnecessarily long and circuitous
route. An episode a1 llighgate is one of our pleasantest remi-
niscences of London. After several ineffectual inquiries re-
garding the burial place of perhaps the most intellectual wo-
)nan the world has ever known, I ventured to accost, in what
must have seemed to him a rather abrupt manner, a gentle-
man of attractive appearance who was stretching out his hands
to greet his little children who were running on before their
nurse to welcome him home. With a good natured smile and
a frank acknowledgment of ignorance on the subject of my
inquiry, he invited us all, with a cordial insistence such as 1
never experienced anywhere else, to go to his house a little
way on, telling the maid to run ahead and have his wife pre-
pare tea for some tired Americans who were searching for
dead people three thousand miles away from home. The grace
of welcome with which his wife received us was inimitable
in its warmth and naturalness and made us at once quite at
home. To our surprise we were informed that within a stone's
throw of the house where we were, the remains of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge were buried beneath a Grammar School. Our
liost with his uniform good-natured frankness confessed that
he had never taken the troul)le during his twelve years' res-
idence in the place to see Coleridge's tomb, and but for our
visit had been more likely to visit the tomb of Washington
Irving than that of Coleridge. The Grammar School, which
liad been built over the grave, has conspicuous in front an
interesting Latin motto: Vera loyiii aid tacere. Under the
guidance; of our genial English friends we soon found the
object of our search — a rather diminutive monument inscrib-
ed as follows, the first two lines being 1ai\en from one of
George Eliot's poems:
"Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence."
Here lies the body
of
"George Eliot."
Mary Ann Cross.
Born 22 November, 1819.
Died 22 December, 1880.
G8 Al'I'OHHUiU' Al-IIN'
Si rat tV)i'(l-()ii-A\()ii. Aii^-. (i. IS!);").
Ol' the Aiiicricnii wrilcrs wlio liaxc Id't their iiuprcssions
of Stratford. Washington lr\ini:' easily slantis lirst. In I'aet
nothing' from liis pen is so Ii'ving and classic as the Sketch
Book. His greatest gift of style, so original and so much his
own that others try to copy it in xain. is most conspicuously
shown when, as hvw. his sid).iect is trite and inconse(|nent ial.
What Irving Avrote about the birthplace of Shakspeare is so
completely the work of an acconiplishetl litterateni-, that oth-
ers Avho have attempted the same task since ha\t' been iiope-
lessly handicapped. It eoiild not be expected that Hawthorne,
whose genius is in the higlu'st sense creativt'. should iMpial
his distinguished countryman and forerunner in the spliere
of description. Mr. William Winter has attempted twice to
be a second Irving and to depict with lit(>rary charm what-
ever is of human interest in and about Stratford; but his
pages, at first possessing sonu' fascination, are too repetitious
to hold the reader's interest. Oliver Wentlell Holmes, in his
Hundred Days in Europe, makes but a pitiable exhibition of
liis brilliant powers as a Avriter when treating of Stratford,
and shows how ill adapted he is to shine where lr\ing shone
brightest.
While the Sketch Hook is as fresh anil as satisfying to
the cultivated taste as when it tirst appeai'ed to the delight
of all England as well as America, its author would tind to-
day (juite a ditferent Stratford from the one he knew even
so recently. Shakspearian critics, during the past thirty years,
have made a new Shakspt'are. shoAving him. despite tlie at-
tempt of some to throw doubt upon the authorsliip of his
plays, to be even greater than his most ardent admirers had
thought him. The Germans are said to havt^ discovered Shaks-
peare a century ago. and as a conseiiuence hundreds and thou-
sands of the English-speaking race are to-day studying him
with a ncAv amazement; and the (Mid is not yet. The very
doubt that is heard on evei'y hand about Shakspeare's IxMug
the author of the ])lays that are acci-edited to him. has its
birth in this overwhelming amazement. Intelligent men and
women. Avho have become possessed of a "little dangerous
beaming" concerning these marvelous dramas, are readv to
LET'I'KKS 69
lliiiik llial. while tlit'y do iiol know who wrolc them, a man
of Shalispearc's cducalioji jiikI oppoi'liinil i<-s (-(nihl not have
(lone it. To me, when I considi'i- how siipcfliuinan siicli a
literary achievement scMMnss, it would appeal- saner lo conclude
that no riier-c mortal could liaxi- done such work, and lo take
refug<' with one despaii'iiiK wrilir who claims as Ihe only
possihle solution of the difficulty, thai Shakspeare is a case
of the re-incarnation. In ilic numerous small shops her'.- one
m;iy find near-l\ all the heretical hooks evei- wi'itteti nhout
Shrdi!i(u;K \riiv
st'iitnlion of one o\' Shaksprari- "s plays by the hi'sl known
hist rioiiii' talent. A point oi' spcrial lutiM'cst in Ihr lti-in>iiiiji'
on ot" tlu' annual play is ttir ^I'cat pains taken in rlioosini*"
llu' text anil in |>fopor staj^'ini;'. In niakiiiii' this choii't" the
best trailitions of Shakspcarian tlraniatii' [X'rI'orniaiU'ts arc stu-
diously si-rut iiii/od. 'Plu' ronunittoc ha\inj:: thr inattri- in
(•liaciii' issue each ycaf in panqihlct I'orui the pla> ol" that
year just as reuiK'iHHl t)\ tlu' Moniorial conipany. A I'opy
{^\' Winter's Tale, eonrteonsly pi'eseuted to nie l»y the libra-
rian, shows some uni(|ne features, The whole text appears,
the parts aetually reeiteil beiuii" in lai'^er typi> than tlu> parts
omitted on the staii'e. with sliii'ht ehauires in words auil phrases,
always with metrieal eleiianee, to soften the oeeasional iiross
expiv'ssions and st'utinu'uts unsuited to the taste o\' the niiu'-
ti>eutli eentury. Tlu^ pietuiv' iiaUery and library, wholly dis-
tinct from tht> theatre i>roper. are essentiall\' distinct from
each other, while bi>th i-ontaiu Shakspeariau rtdies which .u'ive
them an antiquarian appearance. .Vmouii' the paiutiniis. in
additi(ui to several of Shakspeare himself, are found portraits
of the leadiuii' actors w lu> ha\e appeared at these Stratford
annuals. The library cimtains all the editimis oi' Shakspeare's
plays e\ cr issucil and all bt>oks treatiui;' o\' his life and works.
t'Xeept inii'. oi' coursi\ tlu>se that aie monstrously luM'ctical as
to th(> authorship of the pla\s. The edition o[' tlie pla\s eil-
ited by Hi'. Horace IKnvard Kurness of riiiladelphia. is i>f
course here, and it is jdeasiuii" to .Vmei'iean pride t(» know
that it is ciuu'i'ded \o be the best. .\n interest in^i' thiuii' 1o
be seen in the library is a collection of well i>i'eserved bo-
tanical specimens, eacli labcleil and containing;- a line or two
from Shakspeare illustratiuii' every tlower aiul plant mentiiui-
vi\ in the [uM't "s works, the (|iu>tation subscribed in I'ach case
beiuii' the ptu't "s allusit>n to the (lower or |>lant in ipiestion.
In marked contrast to the tu-diiiary ushers. \eri:'ers. and
cii'crones we ha\t' been accustomed to meet m Kniilaiul. there
are two ucnt K'UUMi installed here at Stratford who desi-rve
a passiuii' word o\' favoi'able comnuMit. The}' are Mr. Kich-
ard Savaj.i'(>. ftu- several years in charii'c i^i' the Shakspeare
House, and Mr. W. Salt Brassiniiton. P. S. A., recently plac-
ed in chariic o\' the Slnikspcare Memorial Library. These
LLTTEK8 73
^((•ntlciiiiMi ate of siipcfior t^cfiriiieH. ( ol.,
.Inly 20. 1W5.
I'iditor of 7'li,c .Mtjaidani' < r :
A hrii-f letter from a <^/orliam iioy who has visited Tike's
Pf^ak ma.v he of interest to your readers, as th
elsewhere have been brought and transplanted.
This is the h;il)itat of the mocking-bird. Its varied chat-
ter, heard on ev(>ry hand, is almost constant. He mocks every
conceivable noise, and for a while is entertaining, though at
length he becomes tiresome.
Pasadena is a small but beautiful city, exceptionally clean
and devoid of everything offensive. The people, a large pro-
portion of whom are wealthy, are a superior class. Among
them is found a large sprinkling of reccMit arrivals from the
East.
Los Angeles, a city of over 200,000 inhabitants, is ten miles
distant. It is a flourishing place, being noted for its great
business opportunities, especially real estate transactions. In
points of population, manufactures, and commercial enter-
prise, it seems destined to take and liold the leading place
among the cities of the Pacific coast.
Day after to-morroAV we leave for San Francisco, intend-
ing to spend five or six days there l)efore going on to Portland.
Yellowstone Park,
In Transitu. iVugust 22-27, 1905.
In review thus far of our summer tour a few things seem
to call for special mention. At Colorado Springs. Los Angeles,
and Pasadena the bicycle, which is a "has been" in the At-
lantic states, is more in vogue than it has ever been with us
at the East. Once I had acquired a sixth sense by the aid
of which I could avoid these annoying vehicles, but at the
time of visiting the West and California T had completely
lost this sense. On several occasions, at Los Angeles, I came
near being run down by audacious cyclists. One of our most
agreeable experiences has been meeting people from every
section of this great country, and hearing them boast of their
respective states. Every man thinks his own home environ-
LETTERS
81
meut the best, his own section. "God's country." To my
mind, this is a happy dispensation of Providence. If it were
otherwise, this would be a doleful world. Whenever w^e have
ventured to criticize adversely anything that displeased us,
such as the unfavorable climate, the dryness, dust, or lack
of verdure, we have been promptly met with the remark.
"You ought to visit the Pacific coast in winter." We ran
across many persons who knew acquaintances of ours. Two
days before leaving Portland we had the pleasure of witness-
ing, at th(^ fair grounds, the successful trial of an airship,
balloon-sustained. It rose 200 ft., sailed a (juarter of a mile
against a six-knot breeze, then returned to its starting place,
and settled as gracefully as a dove.
After leaving Portland, we went by rail down the west
bank of the Willamette, and at some little distance below
its junction with the Columbia crossed the latter on a huge
ferry])oat. a vessel easily accommodating our train of nine
cars and two locomotives. For about three hours before reach-
ing Tacoma. we had in view Mt. Kainier. or Tacoma. some
40 miles distant. It stands alone and is grandly impressive.
Tacoma and Seattle, rival cities of Washington, are both
situated on the south-east border of Puget Sound. Tacoma
promised early to be the great city of the Pacific coast. It
was a pet of the Northern Paeitic Railroad, whose shops were
located there; but the oi)ening up of Alaska set commerce
towards Seattle and gave that city such an impulse that in
a short time it outstripped its rival; it has at the present
time a population of 160.000. more than twice that of Tacoma.
The Northern Pacific has to go out of its way and do homage
to Seattle, its trains even being compelled to return over the
same track for a distance of 20 miles before proceeding east.
We came by way of Butte and reached Livingstone at 6
A.. M.. after a quiet journey, chiefly uninteresting because
we crossed both mountain ranges in the night. At Livings-
stone we diseinbarked in a pouring rain, and found difficulty
in getting to cover, as a long w^est-bound express was stand-
ing between us and the station. We had to resort to the
awkward expedient of climbing through the rear end of a
vestibuled car. From Livingstone to the entrance of the Park
82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
the 50 miles journey is by rail along the attractive Yellow-
stone River. We reached Gardiner at 10 A. M.
A stone arch, erected bat a few years ago, the corner stone
of which was laid by President Roosevelt, marks the entrance
to the Park. After leaving Gardiner, for two and one-half
miles the way is over Montana territory. Ever after this we
were to be in Wyoming, Avhich contains, essentially, all the
government reservation. At a distance of five miles from
Gardiner we came to one of the most important stations in
the Park, Mammoth Hot Springs. This place has an altitude
of more than 6,000 ft. It is important as being the post where
the Government has a troop of cavalry. The great attraction
of Mammoth Hot Springs, pt'rhaps the greatest in the whole
round of the Park, is Jupiter Terrace. Words are inadequate
to describe this natural wonder. Possibly photography. M^hen
it shall have reached the artistic stage of photographing col-
ors, may be able to do it justice.
It was for us a trying time the next morning, when we
came to the assignment of places in the various coaches, in
groups of eleven for each carriage. As we had made no ar-
rangements for joining a party, we had to accept what chance
offered. Names were called for the first load, and when this
was out of the way, the second four-horse team pranced up.
The master of ceremonies took his prepared list and read :
"Two Wrights," and so on until he had reached the eleventh.
There being two vacant seats, he verified the names of those
already seated, and then with nnich particularity repeated,
"Mr. and Mrs. John G. Wright." We saw "the hand- writ-
ing on the Mall." and going forward, crestfallen, took the
two seats (of course the least desirable in the coach) await-
ing us, close under the driver's seat, where it was quite im-
possible to see advantageously. Happily fortune had given
us ideal companions, the very elect of nearly 100- — Mr. and
Mrs. King, son and daughter, of Dayton, Ohio; Mrs. Paul,
daughter and young lady friend of Wisconsin ; and on the
driver's seat a Pittsburg gentleman and wife. Of these last
we saw but little. It did not take long to get acquainted,
and soon Mr. King and I were "swapping stories" with great
freedom. Before reaching Norris, the end of our first stage
LETTERS 83
of 20 miles, Mrs. Paul suggested that for the afternoon there
should be a change of seats. Think of that for unheard-of
unselfishness and courtesy. It was the most impressive ob-
ject lesson in manners I have ever witnessed. In fact, after
luncheon all were in the same obliging mood, and a new deal
in the seating was made. A little obiter dictum of the first
day is worth mentioning. We were always on the lookout
for elk and deer. Of a sudden Mrs. Paul startled us by say-
ing in an animated tone of voice, "Oh, isn't it a dear?" We
all sprang to our feet and in unison called to the driver to
stop, and asked, "Where?" "Oh," she replied, "I merely
saw a pretty red fiower. ' ' At Norris we first met with things hot,
— ^bubbling, roaring, and steaming, what we were to find con-
stantly afterwards.
As we have now, August 27, "done" the Park, I will,
hastily and somewhat at random, pick up the crumbs of our
six days' experience. This wonderful nature-exhibit is pre-
eminently noted for hot springs, or geysers, and protected
wild animals. Nearly all else that is here can be duplicated
elsewhere, and even bettered in most respects. We have seen,
in one shape or another, during these days, more than 200
hot springs. At the Upper Basin we found "Old Faithful"
sending a column of water every 70 minutes to a height of
nearly 100 feet. This was the best display of high spouting
we were permitted to see. The "Paint Pot," found at "The
Thumb" where we lunched, is a marvelous exhibition of va-
ried and delicate tints. It boils and breaks in bubbles, very
much like hasty pudding, over a surface of 40 square yards.
Often these hot pools are but a few steps apart, and owing
to their placid and innocent appearanc(\ beget in the visitor
a carelessness that makes it hazardous to walk near them.
Though Avc have been constantly on the watch for elk,
they have not in a single instance been on view. Once only
we saw two baby deer. They appeared in the road at the
distance of a few rods in front of us, and timidly scampered
into the woods. We saw the homes of beavers, and where
they are sometimes seen. Their dams are in plain sight. As
we approached the Lower Geyser Basin and the Fountain
Hotel, we saw near the woods in the rear of the l)uilding a
84 AlTOHIOUKAPllV
lai'irt' iilack hear and her two (•ul)s. our first si^lil of tlicsc
animals so thoroughly identified with YeiK)Avstone I'ai'k. At
ihe I'pix'r (icyser IJasin is Old Kaithrul Hotel, const lueled
of natural lo^s. of most ninisual ai'ehileeture. and said to
cost :|<2()0,()()d. From the rooi' of this l)uiier.
The searchdiii'ht "vva.s also brought to hear upon Old Faithful
in full gush. This was a uiuciiie spi'ctaele. At \'ello\\ stone
Lake there were found congregated ;it the eating place nine
hears, two of llu' gri/zly and seven of the hlack \arie1y. A
crowd of people, sitting hut a lew rods away, were intent !>•
wateldng them.
Yellowstone Lake is ;-!() miles long and has an average
width of ti\(' or six miles. It is 7,74-2 feet above se;i level.
Iveing the largest lake in the world having so great an alti-
tude. As seen from Tlu' Tluunb. it presents a picture of great
beauty. Mountains, some of them having streaks of snow on
their to])s. eneirido the greater part of the lake, at a distance
of six ov eiglit miles from it.
I nnist not fail to mention the famous colored canon. 800
Teet deep, anil just above it the Lower Yellowstone Kails.
This waterfall is 360 feet in height, considerably more than
twice as high as Niagara, but comparatively narrow. The
combination of canon and falls prodvu-es. in the way of grand
effect, something rarely excelled. On a pillared cliff half w'ay
down the sid(> of the gorge was an eagle's nest in which were
two young eagles. They kept up a constant cry. as if hun-
gry. As Ave eame down the Yellowstone River, we saw inun-
berless ducks and geese. What hunting ground this would
be for a while, if Uncle Sam would permit shooting! The
only animals that may be shot in the Park by anyone arc^
mountain lions (])anthers') and cayotes. The goverinuent of-
fers a rewaril of .^100 foi" every mountain limi killed. They
are ver.v destruetive of the young deer.
It is fortunate that Congress has entire (dutrge of this
reservatii>n. for what the government does in such uuitters
it can be depended upon to (\o well. Small stpiads of l'. S.
LETTERS 85
soldiccs ;if(' stationed at sliorl iiitcsrvals along thi; route;, to
cnroi-cc the rules issued from Washington. Eaeli is armed
vvitli (I revolve)'. With the exception of one or two men who
lia\'e a special license to kill mountain lions, these soldiers
are the only persons allowed to carry firearms in the Park.
'I'lic road through the Park, made and kept in repair by
the government, is the best possible. All citizens of the United
States have an equal right to it. bul iniisl eoirii)ly with certain
regulations. Neitlicr money nor fa\ s
his assent to this doctrine, in declaring that all true study
should be pleasant. Now, nuu'h of instruction eatuuit ordin-
arily be made pleasant. An eminent Avritei- upon pedagogy
says, "It is nonsense to suppose that every step in edueaticui
can be made interesting." How many teaclu'rs of English,
after years of special discipline, find the wi-iting of English
composition a I'cal pleasure.' What. then, nnist the pupils'
experience be in an exercise that is of the first importance at
evei-y stage of an education? There is another signitii'ant
principle that goes counter to that of interest and pleasure
— the principle of work for work's sake. To neglect this
principle is to disregard experience. Plato, in his ])hilosoj)]iy
of education, combines effort and attractiveness.
Quite in contradiction of I'estalozzi's statement, that it
is impossible there should be two eipudly good methods of
teaching, and his implication at least, that in education the
w^ord "nu'thod" has no plural, in experience it will always
be insisted thai different piM-sons may use different methods
advantageously. As in the case of the sick, the same remedy
acts differentlv on different individuals, so the same methods.
MISCEIJ>.\NKA 89
in llif luiiids of (lifii'ci-cril tcachi-is. inny act variously on dif-
Fcfcnl |)ii|)ils. The <'old bath wliicli ciuvd Augustus killed
.Marcclliis. I'lofi'ssoi- .Jajiics voicM's tlic rational view when
h(* declares that eonerete experience rinist prevail over psycho-
logical deductions. This suggests the ridicuh' vvliicli xMoli(;re
easts upon lliose doctors who tliink it better to fail by rule
thmi to siKMMM'd b\' inno\'atioii. "If we miss the itinrk." says
MucHiibiy. "il iiirikes no (liffcicnci' wlielher we aini too high
or too low." Again Si. Augustine: "A golden key which
does not fit the lock is useless. M wooden oni' which does is
I'ver'vt liing. " It must be jtdniitted tlnit good residls ji re scune-
tirries obtained by disregard of lules. science of education makes no pretentions
lo exactness.
!t is in connection with his art and its pi-actical applica-
tion that the teacher has his more inunediate concei'us. The
\itai (jni'stion is. ai'ter all. the successful putting (»f peda-
gogical principles into operation. Sch(M)ls taught liy teachers
who ha\c no professional training are said re]')roachfuliy to
he woiidei-fully alike. .May not the allegation lie (juite as
justly against schools con(hn-ted undei' the regime oT scientific
principles .'
Is it altogether a \ii-tue in the latter case. i)ut a fault in
the ftniner.' It is. of course, absurd, as has l)een already
shown, to sni)pose that all teachers, eveu if they know the
most a[)i)ro\-ed pedagogical ai't and philosophy, can apply
these in the same manner with success. Rigid uniformity
in giving instruction, is. indeed, undesirable. It is claimed
by Radeslock that we should soon have no great men. if a
stereotyped systtnn of education succeed(>d wholly in forming
the children under its intluem-e. Richter hints that for the
])rop;'r education of tiis child, a man. if rich enough, should
app(»int a special teacher for each of his child's faculties, who
should direct that faculty only. The I'ersian ])rince of (dden
times, at the age of fourteen, was. in fact, turned (»ver to
four royal schoolmasters — one of them the v\-isest, another the
most moral, a thii'd the most temperate, and the fourth the
most valiant man in the kingdom.
Much of pedagogy im])lies that the teacher is to deal with
a siugle pupil, rather than a (M>nsiderabh' nundier taken to-
gethi'r. In reality the teacher is exjiected to be ade(|uate
for (lex-eloping all the fa<'ulties. not oidy of one i)U|)il. lutt
of many and dissimilar ones. It is silly to expect the teacher
to be able to bring about a harmonious (levelo[)ment of all
the faculties of each pupil. Much of the philosoi)hy of edu-
cation breaks down, because the teacher has to deal with large
numbers. For the poor schoolnuister art is long indeed. Tt
is HaAvthorne's discouraging thought, tliat if a num lived
only to eat. one life would not suftice. not (udy to exhaust
MISCKI -LANKA D^i
the pleasure of it. but even to gel tlif fiidiinciits oi' i1. TIkm-c
is a feeling of relief to be derived from an epigraniatic .school-
master's summing up of the teacher's necessary ('(luiiinicnt,
"a knowledge of his subject and a sense of humor. "" The;
demand is, indeed, much greater llimi this, lie is in h idcji-
siirc responsible For the physienl rind iiiornl ^rowlh nf his
pupils, besides bi'in^' essen1iMll\' responsible for Iheii' inlel-
iectual te mental
living, when the mind is stored with rich and \aried knowledge.
no intellectual ac((uisition is trivial, nothing nncle.m. Some one
has defended the study of Greek. Avhich from disuse so readily
fades out of the mind. b\' an agricultural figure, iik'ening it to
clover plowed under. It is iiuleed out of sight. uiuU'r ground,
but it fertilizes the soil and makes it capable of producing other
ci'ops in nuu'h greater abundance. On the other hand there are
marvelous i'xam])les of intellectuality produced within a nar-
roAV range of subjects. Almost all the education of the intcdhM--
tual Greeks consisted in talking and listening. Their greatest
poet is an extreme case. ^^lacaulay thinks Homer did not knoAv
a letter. Alexander Avas educated t)n Homer. Demosthenes, as
an important part of his education, transcrilx-d six times the
history of Thucydides.
There are periodic spasms in regard to \\\\i\\ siionld be a
part of an (ulucation. and when the spasm is on. woe to him
who t|uestions its validity. For a teacher to (piestion these
whims when once they gain sway, is to be temporarily damned.
Some German professors go to the extreme of refusing to inn)art
anything to their classes except their own original discoveries.
It may be well to notice more specifically than has been
already done the doubtful application of sonn- pi'inciples laid
doMu by educational philosophers. Gomenius says, in writing
of the method of recitaticni. "If any pupil who has been asked
a (lut'stion fails, let the teacher go at once to the second, the
third, and so on without repeating the question." Other and
better authorities on this point tell us that thinking requires
time ; that it may be a mistake to urge pupils to answer rapidly
MiSCKLLANKA Vl t
and praisi' the rcadit^st. "Kcpctition is the mother of succiiss, "
says Riclitt^r. Another authority calls excessive repetition
stupefying'. Aeeording to Radestoek impressions occurring too
often anfl Avithout proper intervals cause a weakening of the
nervous system. It is beautiful in theory to demand that the
teaehei* tirst tind out the contcMits of the pupil's soul. b<'fore he
can (h'al with tliat soul. All know how ijupracticable this is.
in view of the large numbers that must be dealt with. One
writer asserts that reviews are less important in th<' liigher
than in the lower branches, but does not explain the grounds
for tlie discrimination. (*ertainly the reason is not oi)vious.
A greater satisfaction will be found in the enumeration of
a few principles and rules which meet little oi* no dissent. Of
such are the following: The teacher must be truthful; niusi
have hope. i)atience. decision, dignity, and taci : nuist attend lo
(h'tails and have forcsiglit ; must never ask questions he cannot
answer himself; must avoid distractions and aim to be a good
(juestionei' ; must not go too fast in teaching, for "you cannot
tcacli a l)oy any faster than he can learn;" must never a(;cept
an ungrammatical answer, nor sneer at a wi-oiig one. Th(^re
is complete ass(^nt to the principle thai tlie niemory is pool-
wlien the mind is tired; that one cannol both see and hear
attentively at the same time ; that total rest is not conducive
to good health ; that the physical organism needs alternation of
rest and activity, and that in the matter of discipline one should
never use a stronger measure when he can get along with a
weak(M- one. The following from Herbert Spencer will be
accepted as sound: " Xo intellectual power can become too
great, but evei-y moral faculty needs to hav(^ its boundaries
fixed; the aim of education should be to produce a self-govern-
ing being; happiness is the most powerful of tonics; excess of
bodily exercise diminishes th(^ power of thought ; educational
systems are not made, but grow." This from Richter: "No
power should be weakened, but its counterl)alancing power
strengthened." From Conienius these: "Let the method of
teaching lessen the labor of learning; let the teacher not teach
as much as he is able to teach, but only as much as the learner
is able to learn." "Take care not to overload the memory."
says Penelon. "for that stupefies the brain." Prof. Bain. who.
98 MISCELLANEA
on HL-count of his candor aud the clearness of his writings, de-
serves to be read by every progressive teacher, tells us that the
first law of memory is, that we must prolong the first shock, or
renew it on several successive occasions. He also says discrim-
inatingly, tliat there are moments when we are incapable of
i-eceiving any lasting impressions, and there are moments when
we are uinisally susceptible. It is an epigramatic remark of
Radestock. that to be tiresome is the greatest crime of the
instructor.
To sum up in conclusion of what may seem a ratlier pes-
simistic view of the teacher's burden, as seen from its profes-
sional side, a few general thoughts present themselves. The
live teacher will at all events make it his business to know what
has been said and is being said about his profession, even at the
risk of reading what is visionary and valueless. A good rule is.
to read tlie ])est books first. While it is not safe to assert that
we have as yet "such an organized digest of philosophical prin-
ciples as can together constitute a teaching profession," by a
judicious study of the best that has been thought out in con-
nection with education we eai] enlighten ourselves perceptibly
and. what is always to be striven after, correct our mistakes,
for "The faults of teachers," says George Washington Moon,
"if suffered to pass unreproved, soon become the teachers of
faults." It is even not to be denied that good advice sometimes
comes from unexpected sources. Hogarth placed a reporter
l)ehind a screen, to take down the remarks of people who came
to see his famous painting of Sigisniundi. Of the thousand
criticisms recorded Hogarth heeded l)ul one. and thai was made
by a madman.
It is unfortunate that the able and profound AVJ'iters on
pedagogy are often so deep that only a small and specially dis-
ciplined number of teachers will ever understand them. A book
like Dr. Harris's "Psychologic Foundations," OM'ing lo its sub-
tleness and profundity, is sealed to most pi^ople. Prof. James's
writings, on the contrary, are clear and delightful reading for
evc^n the wayfaring thinker. Nearly everything that Compayre
has written is readable and worth reading ; so are the well
known classics of Locke, Richter, Bain, SpcMicer and Penelon.
While it may not result in nuich appreciable good, there is
MISCELLANEA JJD
agreeable mental stimulus in attending to the tiieory of the
peduncles of the brain as exploited in the cosmic philosophy,
or in watching the Herbartian '"ideas" as they are marshalled
on the battle ground of the soul, or rise above the threshold
into the upper dome of consciousness, there either to find a
ehamber well filled with congenial apperceptive company, or
meeting no welcome to be banished from the scene, perhaps
never to return. These phases of philosophy are beautiful,
but for teachers in general not inspiringly fruitful. It is ques-
tionable whether Socrates even, if he were living, would be readily
made to understand the Hegelian doctrine, that ''the universe
is a crystallized syllogism." There is no greater educational
folly of the day than the rejection of applicants to teach be-
cause they are unable 1o answer glibly the abstruse questions
set them in psychology. This exaction, now made such a bug-
bear to teachers, is less rational than the civil service question,
■'How far is the sun from the earths" asked of the man who
was seeking a clerkship in the post office. The candidate wrote
as an answer that he didn't know, but he felt sure that it was-
n't near enough to interfere with the performance of his clerical
duties. For the great majority of teachers the time employed
in the study of such recondite philosophy would be better spent
in reading Balzac's novels.
To be a teacher of the highest order is to be one having
these five possesions — special native gifts, general aeademic
culture, knowledge of special subject, experience, and profes-
sional training. As estimated by some one. ninety-nine per cent.
of Patti's success as a singer has been due to her natural voice,
and only one per cent, to cultivation. Of the best teachers it
might consistently be said, that only one per cent, of their
success is due to prof(>ssional training; equipment by nature,
experience, and general and special culture being accountable
for ninety-nine per cent. How and when to obtain all these
essentials, except the gifts of nature, which, like grace, must
come from on High, in what degree each is to be emphasized,
and how to accomplish all this without deferring actual exper-
ience beyond the age when the teacher is best moulded for
school government and didactical skill — the solution of these
questions, hitherto unsolved, is no small part of the teacher's
burden.
100 MISCELLANEA
VIRGII/S FOrRTH E(M.()(U'K.
IN somewhat loftier strains let us now sins.
Sicilian Muses; not all take delight
In vineyards and the humble tamarisks.
If groves our subject be. let them be groves
Deemed worthy of a consul's care. At length
Has come the time told in Cumaean verse.
Anew begins the age's cycle grand.
Astraea now returns, and Saturn's reign.
An offspring new from lofty heaven descends.
Do thou, Lucina, on the new-born child
But smile, the child with whom the iron age
Shall cease, the age of gold world-wide begin.
Apollo now inaugurates his reign.
With thee as consul, Pollio. shall come
This glorious period, its months speed on.
With thee to lead, whatever vestiges
Of strife remain, shall ineffectual be
To keep the world in dread continual.
The boy shall live the life of gods, and see
Commingled gods and heroes, and by them
Be seen, and with ancestral virtues he
Shall rule in peace the tranquil world. But first
For thee, O boy, the earth unfilled shall bear
As gifts the ivy wandering at large,
Egyptian beans and aromatic plants
With mild acanthus mixed. Spontaneously
The goats their milk-distended udders home
Shall bring; nor shall the flocks the lions fear.
The very cradle shall bring forth bland flowers.
The serpent and deceitful poisonous herb
Shall die, the Assyrian balsam everywhere
Spring up. As soon as thou can'st read, and know
True virtue's worth, the field shall by degrees
Grow yellow with the gentle corn, red grapes
Hang on the brambles rude, and hardy oaks
Distill the dew-born honey. Yet some trace
Of old-time sin shall still remain to tempt
The sea in ships and place 'round cities walls.
And furrows in the earth to cut. Again
Another Tiphys there shall also come;
Another Argo, too, shall heroes bear.
And other wars also arise, and great
Achilles shall again be sent to Troy.
When afterwards ripe age of thee a man
MISCEI.LANKA ' 101
Shall make, the merchant shall desert the sea.
Nor shall the nautic pine bear merchandise.
All lands shall all things bear. No longer shall
The ground permit the hoe, nor vine the knife.
The stalwart plowman shall unyoke his bulls;
Nor shall the wool false colors learn to take:
The ram himself shall in the pastures change
His fleece to blushing purple and to dye
Of saffron hue, and rich vermilliou clothe
The feeding lambs. "Such ages run," the Fates,
In harmony with destiny's decree.
Have to their spindles said. Great increment
Of .Jove, dear offspring of the gods, begin
(The time is near). Behold the universe
In heaven's deep vault nods to and fro — both earth
And wide expanse of sea and heaven profound.
How all things at the coming age are glad!
O may my term of life so long extend.
My breath endure, as shall suffice to tell
Thy deeds. Not Thracian Orpheus shall surpass
Me witli his songs, nor Linus, thou.gh the one
Calliope, the other Phoebus aid.
E'en Pan, were he to strive with me, e'en Pan,
His own Arcadia being judge, himself
Would own defeat. Begin, frail child, witli smiles
To recognize your mother. Ten long months
Of tediousness has she been suffering.
That child on whom his parents have not deigned
To smile, no god will claim as table-guest.
No goddeas deem him worthy of a bed.
TIIK TKACIIKK'S Sl'CCESH.
IF it is ti-iic thai IIh' hcsl lliiii^' iK^xt aftt'i- success is the
conseiousnoss of deserving- to succcmhI, tlicii no out' is
quite debarred from realizing' at least soriicthiiijt;' worthy
of his effort. \vhate\'ei' tlie dii-ectioM of that eft'ort may be. Any
l)resf'ril)ed rules thai may contribute to the success of the
teacher would he 1 oo various and iti soiin^ cases too uncertain
to wai'i'ant ,u(Mi<'i'al application. 11 is with teaching as it is
Avith the ])ractiee of medicine. Ihe remedy that is salutary for
one patieni may not be effecti\-e of cure witli the same disease
in another. It niav he safe to assert as a o'eneral truth, that
102 MISCELLANEA
success implies enthusiasm about something. The converse of
this, however, may not be true. That enthusiasm about any-
thing always implies success is a statement subject to limita-
tions; for unless enthusiasm be controlled by intelligence and
good judgment, it may prove the very worst stimulus to action.
It was said of an enthusiastic preacher that he hit the nail
every time, but it was always with the head down. The im-
portant thing is to hit the nail, not only every time, but with
the head up. What another has said is pertinent in tJiis con-
nection, that though a man has all other perfections and wants
discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world.
Back of enthusiasm, moreover, there must be. for the
teacher's success, not only discretion, but sound academic
training, and the more comprehensive this is the l)etter. It
is the mistake of many young persons Avho expect to make
teaching their life work, to underestimate this necessity. Later
on, too late in fact, they are sure to wake to regret, when they
ar(^ made to rc^alize, what some on(^ has obser^'cd. Ilial tlie edu-
cation one misses in youth he rarely obtains in age. It is then
that the fury of the past comes between his wishes and Avhat
it is possible for him to attain. Garfield's maxim, if Ave are
not too large for the place Ave occupy Ave are too small for it.
is most apropos at this point. In vieAV of the demands made
upon teachers at the present time in respect to severe scholar-
ship, especially in city high schools. Avhere the teacher finds
the best opportunities for pecuniary and other recognition of
his abilities, the need of the best academic foundation is so
exacting that it is perilous to disregard it. It pays, in eA'ery
respect, to make extraordinary sacrifices in the Avay of schol-
arly preparation for teaching, sacrifices that Avill be amply
repaid in pei-sonal satisfaction as Avell as wages in later years.
The situation is pitiful, after one has discovered marked apti-
tude for his chosen work, to find himself shut out from the most
desirable positions l)ecause he had not at the proper time ful-
filled the conditions essential to the satisfying of a legitimate
ambition. Every year it is becoming more cAndent that noth-
ing less than a college education suffices for obtaining the
highest positions in the teaching ranks. That some of the
most efficient teachers, though lacking collegiate training, have
MISCELLANEA 103
gained and are now filling such positions acceptably, does not
alter the fact. Nor does it help matters that a teacher holding
a college degree is sometimes in nearly every point surpassed
by one of inferior educational opportunities. The presumption
in favor of the former will usually be decisive in giving him
the advantage. Despite the sense of humiliation one feels at
the frequency of appeals to the Germans when education is
discussed, their superiority in the scholarly preparation of
teachers must be acknowledged; and to this superiority nmst
l)e credited much of their prestige in education. x\.s bearing
\ipon this point, what Professor Miinsterberg says of himself
may be not(^d. that during his entire course of secondary
schooling he never had an instructor who lacked a post-grad-
uate degree.
Whatever view is taken of education as a science, even the
vi<'W that there is, strictly speaking, no science of education,
but tliat teaching is at most an art, the teacher will find it
(juite necessary to his equipment to study the writings of the
wisest observers and thinkers on the subject. This is demanded
at the present time as a prerequisite to an engagement to teach
in the most progressive schools. Even great scholarship does
not suffice. Nor will it be accepted as a good excuse for neg-
lecting its study, that pedagogy lacks the systematic order and
(h'finiteness of, for instance, such a profession as the law. which
lias a universally recognized body of principles and maxims
in standard works. No single work on teaching as a profession
is so recognized.
Professor Miinsterberg insists that all instruction must be
interesting; while Professor James says it is nonsense to sup-
pose that every step in education can be interesting. He would
have the pupil, every day or two, do something for no other
reason than its difficulty. As an example of wild pedagogy,
the extreme views of some of the most eminent writers on the
subject as to the proper time for beginning the child's system-
atic training are in point. Pestalozzi boasted that his son
was eleven years old l)efore he could read or write ; and Rous-
seau's Emile, at the age of twelve is not to know what a
book is. No one, perhapT^, has better summed up what there
is of the science of education than Dr. Harris in his Psychologic
104 MISCELLANEA
Foundations of Eclncatioii. To r<:'a(l this hook, ll()^vc'^'er. is
Avork. not recreation.
11 is for the teaehcM- quite as much as for any one, in his
efforts to succeed, to he regardful of opportunities, that when
they come he does not neglect them. He must ever l^eep in
mind the fact that you ('an't go anywhere yesterday: the
meaning of Avhicli is, if an opportunity came your way yester-
day and you failed either to see it or to embrace it. the occasion
is not lilvcly to return, i^alzac expresses the same thouglit in
liis usual masterly way. He says. "No moment of one's life
comes twice." An incident hearing upon the value of making
use of opportunities is related of Admiral Farragut. When in
command of our fleet on the lower Mississippi he had occasion
to send a lieutenant in charge of a gunl)oat to capture a certain
Confederate position, the successful carrying out of Avhich order
Avould gain for the young officer no little prestige. From a
lack of pluck and persistency on the lieutenant's part the
enterprise failed. When the unsuccessful issue was reported to
Farragut. he remarked: '"Fvcn-y man has one chance; he has
had his and lost it."" In brief, for our succeeding we must turn
to good account "the moment which ])resents itself but once."
For success in any pursuit there is lu^eded a certain degree
of courage, a truth which teachers, especially the inexperienced,
have to learn. The troubles and obstacles that beset the path
of the young pedagogue are at timers to his bewildered vision
mountain-high, and he is too ready to despair of overcoming
tliem. Weary of niind and body, he is too ready to accept
defeat as inevitable. At such a time he should arouse the
latent resources of his nature, become resolute, and be ready
to take uj) arms against an a])])arent sea of troubles. It is
well if lie be made aware that his is no unusual (Experience:
that he is juc^rely fighting the l)attle of life Avhich all must
engage ill. and that Avithoul such struggle with difficulties no
strength of character would be developed. A young artist
once complained to an old and ex|>erienced one that he met
with what he supposed were unusual perplexities in nuuiaging
his canvas and colors, to be told in reply that the older [)ainters.
too. had like difficulties, some evim that were unyielding to
their most ingenious exix'dienls. "Sometimes."" said lie. "our
MISCELLANEA ] 05
t-anvas is mysteriously affected with blotches, which we have
not the art to remove, and which we are finally obliged to
convert into birds." The teacher, among his trials, will find
an occasional l)lotch which cannot even be turned into a bird.
Tliere is no doubt that the ancient sage was right, who thought
courage could be cultivated. This view is quite as rational
as the assumption that the teaching faculty may by proper
intlueuces be infused into an indifferent instructor.
There is no possibility of success for a teacher M'ho lacks
the spirit of willingness to work. Laziness, however accom-
l)anied hy good qualities, vitiates the teacher's usefulness be-
yond re})air. His example is a ])light upon the spirits of tlie
other teachers, and of pupils especially, and seriously dis-
turbs the general atmosphere of the school ; and what is
worthy of notice is. these liad effects are harmful very nuich
in proportion as the teacher's other qualities are unol).iection-
able or even praiseworthy. Tlu^ influence of one habitually in-
dolent person in a school faculty is furthermore pernicious,
iiecause it arouses in the others feelings of disgust and con-
teitipt at the injustice of carrying burdens that belong to
another. Pupils also become deadened to (lut>' under such an
instructor's indifference, ^lissing the interest and inspiratiou
they have a right to expect, they liecome unprogressive and
demoralized.
Patience is a word for the teacher to conjure with. The
lack of this one quality has spoiled many a teacher who pos-
sesscnl every othei- personal element needed for success. It
must constantly be borne in mind that some pupils are by
HMliire slow, and need special allowance of time and much
pains-taking attention on the part of the instructor, and that
fitful, hasty dealing Avith minds so constituted renders nil all
attempts to educate them. These nervous and inconsiderate
persons, by their heartless methods, keep not only the dull
l)n|)ils but file Avhole class in an unhappy temperamental chill.
Confucius may have philosophized well for his day and social
conditions, when he declared that if after presenting one cor-
ner of a subject his pupil could not see the other three, he
would refuse to teach him at all. Our theory of education is.
that all. the weak and sluggish minds as well as the strong
KM) MISOKLl-ANKA
and a('li\i', arc Id lie .(iiiallv a care, on llic i^i'oiiiul ol' juslifc
and cixir citinoinv and in llic reasona Idc cxpccliil ion llial somh-
(d Ihi'sc last ninv m I In' end he lii-sl. It is, moreover, tlu> iiiit.>
ol' the principal ol' a ,scli(»ol lo lu' palicnl willi llic inexperience
aiul I'lullires of liis nssoeiah' leaelicrs, in the cxpeclalion Ihal
linu' and I'casiuia Itle cm onrai^'cmenl niav wmU oul a Uderable
issne willi all cxccpl Ihe nc!;iii^ilile lew who arc lui|)eicss inconi
pelcnis AIniosI an\ Icaclicr can recall Willi wlial j^'ricvous
inisslcps he liiiiiscir walked at liisl in liie pcdaji;oj;it'al path.
Sncli earl\ lailnres seem, indeed, lo he almost an (>sseiilial
pa rl of I he Icaclicr "s I ra iiiiiii;'.
To lie classed Willi patience, indeed almost as a synon\iii
ol' il, IS sell' conl rol. U'asli action and inlcniperate speech are
to he li'uariled afjjainst as amoiii;" the teacher's weak j)oiiits.
Sudden cmcii^encics, new and tryinti', are sure to present tluMii
selves, and will demand immediate and dei'isi\e ai'lion. l'\'w
teachers, y(Miiii^' or old, are always ahle lo meet sncli exii;encies.
It IS onl.\ a Napoleon who in dilVuMilt it>s always knows what
to Ai* next j'lxcn an experienced leaeln'r is sonietimes so
tliistered hy an exaspcra t ini; ease of (iiscif^lini*. that he is
ohli.u'eil lo exense liimseH' from L;i\iiiii' the matter inimedialc
altcntitui, and tiiids it necessary lo walk alMuil the sclu>ol
Itnildini;.' i'or ten ov tirteen miiintes to collect his ihoiii^hls,
trnstini;- that 1»\ delay the rcrraeti>ry pnpil may ri-sumt^ a
moi-c luM-iiial statt" o\' mind and t'eelinii' and that he hims(>ir
may lia\e resi>l\ed npiMi a proper coui'se of action. ,\t'tcr one
has had yiuirs o\' expt-riciicc in teachiiiii', siirprist>s o\' this sort
c(Mne less rriMpuMilly. It is st>ldt>iii that such a one, in nianati-
mil;' a iiard ease of diseiidine, tiiids himst'ir rellectinu' alter this
manner: "1 llunii^ht I had u'oiit^ thiHMii^h the w lude raiiii'c oi'
liisaijreeable seluH>lrt>oiii t>\p(>rieiiees, hut lii>r(> is soiiuMliintr
new," To spt\ak parent luM ically for a luouuMit, a little personal
history will show how straiii^ely the nnexpected soinet tines
liapptMis to tile teacher. Ouo day. in my otliee, 1 was called on
lli(> teleplioiie. and a woman's voice asktnl : "llow many pounds
are there in a tirUin of hutter;'" .Vi'ter 1 had oblisjinj^ly i::iveii
the dt>sirt>d inftM-niat i(Mi, slu> rurlluM- ask(Hl : "'Is a tub llu> sam(>
as a tirkin '" This was [oo mncli for my equanimity. Onco
an old lad\ called ;it iii\ lunise to complain o\' ill treatment at
MISCEIJjANEA j()7
the hands of lici' ^i-aiKlcliildi'cii. |)iii)ils in my schooJ. She was
pai'ticiilarly grieved over the conduct of one of them, a rough
hoy, Avho made it a praetic(^ to throw water on her. She asked
if 1 wouhln't have this hoy [)unished, but charged me not to
let him know what it was for, as otlierwise he would treat her
Avorse than h(>forc.
It is ii wise and true s-A\ rit I en. When it was again hi'ought
to me to he rehearsed. I discovered that the final sentence
^\'as just as it had been originally -written. What this boy
did. slight as it appeared, was to me of great significance. It
was perhai)s the most fruitful lesson in pedagogical ethics T
have ever lear'ucd. !t taught me as nothing else could do that
a teacher, one who is set up as an example for the young to
emulate, cannot be too cai-eful in sci'ut ini/.ing his most trivial
108 MISCKM-ANEA
aels. As au instance of the extreme eonseientiousiiess of the
teacher, it is related of Stonewall Jaekson. the famous Con-
federate general, that when a professor of mathematics in a
military school, he one day told a student that his work on
the blackboard was ineori'eet. In the cNening, recurring to the
blackboard incident, he became t'onviiiccd that !he boy had
been right and he liimself wrong, and in conscMiuence of the
discovery he immediately set out, in spite of a severe rain, to
\isit llic l)()y"s home, a mile away, and correct liis mistake.
The relation that exists between teacher and pupil has
Ix'cii described as that (existing between the parent and the
(liild. The parallel is. however, lacking in (uie important essen-
tial. Ill the former relation there is wanting the bond of near
kinship. I lie strongest tie known to human sympatliy. Some
writei's upon education have gone so far as to say th.at men
have seldom h)\'e(l theii- teachers. It is this filial love, so
natural and strong in the one instance, so Avantiug in the other,
that minimizes the teachei-'s claim to the relation Mhieh is
known as in loco parnilis. There is a word potent and impres-
si\ (■ as affecting the lea<'her's intercourse with those he has in
charge, a watchword, in fact, for every teacher. This word
is companionship. Those teacluu's succeed best who make com-
j)anions of their pupils. It was said of a noted English teacher
iiaiiied -lordeii. that when a, young man Ix'came -lorden's pupil
he became his son. Althougli it is impossible that a close
])ei'sonal association should be uiainttA\-een in-
structor and insti'ucted. This attempt is called tutorial, or
preceptorial, teaching, wherein the tutor from tin.e to time
nu'cts his students in grou])s of half a dozen, where an ojipor-
tunity is given for close fannliar intercourse, with free dis-
cussion and exchange of views. This opportunity on the })art
of the student for (piestioriing oi-. as it is called, "shooting
back,'' tends to awaken lh(> mind and give it both ideas and
a chance to express them, a ])ractice ((uite in harmony with a
MFSCELLANKA 109
most snggostive sentiment. " 'Tis Dioiiglirs cxcliHiige wliidi.
like the alternate push of waves conflicting, breaks the learned
scum and defecates the student's standing pool." In such
circumstances the i)i-eceptor's personality tells; he comes to
knoAv his students, and they come to feel the intluence of a
closer contact with their instructor. If more of this kind of
teaching were done, more men would love their teachers. It
is a saying of Seneca, that "many a man has been lost for
Avant of l)eing touched to the quick." Just so, many a student
has been only half what he was capal)ie of Vx-coming for lack
of this magic personal intercourse with an instructor.
In the management of a school nuich d(^pejids ui)()n the
teacher's care in Avatcliing for dangerous tendencies, and in
counteracting thcui at the incipient stage. Tliis suggestion
is based upon an old adage, that '"it is easier to keep the devil
out than to turn him out." This killing of an evil in the shell
is one of the teacher's most A'aluable schemes of discipline.
Again, and (juite in point of what avc are aiming at. there are
certain sup])lementai\v agencic^s that should l)e called in as
valuable aids in conducting a school. One of the chief con-
cerns of a Avell governed school is punctual attendance. Fre-
quent absence and tardiness ai"e uiniiistaka})le signs tliat there
is sometliing wrong. Laxncss in cai'ing foi" these pai'ticulars
will always result in gi\'ing the school had r<'piite. a reputation
that no school can stand, whatcvei- it may claim of excellence
ill other I'cspects. For village and country schools, and for
elementary city schools, a rem(Hly for the evils referi'cd to, a
remedy Avhich actual tests have shoAvn to be reasonably effec-
tive, may be pertinently suggested. The one here offered as
of great effectiveness, and Avhich intlruMices not only punctu-
ality but scholai'shi)) as avcII. is simple, and, in brief, is this:
A Aveekly roll of honor including the names of all pupils who
have a perfect rccoi-d foi* attendanc(^ and punctuality during
the week, Avith names arranged in order of the pu])ils' standing
in scholarshi]!. is ])oste(] in a conspicuous place in the school
Avhere it publishes the merits of those Avho are in these tAvo
respects most deserving. As a supplement to this, a card con-
taining a certification of merit is given Aveekly to each member
of th(^ honor roll. This scheme may properly be called an aid
110 MISCELLANEA
iu promoting regular atteudauce aud good scholarship. It is
not claimed to be perfect in effecting the results aimed at,
but its influence reaches aud leavens essentially the whole
school. Unfortunately this plan is not available in city high
schools, where many pupils come long distances and are unable
to walk, and despite their best intentions are subject to delays
incident to street car service. This is one of the sorest per-
plexities the city high school teacher has to deal with. His
failure to meet the evils of tardiness by any conceivable device
is a constant cause of humiliation. To the minds of some the
suggestions here made for the encouragement of punctuality
and scholarship will no doubt seem old and commonplace and
too trite for serious recital. To the minds of others, who may
have tried and proved their value, or the value of something
similar, it will be clear that they cannot be repeated too often.
It is now. as it has always been, quite the fashion in affairs of
education to despise Avhat is old and accept Avith eagerness
what is new. No matter how unreasonable the whims are that
gain temporary ascendanc}', the}' bear sway for the moment
with irresistible force. All who oppose them or give them only
a lukewarm assent are arraigned as "old fogies" and as being
"Ijehind the times." During a single lifetime one maj" follow
the course of so-called reforms, to see the old ideas return ex-
ploited as something new. Such a recurrence of old methods
is open to the observation of anyone who will take the trouble
to look for it. The dictum that has been applied to our modern
civilization, that "we are not progressing but merely tossing,"
is, if not to be accepted as true, yet, as applied to eciucation,
highly suggestive. It may be urged in justification of many
educational movements, tliat they at least prevent stagnation.
It is well if teachers are made to understand that because a
thing is old it need not be bad, and that a thing which is new
need not in consequence of its newness l)e good. What has
been presented in the way of promoting the regular attendance
of pupils is very old ; Avhat is to the point, however, is. that
it has l)ce]i tried and not found wanting. To some it doubtless
seems too small a matter to be treated in so serious a manner.
To such it may again be said, that after all it is the little things
that arc^ important. It is somewhere set down as worth remem-
MISCELLANEA 111
bering. tliMt '"those only become great who think nothing little
Init themselves;" that "sands make the mountain, moments
make the year; and that, —
"Of little threads our life is spun.
And he spins ill Avho misses one."
Any discussion of the conditions under which the teacher
may work most satisfactorily would be lacking, if it were to
omit the question of physical health. A familiar saying, that
•'the first wealth is health," is an epigrammatic truth bearing
directly upon both teacher and taught. Even intellectual
attainment, when compared with health, is of secondary im-
portance. It is foolish, some one remarks, to sink our vessel
by overloading it even with gold. Another instructive figure
is that of Hercules set to row in a rotten boat. — the more
powerful his stroke, the more certain he is of shattering his
craft and sending it to the Ijottom. Teaching that is teaching
is exhausting work, whereof each day's honest labor leaves
both body and mind greatly fatigued and. needing the repair
of a reasonable amount of recreation, refreshment, and rest.
That one be a good animal, in general a necessary aim for
complete living, demands that the teachei- preeminently have
these restoratives with severe regularity. The teacher should
not be ashamed to got sleep and on a liberal scale. Many of
the world's greatest men have l)een good sleepers. Scott and
Newton are notable examples. ]Much dissipation, however in-
nocent, renders the teacher unfit for the peculiar demands of
the schoolroom. How often, when things are going wrong w'ith
the school, if the teacher Avere to sub.ject himself to a little
introspection, w^ould he find the cause of disorder in his own
moodiness and irritability, conditions due to a lack of rest.
Other things being equal, the well equipped teacher is one
who is distinguished as being well-read, that is. one whose mind
is stored with the contents of good books. The habit of read-
ing, when once well formed, becomes a pleasui'able diversion,
and. if not indulged in to excess, is a true relaxation. There
need be but little mental strain in yielding to the allurements
of general literature. It is in no sense labor, such as, for in-
stance, writing, or composition, is. It may be remarked, in
112 .MlSCKl, LANKA
piissiiii;'. that il is uni'ortuiialc llial pi'aclicc in roiu[»t)sit ion is
not an exercise more a\ailal)le for llie leaelier's sel I'-iinprove-
ment. Tlie '^ H "s. icailini;'. Avritiu^'. aiut arit liniel ie. wliieh
oriiiinally ineaiil llu' luei-est sniatleriiiii' of tliose suhjeels. just
eiiouiili ill the tirst instaiiee to enable one to spell out simple
■words, in the seeoucL skill ent)Ui;?li l)arely to form K Iters ami
laboriously traee oiu-'s name Avith pen or pencil, ami in the
last menti()ne(l. only enouiih to use figures in a primitive way
for counting and reckouiug. — these :> 1\ "s have, in fact, im-
nuMise i>ossil)ilit ies for mental training w hen logically extended.
Especiall.N is this true of i-eading and writing. These subjci-ts
pursued to their possible limits may ri'sult in culture of a high
order. "Reading." says Lord liacou. "uuikcs a full man. Avrit-
ing. an exact one." Professor John Fiske. a man of excep-
tional all-around intellectual attainments, declares that he got
all his knoMvledgi> of science through the medium of books, not
the best Ava\' to obtain such kno^vledge. be it said, but at least
a possible \\a\. .\braham Lincoln, by nnu-h practice in \vril-
ing. reaeiu'd a degree of exeellenee in (•(uui)osit ion such as
few ha\-e attainetl to. His speeches and letters are surprising
masterpieces, not only in thought but in st\li'. Despite the
fact that composition-Avriting is a trying emploNineiit for the
iiund ami cannot be done profitably when one's faculties are
exhausted, every teacher must do si>nu>thing in the way of
literary composition, at least to the limittni extent o\' letter-
writing, and with due nxw always lo write that small amount
in the best possible manner, lie u\-a\ at length ac(|uire the ability
to write Avell.
As has been already remarked, the art of composition is
ditfieult and i-epellenl. 'Phi' historian Preseott. somewhere in
his Avorks. declares, what no one Avill question, thai i'vw love
to write. As another puts il. e\ery one who affects author-
ship must overcome a natural distaste for the pkxhMng laboi'
of writing. According to "Macaulay. eveu the gocnl writers
cannot ahvays Avrite their best. Again Rousseau : "With what-
ever talent a man may be born, the art of writing in not easily
learned." Nowhere in the domain of self-culture is one more
likely to exelaim. "If it were not so hard to think." It is this
thinking under the lash that nmkes the art of writing so diflft-
MISCELLANKA 11 '3
fult tf) li^firn. liosjdes, the cultivation of mere expression, that
which relates to form and happy diction, calls for no common
effort and patience. Few readers are aware, as they enjoy
the delights of an exquisite piece of literary composition, how
much ear(! in polishing and "bringing to the anvil again" has
been bestowed ufjon the arrangement and shaping of "thought,
to say nothing about invention. It is to be noted, then, that
literary creation, though by far the more difificult part of (com-
position, is by no means the whole of it. It will he remembered
that Browning says quite within bounds, "Polishcjr needs prec-
ious stone no less than precious stone needs polisher." It is
the sensible opinion of some one, that the art of writing con-
sists in knowing what to leave in tlu; inkstand.
11 is interesting to observe how untiring some of the best
writers have been in revising their mastcn-pieces. Pascal said
of his eighteenth letter, "I would have made it short ei- if 1
could have kept it longer." Addison was so S(;nsi1ive ju
relation to the; perfecting of his work, that he would stop
the press to alter a preposition or ;i eotijiinetion. Halzac
wrote and |)ul)lished forty volumes befoi-e he could write one
to which lie \\i\s willing 1o put his tmme. He (.nee sy)ent a
whole night o\ei- H .single senlenee. jiiid w MS k'now M 1o riddle \\itli
erasures his lenlh [)rf)oi'. Hacine was Iwo whole years polish-
ing his Pli6(lre. The opening passage of Plato's Re])ublic was
found wr-ilten on1 in thirteen difif'ereni \\a\s. Uaeon's .\o\um
Organutn was re-written twelve times ovei'. i*lu1areh kept
his works constatitly by him, and polished them to Y)erf<'ction.
La Rochefoucauld re-wi'ote some of his maxims thirtx' limes.
Bishop Percy assures us that not a line in all his ])oems staufls-
as he tirst wrote it. Preseott, after finishing a manuscript,
was M-orit to keep it a year, and then I'cvise it before putting
it into the printer's hands. There are a few marked examples
of men who liavc found wi'iling easy. Dr. .Johnson could
write anywhere, at any time, and he never revised what he
had once written. Scott was accustomed to change his manu-
scripts but little. As distinguished from the great nmjority,
who have fo)uid literary composition hard work, Locke is
an example of one who ^^•I•o1e for the love of it. He found
great personal satisfaction, while at Oxford, in the mere prac-
114 miscellanp:.\
tiee of composition, though he had. like others, to exercise
patience in licking his offspring into shape. Jonathan Ed-
wards, as a student, formed the habit of writing as a means
of mental discipline. Writers show strange peculiarities in
their manner of working. All agree that one is unwise if
he neglects to shoot a good thought on the wing. In the
night, when an ich'a seized him. Richelieu would rise and call
a night secretary, who wrote it down instantly. This was also
a custom with Pope as well as with some others. It is Haydon's
advice, never to rub out in the evening of the day you have
worked hard, if your labor sliould appear a failure ; since
what looks worthless at night when one is exhausted, may
show merit when reviewed after a night's sleep. Some writers,
for successful thinking, are dependent upon conditions and
moods. Lowell said his recipe was to carry a thing long in
his mind. Young found night the best time for composing
his Night Thoughts. Hawthorne liked Avriting in a small
room. Montaigne's best thoughts came when he seemed to
seek them least. Ennius never wrote poetry except when
confined to the house with gout. Goethe said all his best
thoughts came to him while walking. He could do nothing
when seated. Lafcadio Hearu declared that all our best work
is out of the unconscious. While some poets are hampered
by too much learning, others, though possessed of great natural
gifts, show an appreciable lack of learning. Of the latter
class is our Whittier, so eminently endowed with "the swing
of the true lyric bard." Of this class also is Burns, a con-
spicuously inspired man, whose productions have been com-
pared to "the songs of linnets in the lapses of the wind."
It is impossible to tell how a larger culture would have affected
his peculiar genius. It has been thought that Shakspeare,
whom Furness calls "a very learned man, but no scholar."
might have suffered an impairment of his incomparable gifts,
if he had been able to read Sophocles in the original. Even
some writers distinguished for learning and scholarship have
expressed a desire for a greater amount of both. Thackeray
regretted that he had not alloAved himself five years of reading
before beginning to write.
In giving a brief enumeration of other agencies and prac-
MISCELLANEA 115
tiees to wliieli a teacher may wisely direct Ins thoughts, the
folloAviug points are suggested as likely to be helpful on the
I'oad to success: (1) Daily preparation by study for every
lesson to be taught; (2) Improvement to be gained from asso-
ciatiou with other teachers; (3) Visiting other schools; (4)
Cultivating social relations with the people and showing an
interest in public affairs; (5) Attention to the best profes-
sional literature; (6) Conferences with parents; (7) Avoid-
ance of too much talking, or preaching, to the school. If
time permitted, these seven points might well bear extended
discussion.
It seems proper to add a note of warning, to the effect
that there can be for the teacher no such thing as perfect
success; that those who come nearest such a consummation
are the readiest to confess how much they fall short of their
ideals. Butler's Hudibras contains a sentence strongly impres-
sive as bearing upon the limitations of success. "Success."
he says, "the mark no mortal wit nor surest hand can always
hit.'' To look at the question from one point of view, every
institution or system, whether religious, political, or educa-
tional, must, to a great extent, be judged by the cliaracter
of the men and women it produces. In the same way the
teacher is to be judged, even though his responsibility is at
most a divided one, wherein other and often adverse agencies
unite and may neutralize the good he might otherwise do.
As examples in point, it was to the dishonor of Socrates
that his pupils, Alcibiades and Critias. turned out bad men.
So Seneca Avas discredited by his pupil, the fiendish Nero.
It is greatly comforting, in reading the lives of famous teach-
ers, to find that they were not exempt from the hard usages
of the common lot. As an antidote to despair, one might
profitably read Dean Stanley's Life of Dr. Arnold, the great
master of Rugby, whereby he would better understand the
universal truth, that "they that stand high have many blasts
to shake theuj." After considering these discouraging in-
stances, it will be a relief to look at the reverse of the picture,
and seek comfort in the fact that it is not unusual for men
and women to bear testimony to deep indebtedness to their
teachers for l)oth intellectual and moral stinmlus.
1 ] 6 MISCELLANEA
'I'iiiii'. place, aiul (,'ir('uinstaiu'(> are coiisidcrablt' factors o1'
siiccoss. Owing to unfavorable conditions a teacher may be
doomed to failure in one place, and yet the same teacher by
chang'ing his environment, may subsequently achieve distin-
guished success. The world is wide and oft'ers almost infinite
opportunities. He is unAvise who. in disregard of tliis fact,
continues a hopeless tiglit in a position where all the odds
are against him.
M
RESPONSE.
'1\. PROVOST: Once alreaily on a former occasion the
Association of colleges and secondary schools of the
Middle states and Maryland has tested the welcome
of Philadelphia teachers, and has enjoyed the hospitality of
the University of Pennsylvania. It is my pleasant duty on
this second like occasion, in behalf of tlie association, to re-
ceive and acknowledge your kindly greetings. This duty is
all the more agreeal)le to mo from Ihe fact that for several
years I was a resident in Philadel]>liia and came to know the
cordiality and generous spirit tluit are so characteristic of the
City of Krothei'ly Love. It is the boast and pride of tliis associ-
ation that it always attends to serious business — that it has
no time for side-shows, byplays, or excursions. It is it) be
regretted. howcAcr. that here, in this most I'ichly historic centre
of the western liemis})liere. we are not able to take a I'ecess of
a few hours to pay our respects to places hallowed by patriotic
devotion, and to Aisit youi- various seats of learning and othei-
institutions celebrated world-wide for art. science, industry and
philanthropy. In Greater New York, on University- Heights
which overlooks the Harlem ami the Hudson, an enterpi-ising
and patriotic Avoman has built a hall of fame, on whose walls
are to be inscribcnl the names of eminent Ameri<'ans. Here,
in this city, you tunc a hall of fame that ni'eds no mnral in-
scriptions to give it distinction, consecrated as it is by a new
birth of li})erty and liy the acts and ideas of statesmen who
inaugurated a new era in the governuKmt of mankind. We
come her(> to-dav. sir. on vour kind invitation, and trust that
MFSCELIjANEA 117
we ai'c not like unbidden guests, said to be most weleoiue wheu
Ibey are gone; and we feel confident that here, at least, we
shall realize that the welcome of the liost is by far the l)est
part of the entertainment.
JOV AND RKST.
DE( KMB1^]1\. by natui-e the darkest, is also to the iiumau
s|)ii'i1 the h'ast cheery month of the year. The autum-
nal (lays ha\-e been gi-owing shortei- and shorter, drear-
ier and drearier, until in the latter half of this month the
climax of gloom is reached. The Scripture declaration that
■iiicn love darkness rather than light" is purely figurative,
in all literalness the revei'se of the saying is true, men lov(;
light rather than darkness. In an appai'ent regartl for the
rule of compensation it has, however, bcconu' the endeavor
of nearly all civilized peoples to i-elieve the heaviness and
gloom of the period of longest nights by making it a holiday
season, and committing it to joy. The decree has, accordingly,
been issued, and with hearty unanimity, that the naturally
somberest week of the year shall be to the spirits of men
the brightest. And. strange to say. the edict is implicitly
obeyed, and in a manner the nations legislate sunshine into
the hearts of the people. More unalloyed joy and happiness
are known to these so-called holidays than to any other e(|ual
amount of time in the whole annual round.
It is surprising, and somewhat at variance with the prob-
abilities of human happiness, that the tension of enjoyment
can be sustained uninterruptecily so long. As long uninter-
rupted unhappiness is rare, so undisturbed delight sehknn
lasts many days. According to the philosophy of Jean Inge-
low. "No man can be ahvays sad." If we were haj)py all
the time, we might not, aiid probably should not, know that
we were happy at all. The conditions of felicity demand
contrast, both light and shadow. "Enough of sunshine to
enjoy the shade" is the prevailing rule. We have it from
Shakspeare that ''the web of our life is a mingled yarn, good
and ill together." One does not need a long experi(Mice in
118 MISCELLANEV
this Avoi-Ul to know that the pleasures of life are mostly inci-
dental, and that the highest joy has a background of sorrow.
The joy and good cheer of the holiday season would be
impossil)h' but for the reflections that pass reciprocally be-
tween connningling faces. The sunshine of the heart is onlj'
partly inl)orn : the joy-flushed world around us adds its light
to ours. Still what is seen of happiness in others will appear
to us nuich greater, if by our own acts and moods we have
in some way contributed to it. There is sometliing reassuring
in the thought that one's genial influence is extended by an
indeflnitely repeated communication, that, as some one claims,
man may be like the lodestone. \\hich not only attracts the
iron, but also infuses into it the power to attract other objects.
In this manner our smiles, like a torch, may light up a coun-
tenance which shall transmit the benign influence almost with-
out limit. Thus one charitable act may reach many hearts.
There is in the world too much pseudo-charity, such as the
wit of Sydney Smith is aimed at. His charity sermon is
familiarly known, beginning in this manner: "Charity is a
sentiment which universally pervades the human Itri^ast : no
sooner does A find B in distress, tlian he innnediately asks
C to relieve him." But a kind word or look even, as well
as a kind deed, may be the sweetest and truest charity.
Christmas-tide not only means joy, it means rest as well.
The economy of nature demands for the human animal a
definite amount of relaxation from l)oth physical and mental
toil. Those who ignore this demand in time find their mistake.
Aristotle begrudged the time taken from mental lalior for
sleep, and devised a plan for protecting himself against sleep-
ing too long. Upon lying down to rest, he clasped an iron
ball in his hand and held it over a brazen vessel, that when sleep
became too deep and the muscles of his hand became relaxed,
the ball falling upon the brass might make a noise and wake
him.
At the holiday season rest is most grateful to the mind-
wearied school boy and school girl. They then give tlieir
lessons up to complete oblivion, and themselves to the abandon
of uninterrupted joy. At the end of a long term of study
their feelings fire iiuu-h like those of the little fellow in his
MISCELLANEA 119
first experience at school. After a week's trial a kind neigh-
bor, meeting him, asked, "Well, my little man, how do you
like school f" "0," replied the diminutive scholar, "I'm
gettin' awful tired o' them A's and things."
Rest is not necessarily idleness. When properly indulged
in it is the wisest thrift. Some one has pronounced idleness
the greatest prodigality in the world, and Seneca says an
honest man is out of his place when he is idle. To match
this we have the assurance that "all work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy."
(^OOPERSTOWN CPLXTENNIAL.
THE village of Coop(^rstown, which is just now celebrat-
ing the on(^ hundredth anniversary of its incorporation,
may properly be treated of under three aspects, — first,
as it is favored by nature; second, as it is consecrat(^d by
legend and literary genius: and third, as it is a community
of liomcs. It is no small advantage for a people to live amid
scenes of great natural beauty, where hill, river, and lake
coml^ine harmoniously and in such manner as to satisfy and
delight tlie heart and imagination. Tlie natural charm pos-
sessed by this place may be at the first view less striking
than that produced by the sublimer scenery where mountains
play a conspicuous part : yet the very modesty of its unique
perfections appeals with peculiar force to a fastidious taste.
It is hazardous to express oneself about things that beggar
description. It is too nuieh like trying to gild refined gold
or paint the lily. To call Otsego Lake beautiful would be
as much a pleonasm as it would be to call a Frenchman witty.
The immediate fascination which the lake has for those who
see it for the first time and in one of its best moods, was
once well indicated by a discriminating stranger who, in the
dusk of evening, saw it from Lakewood Cemetery. After
standing for a few minutes in silent admiration, he said :
■"Well, if thev ever l)ury me here, I shall want them to take
the coppers off my (\ves." If it were ever possible to worship
nature, it would seem that siu*h adoration could ])e indulged
12U MISCELLANEA
in luM'c. Here, if aiiy-whcrc. Ihc lines of Eli/al)etli Bfirrett
Urowniiig' would filly a]){)ly : —
Kai'th's craiiniied with heaven, and every common bush
Afire with God, but only he who sees
Takes off his shoes.
Natural seeiiery is said to have appealed to Walter Scott
only so far as it had local legend associated with it, though
he often depicted nature with care and in a happy manner.
Cooper, on the contrary, if his descriptive wi'itings are taken
as evidence, loved nature for its own sake. The former, it
may be claiiued. had as a natural setting for the creations
of his fancy nothing of superior charm to what Cooper found
here in the wilds of America. The Scottish Lakes, Loch
Katrine and Loch Lomond, as the work of God's hand, have
a picturesque beauty in no way surpassing that of Lake Otsego,
it might seem, however, that the "dramatis personae" of
Scott's writings, half historic and half his own creations, the
historic ones including even royalty, would give the Scotch
romancer a distinct advantage, — that ]\lary Queen of Scots.
Fitz James, Roderick Dim, and Pollen Douglas would quite put
out of competition the simple frontier folk and untutored
savages of the New World. But whatever advantage, if any,
the Briton had over the American, Avas not due to the social
rank of his characters. That Cooper was successful in peopl-
ing the wilderness with persons so humble, and yet characters
concededly proof against oblivion, is greatly to his credit, —
"And Natty won't go to oblivion quicker
Than Adams the parson or Primrose the vicar."
A\'hil(' ( 'ooperstown considered as a home has no special
claim to be chronicled beyond what could be urged for other
communities, still this home phase of the subject, wherein
every-day citizenship, with its humdrum activities and its
neighborly loves and strifes, has for a hundred years been
working out the problems common to all civic life, should
not be lost sight of in connection with a centennial event.
The long continuous association of the same people, their
personal friendships and family intimacies, are factors worthy
MISCELLANEA 121
of note. The genius of Cooper should not absorb the interest
of the occasion to the exclusion of everything else. If we
were memorializing the one hundredth anniversary of Cooper's
birth, the ease would indeed be different. There are many
minor characters that have figured significantly in the scenes
of our village, lesser lights when compared with Cooper, who
have lived their day and left their impress upon things human.
From among them the living may select each his own as
predilection dictates. Every one has a few choice souls who
have "crossed the bar and gone out to sea." who, besides
having possessed native qualities that ennoble human nature,
have a precious meaning to him personally. Let such a one,
.searching among the "hie jacets" of the dead,
" — from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss.
For everv heart best knoweth its own loss."
THE MAINE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK.
IT was a custom with the ancient Greeks, when a colony
went out to establish itself on some distant shore, to carry
sacred fire from the home altar and with it to kindle the
altar in the new settlement. In a like spirit w^e Maine folk
brought from our old homes, not actual fire in our hands,
]>ut sacred memories in our hearts. These memories we keep
alive in part by such functions as this. From time to time,
moreover, either in fact or in imagination, we go back to the
scenes of our youth and revive these memories. Perchance
we find ourselves walking on the familiar ocean beach and
listening to the murmur of the sea ; or, it may be. we launch
a boat on some inland lake or river, waters with which we
once held dear companionship ; or we once more pole a rude
raft among the lilies and gatlier handfuls of long-stemmed
beauties ; or we visit the spring at the foot of the hill, where
ou Avarin summer days we used to drink out of a tiny cup,
hastily made from a green leaf; or we enter the old school-
house odorific of stuffy air, and view the knife-carved desks
wliicli in appearance resemble the surface of an Egyptian
monolith — desks over which we once dozed, and where dreams
1 22 MISCELLANEA
of fame "like exhalations rose and fell." We fondly repeat
a hundred remembered experiences, until we feel like saying
what Thaekeray in reminiscence wrote of his boyhood days,
"As I recall them the roses bloom again and the nightingale
sings by the calm Bendemeer. "
MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS.
COMRADES and fellow-citizens: For more than a century
it has been our wont to celebrate by an annual holiday
the birth of this Nation. But we are in a measure
realizing anew what was said concerning the greatest republic
of antiquity, that the days in which we are born are less
memorable than those in which we are preserved; and the
thirtieth of May has become with us a great national holiday.
This is but rational ; nor ought it to cause regret to the true
lover of his country. The highest tribute we can pay to the
heroes of the Revolution is in honoring those who have been
equally self-sacrificing in perpetuating the blessings of their
achievements. Nor is the significance of this day essentially
incomplete because at present the whole country is unable
to observe it in the same spirit. It is but natural that the
people of the South should cherish their brave dead with a
peculiar tenderness. For them to do otherwise would be to
renounce their humanity. Time is, however, doing, as naught
else can do, the good work of healing the wounds made by
secession ; and it is not too much to believe that our brethren
of the South are beginning to rejoice that this is still one
people. Both sections will in time come to look upon the
war as a necessary conflict caused by slavery ; and all alike
will regard the saving of the Union as a priceless blessing.
Another view that may be taken of the war is, that sooner
or later, on some issue or other, it was inevitable that the
solidity of our national compact would be tested by civil
strife. The proportions of the rebellion were so gigantic,
that nothing greater in the way of sectional revolt is to be
feared in the future. That crucial test of our nationality
was the most decisive possible.
MI8CEI.LANEA 123
A picture in Dante's Purgatory represents a part}' halting
in their toilsome mountain ascent, and in restful attitude
turning their faces to the distant valley from which they
had set out. In the most casual manner the poet lets fall
this sentence: "All men are delighted to look back." Com-
rades, here to-day, in the tiresome mountain ascent of life,
you are halting to breathe for a little time, and to enjoy a
retrospect of the journey you have thus far come ; and espe-
cially to revievi' the part you had in the war for the Union.
Some things pertaining to every life are worth remembering.
Nothing in yours is so worthy of jealous l^eeping as the yi^ars
you loyally spent on the tented tield.
It is something to remember having lived through those
glorious days of our history, and to have witnessed the grand-
est exhibitions of man's self-renunciation. You will recall
the first excited heart-throbbings that came with the opening
scenes of the war ; and the shock that for a moment, and
for a moment only, paralyzed a peaceful people. How many
incidents of that time are now remembered with amazing
vividness ! Let me briefly recall some of these.
One of the most vividly remembered concerning the open-
ing of the war was the difficulty men found in adapting
themselves to the practices and requirements of military dis-
cipline. How freshly comes to mind the awkwardness of a
middle-aged man who had no music in his soul and who could
not accommodate his step to that of his marching companions.
Whether he watched the feet of his comrades or the motions
of the drummer, he uniformly and with fatal precision step-
ped just a little later than the rest. His appearance was as
comical as that of the militia-man of an earlier period, whose
step at general muster was irregular owing to the excessive
use of stimulants. When jeered at for being boozy he replied :
*'No, that isn't it; the trouble is, there's a band in front of
our company and one behind it; they are playing different
tunes and I'm trying to keep step with both of them."
Though this awkward Union soldier to whom allusion has
been made, at first lacked the rhythmic movements of his
fellows, his patriotic sympathies were fully attuned to the
necessities of the hour, and in a long and faithful service
J 24 MISCErj.AiNTEA
]iis faculties learned to execute wluitcxcr duty called hiiu lo
perform.
Ludicrous things were told of tlie bonihastic military airs
of a returned three-months man. After the tirst Bull Run
battle he had retreated as far north as the Green Mountains.
His large stories were the amazement of the inhabitants. He
capped the climax, however, when, upon visiting some relatives,
he told them he had become so accustomed to camp life that
he couldn't sleep in a bed, and insisted upon camping in the
orchard wrapped in a blanket.
There is something pathetic in recalling th(^ honest cold-
ness of some noi'thern men regarding the war. They were
men of great personal honor and integrity, but they could
not be brought to scm^ the necessity of saving the Union at
all hazards. One of our most distinguished men of letters
declared that he was incapable of taking in more than the
northern half of this great country ; and to him the dissolu-
tion of the Union Avas almost a matter of indifference. But
in marked contrast with these were suCh Southerners as Farra-
unt and Thomas, whose genius and national spirit were of
so nuich value that th(^ country could hardly have been saved
M'ithout theni. No doubt the South counted nuich upon the
indiiference in the North, and were further encouraged in
their withdrawal by the belief that some of the northern states
cared mort^ for autonomy than for nationality.
It peculiarly becomes the spirit of this day to recount
some of the deeds of heroism performed by those to whose
memory the day is sacred. It is said that the success of great
men is a mystery to themselves. Just so exploits of daring
are as little intelligible to their authors. A hero of olden
times being asked which of certain men, himself among the
number, he held in highest esteem, replied: ''You must first
see us die before that question can be resolved." Those who
have been tried by danger, suffering, and death, are the ones
whose spirits can best be judged. The war on several occa-
sions verified the oft-made assertion, that councils of war never
fight. On one such Gen. Hancock showed himself truly heroic.
After the first day's fight at Gettysburg, at a meeting of the
Union generals, the most of them, imbuec'. with a belief that
MISCELLANEA 125
Lee was something super-human, were in favor of retreating ;
but Hancock said, " No ; the Army of the Potomac has re-
treated too often." The volunteer crew of the Monitor were
heroic, who patriotically linked their fate with that of the
brave Worden. The fire kept up by the plucky crew of the
sinking Cumberland would be deserving of exceptional praise,
were it not for the deeds of gallantry in the later experience
of the navy. A writer on the war says, "There is nothing
finer in history than Thomas at Chickamauga" — Thomas, a
man so modest that blushes would color his face whenever
his troops cheered him. The youthful Lieut. Cushing of the
navy was a hero, when, having stolen his way up the Roanoke
River under the cover of night, he stood on the bow of his
steam-launch, amid the enemy's discharges of musketry, and
personally exploded a torpedo under the ram Albermarle.
Just before the famous Confederate charge at Gettysburg, a
group of inexperienced Union troops, who were stationed at
what afterAvards proved to be a dangerous point, with becom-
ing confidence told the commanding officer that they were
there to stay. The historian who mentions the circumstance
grimly records the fact that "the most of them staid." After
the battle of Antietam, as the dusk of evening came on, a
gallant Union officer who had become delirious with oncoming
typhoid fever, groped about the battlefield, turning the dead
faces up to the star-light, in a vain search for his missing
brother. Admiral Dupont was a hero, when, irritated by the
implied censure^ of the President after the defeat of the iron-
clads at Charleston, he expressed a willingness to be relieved
of his command, and said: "No consideration for an individ-
ual officer, whatever his loyalty and length of service, should
weigh an instant, if the cause of the country can be advanced
by his removal." That ^Massachusetts chaplain was a hero,
who resigned his chajjlaincy just on the eve of the battle of
Fredericksburg, seized a musket from the hands of a wounded
soldier, and saying, "T nmst do something for my country,"
took his plac(^ in the ranks and met death on that inauspicious
field. Commander Craven, of the ironclad Tecumseh, acted
the part of a hero. when, in the battle of Mobile Bay. his
vessel was aljout to sink from the explosion of a hidden tor-
rili MISCKl.I.ANEA
pcdo. At llic only opeiiiiii;' in llic turrcl tlii'ouiili which escape
was [)<)ssibh'. he iiallatilly drew hack aiul said. "Al'ler you,
pih)t.*" 'J''ht' hitter's life was savech Comiuander ('i'a\'eii went
down. 'I'his dying" politely i'oi- soniehody else exhibits a di\ine
soitiet liinti" in Inunan nature too (h'cp \'ov Ininian reast)u.
Tile \icai'ious suffering oi' those at home also partook of
the her(»ic. Stan* King was a hero, wIkmi he courageously
pleached unionism in doubtful California. In the midst of
his important labors in Ixdiali' of the nation tiiert'. he wrote
to his fi'iends in the east: "We are ciiipping the shell here,
and are coming out northern I'agles."
Keecliei- was a hero, who preached oui- cause to hostile
audiences in England. At a nuH^ting in one of the manufac-
turing cities a taunting \'oice intei'rupted him by asking,
"Why didn't you i)ut doM n the Confederates in DO days, as
you said \'ou would?" To which l>eecher ret(U'ted. "We sluudd
if tlu'y had been Englishnu'U."
That heroic conduct also characterized the peo})h' of the
South can be magnanimously alloAved without the least imixn-
erishment of our glory. That (^en. L(M^'s son served as a' pri-
\ale in the Confederate army is an illustration of the loftiest
phase (d' ci\ic virtue. The pure manhood of Stonewall dackson
will shine as a bright jewel of .\nierican charactcM' Avhen men
siiall ha\e fcu'gotten that he fought on Ihe wrong side and
m a losing cause.
The story of heroism in tlu^ civil war is incomplete until
\\iinian's part in it is tolil. Tlu're are men \vi\ose side reccuu-
mendation consists in having (excellent wives. .\ familiar sen-
timent ma\' :ippl\' hei-iv "What is better than golil .' Jasper.
What is better than jasper.' Wisdom. What is better than
wisdom.' Woman. What is Ixd ter than a gO(»d wouu^n? Noth-
ing." Wonuin's ])art in A\ar's drama is a uunor one. She
comes upon the scene ((uietly. liki^ ()phelia in the play. Much
o\' her wtuk was not conspicuously seen: uov was it of a kind
to daze the nudlitude. Tier devotion and resignation were
in tlunnselves victory. Her heroism was not generally such
as nuule Harbara Fritchie famous. It was of a tenderer, a
more womanly sort. It was exhibited by nuiidens who. like
those described bv Landor. "bn^athed couraa'c into the heart
MISCELLANKA 127
bcCorc it I)(';i1 to lovi'."" II was shown by riclily cli'cssed women
ill oru' oi oui' loyal cities, when, after a terrible battle the
wounded were l»rongh1 in by earfuls. These women, Avith
bcarls iiKidi' sloul by womanly tenderness, pushed aside their
husbands and brothers and insisted that the eare of the man-
gled patriots should be left to their gentler ministrations.
The sick and dying in hospitals best kimw woman's self-denial
and how soothing her offices of sympathy. No wonder that
a dying soldier who had been eared for, tended, and nursed
with a mother's devotion by one of these angels of mercy, was
heard with his last breath to mutter something about "the
everlasting arms beneath him."" Yr\ these acts of devotion
Avere hardly more heroic than wliat was done by thousands
of women who staid patiently at home with the young and
helpless and kejot courage in the heart of the nation by keep-
ing bright the fires of patriotism on the domestic altar.
The civil war somewhat strangely developed character.
This Avas apparent not only among th(; leaders, but also in
the humble ranks of the private soldier. The father of Fred-
erick the Great cared only that his troops should be six feet
tall. The rank and file of our national forces were measured
by the stature of intelligence and manliness. The samc^ facility
for adapting themselves to varied emergencies had been notice-
al>le among our earlier RcA^olutionary troops. At the edge of
the ice-filled Delaware, Washington said: "Who Avill lead us?"
The mariners of Marl)lehead stepped forAvard to man the boats.
At the battle of Malvern Hill a (Confederate colonel got
far in advance of his regiment. When he discovered that his
men were not folloAving, he uttered a fierce oatli and exclaimed :
■■('ome on! do you want to live forever?"
As illustrating hoAv variously men estimate bravery, an
incident may be related of a Union officer who was being
borne from the action on a stretcher. One of the attendants
noticed that he cringed as a shell shrieked a))ov<' them. With
something of bravado the attendant said: "You aren't afraid,
are you. Colonel?" "Yes. 1 am afraid." he replied, "and if
you were not a fool you would be;" which illustrates the
tnith of the familiar saying, that a man must have courage
in order to fear.
12S -MliSCKM.ANKA
yonu'tiines. in the excitement of battle, human nature as-
serted itself strangely. At Cedar Creek, when affairs were
taking a favorable turn. Custer rode up and kissed Sheridan.
a repetition of wlial took plaee at Fontcnoy. An Irishman
on board a vessel whieh was struelc 1)\ ;i cannon l)all. thrust
his head through the opening macU' in the side in the belief
that cannon balls are never known lo slikc Iwicc in the same
plaee.
The historian Motley, a man ol' intcnscsl patriotism, wa.s
our minister to Austria during tlie war. \\ the moment of
receiving the news of Vicksburg and Gettysburg all his family
were absent from the house except a sleeping infant. It being
necessary for him to gixe vent to his rapture in some way.
he ruslunl u[» stairs and biMiding over the cradle slnmted in
the baby's ears: ''Vicksburg is ours."
The war repeatedly exemplified the fact tlial tlie unex-
pected is tlie surest to happen. Kspecially was this the case
in the develo])ment of leaders in tlu> Union aini>. (Jrant and
Sherman. Avho displayed the gi-catest abilities as generals, had
both been considered mediocre at West Point. Halleck never
quite believed in Grant, but insisted that his success was due
to luck rather than to great generalship.
Judging from past years, there seems to be danger that
at these memorial exercises one branch of the fighting force
in putting down the rebellion, nnd an imi)oi'taul branch, too
— the navy, nuvy l)e left out of mind. It is easy to account
for this invidiousness in favor of the army. It is owing in
part to its great luimerical superiority, and in p.iiM to the
fact that its recruits came from evt'ry section of the country,
and that it has living representatives in almost evei-y handet
and settlement: while the navy was recruited chiefly from
seaboard inhabitants, or from nuii'iuers of foreign birth, who
had no strong bonds of association with a plaee of residence
on land, and whose conception of country was centered in the
flag undei' whieh they sailed.
It is to the high praise of the common sailors of our navy,
that while oven- tAvo hundred naval officers deserted their posts
at the breaking out of the war, not one blue-jacket deserted
the old flag. It is remarkable that no naval officer turned
MISCELLANEA 12!)
his vessel over to the enemy in the beginninji'. It was sus-
pected, indeed, that an attempt of this kind was to be made
by the eonnnander of a revenue eutter at New Orleans, the
occasion which railed forth the w('ll-] institutions from their birth-place in tlie east to a
Uicne congenial home in the west.
The American nation, which has been called the last exper-
iment of free government, is in a most real sense what the
French people have so generously symbolized it at the sea-
entrance of the Metropolis, "Liberty enlightening the world."
It was the taunt of a witty Frenchman a century ago, that
tlic United States was a giant without bones. I'niil the crisis
of civil war had been passed, a crisis in which a large free
population showed a miraculous ability to resist disinlegi'ation.
those among Europeans Mdio predictcn] anything but an early
termination to our national life were looked upon as fools.
How is it now? The glorious republic is no longei' regarded
by lliciii as a giant without liones. A gianl. indeed, il is.
and. thanks to the loyal living and dead, a gianl \\'ilh well-
knit frame and pleasing })ropoi'ti()ns.
There is another achievement of the loyal defendei-s of the
I'jiion which must be regar-ded as one of tlie greatest benetits
ever wrought oiit for civilization, the doing aAvay with sla^■el•y.
It is true that this accomplishment was rather accidental than
intejitional : yet the great fact remains that this residt is
liardly second in importance to the preservation of the Tnion.
In vieAV of such results, reached through a spirit so unself-
ish and so ])hilanthropic. almost superfluous seem the words
of Abraham Lincoln: "We luM-e highly resolve that these dead
shall not ha\e died in vain."
134 MISCELLANEA
AI'OTHEOSIS OF I'ENN.
WILLIAM rKNN'S .staliic crowning tlic lofty tower of
the city hall in Philadelphia, and in this respect
accorded a distinction quite unique, may Ix; account-
ed for in part because of Penn's rather exclusive greatness in
tiie city of brotherly love. However this may be, no instance,
it is believed, occurs of a like distinction being bestoAved upon
a man by an admiring community. Within a radius of many
miles, from every point of tlie comi)ass, the first oljjcM't to
be seen as one approaches Philadelphia, is the C^uak(M' law-
giver in bronze, his heroic Hgure minimized by an altitude
of ()\er li\-e luiiulred feet. lm|)osing and h)f1>- monuments
eternizing human greatness ai'e familiar enough the world
over, but the human objects of their memorializing ar(^ not
commonly represeiitml by statues placetl al)ove Ihem. The
figures thus placed are usually of mythical lievoes, demigods,
or deified abstractions. The first object sighted by the (ireek
sailor of olden time when he entered the Piraeus Avas the
statue of the goddess Minerva, from her elevated position
overlooking the Parthenon, just as Penn is the tirsf home
object seen l>\- the retui'ning Philadelphia sailor far down
the Delaware. The Colossus of Khodes typitied the lieaihen
god .\pollo, and the Partholdi statue in New York harbor
is a (leitied abst raci i(Mi. tlie (Joddess of Liberty enlightening
the AV(U'ld. Conld Penn have foi-eseeu his apotheosis, it might
be interesting to know in what s{uril he would have viewed
it. While as a material and spectacular mode of conferring
honor it is most imposing, he would no doulit have prefcn'red
a differcMit enshriiiement.
AVilliam Ptuin. though not the founder of a society or sect.
Avas a great law-giver. Avorking Avithin the narroAV restraints
of one of the nudtitudinous Christian sects. ITe aimeil to
make real and ])ractical the rules of human living, by most
Christians even relegated to the region of the ideal, set forth
in the teachings (»f Jesus. Tt matters not hoAv far short of
success this essay of Penn has proved in the past or may prove
in the futuivv the sincere and courageous effort is sufficiently
successful to be an imperishable object-lesson to mankind.
MISCELLANEA 135
Landor, in his Conversations, devotes more Ihan h liiiii(ii'(Ml
pages to an imaginary discussion carried on by Penn and Lord
Peterborough, wherein tlie tmiets of the Society ol' Friends,
and especially Penn's idc^as of government as practically ap-
plied, are thoroughly dissected. Penn and Peterborough are
supposed to be riding on lior-seback througli the Pennsylvania
forest about the year Ki!)!. though neither of them could
actually have been there at tliat time. Peterborough accuses
Penn of "running into a prison for the sake of liberty." Being
a military man, Peterborough uses the phrases peculiar to
iiis profession and manifests a zeal for war which quite dis-
tresses his companion. Penn is made to say: "Toleration
is in il.self Ihe essence of Christianity." When asked why
he had not left a tree standing here and there in the meadows
for the sak(! of ornament, Penn admitted that this might pro-
j)erly liMve been done for the sake of the cattle, but said the
ornament of a country is tlie sight of creatures enjoying thtiir
exislence. In one place an Mllusion is made to the fact tlial
Ihe hiws of the Friends i)rohibit dancing and iinisic. Peter-
borough says: "You are no less proud than other }nen, though
dift'erently." Penn would use tbe word "veneration," but
not "pride." lie declares it impossil)le to rescue the human
race from the abyss of sin and slavery, unless they can be
induced to look upon Christianity in its purity. Peterborough
predicts llial tlie Society of Friends will soon suffer its enthu-
siasm 1o cool, and tluit within half a century it will dissolve
frojn very fmrity. lie also intimates that Quakers are not
regardh'ss of the "main chance." Penn denies that Christ
ever said. "T bring not peace but a sword." but maintains
that the words have been reversed by accident. The dis-
cussion also touches upon the possibilities of avoiding war.
of the baneful influence of the theatre, the fine arts, litigation,
wealth, and avarice. Peterborough criticises the use of the
word "Friend" in all cases, as sometimes lacking sincerity.
To this Penn replies that they call every man friend because
they wish to be every man's friend. As they are riding
leisurely along, Peterborough notices four men drawing lots,
and is horrified that gambling is tolerated in Penn's colony:
but Penn a.'-sures him that the men are deputed to judge a
1 ."it) MISCELLANEA
cause ; that among them tliere are no solicitoi's ; that every
citizen states liis own case; that four intelligent men are
appointed by lot as judges in presence of the litigants, that
they draw a second time, and he to Avhom the lot falls decides
the question in dispute.
Preeminent among the literary men who have paid their
re8])e('ts to AYilliam Peun are ]\lacaulay and Landor. the formei*
in his History of England and the latter in his Imaginary
( 'onversations. ]\lacaulay, l)etter than almost any other writer.
I'XiMnplifies the fact that brilliancy in an author is a most
perilous gift when his view of a subject is prejudiced. Lord
Melbourne wished he was as certain of anything as Tom
Macaulay Avas of everything. What IMacaulay in his history
says of Penn is so manifestly biased and abusively wrong,
that even Macaulay himself late in life saw fit to apologize
for it. Sober history, so called, is, it would seem, not wholly
undeserving the hard opinion of Horace Walpole. who. when
a young woman had expressed to him a desire to read his-
tory, said to her, "'Don't, it's a lie." Historians are human.
Macaulay was very human. Penn's character, to be sure, was
not the strongest, a fact quite consonant with his professed
crecHl. The England of his day was politically and religiously
factious and turbulent. It would be Avonderful. in the cir-
cumstances, if he had escaped all appearance of inconsist-
I'ticy. "Tliey who stand high." it has been said, "have many
blasts to shake them." Penn professed an almost unapproach-
able morality and purity of life. The most trifling slips of
such a man are only too eagerly nuignified. Macaulay, with
evident injustice, accuses l*enn of obsequious fawning to James
II.. and of i)laying the part of a courtier, a part inconsistent
Avith his professed simplicity of life; of uttering falsehood;
of being guilty of scandalous conduct through Jacobitish zeal ;
of quite forgetting the first principle of Quaker faith, that
even defensive war is sinful; and of shoAving such gratitude*
towards James that he clandestinely advocated the 1)ringing
of a foreign army into his own country.
The most fitting honors for Penn are not corporeal. A
State, a city, or a monument of stone or brass is in its way
and degree a proper item of qualified immortality; l)ut like
MISCELLANEA 137
the "Treaty Elm" they must succumb to relentless time.
But a mighty personal influence, inspired by everlasting prin-
ciples of right, is as endless as human love. What Landor
has made Pericles say of Aristides applies with much force
to William Penu : "Aristides vi^ill be forefather to many brave
and honest men not descended from his lineage or his country ;
he will be the founder of more than nations; he will give body,
vitality, and activity to sound principles."
MASTERS OP EPIGRAM.
THE richness of a work of genuine literary art may
often be best shown by culling from its pages and
placing side by side striking original passages. This,
to be sure, does not reveal the highest qualities of an author.
Plot, characterization, and ethical management occupy a loft-
ier plane of excellence. But l)right. striking thought, expressed
in brief, happy language, is always the conspicuous accom-
paniment of the best creation. The nearest approach to an
exception to this rule is found in the writings of Walter
Scott. Of all the great English literary lights he has the
fewest quotable sentences. Shakspeare, on the other hand,
surpasses all others in his prodigality of unique and piquant
epigram. For the great majority of his readers this pecul-
iarity is the main, if not the only, attractive feature, while
with only the few, and those real students of the poet, his
higher power, as shown in the creation of character and in
the development of life and morals, is the overshadowing
one. An inferior writer oftenest proclaims his weakness by
his attempts at brilliant thinking and fine diction, his paste-
jewels of speech being recognizable by the merest tyro in
taste. What a c-lear ring of the coin of speech is heard in
some of the passages of Junius, for instance ! How exhila-
rating in its surprise is his reference to the undesirableness
of "rising for a moment from obscurity to infamy!" The
epigrammatic pickings from a single volume of Balzac are
cnougli to ])lace him among the foremost novelists. For pro-
fuseness and brilliancy in terse, pithy expressions he reminds
1 38 MI.SCELLANEA
one of Rabelais. His Cousin Pons, counted among his best
works, but preeminently so for excellent delineation of char-
acter, is peculiarly striking for its originality of thought and
expression. In this volume Balzac bids us "find, if we can,
the man who loves the calling whereby he lives." "No one,"
he says, "can bid farewell to a habit." Again. "A life of
purity and stainless honesty extorts admiration, even from
the most corrupt." "Hatred born of a trifle," he likens to
"the small pebble that sets the avalanche in motion." He
describes a woman as "aged rather than old." "The unhap-
piness of sensitive old men is," according to him, "that they
cannot belong to the epoch in which they live." Quite unsur-
passed is the double entendre of the old bachelor Pons in
his attempt to utter an appropriate sentiment in honor of
his friend's matrimonial engagement, — "Marriage is the end
of man." For the sorely grief-stricken he assures us "there
are certain critical occasions in life when all Ave can l)ear
is to feel that our friend is near us." " 'Tis only firm con-
viction." he declares, "that eaii give rise to deep emotions."
Instead of saying that a joke has passed through several edi-
tions, he tells of "a joke that has gray mustaches." For
downright pathos the conduct and sentiment of Schmucke
at the funeral of his dear friend Pons is uneciualed: "Mon-
sieur, are you the son, the l)rother. or the father of the deceas-
ed?" inquired the man of office. "I am all dat, and more, —
I am his friend," said Schmucke, weeping profusely.
A GOOD HISTORICAL NOVEL.
TO those whose liberal reading of good literature has
brought them to feel indifference and even contempt
for recent fiction, it is a decided relief to find a modern
story of such robust and genuine literary quality as Dr. S.
Weir Mitchell's "Hugh Wynne." This novel has an all-around
strength which reasonably satisfies the critical reader. It
stands, with evident fixedness, in the category of good prose-
fiction, and to say this is. perhaps, praise enough.
The general literary stamp of Hugh Wynne is through-
MISCELLANEA 139
out suggestive of good workmanship. Its epigrams and "old
saws" call Balzac to mind, and in the happy use of them
its author follows, at a great distance to be sure, Shakspeare
and Browning. Following are specimen epigrammatic quo-
tations: "There is no age to a woman's money;" "It is some-
times th<' l)()dy which saves the soul;" "It seems odd to have
color to a religion. I wonder if drab goodness is better than
red goodness;" "After men have beconu^ wise enough to
understand women. I protest there will remain the mother,
whom no man will ever comprehend;" "Not enough 1)lood
to blush with;" "An Archbishop would learn to swear in
the army;" "When a scamp loves a good girl, let him thank
the devil that love is blind."
Characterization ranks among the excellences of writers
of fiction, and here in the main Dr. Mitchell wins our approval.
Hugh Wynne's SAveet French mother and his charming devo-
tion to her fill the reader's mind with a healthful picture
of the sacred relation between child and parent such as all
could wish it to be. To have created such a mother is. as
has been said of Fielding's creation of Amelia, "a good ac-
tion." The father of Hugh is depicted as of stern honesty,
narrow religious bigotry, and paternal dignity. Jack Warder
is original and consistently drawn. Aunt Gainor, with her
big nose and rugged masculine sense, is a strong creation
and appears to the mind's eye distinct and real. The villain-
ous cousin. Arthur Wynne, with the exception of Darthea
the most difficidt to manage of all the dramatis [xt'sonw, is
an artistic creation, as every critic must concede who allows
deformity as well as beauty to be a proper subject for art.
The heroine, Darthea. around whom the love-thread of the
story winds, is in a measure disappointing, the treatment of
this character being for the author apparently an up-hill bus-
iness and calling for constant effort on his part. Darthea,
while in many respects a clear-cut, vigorous creation, is in
no sense a natural love character. There are some fine touches
in the minor personages of the story, and an occasional strong
light is turned upon historical ones. Washington is shown a
little more human than as usually portrayed, perhaps unjustly
so. though the writer's admiration for him is sufficiently pro-
nounced and wholesome.
140 MISCELLANEA
As a historical novel, no loss than for intrinsic creative
excellence, Hugh Wynne is a valuable contribution to Ameri-
can literature. This historical feature is necessarily hampered
by the exigencies of love-making. Excepting the siege of
Yorktown, the description of which is fidl and vivid, and
tile tiglit at Germantovv^n, of which too little is made, battles
iigure but little in the novel. The hero is not permitted to
share the liardships of \^allcy Forge, nor to be present at
till' battb' of Monmouth, evidently that he may be in Phila-
(U'lpliia foi' tlie purpose of love-intrigue. Much is made of
the Arnold-Aii(lr(! episode, and this piece of work is extremely
well done.
Considerabk' local colonial information, relating chietly to
Philadelphia, is contained in the book, social and religious
customs being revived with more or less truthfulness, certainly
with fascinating power. The inferences to be naturally drawn
from the book regarding the character and tenets of the
Friends will, with some show of justice, find ready objectors
among the members of that pacific and admirable sect.
It is not often tliat tlie plots and situations of a story are
eoiu-ei\ ('(1 and atteiidt'd to with so much skill as they are in
Hugh Wynne. They are sut^ciently numerous to maintain
intei-est. witliout offending the judgment arid taste.
HTLEKS OF EXGLAXD.
Two Williams, two Henrys with Stephen between,
A Richard, a John, a Third Henry are seen.
Three Edwards next Second Richard precede.
Then three more Henrys in succession lead.
Fourth Edward and Fifth, and Richard number three
To Seventh and Eighth Henrys give way speedily:
Then Edward the Sixth, and Mary and Bess
Give place to the Stuarts' long line of distress;
Of whom .lames the First, Scotland's king, leads these names —
Charles the First, the two Cromwells, Second Charles, and Second James.
Queen Anne follows here (after William and Mary),
And four Hanoverians, whose names do not vary-
Then William the Fourth, and Victoria good and great,
Whose son and grandson in turn rule Britain's state.
MISCELLANEA 141
PROSE - POETS.
A WRITER with some audacity claims that America has
produced only three men of original genius. Jonathan
Edwards. Benjamin Franklin, and Nathaniel Haw-
thorne; thus seeming by an arbitrary line to exclude all our
poets from the company of the inspired. If this dictum be
accepted, it must be taken to imply that poets are not neces-
sarily possessed of original genius, for no one will deny that
Poe and Whittier are as rightfully called poets as are Chaucer
and Burns. As might be expected in consideration of our
youth as a nation, we may be said to have discovered no
literary characters worthy to be classed with the loftiest
geniuses, still we hav(; a number who rise above mere respect-
ability. Our writers of the nineteenth century show well by
the side of their contemporaries of other countries, and in
some respects they appear i)reeminent by the comparison. Our
authors are exceptional for their purity of personal character
and for the healthy moral tone of their writings. The list
is marked also by an unusual number of those who write
almost equally well both prose and poetry. Matthew Arnold,
himself a prose-poet, could not quite decide whether Emerson
is poet, essayist, or philosopher. Lowell is in some degree
all these, and a brilliant satirist besides. Holmes and Stedman,
to say nothing of others, may be added to Emerson and Lowell
to make a quartet of contemporary American authors pos-
sessing in an unusual degree this double facility in literary
composition. It would not be easy to find their parallel in
any other nation's literature of a single century. These men
prove what Stedman says in his Nature of Poetry, that a
real poet usually writes good prose;. These writers alone are
enough to remove all the discredit that has been cast upon
poets who presume to write prose, even if it be a discredit
emphasized by Carlyle, who declares that no man has any
business to try to write poetry if it is possible for him to
express himself in prose. Landor. who wrote exquisite prose
as well as praiseworthy verse, gloried in the thought that
he received inspiration from having his birth-place near that
of Shakspeare. Of this coincidence he proudly says:
142 MISCELLANEA
•'1 drank of Avon, too, a dangerous draught,
That roused within the feverish thirst of song."
Milton's prose is of the highest order. Goethe, who may
well vie with Milton and two or three others in holding as a
poet the next place after Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare, wrote
prose of surpassing excellence, and enough of it to immor-
talize him if he had never tried verse at all. Not a little of
Shakspeare 's brightest thought is expressed in veriest prose.
The poet Goldsmith depicted in prose fiction characters that
drew forth admiration from both Scott and Goethe ; and to
be approved by these men is indeed praise enough. Scott
was led to the Avriting of prose fiction by the example of
Cervantes. Both at first acquired fame as poets, but, being
eclipsed by rivals, they abandoned the muse and proceeded
to Avrite the best prose of its kind. Scott said: "1 relinquished
poetry because Byron 'bet' me." Swift, so famous as an essay-
ist, began as a writer of poetry, as did also i*lato and numer-
ous other distinctly prose writers.
THE PLEASURES OF READING SHAKSPEARE.
FOR the novice, primarily, the reading of Shakspeare is a
source of pleasure on account of his marvelous richness
of literary expression and beauty of tliought. This
greatest of poets is not only unecpialed by any other writer
for the number and excellence of the fine tilings he says, but
he can almost be said to surpass in this respect all other writ-
ers. If a poet is to be estimated by the luuiiber of quotable
passages taken from his writings, a ci'iterion by no means
universally true, Shakspeare stands so decidedly first that no
one may be mentioned as second to him. His masterly thought,
almost infinite in Aariety, is at the same time enhanced l)y a
diction so inimitable, so rhythmic and poetic, so seemingly
artless yet so perfect in its art, that no otlier may be placed
in comparison with him. One of the most quoted poets after
Shakspeare is Pope, but his thoughts are in prosaic rather
than poetic dress. The best things in Milton, Browning, and
Wordsworth rise at times to the highest degree of excellence.
MISCELLANEA 143
but in qimutity they are meagre when placed beside the riches
of Shakspeare. Thousands of the admirers of Shakspeare never
get beyond this first and most obvious phase of the great poet 's
charm, and never come to know that his true greatness lies
in something deeper and more fundamental.
Another source of pleasure in reading Shakspeare is found
in his characterization, not only in his own creations, but in his
historic persons as well. xVlthough he does not alwaj^s create,
but sometimes accepts his dramatis pvrsonce from the hands of
others, even in the latter case his magic retouch amounts to a
creation. In matters historical and l)iographical. it may be
remarked, the poet is not under oath. In treating of history
and biography he allows himself the privilege accorded the
artist in the treatment of a landscape, who raises a mountain
here and depresses another there, and for variety adds to his
picture a forest, a brook, an old mill, or a church, as it suits
his fancy. To emphasize by repetition, it is a real delight to
study Shakspeare 's characters as characters, which are of so
great variety and of such surpassing excellence, that they
simply put the creations of other writers out of competition.
The profoundest minds have expended their critical powers
upon this feature of Shakspeare 's work. Mention need only
be made of Goethe. liis critique on the ungraspable Hamlet
is the highest tribute one great poet ever paid another. For-
tunately, the shadowiness enveloping such characters as Ham-
let and Lear does not veil Shakspeare 's creations generally.
His men and women are for the most part clearly portrayed,
and their lifelikeness is readily within the appreciation of
common minds. As a pleasure study, Shakspeare 's women
cannot be too highly praised. Their charms never stale. As
is the case with the personal charms of Cleopatra, so it is with
the richer graces of heart and soul which shine forth in Juliet.
Imogen, C'ordelia. and many others. It is in the contemplation
of such offspring of genius that the jpsthetic appetite "grows
by what it feeds on."
The highest pleasure to be derived from Shakspeare 's dra-
mas is admittedly that afforded by the ethics they contain.
Only the select few. possessed of a finer intuition and equipped
with the results of prolonged and severe study, rise to the
144 MISCELLANEA
ethereal regions of this highest enjoyment. The ethics of
Shakspeare's tragedies is to their inferior qualities somewhat
as classic music is to the simple and uninspired songs of the
street.
ENGLISH ORTHOEPY.
THE human voice is one of the greatest of God's gifts,
whether as an instrument of music, a means of ordinary
conversation, or a medium of elegant oral discourse.
The study of English, then, should mean something beyond
the study of the works of English and American authors, or
facility in writing correct English ; it must include correct
speaking of the language, and especially the charm that be-
longs to good oral reading. The natural order is too often
reversed: pupils are set to studying the diction, style, and
abstruse passages of such writers as Tennyson, ]Macaulay. and
Hawthorne, who could not read a page orally with grace and
intelligence. The coming English, as it should be taught in
the secondary school, will make much of speaking the language
properly and reading it aloud intelligently. As in music re-
gard is had not only for the quality of the composition but
for the way it is played or sung, so in literature stress should
be laid upon the oral rendering, as well as upon the literary
content.
For the present purpose of this article, oral expression is
essentially narrowed to a single phase of the subject, orthoepy,
or pronunciation, or, as it is sometimes designated, phonology.
Orthoepy lies at the very foundation of both speaking and
oral reading, and, consequently, is no insigniticant part of
the teaching of English. Grammar is defined as the art of
speaking and writing a language correctly ; but by common
acceptance, correct speaking has reference to correct syntac-
tical forms rather than to correct oral delivery. Hence, to
satisfy the usually recognized demands of grammar, it is only
necessary that a speaker avoid false syntax. But to give
correct oral expression to our words, as regards accent and
the sound of the letters, should be considered as desirable
MISCELLANEA 1-45
an aci'omplishment as to observe in speech any of the other
proprieties. George William Curtis, one of the most polished
orators of the century, attended to the minutest points of ortho-
epy with the critical care of an accomplished tragedian.
There is but one sure remedy for the imperfections of
speech, and that is much reading aloud before competent
critics who censure freely. The claim is sometimes made,
and on good grounds, that Avith all the training of the schools
the teaching of grammar, so far as it is intended to produce
the habit of proper oral expression, generally fails to accom-
plish its purpose. One obvious reason for this is the unfav-
orable influences of the home and the street, where violations
of ])oth syntax and orthoepy are so prevalent in connnon
discourse as to neutralize the instniction of the school. Often.
even the pupil's attempts to overcome his defects are ridiculed
by his associates, and he is regarded as a pedant. The teacher,
however, must not relax his efforts, but rather redouble them,
trusting that none of his labor will be in vain in the end.
Some one has said with epigrammatic force, that "no virtuf
is safe that is not enthusiastic.'' This is preeminently true
of those who make right oral expression the object of their
labors.
To accomplish what professional duty demands, the teacher
of correct oral expression, and this should mean every teacher,
must be politely aggressive in criticising his pupils whenever
detected in the mispronunciation of a word, and must add zeal
to demonstrativeness. A difficulty at the outset is the determi-
nation of the standard of authority in pronunciation. No two
lexicographers wholly agree. The teacher, however, can hard-
ly be expected to follow any one authority invariably. Speak-
ers who are most careful in their attention to accuracy in
oral discourse are the least likely to be content with a single
authority. The pronunciation of English words is marked by
some strange inconsistencies, showing that it is sometimes a
purely arbitrary matter, and has no regard for analogy; e. g.,
"latent," "patent." It gives one a startling sensation to
become suddenly aware of some unaccountable mistake in
orthoepy, which he has been making unconsciously all his
life. AVhen old Dr. Johnson was a boy, he started out to
1 46 MISCELLANEA
maki' of himself a violin player ; but when some one told
him that, in ordei' to play well, a violinist must play all the
lime, he gave up the attempt. It is just so with human speech.
It is not enough to become proficient in it; one must constantly
exert himself to continue proficient. It is possible to relapse
from a high standard of correct speech to a state of practical
iiidift'ereiice. This fight for the correct pronunciation of Eng-
lisli. if taken up with a view to any worthy degree of success,
inusl l)e taken up for life, and the contlict must be waged
every day and every hour.
Elocution has reeeived a bad name, and it is only just to
say that its unhappy relegation to disgrace is to be laid at
the doors of its self -proclaimed friends. So many without
the pretense of culture have stormcjd and ranted in the name
of elocution, that the word has been brought into contempt.
Some of these elocutionary exploiters "Play such fantastic
tricks before high Heaven as makes the angels weep." Never-
theless, the teacher of elocution, if cultivated and competent, is
one of the most important teachers in the school. The influence
of his instruction is far-reaching, humanizing, and every way
salutary.
HORACE.
TllERP] are in the world's history three epochs of excep-
tional brilliancy, — the age of Pericles, the age of Au-
gustus, and the age of Elizabeth. It is no small matter
that a great man lived amid the stirring scenes and intellectual
awakenings of any one of these periods, and that he was able
to say, ''Qnoruui pars magna fui." This the Latin poet Horace
could say, as a participant in the momentous events of the
Augustan age, — the strife between Caesar and Pompey, the
passing of the Rubicon, the battle of Pharsalia, the memorable
"Ides of March." and the defeat of Brutus and Cassius at
Pliilippi. Although the part he played was essentially one
of peace, he was a conspicuous figure in the golden age of
Rome.
Horace was born at Venusia. a countrv town on the borders
MISCELLANEA 147
of Apulia and Campania, in the year 65 B. C. His father,
at one time a slave but made a freedman before his son's
birth, is thought to have been a public auctioneer. The son.
it will be seen, owed nothing to distinguished ancestry, and
in this respect was less favored than his literary contempor-
aries, C^atullus and Ovid. He was proud of having sprung
from the common people. He was an only child, a fact not
to be lost sight of when his disposition is taken into account.
Like Cassius, he was of a hasty temper, but his passion was
soon cooled. His spirit was one of happy contentment. He
had no great desire for wealth. He had an inordinate love
of country life. He was of a stature below the medium, and
was thick-set and fat. His hair, originally black, early began
to turn gray. He had dark and Mu^ak eyes. Of his dress he
was careless. Unfortunately we have no authentic busts or
medallions of Horace. He was a vegetarian, and, like Virgil,
a bachelor. A fondness for l)ooks treating of great old men
was one of his characteristics; these he loved next after his
friends.
The great poets have not all been well educated. Of the
renowned trio. Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare. Dante alone
seems to have been favored in this particular. Horace had
the best education of his time ; to this end his father was
scrupulously attentive. At the age of tM'elve Horace was taken
to Rome, where he enjoyed superior school advantages, as
his father believed that the completest intellectual culture was
the best guarantee of a successful career in life. The father
even acted as his son's pedagogue and went to school with
him every day. He also took the dt?epest interest in his son's
moral training, and to this end gave constant personal over-
sight, a privilege tlie soi] probably had the benefit of until
his twentieth year. Horace often declared that he owed every-
thing to his fatlu^r's care. So great was his filial esteem, that,
.if allowed to choose his father from among all the great men
of history, he could find none to be preferred to his own. He
makes no mention of his mother or of other relatives. Horace,
at first at Rome, was educated principally through the study
of Latin authors and Homer. Subsequently he went to Athens
and gave his attention to philosophy, "searching after truth
148 MISCELLANEA
among the groves of the Academy," where Plato had taught
three centuries before. Here, for three or four years imme-
diately preceding the death of Julius Caesar, he continued
his education zealously and without interruption, having as
fellow-students other Roman youths, and among them the son
of Cicero.
Horace's native strength of character may be seen in the
fact that at the early age of twenty-two, although the son
of a freedman and without military experience, he was made
a military tribune in the army of Bnitus and Cassius, an
office equal in rank to that of brigadier in our service. He
must have lacked military bearing, and have been wholly want-
ing in taste for a soldier's life. It is worthy of remark, that
it is altogether likely that Brutus was not a good judge of
what goes to the making of a successful military commander.
The poet's allusion in one of the odes to having left his shield
behind him at Philippi, is most likelj^ playful and no acknowl-
edgment of cowardice. He evidently means to laugh at the
absurdity of having been a soldier at all.
As we cannot know all the circumstances, it is impossible
to understand how Horace gained the friendship of Octavius.
especially after having so emphatically sided with his enemies.
We onl}' know that the process was gradual and required
thirteen years for its accomplishment, that is, if the ode in
Avhich he first eulogizes Caesar is to be trusted.
The works of Horace contain much that is autobiographical.
AVhile he often alludes to himself, he generally escapes the
charge of egotism. He does not, like Rousseau, profess to
i-eveal his uttermost self, even to telling everything that is
to his discredit ; he does confess to some obliquities in morals
that call for the exercise of a charitable judgment. It is not
to be supposed that he is always quite serious in his self-
revelations, although his apparent frankness makes it easy to
believe what he says of himself. He depicts life ar Rome in
minute detail, ev(>n to its dudes, mad dogs, dinners, suicides,
and funerals. His description of a l)ore is for all time.
Though in his writings Horace sometimes uses the language
of the religion of his time, and often alludes to the Olympian
mythology, he evidently does both with little sincerity. In
MISCELLANEA 1 4:9
this respect he is imlike Virgil, whose Ncry fibre Avas rcvereuee.
Iloraee. without doubt, believed in a future state of existeuee.
but one of no eonsequenee when compared with the |)rt'S(Mil
life. He lacked the religious temperament, though, in tlie
later years of his life, his skepticism was less pronounced.
Horace had what has been called "the rare gift of raillery,
which flatters the self-love of those whom it seems not to
spare." He had a kind of contempt for the early Latin poets.
Poverty and youth gave audacity to his satire. His egotism
appears rarely, as when he prophesies his own immortality,
"striking the stars with head sublime." His No)! omnis moriar,
if egotism, is egotism well approved by time. Plis character
and writings were greatly influenced by his early natural
surroundings, as he shows by contrasting the vices of the
city with the virtues of the country. By a few writers of
note Horace has been denounced as a flatterer. Owing to the
circumstances in which he was placed, he would have been
more than human if the charge were Avholly unfounded.
About fifty years ago. quite after the schoolboy fashion,
and with the irksome feeling of one who is set to a disagree-
able task. I first made the acquaintance of this poet. Though
l was at that time undisciplined and but slightly acquainted
with books, still something of the poet's genius was felt by
me and had its influence in forming a literary taste.
Like Goethe, the most autobiographical of poets, Horace
■"transmutes experience into song." He copies the Greeks,
as every writer of taste is likely to do. To copy the Greeks
successfully will alw^ays be a mark of good taste. When Virgil
was accused of imitating Homer, he declared it easier to steal
Hercules 's club than Homer's verse. Horace was something
far superior to being an imitator of the Greeks. Mil man says
regarding him: "Of Rome and the Roman mind no one can
Iviiow anything who is not profoundly versed in Horace."
Horace was at first inclined to write Greek verses, just as
Milton and Landor for a time wrote Latin verses. Upon his
return home from Greece, his father being dead, his property
confiscated, and being himself an enemy of the new and domi-
nant party, he was driven to writing in order to gain a liveli-
hood. He always wrote slowly and with nuich painstaking.
15U MISCELLANEA
It was charac'tcristic of his art to shun all rln^torical tlourish.
His first writings were his satires and some of his epodes ;
the odes came next ; the epistles last. His epistles have very
appropriately been called "the canon of good taste." These
he could not have written until qualified for it by experience.
Horace can never be a favorite with immature minds. He
is the ancient classic writer most popular with scholars. To
appreciate him fully, one must read much between the lines.
As stated in an essay by Professor O'Leary, "TTnder and
through all tliat Horace wrote there runs a strand of meaning
which calls for a fuller exploration than a single perusal
enables us to make." Following is what Byron says of his
early inability to appreciate Horace: —
"Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine ! It is a curse
To understand, not feel, thy lyric fiow.
To comprehend, but never love thy verse."
Horace is one of the more original of the Latin poets. He
is a great lyric poet and a great critic, and preeminently a
master of expression. Like most men of genius, he had but
little faith in inspiration. As a literary artist he excels in
simplicity and conciseness. His love odes are passionless ; they
have been compared to flowers which though beautiful are
odorless. While Virgil has many imitators, Horace has none.
Some one has laid down the rule, by no means of universal
application, that a poet is great in proportion as he is much
quoted. This measure of greatness alone would magnify Hor-
ace sufficiently. Though in many respects as a lyrical poet
he is like Burns, and in dreamy brooding over peasant life
suggests Gray, he never touches the popular heart as they
do. He wrote about love coldly, and except in close inter-
course with a few men, like Maecenas and Virgil, almost in-
vites the sarcasm that has been pronounced upon Fontenelle,
that "he had as good a heart as could be made out of l)rains."
Horace was not over-confident concerning his oAvn abilities.
The famous scholar, Julius Scaliger, a great admirer of Horace,
said he would rather have written Ode I. of Book IV. than be
king of Aragon.
JMISCELLANEA 151
It is iniaeeouiitable that the world should wait for a French-
man of the 18th eentury to discover the beautiful in nature
and embody in literature an expression of the sentiment. Such
a revelation of feeling by Rousseau in his descriptions of Lake
Geneva and its surroundings, has, it is believed, no just coun-
terpart in writings of earlier times. Virgil barely hints at
the beauty of natural scenery, where he represents yEneas
entering the mouth of the Tiber at daybreak, and Horace in
a similar mood alludes to "Tempe's leafy vale," and also to
the excelling features of his Sabine farm, though in the latter
case he may mean nothing more than its utilitarian aspect.
Horace is constantly and persistently urging the necessity
of moderation — the keeping of the happy golden mean in
everything. Another favorite theme with him is the fleeting
character of time. The end of his philosophy is the teaching
of self-control. As a moralist he so far recognizes the veniality
of men 's frailties, that he has been charged with a willingness
to condone vice. As is usual with men, the older he grew,
the more insistent he became upon the respect due to virtue.
He inveighs against avarice, extols the good old times of pure
living, and urges the practice of frugality. Enjoy the present
is the beginning and the end of his philosophy. A few of
his finest verses show that the bachelor poet emphasized rev-
erence for the marriage tie. He believed that happiness must
come from within, not from outward circumstances. Owing
to his constantly impressing the lesson of contentment, Horace
has been a most helpful preacher. He sees clearly that men
are more strongly moved by ridicule than by censure. He
shows up the well-nigh universal notions men have in regard
to their own particular vocation, how each thinks his calling
is more harassing than those of other people. Although in
his teachings there breathes something of the Epicurean spirit,
he is not strenuous for any system of philosophy. His creed
may be epitomized in this: Conscious integrity is proof against
all the changes of fortune; restrain passion; do not sacrifice
the present in anticipation of the future; do not brood over
M'hat others have more than you possess, but think how much
of their possessions would be superfluous for you; live each
day as if it were to be your last.
152 MISCELLANEA
The great poets have nut all been patriotic. Shakspeare,
the greatest of all, is rather exceptional in that he had a
decided patriotic bias, a characteristic Goethe lacked utterly.
That Horace, who possessed less of the patriotic spirit than
Virgil, was not wholly devoid of it, is evidenced in certain
passages of his writings, especially in Ode 3, Book III., where
he aims to dissuade Augustus from making Carthage instead
of Rome the seat of government. Another instance is his
description of Regulus's return to Carthage. It was a matter
of great satisfaction and pride that he was called upon by
Augustus to wTitc the Carmen Scculare.
It has been not unusual for poets to find favor at court.
No other, perhaps, ever enjoyed in this respect what Horace
was favored with. His close relations with the great are,
all things considered, without a parallel in the liiographies
of literary men. Horace owed his social advancement orig-
inally to Virgil, who recognized his rare gifts and introduced
him to Maecenas, who in due time brought him to the notice
of Octavius. It will thus ])e seen that, while destitute of the
favoring influences of birth and Avealth, Horace came at length
to adorn the first society of the Augustan age. His relations
with Maecenas M^ere unique. After his introduction Maecenas
waited nine months before taking any further notice of him.
So strongly did Horace become attached to his great patron,
that he even expressed a wish not to survive hinu The fact
that Horace had no family made it easy for him to l)estoM'
all his affection upon a brilliant coterie of distinguished men.
He dedicated eight odes, four epodes, and three epistles to
Maecenas. It is to the credit of Horace that he speaks eulo-
gistically of the contemporary poets Pollio, Varius, and Virgil.
The last mentioned he calls ''the best of friends and bards."
How pretty the picture of the leisurely-taken journey to Brun-
disium. at one stage of which Horace and Virgil take a quiet
nap. Avhile the versatile ^Maecenas plays ball ! The standing
Horace had with Augustus was, as has been said, something
altogether exceptional. Owing to his close relations with him
and with others of high position, he must have known many
state secrets, which he discreetly kept to hinjself. Augustus
knew a man when he saw one, and was quite competent to
MISCELLANEA ] 53
judge of a poet's merit. He urged Horace to become his
priA'^ate secretary; but the poet declined the offer with inof-
fensive grace. To be on such unusual terms with the great
must have made Horace unpopular with those M^ho were so-
cially less favored than himself.
The poet was never in affluent circumstances. He even
lost his little patrimonial estate, which in all likelihood was
assigned to the soldiers of Augustus; nor was it ever returned
to him. as was done in the case of Virgil. For several years
after returning penniless from Greece, he had the rather mea-
gre compensation dtn-ived from a Treasury clerkship. When
he piiblislied his first book of satires. Maecenas gave him a
Sabine farm situatetl about thirty miles north-east of Rome.
This farm must have been of considerable size, as it recpiired
a steward and eight slaves to manage it. The thing of great
importance is, it gave the poet something like a competency
and insured contentment and happiness. Some of his most
charming literary work was inspired by this beneficence of
Maecenas. Traces of this farm are still to be seen, and of
late years it has been much visited hy cultivated English tour-
ists; owing to which fact the neighboring people have come
to think Horace must have been an Englishman. The poet's
small property was left to Augustus.
In the biography of a great man every little personal inci-
dent is important. The bees settling on Pindar's lips will
be recalled as a single instance in point. It is recorded of
Horace that, when a child, he was lost among the hills, fell
asleep, and was covered over with myrtle leaves by wood
pigeons: also that when returning from Greece he came near
being shipwrecked on the coast of Sicily ; and that once he
barely escaped death from a falling tree.
Maecenas died in the year 8 B. C. Horace, almost in exact
fulfilment of a wish expressed seventeen years before, follov/ed
him a few months later. They were buried near each other
on the Es(|uiline Hill.
Theodore Martin, in the preface to a life of Horace, says :
"No writer of antiquity has taken a stronger hold upon the
modern mind than Horace. The causes of this are manifold,
but three may be especially noted — his l)r()ad human sympa-
1 54 MISCELLANEA
thies. his vigorous common sense, and his consummate mastery
of expression."" Again the same writer says by way of ilhis-
trating- liow the poet meets the wants of ^'arious■ natures:
"Dante ranks him next to IIomut Warwickshire has. aside
from Shaivspeare. even a greater distinction than ruins can
give, that of ])roducing Gc^orge Eliot, perhaps the greatest
intellect among women, and Walter Savage Landor. the prose-
poet whose high claim to ])raise as a writer is only e(|ualed
l)y his neglect.
It has l)een said of Shakspeare: "He who has told us
nu^st al)out ourselves, whose genius has made the whole world
Idn. has told us nothing about himself." It was a great satis-
faction to Tennvson to have the Avorld know so little of Shaks-
MISCELLANEA 155
peare. as he feared that a too familiar aeciuaintam-e with his
life miy'ht lessen the esteem in whieh he is held. Still, some
acquaintance with the personality of an author, even when
his failing's are i)rominent. is essential to the apprecitition of
his writings.
FcAV authors have had so many innocent frailties as Lau-
dor; l)ut in spite of them we are inclined both to love the
man and i)raise the literary artist. Landor is [jreemincnt for
his unpopularity both as a man and writer. In this doui)le
aspect he stands extn^me among great men. \Vhile he has
neither moi-e nor greater eerentricities than Carlyle, tiie latter
is read by thousands wiicrc lu^ is i-ead by tens.
in Landor 's nature, so far as it relates to social nitrr-
course, there is almost everything to condemn ; but beneath
all that appears disagreeable on the surface, he is so kind-
hearted, so given to sympathizing with the weak and dis-
tressed, so ready to stop on the hither side of malice and
injury, that we are forced to admit that his failings e^er
lean to virtue's side. It is natural to feel some tenderness
for a man who loves his mother. Landor had a tender atfec-
tion for his mother. AVhile she lived he corresponded with
her regularly, and at her death was greatly affected, although
he had not seen her for fifteen years. Landor ne\'er b-arned
anything by experience in his intercourse with otheis : yet
his writings generally show him the judicious man. This is
Stedman's testimony regarding him: ""If he seldom did a
wise thing, he seldom Avrote a foolish one."
Landor's education lacked regularity, as might be expected
from his great contradictoriness of chara<-ter. He <'ntered
Rugl)y. the famous AVarwickshire school, at the age of ten
and remained there ti\'e years. The sciences were distasteful
to him. Although not versed in botanical Icnowledge. he loved
tiowers passionately and wrote such exquisite things as the
following about them: —
"J never pluck the I'ose ; the violet's head
Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank
And not reproached me; the ever sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath l>etween my hands
Felt safe. nns^)il(Ml. noi" lost one grain of gold."
15t) MISCELLANEA
The t'lassies always M-ere his doli^ht. His Greek scholar-
ship Avas less severe than his Latin. l)ul was snfficient to enable
him to read Plato in the original. lie read the entire Odyssey
in the original after his eighty-tit'th year. lie was not exactly
expelled from Rugby, but his going away was in some manner
the result of defying authority. He entered Trinity College,
Oxford, at the age of eight(M'n. and. like Shelley, was expelled
from that institution. Leigh Hunt ranked Landor next after
Milton as an English-Latin scholar. His knowledge of Latin
recalls what some epigrammatist has said of the scholarship
of Valla, the famous Italian ecclesiastic of the fifteenth cen-
tury, that since he went among the shades, Pluto himself has
not dared to speak in the ancient languages. As an absorber
of knowledge Landor was something remarkable. He relied
too nnu'h upon the unaided memory and too little upon books
always to secure desirable accuracy. He used to say he had
one history he had read and another he had invented. He
was unable to read slowly anything which delighted him. and
Avhen about lo write alistained from reading for a long time.
His memory Avas prodigious. Like most literary men of dis-
tinction, he knew well at most but one language besides his
own. He once said in regard to the literature which had influ-
enced him: ''My sole felicity as a poet is this, that when I
wrote Gebir I had not read any modern continental poetry
except the Henriade of Voltaire, one tragedy of Corneille. and
La Fontaine's Fables. Fresh from reading the Greek trage-
dians and Pindar. Voltaire and ('orn(>ille were intolerable to
me."
Landor was decidedly eccentric in his tastes. Generally
he made a judicious choice of characters for his Conversa-
tions; but few of them, however, are women. He never cul-
tivated a taste for works of art. but had a passion for buying
bad pictures. He disliked the declamation of orators, and
said he had never seen a play acted a dozen times in his life.
As a maker of English blank verse it is conceded by good
judges that he excels nearly all who preceded hiuL His range
as a literary artist was almost boundless, from the heights
of the epic and dramatic to the merest fragments of song;
but he was incapable of sustained effort, such as is necessary
MISCELLANEA If)?
for the best epic and dramatic work. Stedman calls Landor
the modern Greek, and awards him the honor of being instru-
mental in restoring English verse to its classical elegance.
His first forms of expression seldom needed returning to the
anvil. His Latin poems, afterwards translated into English
Hellenics, are of great beauty. He says of himself: "1 Avant
dexterity, and never do anything right except in moments
of great danger. Then instinct prevails."
Of Landor 's artistic spirit and habits of work one may
judge somewhat from his declaration that he would never
publish a poem that contained any character of a human
being, until he had lived with that character two or three
years. He says: "I left Count Julian and his daughter twice
because each had said things which other personages might
say; the other characters are no characters at all. As to
Gebir, I am certain that I rejected what almost every man
would call the best part." He disliked composing verse within
doors, except rarely in bed. He claimed to have written the
better part of a tragedy in a concert room, and to have written
a thousand lines of Count Julian in forty hours. In compos-
ing he would work for four or five hours together after long
walks. When engaged in new literary effort he quite forgot
sorrow and grievances. He confirmed Avhat has been exper-
ienced by so many w^riters, in declaring that it is hardly pos-
sible to recover a lost thought "without breaking its wings."
Some have thought it a great waste of time for Landor to
have written Latin verses ; but without this practice he doubt-
less never would have acquired that inimitable touch so char-
acteristic of his English style. Of him, as of almost no one
else, may it be said that he lived in the past. The following
sayings of his show in some measure his ideas of w^hat influ-
ences the labors of a literary man: "We often do very well
every thing but the only thing we hope to do best of all."—
"Pindar would not have written so exquisitely, if no fault
had ever been found with him."— "We value things propor-
tionally to the trouble they have given us in the acquisition."
There are certain general characteristics of the man Lan-
dor which are not to be overlooked. His impulses were gen-
erous. Whenever he proposed publishing a book, he would
] 58 MISCELLANEA
give it out that the proceeds were to be l)estowecl in diMrity.
It was in his nature to defy authority. He AA'as ^ixcii to a
kind of Avaywardness of spirit and was too laekinii- in tlirift
to keep intact his position as tirst in the entail of tlic family
estates. With authors perhaps more than with any other class
is what Shakspeare Avrote true: "The evil that men do lives
after them." Landor's character had two marked extremes:
the nol)ler is generally ignored : while the baser is kept con-
stantly in view. His fitful shoAvs of misanthropy, bis unman-
ageable and unreasonable anger, and his unpatriotic temper
are kept in the foreground, and it is for these qualities almost
exclusively that he is known ; while l)ut few take the trouble
to note his reckless charity and ready responsiveness to the
distress of men and nations.
Landor's writings suffer in popular regard from his intle-
l)endence in the choice of his subjects, although from the
critic's point of view these subjects may not be uuAvisely
chosen. Landor's fickleness was extreme. He desired a thing
until it Avas attained, and Avas immediately disgusted Avitb it.
Leigh Hunt epitomized his contradictoriness of character by
likening him to a stormy mountain pine that should produce
lilies. Except in the sphere of literary art Landor Avas ill-
balanced everywhere. His absent-mindedness was remarkable.
On several occasions he had forgotten the key to his port-
manteau, and in his efforts to break himself of the habit he
Avas not successful, as Avas made manifest on one occasion
when h(^ appeared flourishing the key triumphantly in his
hand; but then it appeared he had forgotten the portman-
teau. In regard to his personal appearance he AAas far from
fastidious, and at times Avas so Avretchedly dressed that the
servants took him for a beggar. He Avas. ncA'crtheless. of a
distinguished appearance, physically Avell formed, of medium
size, and had an engaging smile. LaAvyers Avere the objects
of his hatred, and he heartily detested clergymen. If immod-
erately tyrannical and rebellious, he Avas no hypocrite. In
peeAHsh fits he Avould rudely repel the courteous advances of
worthy people, although himself oA'er-sensitive and i-eady to
take ott'ense at the least cause. His priA'ate disputes and
laAvsuits remind one of the American novelist Cooper, tbough
MISCELLANEA 15!)
till' latter was a man of the soundest jiidgniciil and was almost
always from a legal standixtint technically I'ight. As a rule
Laiidor was chivalrous to all women except his own wife.
Of nuisic he was passionately fcuid. and he IoV(mI solitude,
('at'lyle said of him: "Landor's prineiples are mei'e rebel-
lion.'" Disraeli (Mice remarked eonc(n'ning' him; ' ^'ou will
he read hereafter." In his walks liand(n- ohjeded to com-
pany, as it disturbed his thinking.
Landor sliow^ed his excessive egotism in no way more clear-
ly than in writing to please himself only, lie at least seemed
to have contempt for fame, while implicity believing that lu?
was to "'dine late." "As a writer and as a man." he said.
"I know my station. If 1 found in the world five equal to
myself. 1 would Avalk out of it. not to be jostled." But his
egotism was not vain. He did nothing for mere effect. Much
as he held the criticisms of the vulgar in contempt, he con-
fessed that if the foolish had read Gebir. he should still have
continued to write poetry, saying that "there is something
of summer in the hum of insects." In some of his Conver-
sations he causes himself to appear promimnitly. If ten men
of taste in all P]ngland would praise Gel)ir. he said he would
be satisfied. De Quincey facetiously limited the number to
two. In writing his drama of Antony and Octavius he had
the presumption to follow Shakspeare's footsteps. He regret-
ted his ignorance of the German language, wishing to be able
to compare himself with Goethe, to whom some kindly dis-
posed critic had likened him. Landor has said of himself:
■"1 shall dine late, but the dining room will be well lighted,
the guests few and select." He was cnidently thinking of
himself Avhen he wrote: "There an^ writings which nnist lic^
long uj)on the straw before they mellow to the taste, and
ther(^ are summer fruits Avhich caiuiot abide the keej)ing."
Landor was proud of haA'ing been boi-n on the Avon, and
immortalized the fact in these famous lines fi-om Gebir: —
"I drank of Avon too. a dangerous di-;iuglit.
That I'oused within the feverish thirst of song."
Even Shakspeare might d('vn\ it an lu)nor that his native
WarAvickshire has produced Landoi- and George Eliot, writers
ItiU MISCELLANEA
SO worthy to form witli him a Warwicksliire literary trio.
At school and college Landor could never be induced to com-
pete for a prize. He was the first stiuh'ut at Oxford to
wear his hair without powder, showii)i>' in tliis his rcpuldic.iii
tendencies.
At one tiuic. when he had become thoroughly disgusted
with England, Landor was disposed to make his residence
in France. So long as Napoleon shoAved anti-despotic ten-
deiuMcs. Landor sympathized Mith him, showing his luitred
of royalty in such language as this: "Kingsliip," he says.
"is a profession which has produced few among the most
illustrious, many among the most (l('si)i(';ible. of the hunum
race.'' In his likes and dislikes Landor was strikingly incon-
sistent. He would praise America Mud Uonaparte. and in
almost the same breath denounce both. He would s;iy : "1
detest the Americans; but the Americans speak our language:
thej^ read Paradise Lost." Though denouncing everything
Italian, he was proud of his possessions and sui-roundings
in Italy, where he lived tlie greatei' part of his active life.
At Florence he writes: "Look from my window. That cot-
tage on the declivity was Dante's. Thei-e A\'as the first scene
of Boccaccio's Decameron. What must I think of a city where
Michaelangelo and Macchiavelli were secondary men! And
certainly such were they, if we compare them with Galileo,
Boccaccio and Dante." At Fiesole. near Florence, Landor
at one time OAvned a villa which had been built by Michael-
angelo. From 1836 to 1857 Landor lived rath(n- quietly at
Bath, on the other English Avon, the only city in the world
except Florence he thought fit for r(>sidence. For some libel-
ous publication he w^as compelled to quit England again, and
consequently he made Florence his home until the time of
his death in 1864. During the last six years of his four
score and ten Robert Browning and the Storys were liis kind
neighbors.
In 1802 Landor saw Napoleon, now consul for life, having
gone to Paris for the express purpose. In 1808 he was in
Spain desiring to serve in the Spanish army as a private
soldier. It was his boast that he was the first English vol-
unteer to go to the assistance of the Spaniards. King Ferd-
MISCELLANEA l(jl
dinand bestowed upon him the honorary title of Colonel. He
liked the Spaniards, saying that idle people are not rapacious.
In 1826 he visited Rome, where both the native population,
as Mcll as the English, showed him marked attention.
At the ag(^ of :^6 Laudor married a young Swiss girl with-
out fortune ; their conjugal life was most unhappy, owing
chiefly to his discordant temperament. He had the rather
unique theory that an excellent wife is in part the creation
of the husband after marriage, not seeming to realize that
the converse theory is quite as true, that a good husband
is in part the creation of the wife after marriage. A son
was l)()rn to him in 1818, when Landor was 43 years ohl,
and three other children subsequently. For his children when
j^oung his love was strong, and he could not endure having
them long out of his sight. Once when in Rome he wrote
to liis little son Arnold: "I shall never be quite happ>' until
I sec you again and put my cheek upon your head." In
alluding to his wife's taunting remarks about the inequality
of their ages, Landor said: "She never was aware that more
can be said in one minute than can be forgotten in a life time."
Landor 's neglect in Elngland is easily accounted for. About
all that can be found there to remind one of him is in War-
wick — the house where he was born, inscribed Avith his name
and birthdate. 1775, and his bust in St. Mary's Cathedral in
the same town. The fact is, that, in season and out of st^a-
son, Landor unceasingly expressed his detestation of England,
being one of the most unpatriotic men to be found in all
history. Royal England has in a measure forgiven Cromwell
and Milton, but then they never forgot that they were Eng-
lishmen. England was powerful and to Landor seemed op-
pressive. By nature he sided with the weak. Wlien Napo-
leon becanu' tyranni(;al. Landor espoused the cause of Spain.
Just as naturally he favored the American Colonies. He pro-
nounced Washington. Timoleon, and Phocion the three most
renowned patriots, and observed that their names all termi-
nate in on. His chief grievance against England was, that
her laws had not protected him in the possession of his prop-
erty. He called her a country where a man would be ruined
by pursuing his rights. In his political views he was both
Iti'J MISCELLANEA
iiicoiislHiit iitid inconsistent. Sonic one has declared him to
he •'fitted to h<'long to a party of one, and a party allowing
itself iiifinile \ariety of change." Sontliey told Lander that
in fil'ly years America wonld petitiorj to be received back
iiild the family. '1\) Southey he once wrote: "I do not agree
\\illi yon about Honaparte ; I hate him; 1 execrate him: but
! detest our own government worse." Of the French he re-
marked: 'The fewer Frenchmen there are in the world, the
happiei- will the world -be."
( )f fi-iendship Landor Avrote : "Friendship is a vase which
when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as
well be broken at once. Coarse stones, if they are fractured.
may be cemented again, precious ones, never." Emerson said
he crossed the Arlantic to see four faces, those of Words-
worth, Landor. Coleridge, and ('arlyle. De Quincey greatly
angered Landor by making an allusion to his hery radicalism
of sp(>ech and by describing him as a man intended l)y nature
to be a leader in storms, a martyr, or an arch rebel, but
whom the accident of too much Avealth had turned into a
solitary unsympathizing exih'. Jn an hour, the only time
Uiey vwr met, Landor and Charles Lamb became fast friends.
Southey and Wordsworth he visited at their homes amid the
English Lakes. He once rather too significantly remarked to
Wordsworth, that prose will bear a great deal more of poetry
than poeti'y will bear of prose. Emerson said Landor was
strang(4y undervalued in England, a fact patent enough at
the pi'esent day. Laudor included Southey and Coleridge
among his tew fast friends, the former being perhaps the
dearest he ever had. Landor realized at times his infelicity
in the way of friendship, saying that whoevei- came near him
was either unhappy or ungrateful.
Walter Savage Landor belongs to that class of writers who
divide their efforts b(»tween poetry and prose. This class, so
necessary to the complete rounding out of literature, contains
such (-(debrated names as Cervantes. Milton. Scott. Coleridge,
and Addison, and the less renowned, but yet highly worthy
ones, Poe. Lowell, llolmes, and Stedman. Li Landor 's esti-
mation iio writer of florid prose was ever more than a sec-
ondary poet. Stedman, to the contrary, says a real poet
usually wi-ites good prose. This, at any rate, is certain, lit-
MISCELLANEA 1 G3
erature would be the loser if any one of the names in the
foregoing list were missing.
In speaking of Landor tlie literary man we ninst first
speak of him as a poet, althongh the little popularity he
enjoys is almost wholly due to his prose writings. ]\Ir. Sted-
man. in his essays on the Vietorian Poets, gives Landor pre-
eedenee in the hook in point of time, allowing him the dis-
tinction of belonging to two periods and of being, as it were,
the link that joins in literary England the eighteenth and
the nineteenth eentnries. In a rather fragmentary way Lan-
dor touched nearly all the notes of the poetic gamut, and
with the distinctness and certainty of a master. — the epic,
the dramatic, and the miscellaneons. Like Shelley, he is a
poet of poets. It is extremely rare to find any one who reads
his verse. His epic Gebir, written at the early age of 22.
Avhether considered artistically or ethically, has the poetic
stamp as nnmistakable as that of Paradise Ijost ; bnt it is
of undignified brevity, and in other respects fails of the con-
ditions essential to success. Epics, like miracles, seem to have
gone out of date. Stedman pronounc(\s Tennyson's Idyls of
the King an epic of chivalry, and the only successful epic
of 200 years. The plot and the story of Gebir are taken
from an Arabian tal(\ The author's object in writing it was
to stigmatize the spirit of conquest. It is a poem not readily
understood and needs several re-readings to catch its true
(juality. To most readers it is at first distasteful. l)ecause
it is so thoroughly boiled down and its lines so overloaded
with thought. Both natural and supernatural characters are
employed in it. It comprises seven books and has 2,000 lines.
Among other characteristic beauties it contains the famous
shell passage, which both Wordsworth and Byron imitated
unhappily. This passage occurs in the conversational prelude
to the wrestling match between Tamar and the sea-nymph.
In reply to Tamar 's proposal to wager a sheep sh(^ offers a
shell and describes it in this beautiful language:
"But 1 hav(^ sinuous shells of pearly hue;
Shake one and it awakens, then apply
Its polished lips to your attentive ear.
And it remembers its august abodes.
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there."
164: MISCELLANEA
Laiidor follows other epics in allowing his hero a deseent
to the shades. Instead of invoking an infernal river he grace-
fully and with conscious pride pays a tribute to Shakspeare
and the xVvon, the favored stream of his native Warwick. To
perfect the poem after it was once written, Landor condensed
it, making it less intelligible to the general reader. Southey,
by praising this poem in the Critical Review, established a
life-long friendship with its author.
Landor 's tendency in poetry, as it was in prose also, was
in the direction of the dramatic. In his tragedy Count Julian
he depicts the last of the Gothic kings of Spain, one of the
grandest tragic conceptions imaginable. Entailed retribution
for sin is here as vividly portrayed as it is in the House of
Seven Gables. In this drama Landor as a poet reaches his
highest point. Here, as in Gebir, the fault is in excess of
meaning. This drama has very properly been called a verse-
dialogue. It is of so great merit that Julius Hare thought
it raised its author to a height where his work might bear
some little comparison to the Avritings of Shakspeare and
Sophocles. A close study of this tragedy, such as a literary
society might give to Othello or the Antigone, would reward
ethical and artistic research abundantly. Mr. Crump, the ed-
itor of Landor 's poems, says: "Just as Gebir reads like the
first work of an epic poet, Count Julian seems to promise
the world a great tragedian. No one but a great dramatist
could have written this drama ; a less than Landor might
have written his others." While Landor \s poetic fragments
and some of his dramas, like Antony and Octavius, have high
jiierit, Gebir and Count Julian are his poetic master-pieces :
Init, alas! tliey are not enough to constitute their author a
great poet. None of Landor 's poems have l)ecome household
Avords. In this he lacks the felicity of many inferior contem-
poraries. His poems are sometimes obscure, as Browning's
almost always are, but have fewer of the lightning flashes
of genius which at times raise Browning to the first rank.
The following excerpt from C'ount Julian shows a single in-
stance of his poetic elegances. It is a reply of Opas to Roder-
igo, prophesying a sudden and violent death, and is worthy
of Homer: —
MISCELLANEA 165
"Ne'er will the peace and apathy of age
Be thine, or twilight steal upon thy day."
in his Antony and Oetavius Landor represents Cleopatra,
after their flight at Aetium, as trying to assure Antony of
happier days to come, when Antony replies : —
"Never; when those so high once fall, their weight
Keeps them forever down."
It can be safely asserted that this drama contains more
tine things which Shakspeare might have written than any
equal amount of modern poetry by any other dramatic author.
Among his numerous shorter poems and epigrams, although
they occasionally contain gems, there is not one that is pop-
ularly known. Even Rose Aylmer, much lauded by critics,
no one knows by heart. Landor 's poetical works, like Words-
worth's, contain much that is valueless. He wrote upon
many insignificant themes, and sometimes insignificantly up-
on a great subject, as in the case of a fragment of three
lines only on Shakspeare. p]ven while at Rugby his Latin
verse Avas of such excellence that he often obtained by it a
holiday for the boys. He wrote 10,000 Latin heroic verses,
a measure he never tried in English, as Longfellow has done
in Evangeline.
Conversation writers, as a class, are of more than common
interest. The really great ones are so few as to be counted
on the fingers of one hand. The original writer of this kind,
the one from whom the others have copied, is the Syrian
Greek Lucian, of the second century of our era. In his Dia-
logues of the Gods and Dialogues of the Dead he displays
wit, satire, and acuteness of thinking, as Avell as the choic-
est style and diction. He has been called the greatest prose
satirist of antiquity. This is Landor 's sententious dictum
concerning Plato: "Certainly there was never so much elo-
(luence with so little animation. When he has heated his
oven, he forgets to put the bread into it; instead of which
he throws in another bundle of faggots." Lord Lyttelton.
the contemporary and friend of Fielding, like Landor. wrote
dialogues in imitation of Lucian. So did Rabelais. Pontenelle,
und La Fontaine. A single bric^f sentence shows Lord Lyttle-
l(i(i MISCELLANEA
ton's felicity in clcgaut aphoi'isnis : ""Wit is like grace; it
must come from al)ove. " He, as Avell as Landor. pays his
respects to William l^enn. likening' him to Solon, the wise
laAV-giver of (xrcMM-e.
Landor's re[)utation as an author rests chielly upon his
lmagi!iar>- ( 'omcrsatious, which contain some of the choicest
prose in 1h<' whole range of English literature. Often the
seiitiuieiits he puts into the mouths of his colloquists are col-
ored by his ow]i whims and prejndices. in the hi'st volume,
containing classical dialogues, he introduces such distinguished
characters as Achilles. Helen. Solon. .'Esoj), Xerxes, Sopho-
cles. Plato. XenophoiL .Mcihiades. Demosthenes, Alexander,
Aristotle. Hainiihal. Scipio. ('aesai-. Cicero. Virgil. Horace,
and LuciaiL In other volumes he |)resents himself. Southey,
Washington. Franklin, Peini, (Uiestertield, ChathanL ^lahomet,
Sir Philip Sidney, and \)r. Johnson. Xapoleon is conspicuous
by his absence from the Conversations. Landor almost apol-
ogizes for daring to introduce into his dialogues, not only
such distinguished 6olloquists as Demosthenes. Cicero, and
Bacon, but even Shakspeare. in compurison with whom he
calls the others cradled infants. He told Southey he Avas
frightened when he reflected that he had presumed to make
Shakspeare talk in a dialogue, as he had done in the Citation
for Deer-Stealing. Critics declare that in one of his Con-
versations Landor causes Cicero to say things wdiich. if said
by Cicero himself, would have enhanced his praise. P^merson
calls Landor "one of the foremost of that small class Avho
make good in the nineteenth century the claims of pure lit-
erature," and declares that for 20 years the Conversations
were his resource in solitude. He also says of him. as was
said of Socrates, that "many of his sentences are cid>es. whicli
w^ll stand firm, place them how or where you w^ill."
Between the y(^ars 1884 and 1887. while living at Fiesole.
Landor i)ul)lished thrcH' remarkable books, his choicest prose
works, the Pentameron. the CitatioiL and Pericles and As])asia.
So extraoidiiUH'y is the literary quality of these pi-ochictions
that it almost amounts to sacrilege to discuss them. This is
pi*eeminently the case with Pericles and Aspasia. .Vbout this
find the Pentameron tlierc^ is but one opinion; they are at
MI.-CELLANEA lti(
high water mark in English i>rose. and are completely satis-
fying to tlT,e most eritieal taste. They never bring satiety.
The I'entameron. as li;is been said, was Avritten at Fiesole
near Florence, where Lantlor owned tlu^ grounds on which
Hoceaccio had laid the scene of the famous Decameron. It
is ;i i\y(' (Uiys' conversation held by Boccaccio and I'etrarch
on Dante. Petrarch is nuuh^ to say: "Little more than a
tentli ol' the Decameron is bad; less than a twentieth of the
Divine Comedy is good." The tender relation existing l)e-
tween Dante and Beatrice is exquisitely shown when he says:
■'It is there where I shall have caught the first glimpse of
you again that I wish all my portion of Paradise to ])e assigned
me." The Citation of William Shakspeare foi* Deei'-Stealing.
which has been lavishly praised by Charles Lamb, is not uni-
forndy praised. Land) said of it: "Only two men could ha\c
written it. he who wrote it and the man it Avas written al)out."
Nearly every great writer has shown an altogether unwar-
I'anted enthusiasm for some particular work or author. So
Tluudveray praised the American Cooper above Scott. So Lan-
dor himself, under the stimulus of personal friendship. i)raised
Dickens too highly. The Citation one must read at least tlii-cr
times before disappointment wears away and its real merit
appears. As Landor makes the youthful Shakspeare discourse
before Sir Thomas Lucy, one thinks of Christ arguing in the
temple before the doctors. Lantior's biographer. Mr. Forster,
says of the Citation: "Nothing has been written about Shaks-
p<'are so worthy of surviving." The unfavorable criticism
evoked by the obscure language of the Citation does not apply
to Landor 's prose in general. In this he has an advantage
over Browning, nearly all of whose long poems are at tirst
difficult to read understandingly. But Landor 's masterpiece
is unquestionably Pericles and Aspasia. In this volume, in-
stead of a conversation, the epistolary method of communi-
cation is used. The letters end in the third year of the Pel-
oponnesian AVar. The characters, thoughts, and actions in the
book Landor declares to be all fictitious. He says that ''Peri-
cles was somewhat less amiable. Aspasia somewhat It^ss ^•irtu-
t)us ; Alcil)iades somewhat less sensitive." The last lettt'r of
Pericles to Aspasia n(^ar the (Mid of the ])ook. gives in language
168 MISCELLANEA
of genuine eloquence remiuiseences of the great statesman's
life, and is a remarkable resume of the Age of Pericles.
A few of Landor's aphorisms will here be given, to show
his happiness in thought and expression.
"Brief danger is the price of long security."
"Is it not in philosophy as in love, the more we have of
it, and the less we talk about it, the better?"
"There is no falsehood but whose features are composed
to the semblance of truth."
"The very beautiful rarely love at all."
"Few will allow the first to be first; but the second and
third are universal favorites."
"Tears do not dwell long upon the cheeks of youth. Rain
drops easily from the bud, rests on the bosom of the maturer
flower, and breaks down that one which hath lived its day."
"Love always makes us better. Religion sometimes. Power
never. ' '
"Wholesome is the wisdom that we have gathered from
misfortune. ' '
"Time softens rocks and hardens men."
"Enough of sunshine to enjoy the shade."
"We are what suns and winds and waters make us;
The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills
Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles."
"Those who are not quite satisfied are the benefactors of
the world."
"It is the nature of impudence never to be angry."
"The heart that has once been bathed in love's pure foun-
tain, retains the pulse of youth forever."
"I never was one of those Avho wish for ice to slide upon
in summer."
"The vices of some men cause the virtues of others."
"Solitude is the audience chamber of God."
"The recollection of a thing is frequently more pleasing
than the actuality."
"It is man and wife the first fortnight, lint wife and man
ever after."
Landor shows no appreciation of humor either in his own
writings or in his criticisms of others. Yet he discriminates
MISCELLANEA 169
finely between wit and humor. His criticisms upon the writ-
ings of others are too often influenced by his personal rela-
tions to them. or. in the case of the dead, by hastiness of
judgment. H(^ thought Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur more
Homeric than any other poem of our time. Whatever in
itself is excellent in poetry he considered to be best 'in blank
verse, but that everything below excellence borrows some-
thing from rhyme. He calls Spenster flimsy and fantastic,
and. strange to say. Chaucer a passably good novelist, but
liardly to be called a poet. Truly, good writers may be bad
critics. Landor may, if he pleases, talk of "the insipidities
of C'ato." but Addison's prose is quite equal to his own. To
his mind the sonnet is unsuited to the genius of our language,
though Wordsworth thought differently. It was Landor 's be-
lief that between good poetry and excellent there is a greater
difference than between the bad and the good. He admired
Ovid, but had too low an opinion of Horace. It was his opin-
ion, that experience makes us more sensible of faults than
of l)eauties. The most complicated of the ancient metres he
regarded less difficult to manage than English blank verse.
It annoyed him to think that there are no modern tragedies.
Of America's greatest patriot he wrote: "1 believe Wash-
ington to excel both in political and military wisdom all men
except Gustavus Adolphus. Surely never had human being
such difficulties to overcome: he is the greatest hero in the
noble galaxy; he had a large hand, which is an excellent
sign. Assassins have small hands. Napoleon had a small
hand." Comparing the two greatest English poets, he says:
■'A rib of Shakspeare would make a Milton; the same por-
tion of Milton all poets born ever since." Through the mouth
of one of his conversationalists he expresses himself in this
manner in regard to the fine arts: "If there are paces between
Sculpture and Painting, there are parasangs between Paint-
ing and Poetry. Sculpture and Painting are moments of life ;
Poetry is life itself." His flattering allusions to Shakspeare
are quite as numerous as Shakspeare 's admirers could wish.
The most extravagant is to the effect that "Shakspeare not
only keeps poetry alive, but Christianity, because when ])eople
see one inspired man. they may believe that there may have
170 MISCELLANEA
been another." In Lander's estimation literary composition
may be too adorned even for beauty. He had a high opinion
of Rogers, the banker-poet, thought Milton a greater poet
than Homer, praised Ben Jonson's pure English, called Keats
our Ariel of poetry, Scott our Prospero, and said Swift's Tale
of a Tub" was a work he had read oftener than any other
prose work in our language. At Como he and Southey dis-
cussed the probable duration of Byron's popularity and the
rising fame of Wordsworth, whose poetry he pronounced stu-
pendous. He declared that Wordsworth's language (a rare
thing) is English. In his judgment La Fontaine is the only
Frenchman who knows when he has said enough. He praised
in an extravagant manner ^Irs. Browning's Aurora Leigh.
For some reason Landor disliked Mackintosh, though Macau-
lay said of him: "1 generally find that I learn something
when talking with Mackintosh." It is related that Dr. Parr
once said, after an argument with Mackintosh: ''Jemmy, I
cannot talk you down, but 1 can think you down, Jemmy."
Landor declared that Dr. Johnson had put into his Lives of
the Poets several whose productions would hardly gain ad-
mittance into the corner of a provincial newspaper. If Gray's
Elegy had been written in another metre, he thought it would
not be the most admired poem in existence. Among the an-
cient poets he gives Pindar the second place. Virgil he rates
low, and calls his ^neas a wooden liero. He disliked Racine,
as he did the French generally. Franklin, Locke, and Alfieri
were rated high by him, as also were Keats, Shelley, and Mrs.
Jameson. He preferred Fox to Grattan and Pitt, enjoyed
reading Hazlitt, as every one must do, but thought Coleridge,
as a critic, worth fifty of him. He considered Catullus, La
Fontaine, and Sophocles the writers having the fewest faults :
and once more he calls Shakspeare the greatest work of God's
creation. This of Robert Browning: "Few of the Athenians
had such a quarry on their property, but they constructed
better roads for the conveyance of their material." It seemed
to Landor wonderful that a book so popiilar as Robinson Cru-
soe has nothing in it to cause one to laugh or cry.
If. as De QuiiK-ey thought, Landor 's reputation rests upon
a reputation for not being read, the reason for this may be
MISCELLANEA 171
found in Landor's own declaration, that "those who have
the longest wings have the most difBculty in mounting," and
because his writings are, as some one has characterized them,
like a scientific piece of music, which gains by repetition. As
the natural ear must first be trained before it can catch the
richest harmonies, so the mind must have submitted to severe
and prolonged discipline and study before it can be touched
to admiration by what is divinest in poetry. It is true, the
continued poring over the works of a favorite author becomes
in the end too much akin to worship to alloM' freedom for
the critic's office, since to a mind given up to adoration even
defects seem beauties. To the trained mind, however, there
must be something of preeminent worth in an author to awak-
en and sustain this ecstasy. No one who has once been under
the spell of Landor is ever afterwards freed from the charm.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. ,
LESS than a century ago American literature hardly de-
served the name. Our three favorite poets, Longfellow,
Bryant, and Whittier, were unknown to fame, and our
pioneer prose writers, Irving and Cooper, had little more than
begun to lay the foundations on which to build their literary
monuments, monuments which are daily reconsecrated by a
discriminating taste. At so recent a period, and while yet the
idea of reading an American book was regarded as absurd,
and while publishers were reluctant to take the financial risk
of bringing out the works of any but trans-Atlantic authors,
Nathaniel Hawthorne was committing to the flames his re-
jected manuscripts, and disheartened by his own doubts re-
garding his abilities, as well as by the cool treatment of unap-
preciative friends, was nigh succumbing and denying to the
world some of the choicest prose fiction that time has treas-
ured up.
It is more difficult to classify prose writers than poets.
Placing in the first class of poets Homer, Dante, and Shaks-
peare ; in the second Goethe, Chaucer. Spenser, Milton, Words-
worth, Browning, Virgil, and a few others of the best among
1(2 MISCELLANEA
European writers, ancient and modern, a nniltitude of delight-
ful singers may be included in tiie third, leaving a necessary
fourth class, numerous but inconsequential. To classify prose
writers at all, it is iirst necessary to divide them with regard
to nature of subject; placing in one division the historians,
in another the essayists, in another the novelists, the philo-
sophical writers in a fourth, and so on. The classifying of
one of these sub-divisions, so various are their excellences,
is indeed difficult. A writer of merit, be he prose-writer or
poet. Avill b(^ something more than a story-teller, a recorder
of historic events, or a versifier; he will be possessed of a
native richness of mind, and, in a marked degree, of invention.
Carlyle says of Shakspeare. "One knows not what he could
not have made in the supreme degree." P.very man of genius
has strong mental possibilities undeveloped and incidental, yet
hardly less extraordinary than those exhibited in liis chosen
field. A man's test of greatness, then, lies partly in his ability
to do something outside his routine exercise of skill. There
are. it is tmu'. a few literary geniuses ill-shaped and abnor-
mally brilliant, as was Goldsmith, who "wrote like an angel
but talked like poor poll."
Nathaniel Hawthorne is a writer of prose fiction. l)ut of
no ortlinary type. Less read than scores of American and
Eui'0])ean ■\^ riters. he has. notwithstanding, a certain choice
literary (luality which discriminating readers declare to l)e
unsurpassed. This is Ijowell's estimate of his modest merit:
"There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare.
That you hardly at first see the strength that is there."
Others have created gr(^ater and more imperishable charac-
ters; such characters are. — Sterne's Fncle Toby. Goldsmith's
Dr. Primrose. Fielding's Amelia, Thackeray's Becky Sharp,
and Cooper's Leatherstocking. Others, too. have surpassed
him in excellence of plot. George Sand being a conspicuous
example of such. Still there is a superiority, not easily de-
fined, about our gifted American author which few of these
possess. A similar observation applies to George Eliot. Some-
body surpasses her in nearly every point of excellence recog-
nized as peculiar to th(^ novelist ; yet in the background of
MISCELLANEA 173
her literary gifts the reader discovers aii intellectual some-
thing, a native mental strength and philosophical insight,
which even Thackeray, Balzac, and Scott, the greatest of
novelists, were incapable of exhibiting. The trend of Haw-
thorne's mind is best understood by studying the subjects of
his works, none of which are of the stereotyped character
common in fiction. It was the boast of Swift that he n(iver
stole even a hint from any other writer. Hawthorne might
as justly make the same claim.
Hawthorne's Note Books, — American, English, French, and
Italian, are helpful in getting at the real character of the
man. They mirror his mind as it was day after day and
year after year. In the earliest of these diaries are discov-
ered unmistakable germs of what at length ripened in the
Scarlet Letter. Marble Faun, and Septimius Felton. — each the
thinking out of an intricate problem of life. It is no small
compliment to Hawthorne that Poe spoke highly of his cre-
ative faculty, imagination, and originality. One, in reading
Hawthorne, is constantly meeting striking thoughts and ele-
gant expressions which bear the marks of genius. Never-
theless it is difficult to catch and depict his subtle workman-
ship. Too much importance should not be placed upon the
fact that Hawthorne is not a popular author. Sometinu^s
the most meritorious books are little read. AValter Savage
Landor and Charles Lamb are among the finest writers of
English ; and yet they are by no means popular authors.
Like them, also. Hawthorne wrote too critically to write vo-
luminously. Generally Hawthorne excluded from his writings
hideous characters. The first book he wrote after leaving
college he burned 'v^ithout publishing. As a writer he was
essentially an artist, though he had no great confidence in
his own powers. His efforts at poetry did not rise above
mediocrity. His skill in using the supernatural has been
compared to that of Scott and George Sand. He uses words
of Latin origin to a great extent. His first stories were short
— in fact, he never wrote long ones. Motley, in a letter to
Hawthorne, said, "Nobody can write English but you." In
only one of his books does he prominently introduce dumb
animals. He never wrote except when the mood was on.
174 MISCELLANEA
Some one has estimated Hawthorne by the algebraic equa-
tion: "Poe + Irving + an unknown quantity =■ Hawthorne."
He took none of his characters from real life ; each was a
compound of elements found in various characters. Haw-
thorne's works comprise five novels and a fragment of a
sixth, five volumes of short tales, several volumes of sketches
or note books, and three story books for children. Henry
James says: "In the field of letters Hawthorne is the most
valuable example of the American genius, — a master of ex-
pression;" but that "to appreciate him one must be acquainted
with New England. ' '
In alluding briefiy to the different productions of Haw-
thorne, the Note Books will first claim attention. The Amer-
ican Note Books are much like an ordinary diary, covering
a period of eighteen years, from the time Hawthorne Avas
thirty-one years old until his departure for Liverpool, to which
place he had been appointed consul by his friend and college-
mate, President Pierce. These eighteen years include the last
two of his twelve unproductive years, (in a sense the most
productive of his life, for during all this time he was sub-
mitting himself to the rigid discipline so essential to his after
attainments), the time in which he wrote Twice Told Tales,
Scarlet Letter, and House of Seven Gables, and also his ex-
perience in the custom house and at Brook Farm. It is
alleged with some force by Mr. James, that Hawthorne's writ-
ings bear too much the stamp of provincialism ; that his lack
of experience disqualified him for the greatest accomplishments
in his line ; that his limited provincial experience was pre-
judicial to him as an author, very much as has been declared
to be the case with Robert Burns, who, in addition to pro-
vincial restrictions, wrote in a dialect instead of a language.
One of the most striking characteristics of the American Notes
is the inner light issuing from the writer's intellect, disclos-
ing his habits of observation and reflection. Nothing escaped
him. He was known to sit for hours in some retired corner
of a bar-room. Avatching and studying the varied phases of
character about him. Happy thoughts, dropped at random ])y
obscure persons, were treasured up by him with keen interest.
But his own (piiet reflections are the charm of all his diaries.
MrSCELLANEA 175
Though Hawtlionie was tio professed philosoplier. hardly any
great life i)roblem eseaped his attention. Notice soiiit' speci-
men saj'ings of his taken at random from the Note Hooks:
"We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of wak-
ing from a troubled drc^am : it may be so the moment after
death. A singular fact, that when num is a brute he is the
most sensual of all brutes. Trifles to one are nuitters of life
and death to another; as, for instance, a farmei- desires a
brisk breeze to winnow Ills grain, and mariners, to blow them
out of the reach of pirates. Nobody will use other people's
experience, nor has any of his own till it is too late to use
it. What we need for our happiness is close at hand if we
but knew how to seek for it." He was much given to mor-
alizing, not only upon what occurred around him, but also
upon historical incidents, often seeing a truth or principle
in what was a mere nothing to less gifted natures. He sees
a drove of pigs passing at dusk, and immediately this thought
strikes him: "Pigs, on a march, do not subject themselves
to any leader among themselves, bat pass on higgledy. pig-
gledy, without regard to age or sex.-" In his Notes Hawthorne
gives a elue to his social and literary habits and tastes, and
mentions some of his favorite books. — among them Pilgrim's
Progress, Carlyle's Heroes, Rabelais, and Spenser's Faerie
Queen. Other of his favorite authors were. — Milton, DeQuin-
cey, Shakspeare. Rousseau. Sterne, and Pope. He tells us his
chirography was outrageous, and that he hated dining out
and society generally. "Destiny itself." says he, "has often
been worsted in the attempt to get me out to dinner." Enough
has been said to show the delectableness of the American Note
Books. The English. French, and Italian deserve the same
favorable criticism, besides atfording much that is new.
It has ever been too little the custom of governments to
give their needy men of letters official positions abroad, to
make it possible for them to pursue literature more success-
fully than they could do if subjected to provincial limitations
and burdened with the engrossing question of daily mainte-
nance. A place in the Salem custom house had been given
Hawthorne with a view to aiding his literary enterprises ;
and the kind thoughtfulness of his fi'icnd. President Pierce.
176 .MISCEIJ-AXEA
bestowed upon him. in 185;^ llic iiu)s1 lui-rativc consular post
in his power to give.
Upon his nrri\al at Liverpool, he \'ery soon came in eon-
tact with one of the most disagreeabh' of his offieial duties,
after-dinner speech making. After one of these occasions of
"talking nonsense," as he calls it. he entered in his diary an
estimate of what constitutes success in such perfoi-mauces.
"Anybody," says he, "may make an after-dinner speech who
will l)e content to talk onward witlu)ut saying 'anything. "
If Hawthorne had written upon all the subjects he inci-
dentally mentions as deserving such treatment, he would have
been a most voluminous writer. The following thought, which
seems to have come to him in his early experience at Livei'-
pool, is but one of many that might be cited: "What was
the after-life of the young man whom Jesus, looking on, loved,
and l)ade him sell all that he had and give it to the poor,
and take up his cross and follow him? Something very deep
and beautiful might be made out of this."
Hawthorne was in no strict sinise a sight-seer; he saw and
described things generally overlooked by others. He seldom
described nature, but rather a churchyard or an old wall cov-
ered with vines, or a solitary worshiper kneeling in an obscure
corner of some historic cathedral. He tells his feelings upon
finding at an English railway station his T^vice Told Tales.
Seven Gables, and Scarlet Letter. Of ]\liss ]Marti?icau. whom
he met. he says: "Her hair is of a decided gray and she
does not shrink from calling herself old." After visiting
Conway Castle he writes: "Nothing else can be so perfect
as a picture of ivy-grown peaceful ruin." He also says: "O
that we could have ivy in America. What is there to beau-
tify us when our time of ruin comes?" This bit of pretty
writing, relating to Furness Abbey and in recognition of Eng-
land's surpassing adaptability to the growth of verdui-e every-
where, is too Hawthornesque to be omitted: "Put here, no
sooner is a stone fence built, then Nature sets to work to
make it a part of herself. A little sprig of ivy may be seen
creeping up the side and clinging fast with its many feet :
a tuft of grass roots itself between two of the stones, where
a little dust from the road has been moistened into soil for
MISCELLANEA 1 ( 7
it; a small biiucli of fern grows in another such crevice; a
deep, soft, green moss spreads itself over the top and all along
the sides of the fence; and wherever nothing else will grow,
lichens adhere to the stones and variegate their hues. Fin-
ally, a great deal of shrubbery is sure to cluster along its
extent, and take away all hardness from the outline ; and
so the whole stone fence looks as if God had had at least
as much to do with it as man." Hawthorne seems to have
had no desire to make the acquaintance of distinguished for-
eigners, even of his own calling. He met Douglas Jerrold.
Charles Reade, Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Leigh Hunt, Barry
Cornwall, and a few others. It is interesting to follow Haw-
thorne through the parts of Great Britain historically renown-
ed, to see with his eyes and feel with his delicate sensibilities.
No other writer more nearly transports one to the very scenes
described, or more fully satisfies the natural desire to visit
them. The four years of Hawthorne's official life in P]ngland
were unproductive in the way of authorship, though they sup-
plied an experience needful to his intellectual development.
At tlie close of his consular experience Hawthorne passed
over to the continent, and remained in Prance and Italy two
years. It was midAvinter when lie passed through France.
The journey was disagreeable, as may be inferred from his
saying that his impression of France would always be that
it was an arctic region. Paris was excepted in this estimate,
for with this he was delighted. Of the morals of the French
he says: "They love a certain system and external correct-
ness, but do not trouble themselves to be deeply in the right."
Of their loquacity he writes: "In Marseilles a stream of talk
seems to bubble from the lips of every individual." Taking
a hurried look at France, he now proceeded to Rome, really
his objective point, the sight of which is the happiest dream
of the scholar and the artist. He spent the last fortnight
of January in Rome, and declared that he had seldom or
never spent so wretched a time anywhere. The cold annoy-
<^d him. He said he now understood why Diogenes had asked
Alexander, as the only favor he could do him, to stand out
of his sunshine, there being such a difference in thos(> south-
ern climes of Europe between sun and shade. But for his
1 / 8 MISCELLANEA
congealed wits and benuml)ed lingers, he declared lie would
have kept a minute journal during those two weeks, which
would liMve shown modern Rome in an aspect in which it had
ti('\ <'i- been depicted. He declared that no description of Rome
whicli he liad ever I'ead had given him any idea o±' the sort
of place Rome was. Following is a somewhat lengthy quo-
tation containing his impressions of Roman ruins: "1 am
glad." says he, "that I saw the castles and Gothic churches
and cathedrals of England before visiting Rome, or I never
could have felt that delightful reverence for their gray and
ivy-hung antiquity after seeing these so much older remains.
l)Ut. indeed, old things are not so beautiful in this dry cli-
mate and clear atmosphere as in moist England. Whatever
beauty there may be in a Roman ruin is the remnant of what
was beautiful originally : whereas an English ruin is more
beautiful often in its decay than even it was in its primal
strength. If we ever build such noble structures as these
Roman ones, we can have just as good ruins, after two thou-
sand years, in the United States; but we can never have a
Furness Abbey or a Kenilworth." Nothing seemed more un-
pleasant to him than a Roman w^inter. "Wherever." says
he, ''I pass my summers, let me spend my winters in a cold
country." The sight of the Tiber disenchanted him of all
early infused ideas of its paternal and divine character. Ordi-
narily it had to him the hue of a mud-puddle, but after a
rain the appearance of pea soup. Hawthorne's retlectious
upon Rome as an art-centre are most interesting. He speaks
modestly on this subject, as one little acquainted with works
of art. and for the first six months of his residence there as
incapable of distinguishing betw^een the meritorious and the
undeserving. He took great pride in the celebrity of the
American sculptors. Story, xVkers, and Powers. He admired
the Faun of Praxiteles, and conceived the idea of writing
the Marble Faun. Of his own undeveloped powers of art-
criticism Hawthorne writes: "In a year's time, with the ad-
vantage of access to this magnificent gallery, I think I might
come to have some little knowledge of pictures. At present
1 know nothing: but am glad to find myself capable, at least,
of loving one picture better than another. T cannot always
MISCELLANEA 179
'keep the heights I gain,' however, and after admiring and
being moved by a picture one day. it is within my experi-
ence to look at it the next as little moved as if it were a
tavern sign." Later on he confesses that Raphael gr'ows
upon him. "Until." says he, "we learn to appreciate the
eherubs and angels that Raphael scatters through the blessed
air, in a picture of the Nativity, it is not amiss to look at a
Dutch fly settling on a peach, or a humbleljee burying him-
self in a flower." Hawthorne describes Italian mosquitoes
as '"horribly pungent little satanic particles." In March,
1859, wdiile at Rome, he received a visit from ex-President
Pierce, whom he always speaks of with affection. As an
illustration of his unswerving friendship, an allusion may be
made to Hawthorne's fearless devotion to Pierce when the
latter was a candidate for the presidency. Hawthorne wrote
a campaign life of Pierce, the most unpopular thing he could
have done at that time in New England, "though," as he
said, "I knew my friends would fall from me like autumn
leaves." This must suffice for the Note Books, six most inter-
esting diary volumes. Those who make much of books called
"Table Talks," such as Selden's, or Luther's, or Coleridge's,
will find in these life-thoughts of an accomplished author, pre-
served in the severe English of an acknowledged literary artist,
no ordinary treasures.
At the age of thirty-throe, after ten years' residence at
Salem, his first volume of Twice-Told Tales, really, it may
be said, his first fruit of authorship, came from the press.
The miraculous faculty of "extracting honey from weeds"
has seldom been exhibited by an author in so marked a degree
as by Hawthorne in these productions. Within the narrowest
sphere of observation, without experience or even usual inter-
course with the world, he seemed, like the spider, to spin out
of his own bowels the delicate web of choice English, — so
refined, in fact, that the mass of readers saw nothing in it
to admire. It is claimed, on possibly insufficient grounds,
that George Eliot's Romola killed the periodical in which
it first appeared, like the meritorious work of art it is, requir-
ing time to win appreciation. So the Twice-Told Tales con-
tained in their literary essence an excellence of thought and
180 MISCELLANEA
dietion Avholly uncomprehended by the general reading publie.
The essential characteristics of these tales are their simplicity
of subject and the wonderful poAver shown by the author in
making inconsequential matters subserve the purposes of high-
est art. Of the trifling subjects treated in the first volume.—
"Sunday at Home."' — "The Wedding Knell," — "A Rill from
the Town l*nmp,"' and "Sights from a Steeple," are, perhaps,
the most engaging. In "Sunday at Home" he gives a clue
to his habit of non-attendance at church, where he declares
that his "inner man goes constantly to church, while many
whose bodily presence fills the accustomed seats, have left
their souls at home." He watches from his ensconced place
the church-goers passing to their various houses of worship.
"Those pretty girls," he says, "why will they disturb my
pious meditations'? Of all days in the week they should strive
to look least fascinating on the Sabbath, instead of heighten-
ing their mortal loveliness, as if to rival the blessed angels,
and keep our thoughts from heaven." He also pictures the
clergyman, "slow and solemn, in severe simplicity." It is
in this volume that he makes one character touchingly con-
fess his supi'emest satisfaction at "liaving a face that childrcni
love."
The second \()lume of Twice Told Tales, though issued
some ten years later than the first, may be Ix'st disposed of
here. As a Avhole, this volume is inferior to the one just
laid aside, and is probably less familiarly known and read.
Both have, however, the same literary stamp. One chapter
of the second volume is worthy of particular notice, namely.
' ' Footprints on the Sea Shore. ' ' Every great poet has described
morning, a mountain landscape, and the sea. perhaps more
invariably than anything else in nature. Especially, the last
mentioned subject, the sea, has been the theme of deepest
poetic thought and most artistic word-picturing. Not even
Byron's apostrophe to the ocean is more highly poetical or
more thoughtfully I'loquent than Hawthorne's sketch of a doz-
en pages. Read during a warm September afternoon, beneath
the shade on a modest mountain side overlooking the sea. one
cannot fail to realize the deep pathos of words like these :
"Get ve all gone, old friends, and let me listen to tlie nuir-
MISCELLANEA 181
jMur of 1h<' sea. — a melancholy voiee. Init less sad than yours.
Of Avhat mysteries is it tellinj;? Of snnkeu ships and wherc-
ahonts they lief Of ishuids afai' and undiscoNci'cd. whose
UiAviiy ehildren are uneoiiseious of other islands and contin-
ents, and deem the stars of heaven their nearest neighbors?
Nothing of all this. What then? Has it talked so many ages,
and meant nothing all the while? No: for those ages find
utterance in the sea's unchanging voice, and warn the list(>ner
to withdraw his interest from mortal vicissitudes, and let the
infinite idea of eternily pervade his soul."
Before proceeding farther it may be well to give a brief
biographical review of Hawthorne from gi-adnation until his
forty-sixth year, the date at which the Scarlet L(!tter, his
masterpiece, appeared. In 1828. three years after he and the
poet Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College, his first
literary venture, an unsuccessful romance called "Fanshawe."
was published. He went to Boston in 1886 to publish the
American Magazine, which soon becam(> bankrupt. In 1837
he published Twiee-Told Tales, and from 1838 to 1841 Avas
employ (h1 in the Boston Custom House, where the historian
Bancroft was collector. He w^as at Brook Farm in 1842, was
married in 1843. and for four years lived at the Old Manse
at Concord, in the society of Pjmerson. Thoreau. and ('banning.
From 184f) to 1850 he was surveyor of the port of Salem, dur-
ing Avhich time he wrote the Scarlet Letter. The actual writ-
ing of this story was done immediately after retiring from
the office. Hawthorne saAV fit to include in the volume enti-
tled the Scarlet Letter about forty pages of carefully written
reflections and incidents relative to the Custom House. The
propriety of binding up this somewhat extraneous matter with
the story was (^'en in his own mind questionable; and. be-
sides, the publication of what naturally enough was construed
as having personal and local application, brought upon the
author much unpleasant denunciatioTL However, after a care-
ful re-perusal M'ith a view to striking out objectionable allu-
sions, he determined to leave it unchanged even in a single
word. This Custom House ])relude to the Scarlet Letter is
in itself a study, bearing, as it does, the impress of the au-
tlior's most critical mood and most careful habit of compo-
182 MISCELLANEA
sition. It as boldly defies criticism as the most perfect of
the Essays of Elia. It is an interesting coincidence that Chau-
cer, Lamb, and Burns were, like Hawthorne, each in his day
connected with the custom house — a rather illustrious linking
of the office with literature. It is in this prefatory sketch
that Hawthorne makes the queer reflection upon himself as
a degeneratt' in the necessary estimation of his Puritan ances-
tors, who would have regarded him. "a writer of stories, on
a par with a fiddler."
The name ''Scarlet Letter" has reference to the scarlet
letter "A.'' in accordance with a public decree worn by Hester
Trynne. the prominent character in the novel, as a badge of
shame, in consideration of her fatal mis-step and mistrust
wliicli underlie the action of the whole story. The first chap-
ter bears for a caption "The Prison Door," and contains the
retiectiou that founders of colonies recognize it among their
earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin
soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site for a
prison. It also contains a minute description of the jail which
figures in the early part of the story. The next chapter, "The
Market Place." introduces the reader to a throng of men
and women drawn through morliid curiosity or nuilignant
hate, and crowding about the prison to delight in the dis-
comfiture of some fellow-creature, who through weakness or
perversity lias transgressed the rules of propriety or the en-
acted laws of stern Puritanism. The culprit on this occasion,
Hester Prynne, of the reverend Master Dimmesdale's flock,
is introduced in the act of submitting to public chastisement,
being compelled to publish her disgrace and listen to the gibes
and hateful glances of her thronging neighbors. She is de-
scribed as having "dark and abundant hair, so glossy that
it threw off the sunshine with a gleam." In the next chap-
ter Hester is standing before her despisers, holding her baby
in her arms and with the scarlet letter burning into her breast.
An Indian and a white man, standing on the outskirts of the
throng, help to make up the scene. The white man. in a
composite dress, half civilized and half aboriginal, recognizes
Hester and is in turn recognized by her. as is manifest by
the convulsive manner in which she clasps the child to her
MliSCELLANKA 183
breast, causing it to cry with pain. He is her husband, from
whom she was long ago separated in England, and whom she
has thought dead. He asks a by-stander the particulars of
what he sees before him, and learns that the full severity of
the Puritan law^ — the real penalty for such an offense being
death — has been relaxed, and that the subsituted penalty is,
that she shall "stand a space of three hours on the platform
of the pillory, and there and thereafter for the remainder
of her natural life, to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom. ' '
Next follows an interview in the prison between Hester and
old Roger CliilliugAvortli. her long-separated husband, he hav-
ing been introduced in the character of a physician. Great
skill is used in managing this interview. As it furnishes
the key tt) the subse(|U(mt pages of the book, enough will be
((uoted here to render clear the allusions that follow. Old
Roger (hilling-worth was a very learned man, and was other-
wise out of sympathy with his wife in that he was much older.
'"One thing, thou that Avast my wife, I would enjoin upon
thee." contiiuied the scholar. "Thou hast kept the secret
of thy paramour. Keep likewise mine. There are none in
the land that know me. Breathe not to any human soul that
thou didst ever call me husband. I find here a woman, a man
a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest
ligaments. No matter whether for love or hate ; no matter
whether of right or wrong, thou and thine, Hester Prynne.
belong to me." Early in the book there is a chapter relative
to Hester after being r(4eased from prison ; the fact of her
remaining to dwell among her despisers is explained in the
author's subtle manner: "There is a fatality, a feeling so
irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which
almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and
haunt, ghost-like, the spot Avhere some great and marked event
has given the color to their life-time; and still the more irre-
sistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it." Her disgrace
and discomfiture are well shown in what follows: "If she
entered a church, ti-usting to share the Sabbath smile of the
Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the
text of the discourse." Passing over the exquisite chapters
on "Little Pearl." "The Visit to Governor Billingham." and
1S4l miscellaxea
■■'riir ]\lt'Otiiig: of Pearl wilh Mr. Diinnu'sdaU'."" iu)ti(.'r iiiiust
l)t' taken of an intorvii'W hetAvccn old Roger C'hilliugworth
and his patient, the unsnspeeting clergyman Dininiesdale. This
chapter, for metaphysical insight, is hard to ecjual. It needs.
liOAvever. to be studied to be appreciated. Later on in the
volume, when alluding to the growing respect in which Hester
came to be held, this gratuitous thought is thrown out: "It
is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its self-
ishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it
hates.'' And again, in describing her as intiuenced by seven
years of disgrace: "Some attribute had departed from her,
the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a
woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern de-
Aclopment. of tlie feminine character and person, when the
Avomau has encountered and lived through an experience of
peculiar severity. Tf she survive, the tenderness Avill either
be crushed out of her. or. — and the outward semblance is
the same — crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never
show itself more. The latter is. perhaps, the truest theory.
She Avho has once been woman, and ceased to b(» so. might
at any moment become a woman again, if Thei-e were only
the magic touch to effect the transtiguration."
.\fter Ilawtliorne had completed the writing of the Scar-
lei Letter, and wliile lie felt the tit of inspiration still ou
liim. he rushed to the presence of his wife, and in the midst
of her choking sobs read aloud the now famous cotu-lusion.
Doubtless he felt the overwhelming power of his creation
very nnu'h as Thackeray did his. when he reac^ over to him-
self one of the best passages in Vanity Fair. "I swear."
said Thackeray, amazed at tlie perfection of his work, "rm
a genius." Before leaving the Scarlet Letter, it will be pro-
per to say that it is. in the judgment of some of the best critics,
the most ]ierfect piece of ]>rose lileratnre that America has
prodnceil.
Tlie House of Seven Gables. Avritten next after the Scarlet
Letter, is. like that novel. New Enghnulisli and of the colonial
times. It is tlie longest of Hawthorne's storit^s. and was by
him regarded as superior to the Scarlet Letter. The char-
acters are principally of two families — the aristocratic, de-
MISCELLANEA 185
frauding Fy ncheons and the defrauded Maulcs, a race of
oarpenters. The basis of the action of the story is, that a
curse once pronounced upon a great wrong, becomes a family
inheritance. According to the wizard Maule's imprecation,
the Pyncheons were to drink blood, and any slight gurgle
in tile throat of a Pyncheon was sure 1o startle the listener
who had chanced to hoar the whispered tradition. Even the
IVncheons Avliose individual lives were unstained by crime
wore- the look of blasted respectability. A single compre-
hensive sentence of the autlior gives the central idea of the
hook: "What is there." says he, "so ponderous in evil, that
a thumb's bigness of it should outweigh the mass of things
not evil which were heaped into the other scale?" The struc-
ture ealled the House of Seven Gables was built by Col. Pyn-
cheon foi- the gratification of his pride, upon laud unlawfully
>vrenched from Matthew Maule. in whose execution for witch-
<'raft Col. Pyueheou was also an instigator and a persecutor.
The unaccountable violent deaths of several prominent Pyn-
cheons are, by inference, attributable to the retribution evoked
by these acts of injustice. It was a frequent complaint of
Hawthorne that he seemed doomed never to write a "sun-
shiny book." One little beam of light relieves the sombre-
uess of this story, which would otherwise surpass in its gloom-
iness all its author's other productions. Phoebe Pyncheon.
the country cousin who inherited an excess of sunshine from
lier mother, lessens the oppressive sadness that hovers about
everything else. The simple but natural attachment between
her and th(^ daguerreotypist Ilolgrave, the last of the Maules
in disguise, which culminated in their marriage and quite
consistently with art dispelled tlie long-brooding curee. is much
after the fashion of the popular novel of the day. Mesmerism
is skilfully introduced into the plot in connection with beau-
tiful Alice Pyncheon, who. though little more than a phantom
in the narrative, leaves upon the reader's mind an influence
incomprehensibly strong. Some of the descriptive portions
of this volume are vivid and strong, clearly indicating the
author's facility in this direction, whenever he chose thus
to exercise his powers. The happy treatment of domestic
fowls belonging to the occupants of the Seven Gables is evi-
186 MISCELLANEA
(.lently IK) mere lU'ciclciit with tlu- writer, but au iuteuded
exhibition ot* what he niiglit do in ways but seldom tried by
him. ^lention ouglit to be made also of his description of
a clear morning after a long storm, as well as of that relat-
ing to what occurred around the House of Seven Gables dur-
ing the twenty-four hours succeeding the tlight of Hepzibah
and Clifford, and while Judge Pyncheon was sitting dead
within. Pyncheon street, the Pyncheon elm. i\Iaule"s well.
little Ned Higgins, and Uncle Venner will all be remembered
as a necessary part in the completeness of the novel.
The tliird of the so-called American stories is the Blithe-
dale Romance. The characteristic feature of this volume,
which distinguishes it from the author's other stories, is its
immediate attractiveness for all classes of readers. In other
words, it requires no effort to like it. whicli cainiot lie said
of Hawthorne's writings generally. There is a class of lit-
erature, and it is the best, which does not make itself felt
upon the ordinary reader at once, but only after careful study.
As in the case of a genuine work of art. its appreciation
requires patient, often painful, preparation. Few persons,
especially the young, like Shakspeare at first. A teacher
once importuned a class of boys and girls to read some play
of the great poet. When called upon to give an account of
themselves, only one reported the accomplishment of his task,
and in most disheartening words. Said he. addressing the
teacher. "I've managed to worry through Julius Caesar just
to please you, but I don't -want any more of the stuff."
Byron, even, declared his inability to read SpiMisev's Faei-ic
Queene. a book that has rarely failed to charm any person
of literary taste who patientl.y submitted himself to its in-
fluence. So it is with HaAvthorne : there are but fcAv writers
of whom it may be so truthfully said, that it re(|uires posi-
tive effort to get up to the plane of their genius and to
acquire a never surfeited taste for their works. Tlie Blithe-
dale Romance. howcA-er. is with him an exceptional produc-
tion. It attracts and pleases from tlie first. This is undoubt-
edly due (juite as much to the nature of siTbject as to the
manner of treatment. There is also the additional interest
arising from the fact that it is supposed to portray social-
MI8CELLAXEA 187
istie life at Brook Farm. Avhere for nearly a. year Hawthorne
resided aud was an active participant in Mr. Ripley's vain
.seheme to remodel and perfect man's social condition. It
is a good book to begin with in taking up this gifted Anier-
iean author. Tlie leading principle sought to be established
by this romance is the presumptuousness of one person's en-
deavoring to revolutionize eompletely and. as it were, in an
instant, social eonditions that are the evolved product of
centuries of human experience. With a few strokes of the
pen. Hawthorne gives this vivid sketeh of Zenobia. the al-
leged Margaret FuHer of Brook Farm: "She was. iiuUnnl.
an admiral)le Hgure of a woman, just on tlic hither verge of
her richest maturity, with a eombination of features whieh
it is safe to call remarkably beautiful, even if some fastidious
persons might pronounce them a little deficient in softness
and delicacy. Not one wonuin in a thousand could move so
admirably as Zenobia. Many women can sit gracefully : and
a few. perhaps, can assume a series of graceful positions.
But natural movement is the result and expression of the
whole being, and cannot be well and nobly performed unless
responsive to something in the character. I often think that
music should have attended Zenobia 's footsteps." Elsewhere
he speaks of the same character as •' lacking severe cul-
ture." Here is a rare bit of Hawthorne's very conservative
optimism: "1 rejoice that I could once think better of the
world's improvability than it deserved. It is a mistake into
whieh men seldom fall twice in a lifetime; or. if so. the
rarer and higher is the nature that can thus magnanimously
persist in error." In another place he says. "Men are often
ashamed of what is bc^st in them." One is strongly tempted
to give many of the interesting circumstances of this inter-
esting story, such as those relative to Zenobia 's death by
suicidal di-owning. and her burial, the first of their Arcadian
colonists; or to give some account of her hopeful philosophy
concerning the possible future of her sex; but leave must
be taken of the Blithedale Romance with an extract in which
the moral is draAvn from the character and errors of Holl-
ingsworth. the philanthropist: "Admitting what is called phi-
lanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be often useful
188 MISCEIXAXEA
by its energetic impulse to soeiety at lar.ue. it is perilous to
the individual whose ruling passion, in one exelusive ehauuel,
it thus becomes. It ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin, the
heart, the rich juices of "which God never meant should be
pressed violently out. and distilled into alcoholic liquor by
an unnatural process, but should rentier life s^veet. bland,
gently beneticent. and insensibly influence other hearts and
other lives to the same blessed enil. 1 si'e in IIollingsAvorth
an exemplification of the most awful truth in Bunyan's book
of such : — from the \-ei-y gate of iieaven there is a by-way to
the pit." Robert Browning thought Blithedale Romance the
hcsl of its author's stories.
It was but natural that Hawtht)rno shoukl choose to write
at least one romance based upon a trans-atlantic theme, and
that Italy should be the scene. The fact that ho chose to
represent life in modern rather than in ancient Rome is to
be accounted for. no doulU. in his avowed disregard of the
history of the world anterior to the fourteenth century. The
nanu> first selected for this romance, and the one by which
it is still designated, to some extent at least in Europe, was
"Transformation." really more appropriate when the nature
of file Avork is considered ; for just as Septimius Felton is
The problem of life with reference to a possibl(> earthly im-
mortality, so the Marble Faun is the problem of evolved hu-
manity. There are evidences in Hawthorne's earlier writings
that the essential thought contained in the ^larble Faun had
long haunted his mind. While human nature everywhere, by
certain never-wanting traits, would suggest to his penetrat-
ing intellect the subtle idea of such a transformation, there
is, probably, no other country than Italy where such an idea
could be better developed and illustrated. The famous piece
of statuary representing a faun in marble was a mere hint
to Hawthonie. and. besidi's a slight allusion to it near the
beginning of tlfe book, has no significance to him. The au-
thor's intention seems to have been, in part at least, to recon-
struct the early Italian system of nature divinities. The sub-
ject was wholly new to him: and while the book has great
merit, it is not completely successful. This shortcoming is,
however, necessary, and is owing to the peculiar limitations
MISCELLANEA 189
of the subject. Indeed, it would be difficult to uame any
other author who with the same limitations would have es-
caped downright failure. The story was first written, or
rather blocked out, while the author was at Rome; but was
re-written at Leamington. England, just before Hawthorne re-
turned home, and was first published on the other side of the
water. Hawthorne regarded this story as his masterpiece. —
a conclusion to which but few readers ever come ; though
its value as a Roman hand-book for English speaking trav-
elers has made it. perhaps, the most popuhir of liis novels.
Of the four essential characters in the story, Miriam is the
finest creation, if indeed, she is not the greatest of all Haw-
thorne's creations. The strange obscurity throAvn around her
is safely within the limits of novel writing, and is the per-
fection of art. The skill shown in that marvelously con-
ceived situation wherein the look of Miriam is interpreted by
both Donatello and Hilda as a connuand to kill, is almost
nuitchless. Tliere is something quiet, sweet, and true about
Hilda with her doves and her pure tlioughts, which wins every
reader and leaves upon the mind an imperishable picture of
what is humanly good and lovable. Kenyon, the artist, is
only the necessary supplement to Hilda required by the fic-
tion. Donatello. tiie intended prime character of the novel,
who illustrates the main idea and instigates the whole move-
ment of the story, is somewhat too mythical for analysis.
AVhile it is probable that this hero of the novel is just what
the writer intended he should be, — one in whom, as James
says, "the element of the unreal is pushed too far," and
while, in Hawthorne's judgment, this same unrealness con-
stituted the chief merit of the work, the critics, for the most
part, refuse to endorse Donatello as a happy creation.
Some attention, at least slight, has now been given to all
Hawthorne's works excepting the juvenile volumes. Mosses
from an Old Manse. Dr. Grimshaw's Secret, and Our Old
Home. Further notice will be taken of the last mentioned
only, Our Old Home. This volume is of the same general
character as the Note Books, yet differs favorably in this
respect : it "\\ as complied by the author himself from his cas-
ual notes made while abroad, and leisurely Avritten in a pains-
190 MISCELLANEA
taking manner. It was published in 1863. and its dedieation
to Franklin Pierce so enraged the friends and admirers of
Hawthorne that many refused to look at it ; Avhile some who
purchased it tore out the inscription leaf. A recent perusal
of Our Old Home has led to the belief that it has never
received its just deserts, either for literary character or for
patriotic temper. The best 1 can say for it is. I have never
been more inclined to read a book at one sitting. In the
first part of the volume are sketches entitled " Li^aujington
Spa,'" "About Warwick." and "Recollections of a Gifted
Woman." The last mentioned has reference to Delia Bacon,
a literal y Penusylvanian whom he UK^t in London. Mdio had
sutfcred luTself to be possessed with the idea that Lord Bacon
wrote Shakspeare. In the same sketch also he includes his
impi'essious of a visit to Stratford-on-Avon. tliaii which Wash-
ington Irving hardly wrote anything more entertaining on the
same siibjed. Then comes a chapter tlevoted to " Litchtield."
"Uttoxeter. " and "Old Sam Johnson;" and after these a
"Pilgrinuige to Old Boston." He next entertains us with
impressions of "Oxford." and of "BlenheiuL" the three thou-
sand-acre park originally given the Duke of Marlborough, the
private garden of which Hawthorne declared was more beau-
tiful than the Garden of Eden could have been. Then comes
the best chapter in the book — "Some of the haunts of Burns.''
His reverence for the genius of Burns is well slioAvn in one
])lace where he came near being beguiled into the description
of most attractive natural scenery; liut be at once cliecked
his thoughtless irreverence with the remark. "But a man is
greater than a mountain." He gives consideral)le sj)ace to
London, the Thames, and Westminster Abliey. and says fine
things about Poets' Oorner. The last forty i)ages of the l)ook
are devoted to "Civic Banquets." and contain some amusing
personal experiences in Liverpool and London. Ilis admis-
sion to the first jMayor's dinner party which he attended in
Liverpool he thus describes: "Reaching the Town Hall at
seven o'clock. I couimunicated my luime to one of several
splendidly dressed footmen, and he repeated it to another
on the first staircase, by whom it was passed to a third, and
then to a fourth at the door of the reception room, losing
MISCELLANEA ]\l]
all iTsemlilanoe to the oviginal sound in llic coiirse of these
transmissions: so that 1 had the advantage of making my
entrance in the character of a stranger, not only to the whole
comj)any. hut to myself as AveJi. " On this occasion, at the
cnstt>mai'y toast. "Our gracious Sovereign." the company all
rose and with tlie band accompanying sang "God save the
Queen." Hawthorne says. "Finding that the entire dinner
table struck in. .with voices of every pitch between rolling
thunder and the squeak of a cartwheel, and that the strain
was not of such delicacy as to be nuich hurt l)y the harshest
of them, 1 determined to lend my own assistance in swelling
the triumphant roar. Accordingly, my tirst tuneful efforts
(and probably my last, for I purpose not to sing any more.
unless it he 'Hail Columbia' on the restoration of the Union)
W(M'e poured freely forth in honor of Queen Victoria." The
chapter closes with a description of a Lord Mayor's dinner
in London, where Hawthoi'ne for a while enjoyed himself
so nuu'h on account of a previously obtained pledge that
he should not be called upon to make a speech, but where
he felt the heavens falling on him ns the drift of post-prandial
sentiment took a turn towards American affairs, which must
inevitably l)ring the bewildered consul to his feet. It has
l)een alleged that Hawthorne had no humor. Several pas-
sages in Our Old Home, as elsewhere, disprove the allegation.
One concluding remark relative^ to Hawthorne's literary qual-
ities. The best test of the strength of a ])ook is to re-read
it. Few authors bear re-reading like Hawthorne. Charles
Sumner read Our Old Home thr(M' times for the sake of its
.style.
The HaAvthornes. or Hathornes according to an earlier
spelling of the name in P]n gland. W(M-e a family with sea-
faring proclivities. Nathaniel's father and grandfather both
having been sea-captains. He often declared that had he not
gone to college he too should have taken to the sea. His
inherited love for the ocean is shown in a remark he made
to a sea-siek friend during their home passage from England
in 18H0. "T should like to sail on and on forever." said
he. "and never touch the shore again." He inherited great
physical strength, and such manly beauty tliat it Avas re-
11)2 MISCELLANEA
marked iu London literary circles that Hawthorne's face was
as fine as that of Kobert Bums. Hawthorne Avas hut live
years old M'hen his father died in a foreign country. Though
there was much in his moral and pliysical composition that
was inherited from his father, especially a thoughtful reserve
and a modest shyness, he owed a still greater debt to the
inherited qualities and personal influence of a beautiful and
sensible mother. Though a delightful companion to those who
knew him intimately, he loved isolation, without which he
could hardly have fostered and matured those mental char-
acteristics which make his writings so unique. He was pecul-
iar in the selection of his friends, often choosing those who
were unpopular. Dr. Joseph E. Worcester, author of the
Dictionary, was at one time his teacher at Salem, and, dur-
ing a whole year when his pupil was confined to the house
with lameness, took such an interest in him as to visit him
daily for the purpose of attending to his lessons. AVhile at
college he was once fined twenty cents for neglecting to write
his composition. At graduation, though entitled to a part
at commencement, his distaste for public speaking prevented
him from appearing. Hawthorne was a model husband, never
directing his wife in anything, but studying to see what she
wanted, and then helping her to accomplish it. His wife's
temperament was the reverse of his own. He h(^artily hated
sham, and once remarked, "I have heard many cry out against
sin in the pulpit, who can abide it well enough in the heart.
home, and conversation." He had no appreciation of music,
being unable to tell one tune from another. He Avas. hoM-
ever, atfected by the unaccompanied voice. At Aldershot
Camp in England the Lieutenant-Colonel apologized to him
because he had neglected to have the band play Hail Colum-
bia. Hawthorne said it was not of the slightest importance,
for he should not have recognized it. He had great moral
courage, as was shown by his daring to visit in jail a Rev.
Mr. Cheever who had just been flogged in the street. He
liked to visit farm houses and talk with the inmates, they
not knowing who he was. Like Goethe, he loved beautiful
persons. He was purely American, never becoming tinctured
in the least with European social and political ideas. It has
MISCELLANEA 193
been claimed that Hawthorne's brain was as large as Web-
ster's. Pie said the reason he was a democrat was because
the (Salem people were whigs. His sister-in-law", Miss Pea-
body, likens him to Hamlet, as being too finely developed
for the position into which he came. Late in life he was
very despondent, once saying: "I think it would need a good
thousand years of sleep to rest from the turmoils of this mor-
tal life." Pie never joined any church, and l)ut seldom at-
tended church service. During his four years' residence in
England he probably never heard an English sermon. He.
however, took great pleasure in walking about old church-
yards, preferring to talk with the sexton rather than with
the rector. He read the Bible much, and often referred to
it for the correct use of a word. James Freeman Clarke,
in his funeral discourse, said "he was the friend of sinners."
Nathaniel Haw^thorne was born at Salem, Massachusetts, July
4th, 1804; and died at Plymouth. New Hampshire, May 19th.
1864. His remains were buried in the cemetery of "Sleepy
Hollow." at Concord. Mass., where he i-ests in the silent com-
panionship of p]merson and Thoreau.
Referring to Hawthorne's unfinished Romance, Longfellow
wrote, —
"Ah, who shall lift that wand of magic power,
And the lost clew regain?
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower
L^nfinished nnist remain."
LITERATURE AND LIFE.
AS the discovery of truth is the work of a few onl}'. the
mental exercises of nearly all are limited to the exam-
ination of processes and principles already thought
out and established. These processes and principles range
all the way from the every-day practice and philosophy of
common life to the subtle reasoning of the liest thinkers. Out
of these abundant materials each mind takes something, either
through its own blind choosing, or the almost equally blind
1!)4 MISCELLANEA
choosiug of others, or the force of circunistHnc'es. lu any
case, the part taken is to the pai't h'ft but as a handful of
water dipped from the sea. This thought is beautifully ex-
pi-essed in the po(Mii entitled Olrig Grange —
■"It is not given to anyone
To overarch the structure of all knowledge.
And ci-own it with its dome and golden cross:
We only do a part and partly well,
And otiiers come and nunid it."
Evei-y age. l)acked as it is by all preceding ones, has been
likened to a dAvarf standing on the shoulders of a giant, its
chief advantage being, that it is able to see farther than the
huge creature which alone sustains it in so elevated a posi-
tion. The intellectual question of every age is. how it shall
best utilize its advantages, develop its faculties of perception
and discrimination, and assimilate tln^ best thought of its
predecessors.
It would l)e unreasonable to make the primary aim of
mind-cidture consist in the remote and ultimate production
of whole races of intellectual giants, whose average intelli-
gence should surpass the highest individual intelligence that
has y(4 appeared. It is by no means certain that such a
state of things could not come with myriads of succeeding
years ; l)ut the facts of all recorded time, it is believed, fur-
nish not even the shadoM' of an intimation that the latest
individual mind is in developed quality at all superior to the
earliest. As somewhat corroborating this view, let it be re-
membered that the Book of Job. one of the oldest literary
productions, is also one of the most beautiful. The ancient
inhabitants of Hindostan had their national epic of enduring
beauty in a time so long gone by that the civilization which
made siu*h a production possible is utterly obliterated.
According to MatthcAv Arnold. "Culture is to know the
best that has been thought and said in the world." This knowl-
edge is. of course, accessible only in the literature which has
been preserved and handed down through all the ages. Ham-
erton compares the life of the intellectual to a long wedge
of gold: the thin end of it begins at birth, and the depth
MISCELLANEA 195
and value of it go on indefinitely increasing, till at last comes
Death who stops the process.
The craving for knowledge as it is procured through lit-
erature is not ordinarily natural but acquired. What at first
is uninviting or even repulsive in literature may after inti-
mate acquaintance become agreeable as well as elevating and
refining. Nor is it any objection to the superior influence
of the greatest literary works that the uncultivated fail to
be impressed by them. When a man objected to Milton's
Paradise Lost, he was told in a voice of simulated pity, that
Milton was blind, and couldn't see to write for fools. Some
allowance must be made for the fact that the same litera^
Ture may affect different minds, though of apparently equal
strength, quite differently. Ben Jonsou used to say regard-
ing the old ballad. "Uhevey Chase." that he would rather
have been the author of it than of all his own works; while
Dr. Johnson saw in the same composition nothing but lifeless
imbecility. Besides, the reading public are often fastidious.
AVhen Balzac wanted the world to praise his novels, he wrote
a drama ; when he wanted his dramas praised, he wrote a
novel.
There is something touching in the morbid sentimental-
ism which has appeared in the works of a few of the best
writers of both ancient and modern times, expressions, gen-
erally uttered at an advanced stage of life, of contempt for
all intellectual embellishments. Horace sees man's highest
ambition in the ownership of a rustic cot and a few acres
of land traversed by a singing brook, and with a back-ground
of tall shadowy tr(H-s. In a moment of satiety he would seem
to loathe human accomplishments and a glorious career, and
regret that he had not always remained a simple child of
nature, sleeping in unconscious innocence close to her sooth-
ing breast. Virgil calls him happy who knows only the pas-
toral divinities. Ruskin. in his eccentric way praises Chau-
cer's simple time, "when we boasted for the best kind of riches
our l)irds and trees, our wives and children, in contrast with
this age of steam-plows." A wise old Greek being asked in
what respect his son would be better after being educated,
replied: ''In the public assembly at the theatre at least he
196 MISCELLANEA
will not be a stone sitting upon a stone.'' The eonimou sense
of the world will never be shocked at the punishment inflicted
upon King Midas, who was compelled to wear asses' ears for
preferring the music of Pan to that of Apollo. Some one
has said of art, that ''while it is not something to live by,
it makes life worth living.'' Though our physical needs are
not ministered to by gazing on one of Rembraut's paintings,
or by reading the works of some literary genius, or by indulg-
ing the heart with participating in deeds of charity, yet that
which is highest in our nature is fed by these things. This
is Goethe's summing up of the true relation between art and
life : ' ' One ought every day at least to hear a little song.
read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible,
to speak a few reasonable words." M^hat Whittier said to
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps is apropos: "Elizabeth, thee would
not be happy in heaven, unless thee could go missionary to
the other place now and then." Matthew Aronld also speaks
to the point where he says. "Culture has its origin in the love
of perfection."
It will not do to lose sight of the higher utility of gen-
eral literature, in that it conduces so much to human perfec-
tion and happiness. It is not easy to draAv a comparison
between the practical good and the ideal good. Who shall
conclude between the comparative merits of a good conversa-
tionalist and those of a great astronomer"? How sliall it l)e
determined Avhich is the greater benefactor even, the French-
man Avho invented the wheelbarrow, or the Scotchman who
invented logarithms? Which shall have the prize, Morse, who
made the electric current a medium of instantaneous speech
for all nations, or Socrates, who taught mankind the language
and secrets of a better life? It is given on good authority,
that philosophy may not be expected to bake bread, nor a
rose to sing.
The obligation impelling to the literary life is in part the
dictation of an innate principle, wliich recognizes a higher
and a lower in man's nature. Notice Agassiz's reply to a
tempting lecture committee: "I have no time to make mon-
ey." Or the saying of Von ]\Iuller. "Truth is the property
of God, the pursuit of truth is Avhat belongs to man." Or
MISCELLANEA 197
that of Richter. "'It is not the goal but the course that makes
us happy." Or again of Malebranche. "If I held truth cap-
tive in my hand, I would open my hand and let it fiy. that I
might again pursue and capture it." Man pursues the intel-
lectual life because he discriminates between the higher and
the lower, just as he thinks it something nobler in its nature
to have a taste for nuisic than to have an appetite for food.
It is well to remember that nature provides for the physical
welfare of the race. Respiration and the circulation of the
')lood are no more perfect to-day than before the time of
Harvey. Nature takes no such care of the intellect. It is
much easier to prescribe for a boy the few simple accomplish-
ments which will give him the pleasures of a well-earned
livelihood, than to provide awakening influences for all the
faculties of his mind, unfolding and strengthening them by
judicious exercise, and making him capable of the highest
intellectual pleasures. The girl who reads with fondness the
works of Mrs. Holmes might, through proper influences, come
to find much greater delight in the works of Scott or Irving,
which, from a literary point of vieM^ are as far above the
former as the stars are above the trees. No higher service
can be done for the young than to lead them to feel that
Grray's Elegy and the Psalm of Life are something more than
words and rhyme, thus touching into active life a dormant
faculty of the soul, ever afterwards to be enraptured l)y other-
wise unheard harmonies and unseen beauties.
In this material age tliere is a strong temptation for men
to neglect the humanizing influences of literature for the more
sulistantial benefits of business enterprise ; and it becomes
necessary to urge upon public attention the truth formulated
by a Scotch professor, that "the man is more than his trade."
It is only l)y coming in contact with a great variety of lit-
erature that one gives his intellectual faculties a chance to
discover tlu'ir possibilities, (lladstone. happening to read Less-
ing's Laocoon. had his attention turned to art; which he
afterwards studied with enthusiasm. A comparison drawn
between an illiterate age and one of literary enlightenment
is. perhaps, one of the most satisfactory ways of showing
the benefits flowing from the general intelligence which letters
198 MISCELLANEA
afford. ('()ini)ai'e Europe of to-day with Europe of tlic 12tli
and 13th centuries, when, it is alifirmed by a distinguished
historian, not one man in five hundred could have si)elled
his Avay through a psalm. Of the thirteen barons who sub-
scribed to JMagna C'harta in 1215. only three were sufficiently
educated to write their names.
It is the essential province of history to teach mankind
by a philosophical presentation of human expericMices, con-
sidered more especially from political and ethnical points of
view. History gives a broad scope of human activities; it
teaches the wider and deepei- lessons of the aggregate man,
and contains the philosophy of human living, which all who
woukl li\'e rightly need to learn. It is indispensable for those
who are called to administei- the affairs of government, which
class in a republic embraces all the people. The military man
finds here his best instructor, an instructor whose lessons
embrace all possible examples to give guidance in every com-
plication. The scholar, bui'uing with a desire to know the
best path to choose, finds h<>re a never failing supply of sug-
gestion and warning. The finmblest 'draws from its pages
lessons of contentment, encouragement, and quiet peace. Dur-
ing the Hayes-Tilden electoral difficulty, a naturally sagacious
but not well-read man expressed himself in this manner con-
cerning the instability of our republic: "This governaient."
said he. "won't last long; there is nothing to it.'" Had he
been even tolerably informed in histoi'y. he would have seen
the unreasonableness of such a conclusion. He would have
known that a nation, like a man. grows strong and acquires
substantial character only by struggling, that the most stable
nations have passed through crises as hazardous as any we
have known. Of the nine Roman Emper(U-s who reigned in
the time of Ohrysostom, only two died a natural death. Dur-
ing the 160 years which preceded the union of the Roses,
nine kings rcMgned in England. Six of these were deposed,
five of whom lost their lives as well as their crowns. History
often imprt'sses the significance of seemingly trifling e\(>nts.
Let this one ease be noticed. The insertion of fiUoqm in Xhv
Nicene Creed hopelessly divided the Church into two distinct
branches. The value of the study of history is pithily sum-
MISCELLANEA 199
med up by Richter: "Not to know tlie aiicieuts is to Ix' an
cphemeron. which neither sees the sun rise nor set."
Much that has been said eoncerning history is, in a nar-
rower way, true of bio|;raphy. The latter may be regarded
as a literature supplementary to the former; it is. as it were,
a minute tilling in of a picture of wdiich history is the com-
prehensive outline. No kind of literature more universally
pleases than well written biography. The reason for this seems
to be. that it reveals the little things of life, the things cor-
responding to our every-day experience. It is chiefly for this
reason that Boswell's Johnson causes Boswell to be called
th»^ "'Prince of Biographers." As an illustration, when at
Trinity College. Cambridge. Macaulay once got too near an
enraged mob and was liit full in the face Avith a dead cat.
The person who threw^ it apologized heartily, saying it was
intended for a Mr. Adeane. "T wish." replied ]\Iacaulay.
"you had intended it for me and hit the other man."
The benefits Avhieh fiction confers upon life are generally
less appre('ial>le than those derived from history and biog-
raphy ; and yet to quite an extent it usurps the offices of
both these. The study of a historical novel like "Quentin
Durward" oi* "Xinety-three." or a biographical one like "The
Virginians." is a most valuable means of learning events and
men. So valuable are the productions of the ablest tiction
writers, that biography presents few examples of actual life
which can be studied with greater profit than may be these
gifted children of genius. The names of these spirit-born
men and Avomen are as familiar to us as household words,
and may as deeply influence the formation of character as any
who have lived a tlesh-and-blood existence in the Avorld. One
of the benefits of fiction is to supplement human experience.
Though a man no less wise than tSocrates declared it use-
less to read poetry unless the author were by to tell what
he meant, it is. nevertheless, true, that a love for poetry is
as pervasive of human nature as the spirit of religion. To
the question raised, w^hether England could better aft'ord to
lose her Shakspeare or her possessions in India. Carlyle re-
plied: "Indian Empire or no Indian Empire, we cannot do
without Shakspeare." The cultivation resulting from a .study
200 MISCELLANEA
of the poets brings into activity mental resources which it
is possible for every one to discover in himself, and which
notliing but poetry can so successfully call forth. There is an
educational value in what such poets as Chaucer and Words-
worth have written about tiowers. According to Richter, "Po-
etry is beueticial as a counterbalance to civilization, because
it draws an artistic life around the thin shadows, and erects
on the field of more sensuous views its own glorious visions."
Among a people such as we are, who from our peculiar envi-
ronment are to a great extent debarred from the intiuence
of sculpture and painting, poetry, which embraces in itself
nnich of what is essential in these arts, should have a prom-
inent place.
The chief educational value of scientific literature consists
in turning thought and studious effort to empirical methods
of reaching truth. The logical conclusion of the educational
theory of the ultra-scientists is. that books and literature
should play but an insignificant part in it. that nearly every-
thing in science should be learned at first hand from the
subject itself; but this would be an absurd process for the
many. Avho. to be able to get what is most desirable out of
life, must have such a degree of familiarity Avitli scientific
matters as literature affords them ready at hand. A good
example of an early and ardent advocate of purely empirical
methods of scientific study is Des Cartes. On one occasion,
when asked to show his library, he opened the door of a dis-
secting room, where appeared nothing but bones and l)roken
remains of animals, together with dissecting instruments which
showed signs of recent use. "This."' said he. "is my library."
The charm of original investigation must, however, be denied
the student in many departments of science, and yet an im-
portant ac((uaiutance witli them, though less beneficial than
what a specialist would obtain, may and should be secured
through literature.
It is somewhat on the score of divereion and of satisfying
the taste, that the ancient classics claim an important place
in the range of literature. As the art student finds his great-
est satisfaction in studying the Greek sculpture of the time
of Pericles, so the lover of good prose and poetry finds in
MISCELLANEA 201
the masterpieces of Greece and Rome his greatest delight.
An aged clergyman was once found employing his leisure
with reading Aristophanes in the original. Surprise being
expressed that he should be so occupied, he said: "Why,
if I had my life to live over, I would do nothing but read
Greek." This absurd notion about spending an entire life in
the company of the Greek authors is not after all so incom-
prehensible, if one but stops to think what, intellectually con-
sidered, Athens was. An English writer who understood the
Gre(4eguile a Kinveral well known sayings. Such are Shakspeare's "gilding
refined gold" and "l)ringing faggots to bright burning Troy."
Such also are "throwing water into the sea," and "carrjnug
coals to Newcastle." A common source for all these may
be Horace. He at first intended to writ(> his poems in Greek,
but the image of Quirinus appeared to him after midnight,
when dreams are true, reminding him that such a proceeding
would be as foolish as "carrying timber into a wood." It
is a Buddhist aphorism, that he who indulges in enmity is
like one who "throws ashes to windward."
MISCELLANEA 207
"He who lives to save his life is already dead." is (Joethe's
paraphrase of the New Testament.
Tennyson's happy depietion of the Gardener's Daughter
as "a sight to make an old man young," is in a manner
plagiarized from an artistic scene in the Iliad. — that where
Helen comes to meet Priam and the other old men as they
sit watching on the wall of Troy.
The familiar saying of Falstaif, "Discretion is the better
part of valor." is l)ut an amplification of Euripides. "Discre-
tion is valor."
In the Xew Testament it is written. "Evil comnuinications
corrupt good manners." Menander said the same 300 years
before Christ. It is something of a surprise to find in Plato
the injunction against returning evil for evil.
The danger, when avoiding one evil, of running into an-
other, is a frequent warning with classic writers. Virgil's
Scylla and Charybdis is, perhaps, the best example of this.
Yet Horace quotes an old saw, "The wolf threatens you on
this side, the dog on that."
One of Bryant 's most admired passages, ' ' Truth crushed
to earth shall rise again," is an almost literal translation of a
proverb quoted by Livy, where Fabius gives advice to Lucius
.■Emilius Paulus, to the effect that truth may be often in dis-
tress, but extinguished never. The line of the American poet
is, however, clearly the honey of his own making.
Socrates 's prayer to Pan. "Grant me to be beautiful in
soul; t(^ach me to think wisdom the only riches," is much
like what may be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Chaucer's
happy diction in "a foul shepherd and clean sheep." is only
an echo from Boccaccio, that earliest voice of modern Euro-
pean prose. This is Boccaccio's way of saying it: "Do as
we say, not as we do."
There is a nuich praised passage in one of Goethe's bal-
lads called the "Wanderer," portraying a traveler Avho finds
a little family, consisting of a laborer, his wif(\ and infant
child, dwelling in a rude cottage made from the stone ruins
of a once splendid castle. The idea is in Horace. avIio. it is
likely, took it from some Greek.
Pope's familiar hymn. "Vital spark of heavenly flame."
208 JIISt'EIJ.ANEA
is said to be an expanded translation of the dying sentiments
of the Emperor Hadrian.
The saying, quite common in literature, that "no man is a
hero to his valet," is in Montaigne, "Few men have been
admired by their oM'n domestics."
With a few poets, their finest lines are mere translations
of passages from ancient authors. Cowper's "God made the
country and man made the town," was said by Bacon, who
had taken it from the Latin poet Varro.
Solomon's "Spare the rod and spoil the child." is as fol-
lows in the Greek proverb: "The human lieing who has nevpr
had a hiding is uneducated."
A recent writer says: "A secret is half told when we have
told that we have a secret." This is in Goethe, "Whoever
wishes to keep a secret must hide from us that he possesses
one."
The majestic speech of Prospero in the Tempest, "The
cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces." is declared by
Dowden to resemble closely something in an earlier drama
l)y the Earl of Sterling. But to take such a brilliant gem
from the boundless treasures of Shakspeare does not in the
least improvish the great poet. It is only making an appli-
cation of the mathematical principle, that taking a finite quan-
tity from infinity does not make infinity less.
Shakspeare 's art in Richard 11. has been (luestioiK^l. b(^-
cause tlie dying John of Gaunt is allowed to make a pun on
his own name. But such criticism is silenced by the fact that
Sophocles, the great master of the dramatic proprieties, has a
parallel in his Ajax.
"Dying in the last ditch," seems to have its origin with
the Prince of Orange in the 17th century.
Dr. Johnson's "Hell is paved witli good iutcnitions," is to
be found in the works of Francis de Sales, a French writer
of an earlier date.
"Old men for council, young men for war," is in Hesiod
thus: "Deeds belong to youth; council to the middle-aged:
prayer to old men."
We find in Shakspeare. "My crown is on my lu^art. not
on my head." Xenophon wrote the same 400 B. C.
MISCELLANEA 209
Shakspeare 's '"Out, brief candle,'" maj' have been suggested
by this from Seneca : ' ' We are kindled and put out. ' '
Tope's "Men are children of a larger growth," is, in Shaks-
peare, "Men are but children, too, though they have gray-
hairs. ' '
"Murder will out," seems to make its first English appear-
ance in Chaucer.
Herbert Spencer is appropriating the thought of Seneca,
when he lays it down as a rule in his treatise on education,
that we should never give a child anything it cries for.
The world-wisdom of to-day seems to have been the world-
wisdom of 2,000 years ago. This from Horace is quite Shaks-
pearian: "Get money; if you can, honestly; if not, get it
in some way or other."
In Shakspeare 's Henry VI., the Duke of York is made
to say: "A crown or else a glorious tomb." Nelson may
have had this in mind when he uttered the immortal Avords.
"The peerage or Westminster Abbey."
Seneca anticipated Dr. Johnson by 1.500 years in declaring
total abstinence to be easier than moderation.
Epictetus warned philosophers not "to walk as if they
had swallowed a poker." How modern it sounds! The same
Epictetus speaks of "taking up whe}' with a hook." Avhich
suggests "eating porridge with a razor."
"Delays are dangerous." is in Dryden, Shakspeare. and
Sophocles.
Young's ]\m\ "Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep,"
suggests this from Sophocles, —
"Sleep, thou patron of mankind.
Great physician of the mind."
Pope 's —
"To err is human, to forgive divine," is as follows in
Sophocles, —
"—the unwritten law divine,
To err is human."
Milton is quoting from the ^-Encicl in. —
"Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light."
2 1 MISCELLANEA
John Wesley's "Cleanliness is next to godliness," which
is in Hacou. is in the Koran thus: "Cleanliness is one half
tin- faith/'
I^a l'\)n1aine's "Better a beggar alive than a dead em-
peror," is paralleled in the Scriptures by "A living dog is
better than a dead lion."
"Honesty is the best policy," made familiar by Franklin
and Cervantes, is 23 centuries old, Thucydides having said it,
according to Jowett's translation, as f oIIoavs : "The true path
of expediency is the path of right."
"A bird in the hand is Avorth tAvo in the bush." runs
like this in Cervantes: "A sparrow in the hand is wor-th a
bustard on llie wing."
Milton's "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
which at first sight looks original, is very much like Saneho
Panza's "good to command, though it were bnt a Hock of
sheep." Milton's "myself am hell" is Tasso's. —
"Vet still my hell within myself do bear."
In Madame de JSevingne's writings is found. "Fortiuie is
always on the side of the largest battalions." Tacitus has
it, "The gods are on the side of the stronger." Nap()l(H)n's
paraphrase is, "Providence is always on the sid(> of tlie last
reserve."
In the i)lay of eJulius Caesar, when Casca was askeil if
Cicero spoke in Greek, he replied. "It was Greek to me."
Moliere's modification is, "It is all Hebrew Greek to me;"
while in Cervantes is found. "All tiiat was Greek or pedler's
French to the countryman."
"It is not everyone that can go to Corinth." is traced
through George Sand and Rabelais to Horace.
Aristophanes, many centuries before Butlei", said in sub-
stance, —
"He who com[)lies against his will
Is of the sanu» opinion still."
Fielding in1imatt>s that a certain man may go to heaven
wlien the sun shines upon a rainy day. which suggests "paying
one's debts ou the (lireek calends."
"Masterly iiiact i\-ity. " of l're(|uent a]ipearance in modern
MISCELLANEA
211
writings, was foreshadowed iu Horace's Strenua )ios exercet
inertia.
The declaration that a certain man will sneeze w^henever
a certain other takes snuff, is, in substance, like Luther's say-
ing, that "when the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent
will play."
Tennyson copies jNloliere in the line, "Marriages an- made
iu heaven."
Goldsmith and Fielding both said. "Handsome is that hand-
some does."
"Kicking against the pricks." is t'oniid in i^schuyliis. about
500 B. C.
"One sw^allow^ does not make a summer," is as old as
Aristotle.
The figure of falling water wx-aring a stone appears in the
Greek bucolic poet Bion of the 3rd century B. C.
"Better late than never," is of Greek origin, and nearly
2.000 years old.
Tennyson's "He makes no friend who never made a foe,"
imitates Young's "The man that makes a character makes
foes." •
'•Innocence of a new-born babe." which is contained in
tlie Homeric hymn to Mercury, could hardly be older.
The "plain unvarnished tale" in Othello, belongs to iEs-
chuylus.
Shakspeare's "Lions make leopards tame," is. in yEschuy-
1ns.— "But dogs, they say, yield to the mastering wolves."
"The child is father to the man." says Wordsworth; but
before him Milton wrote. —
"The childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day."
"Light is the task when many share the toil." from the
Iliad, suggests, "Many hands make light work."
Montaigne's "Killing tw^o birds with one stone." is, in
the German. "Killing tw^o flies with one flapper."
"All is not gold that glitters," found in Dryden, Shaks-
peare, Spenser, and Ghaucer, appears in the French of about
1300.
212 MliSCELLANE.V
Pope's "Welcome the coming', spt'ed tlie parting guest.""
comes from the Odyssey.
"Man proposes and God disposes," has a place in C'ervan-
tes, Thomas a Kempis, Piers Plowman, and tin- Proverbs of
Solomon.
"Faint heart ne'er wan a lady fair," ^vhich is taken from
Burns, is in Spenser thus: "Faint heart fair lady ne'er could
win. ' '
Young's line, "Death loves a shining mark." is only a
beautiful paraphrase of Francis Quarles's, —
"Death aims with fouler spite
At fairer marks."
"Where Maegregor sits, there is the head of the tal)le,"
seems to be au idea original with Cervantes.
Cervantes says, "Bishops are made of men." Bulwer says.
through the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu, "We are no Ix^tter
than humanity."
"While there is life there is hope," comes from as far as
Theocritus.
The oft-quoted lines of Hudibras. —
"For those that fly may tight again.
Which he can never do that's slain,"
are clearly in Demosthenes.
"Coming in at one ear and going out at the other." is as
follows in Chaucer: "One care it heard, at the other out it
went. ' '
Talleyrand's witticism to the effect tlial language was given
to man to conceal his thoughts, suggests tliis from Job. "Who
is this that darkeneth council by M'ords without knowledge?"
"The remedy is worse than the disease," is a maxim of
ante-Christian date.
It was Bacon who said, "A council of war never fights."
With all tlie parading of evidence 1o show that Ha con wrote
Shakspeare's dramas, it is surprising that no successful at-
tempts have l)een made to show parallelisms of thought and
expression between the writings of these two great contem-
poraries. Tn one instance. "Be so true to thysi^lf as thou be
MISCELLANEA 213
not false to others," Bacon does seem to paraphrase the advice
of Poloniiis.
xiuthors sometimes quite freely repeat themselves. With
evident unconsciousness on the part of the writer, a charac-
teristic bright thought is made to re-appear at several places
in his works. Longfellow has been censured for his line, "Art
is long and time is fleeting," because it is taken from Goethe,
who has it in at least three different passages of his writings.
Now, the truth is. the thought is not original even with Goethe.
In the fourth century \j. C, Hippocrates wrote, "Life is short
and art is long." No one, probably, has appropriated more
from others, or oftener repeated himself, than Shakspeare.
Few things are more unpleasant for an auditor in a public
assembly than, after being charmed by an apt simile or other
figure, to learn that the beautiful trope was not original with
the speaker. The torture is quite as great, to doubt its author-
ship, with no likelihood of ever knowing the truth concerning
it. A clergyman of great learning and rhetorical skill once
illustrated the possibility of death's being a mere bug-bear
to mortals by the use of this figure: "To the living," said
he, "looking at death may be compared to viewing the out-
side of a church window, where everything is hideous ; while
for those w'ho have passed beyond it, looking back may be
to see a beautiful picture." The listener, supposing at the
time that the idea w^as original with the preacher, had his
admiration raised to a high pitch. Afterwards, finding that
the figure in its general features is somewiiat common among
writers, his admiration experienced a fatal collapse. Goethe
uses this thought, where he speaks of the dreary exterior and
the splendid interior of a church window. He compares a
poem to a painted window, dingy if seen from without, beau-
1iful when seen from within. Hawthorne, in the following
exquisite metaphor, has the same idea. "Christian faith," he
says, "is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured window^s.
Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine
any: standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony
of unspeakable splendors." The same writer also speaks of
looking closely at the wa^ong side of tapestry. In the same
line of tliiiilxing ('('r\ante.s coinpai'cs a translation to present-
214 MISCELLANEA
ing the wrong side of a piece of tapi-stry to view. Once from
au unpromising source, in a sermon on tiie importance of little
things, was heard a sentence of unusual beauty. Though the
preacher made no acknowledgment of borrowing, it was im-
possible to think it was his own. The sentence was this:
"Those only become great who think nothing little but them-
selves." F'rom an obscure country pulpit this striking figure,
which probabl}' was original with the speaker, was once heard ;
the theme of the discourse was avarice, and to show that the
future life woidd not be cursed by such a passion, the preacher
referred to the gold-paved streets of the New Jerusalem, and
said: "AVhat we here adore, there they tread upon.'"
Sometimes a person of no particular distinction as an
author originates a sentiment worthy of the classics. Carl
Schurz. wlien discussing the unreh'uting bitterness of relig-
ious and political factions in the same party, used a figure
which, if found in an ancient author, would be highly praised.
What he said was. "The greatest discords are made wdien two
persons at the same time play the same tune in tlifferent keys."
It W'as a fourth-rate writer of the present century who said.
"The world knows nothing of its greatest men." Mr. Iliulson,
the able Shakspearian critic, has this original thing about the
greatest comedy creation : "Falstaff 's speech is like pure, fresh,
cold water, which always tastes good because it is tasteless."
There is real literary force in the illiterate preacher's
extemporaneous prayer, "Though we speak nonsense, God will
pick out the meaning of it."
Rarely, a single fortunate expression of no literary value
l)eyond the merest commonplace makes a man famous. Bishop
Berkeley's line. "Westward the course of empire takes its
way," is a good illustration of this. This one line has given
Berkeley more celebrity than all his idealistic philosophy, and
yet the poetic value of it hardly exceeds Horace Greeley's,
"Go west, young man." Even Tupper has said one thing that
is immortal, "A babe in a house is a Avell-spring of pleasure."
There are examples of literary parallelisms which are un-
doubted coincidences. Pilgrim's Progress begins very much
like the Divine Comedy, though in Bunyan's time there was
no English translation of Dante. Johnson's Rasselas and Vol-
.MISCELliANEA 215
taire's Candide are so similar in theiiit:' and structure, that it
lias been thought that, if they had not appeared at the same
time, their likeness would have stamped the later production
with plagiary. A man once saw in a large clearing of a fron-
tier settlement a magnificent maple tree, which the wind had
up-rooted, lying a huge solitary wreck. The unphilosophic
settler had left this fine specimen standing when the rest of
the forest had been cut aM^ay, expecting it to remain for many
years an object of pride, little thinking that when unpro-
tected by other trees it would be leveled to the ground by
the first violent gale. The observer in question, speculating
upon Avhat seemed to be an original idea, was immediately
impressed with the possibility of making the incident illus-
trate the importance of self-reliance. To his amazement, after-
wards, he stumbled upon the following in Seneca: "The tree
that is exposed to the wind takes the best root." Dr. Johnson
declared that everything which Hume had advanced against
Christianity had passed through his own mind long before
Hume wrote.
Few ever realize that the Old Testament Scriptures are
the original source of many expressions employed in daily
conversation. The phrase, "breach of promise," which to-day
has essentially a single meaning, is found in the Book of Num-
bers, where its import is general, as is warranted by its ety-
mology. The asseveration, sometimes heard, that one could
not be induced to perform a certain act even if offered the
most exorbitant sum of money, is like Balaam's reply to Balak,
in which he declares that "'a houseful of silver and gold"
would not tempt him to "go beyond the commandment of
the Lord." When we speak of the post of honor as the
"head" and the place of dishonor as the "tail," we are
quoting from Deuteronomy. In First Samuel occur the fol-
owing, — "The ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle;"
— "Quit yourselves like men;" — "God save the king;" — "a
man after his own heart;" — "When I have sounded my fa-
ther;" — "have played the fool;" — "was much set by:" and
"tell on us." These that follow are in Second Samuel, —
"smote him under the fifth rib;" — "We are thy bone and
flesh;" — "Let us play the men;" — "take the thing to his
216 MISCEI.LANEA
heart;" and "in a great strait." In First Kings is this. —
"The half was not told me." The phrase, "much rubbisli,"
occurs in Nehemiah. The following specimen of sarcasm is
from Job, — ''Art thou the first man that was born? or wast
thou made before the hills 1 ' ' These also are in Job, — ' ' escaped
with the skin of his teeth;" and "that mine adversary had
written a book." The Psalms contain what follows, — "shall
come down upon his own pate;" and "more than heart could
wish." In Proverbs are, — "Hope deferred maketh the heart
sick;" and "wise in his own conceit." In Ecclesiastes it is
written, — "There is no discharge in that war;" and "Much
study is a weariness of the flesh." In Isaiah are found. — "pre-
cept upon precept, line upon line;" "Show yourselves men;"
"Why gaddest thou about?" From Jeremiah is taken, almost
word for word. Patrick Henry's famous, "peace, peace, but
there is no peace." The surprising use of an adjective may
be seen in Jeremiah, where mention is made of a basket of
naughty figs. "Know for certain," is also in Jeremiah. In
Lamentations we have "blacker than a coal." In Ezekiel ap-
pears the simile, "weak as water." "He may run that read-
eth," is from Habakkuk. In Haggai mention is made of the
neglectful man that "earneth wages to be put into a pocket
with lioles."
A very select few may be designated as more strictly
original Avriters. They are not popular authors. They are
best understood when compared with others of equal prom-
inence. For examiile. James Russell Lowell writes out of his
learning; Nathaniel Hawthorne, out of himself.
The choicest things in Sterna are not likely to be found
in earlier productions, even though some have questioned his
ownership of "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." a
sentence enough in itself to make any man immortal.
Robert Burns is deservedly placed among the originals.
His "Sweet Afton" and "John Anderson my Jo" have no
borrowed look.
To Richt(>r assuredly l)elongs, "The purer the golden vessel,
the more readily is it bent." a figure intended to show how
much more easily a woman's character is nuirred by vice
than a man's.
MISCELLANEA
217
It must be that Tliackeray was tlic tirst to say, "Bravery
never goes out of fashion."
Socrates seems to have originated the saying relative to
the commodiousness of taking a wife. "Let a man take which
eourse he will, he will be sure to repent."
The works of Wordsworth, George Sand, Robert Brown-
ing, and Charles Lamb have the stamp of originality. So
Goldsmith's lines. —
"The man recovered from the l)ite.
The dog it was that died."
The Letters of Junius are a storehouse of beautiful original
thought clothed in masterly language.
Goethe has many passages of striking aiul powerful orig-
inality. In his much admired analysis of Hamlet he asserts
that the demand upon the hero of that drama t'or momentous
action, which the times made upon his inadequate nature, is
like planting an oak tree in a costly jar. which must be shivered
by the expanding roots.
The following from Seneca strike one as original: "'What
wind will serve him that is not yet resolved upon his port?"
•'Nature does not give virtue, and it is a kind of art to be-
come good."
This piece of philosophy, taken from Selden's Table Talk,
is evidently Selden's own: "Wise men say nothing in dan-
gerous times."
In the Meditations of Thomas a Kempis, "Of two evils the
less is always to be chosen." is thought to make its Hrst ap-
pearance.
"He Avhistled as he went for want of thought." is no doubt
original with Dryden.
"The cuckoo told his name to all the hills." Tennyson lays
a just claim to.
Burke nuist have been the first to say. "The rose is even
more beautiful before it is full blown."
Oui- Bancroft claims kinship with the classic writers in
such an original expression as the following: "The brightest
lightnings are kindled in Ihe darkest clouds."
Almost innumerable are the apothems comnion to most
(»f the modern languages, the origin of which is clouded in
218 MISCELLANEA
mystery. Many of them can be traced through three hundred
or. even four hundred years. It is but little short of amazing
to find in the French of Rabelais such trite expressions as
these: "'Strike while the iron is hot;"— "He grasped too much
and held fast too little;'" — "He reckoned without his host;'' —
"Ke beat the bush ^^ithout catching the birds;"' — "He always
looked a gift horse in the mouth;" — "He kept the moon t'rt)m
the wolves;" — "Nothing was too hot or too heavy for him;" —
"He was as thin as a red herring;" — "He had a ilea in his
ear;" — "Tell ti-uth and shame the devil;"- — " He feared his
own shadow;" — "A word to the wise is sufficient." A search
through Montaigne. Cervantes, Le Sage, and Shal^speare would
give results no less surprising.
It would be gratifying to know beyond question who first
agreed to pay his debts on the Greek Kalends; to know where
Pludibras found, "To play with souls at fast and loose:" also
who first wrote, "If thou'st not seen the Louvre, tht)u art
damned," which Hazlitt quotes in his Table Talk.
The street gamin says. "I can't see it in that light." an
expression Fielding quotes from somewhere.
'.'Barking dogs never bite." may be older than tlie alpliabet.
What unknown original capped the climax, who depicted
absurdity by describing his victim as one who would cry.
"Fire! fire! in Noah's flood?"
M'
EPISTOLARY LITERATURE.
'OST great authors have left behind them something of
significance in the epistolary way. though but few
rest any considerable part of their fame upon such
writing. As usually bound up with the poems the letters of
Burns and Byron and a host of others are an unimportant
factor in what constitutes the literary wealth of any one of
them. Longfellow's letters are numerous, dreary, and nearly
stupid and add nothing to. if they do not even lessen his
fame. The Carlyle-Emerson correspondence is not great in a
literary sense as the miscellaneous works of either are great.
Of the celebrated writers whose letters may be said to
MISCELLANEA 219
constitute some essential part of their reputation as authors,
Cicero is perhaps the most eminent. His orations, splendid
achievements as they are. and his ]>rilliant philosophical writ-
ings, however mostly borrowings from the Greeks, would, if
unrevealed by the charm of his epistolary light, lack some-
thing which makes for his greatness and renown. His letters
re^'eal his character and clarify the mistiness that would
otherwise obscure his career as a statesman. They are a part
of the man we should be unwilling to miss, so needed are they
for his completeness as one of the foremost of tlie world's great
leaders in thought, literature, and public action. Shelley's
letters are of sufficient merit "to be praised by the praised."
It is fortunate for Shelley, whose poetry is too subtle and
intellectual for the great body of readers, that he secures a
more general hearing through his epistolary productions. jMon-
tesquieu, celebrat(>d for his published researches in the fields
of politics, history, and philosophy, was no less celebrated for
his "Persian Letters." which won him entrance to the French
Academy in 1728. To this list of writers who would still be
eminent even if shorn of the fame derived from epistolary
work, many could be added, perhaps few superior to those
already included in it. Most assuredly St. Paul, Seneca and
Balzac should not be forgotten. Andrew Lang's "Letters to
Dead Authors" are sui generis. Nobody who loves good litera-
ture can miss their charm.
There are a few important authors whose reputations rest
almost wholly, and yet securely, on what they have left pos-
terity in the way of epistolary writings. The younger Pliny,
one of the earliest of these, is also one of the most worthy.
His charming letter giving the particulars of the death of
his uncle, the elder Pliny, whose scientific curiosity exposed
him to sutfocation in the time of an eruption of Vesuvius, is
of unusual grace. Early among the post-Augustan writers of
Rome three remarkable men come together, all being bom
about the middle of the first century of our era. These are
Juvenal, Tacitus, and the younger Pliny — the first being Rome's
greatest satirist, the second her greatest historian, and the
third a writer of letters surpassed only by Cicero. Pliny, like
Cicero, was eminent as an orator. h\\\ unfortunately for his
220 MISCPJLLANEA
fame his orations have been lost. Jt was wliili' governor of
Bithynia that Pliny wrote the famous letter to Trajan about
the Christians. The fame of Voiture. a Preneh writer of the
seventeenth eentury. is supported entirely l)y his letters. The
letters of Lady Mary Wortley jNlontagu. written at Constan-
tinople early in the eighteenth century, are still fresh and read-
able, and seem likely to keep their author's name in respect-
able prominence for centuries to come. The "'Letters of Jun-
ius'" are classic English; and Chesterfield's "Letters to his
Son."" mari-ed as they are by inexcusable immorality, the judi-
cious and discriminating may well read for their grace and
style of thought. In this list of writers who are known essen-
tially for their epistolary compositions, ^ladamc de Sevigne
is to be included. Her letters are justly celebrated and reflect
for all time something of the age of Louis XIV.. which litera-
ture could not well spare. To the foregoing should be added
Horace AValpoh^'s Letters to Horace Mann.
LIFE IX LETTERS.
IT wa.s a saying of "Dick"" Steele, that men ai-e hctlcr known
by what may be observed of them from a perusal of their
private letters than in any other way. The cliarm of "The
Letters of Eliza b(>th Harrett Browning"' is biograjihical rather
than literai-y. and therein they harmonize witli Steele's idea.
The element of the unconscious so essential to good epistolary
biography, is evident in these letters, their very dullness at
times being a ])roof of the fact. A serious blemish of the "Con-
fessions of Rousseau" is the presence of too nuich of the self-
conscious, and this despite the author's assuranee that he
had artlessly told everything about himscdf. the bad and good
alike. The letters of INlrs. lirowning are not to be classed as
epistolary literature, like the letters of Cicero. Seneca, Pliny.
Lady Montagu. Chesterfield, or Balzac. The frtHjuent repe-
titions in her hitters, not only of facts and incidents but of
exact phraseology, are an indication of their spontaneousness.
Their chief interest is personal, and the world is Mrs. Brown-
ing's debtor for thus throwing open the Avindows of the soul
MISCEI;LANEA 221
and letting the light reveal the true woman. The only letter
in the two volumes that seems to have been written with lit-
erary intent is one addressed to Napoleon III. in behalf of
V^ietor Hugo, which, however, was never sent. As ill health,
especially in early life, deprived Mrs. Browning of social en-
joyment, letter-Meriting became a necessity with her.
A prominent characteristic of Mrs. Browning, as revealed
by her letters, is freedom from bitterness of spirit, a delightful
quality of character, and one seldom exemplified in a confirmed
invalid. She calls herself "Ba, " a name given her t)y her
brother, and encourages her familiar acquaintances to call her
by that name. Her friend Miss Mitford happily describes her
"with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most
expressive face, large tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eye-
lashes, a smile like a sunbeam." Her attachment for her ever
present dog "Flush," who, as she puts it, "goes out every day
and speaks Italian to the little dogs," exhibits a tender nature.
Her sound judgment is shown in her belief that, while she does
not consider happiness the end of life, work is the true source
of happiness.
Mrs. Browning's scholarship is incidentally shown to be
considerably more than respectable. From reading Pope's
translation of Homer she came to study Greek. Sh(; read in
the original something of Plato, Aristotle, and Aristophanes,
and translated the Prometheus Bound of i^schuyliis. She
wrote Greek Avithout accent or breathings. She also studied
German and Hebrew, and her long residence in Italy and
France gave her an acquaintance with the languages of those
countries. She speaks amusedly of her mistake in confound-
ing Constantine and Constantius. but tells her friends not to
mention it, as nobody will find it out.
Mrs. Browning, who essayed literary composition when a
mere girl, having published at the age of ten. had her talents
early recognized in America, where she has always l)een pop-
ular. The letters, however, contain but little relating to her
as an author. She modestly keeps her gifts as a writer in
the back-ground. Two adverse criticisms of her works annoy-
ed her greatly, that she followed Tennyson and that her rhym-
ing was not good. The claim, put forward by some of her
222 MISCELLA2SEA
admirers, of her fitness to succeed Wordsworth as poet laure-
ate, she promptly renounced, her choice for that honor being
Leigh Hunt. No doubt her literary fame is somewhat en-
hanced from the fact that she was the wife of Robert Brown-
ing. When Mrs. Browning's immaculate morals are consid-
ered, it is beyond belief, w^hat the letters reveal, that Thackeray
once rejected a lyric she offered for publication in the C'ornhill
Magazine, because morally unfit for young readers.
Mrs. Browning is quite free, and generally discriminating
and just, in her criticisms of other authors. She calls Tenny-
son "a divine poet." no laurel being ''too leafy" for him;
and speaks of Wordsworth's death as "a great light out of
heaven," adding, "Apollo taught him under the laurels, while
all the Muses looked through the boughs." She was pleased
with Bulwer. admired Dickens as an imaginative writer, under-
rated Scott, and praised Coleridge. She calls Harriet ^lar-
tineau tlie most logical intellect of the age. for a woman, and
remarks of George Sand. "If she is not the first genius of
any country or age. I really do not know who is." Shunning.
as she did. George Eliot as morally infected, it is impossible
that she should have conceded all that is due that great intel-
lect. Balzac she thinks inspired, as who must not f She Avas
not adequately impressed by incomparable Thackeray ; she
thought him intellectually great, but in tone cruel and un-
wholesome. Of American authors she has but little to say.
She mentions among others Longfellow. Hawthorne, and ^Irs.
Si owe. Of ]Mrs. Stowe's "Sunny ^lemories" she writes: "It
is wonderful that a woman who has written a book to make
the world ring should write so abominably." The work of
Margaret Fuller, whom she knew intimately, she pronounces
"just naught."
While, as was the case with Hawthorne. ]\Irs. Browning
claimed, when she first visited Italy, to know nothing about
pictures, and looked to her husband for inspiration in this
direction, she went into raptures over the natural scenery of
the country. It was from Vallombrosa. she asserts, that Milton
took his description of Paradise. She equaled Landor in prais-
ing Florence, regarding it as the most beautiful of the cities
devised by man. Of all the Brownings' places of foreign
MISCELLANEA 223
residence — Pisa, Floreuce, Venice, Naples, Rome, and J^aris^ —
Florence pleased her most. Mr. Browning liked Paris hest ;
while neither eared for Rome. The first winter of theJi' mar-
ried life, that of 1846-17, was passed in Pisa. They visited
\' by marriage,
but 1 have gained the world by mine." At Florence she
writes: "We are as happy as two owls in a hole." She
delights to call Robert "the prince of husbamls." The baby
AVideman, as might be expected, figures in the letters, which
contain choice maternal touches. "Half the day." she says.
"I do nothing but admire him." The heart recoils Avith a
chill from contemplating the treatment Mrs. BioAvning re-
ceived from her almost inhumanly selfish father in his mad
opposition to her marriage. His objection does not seem to
have been to the man she married, but to hei" marrying at
all. His selfishness even forbade his daughter's going abroad
for her health in company with her bi-other. Mr. Barrett not
only disoAvned her inunediately upon her marriage. l)ut was un-
relenting evci- after, lie would not even open the lettei's sin-
sent him, and took no notice of one written him by her hus-
band. He refused to see their child.
MISCELLANEA 225
These letters contain something of the epigramiuatic that
deserves mention. In her early days at Sidmouth she gives
as a reflection: "I have often thought that it is happier not
to do what one pleases." In ridicule of some enthusiasts who
would make Ossian the equal of Homer she says: "Homer
sometimes nods, but Ossian makes his readers nod ; " in an-
other place: "Noah was once drunk, indeed. l)ut once he
built the ark." Speaking of Coleridge she says: "The wings
of his genius are wide enough to cast a shadow over his feet."
Of love she says: "Men of genius are apt to love with their
imagination." In estimating authors: "Balzac, George Sand,
and the like immortal improprieties hold all tht- honors."
Speaking of the Lady of Locksley Hall: "I must cither pity
or despise a woman who could have married Tennyson and
chose a common man;" of familiar correspondence: "Little
details Avhich are such gold dust to absent friends;" of men:
"The hearts of men arc gcnci'ally strong in pr()])()rti()n to their
heads;" of the baby: "Pray don't suppose he has only one
chin;" of literary fame: "The vogue which begins with the
inasses generally conies to nought, while the ap[)i'(M'iHtion be-
ginning with the few always (mds with the masses." Refer-
ring to the death of Mrs. Browning in 1861. at the age of
55. the editor of the Letters writes: "So ended on earth the
most perfect example of wedded happiness in tlu^ history of
literature."
WORK.
WOKK. or its synonym labor, and with which toil and
drudgery are closely allied in meaning, is preemi-
nently the leading part in the drama of life. Work
is the siiK quo iio» of civilization, as may be inferrt^d from the
state of barbarism that usually exists wherever nature atfords
the means of subsistence without human eii'ort.
To call labor "the seed of idleness" is not so ii-rational
as it might seem; for while it is true that "we would all
be idle if we could," and that we only willingly toil in the
hope of at length enjoying rest as the fruit of our labor, this
1^26 MISCELLANEA
hope, though often delusive, is a necessary incentive to right
living, as it calls forth the exertion upon which human pro-
gress is conditioned. It seems, in some manner quite unin-
telligible to us, to be the inexorable decree of fate, that what
was in the beginning declared to be man's greatest curse
should prove to be his greatest blessing.
All this must be accepted as true, despite the fact that
the rewards of a future life are all made to centre in the
idea of rest. It is. however, not unreasonable to suppose
that our tastes, ideals, and necessities will be changed, or
even reversed after passing through the dark valley. It is
the reflection of some one, in view of the gold-paved streets
of the New Jerusalem, that gold, something we here adore,
there we shall tread upon.
The necessity of labor in the scheme of human develop-
ment has been recognized by the wisest in every age. as it
has been approved by general observation and experience. It
is Carlyle's expressed belief, that "there is endless hope in
work." He even calls work worship. Enforced inactivity,
if long continued, becomes disheartening to a degree beyond
endurance. Like close confinement in prison, it destroys nat-
ural cheerfulness, engenders bitterness of spirit, and at length
produces despair.
Quite in line with this idea is something contained in the
Rambler, where it is stated that "the safe and general anti-
dote to sorrow is occupation." Just so, employment is a
common remedy for morbidness and incipient insanity. "The
secret of life," says Mrs. Browning, "is in full occupation."
She declares that the world is not tenable on other terms.
According to Jeremy Taylor, "Idleness is the burial of a liv-
ing man." This is only another way of saying that to be
really alive is to be at work. A modern writer calls hard
work a great police agent. This idea is cogently expressed
in one of the Divine songs of Watts:
"For Satan finds some mischief still
"For idle hands to do."
The German poet Schiller echoes the same sentiment when
lie savs. "In Idle hours the evil mind is busv." So in Balzac
MISCELLANEA 227
we iiiid, "If a man lias nothing to do, lie will sooner get into
mischief than do nothing at all." The Greek dramatist Euri-
pides calls leisure "that seductive evil." Goethe, who, like
another Shakspeare. has touched all the depths and shoals
of human thought, sees "nothing more wretched than a man
in comfortable circumstances without work." A writer of
lesser note thinks "nine-tenths of the vice and misery of the
world proceeds from idleness." Lord Chatham calls vacancy
worse than even the most anxious work. Lincoln says his
father taught him to work, but never taught him to love it.
By way of partial negation, in view of all that has been
said, what Coleridge writes about hope and work is worth
remembering :
"Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve;
And hope without an object can not live."
EXTRAVAGANCE.
IN that brilliant fragment, "Buckle's History of Civiliza-
tion," appears the striking truth, that "the only protec-
tion against the tyranny of any class is to give that class
very little power." This suggests the parallel reasoning, that
the only prevention of excess in the display of expenditure
in social matters is the infrequency of vast accumulations
of wealth. Great powers of indulgence and enjoyment carry
with them great temptations to over-indulgence. So hard it
is to keep the golden mean. Still, the liberty of the individ-
ual to accumulate property, and the right to control it within
tolerably free bounds, are his naturally and legitimately. They
are the very foundation of society and are the most vital stim-
ulus of civilization. What this age witnesses is no exception
to a very old rule, as history testifies, that quite commonly
evil is the result of good carried to the extreme. In the gross
lavishness of some New York and Paris entertainments human
nature is but repeating itself. In this country it is becoming
more and more common to hear satirized the Epicurean ten-
tlencies of the times; but snch excesses are nothing new. Call-
228 MISCELLANEA
gula spent £10.000 on a single supper. At a Roman feast the
tish was reckoned stale unless it died in the hands of a guest.
Wherever wealth is abnormal, there will invariably l)e ex-
travagant display of dress, equipage, attendants, and eostly
dwellings and estates. Sumptuary laws hav(» never been found
in favor, whether relating to food and drink or wearing ap-
parel; whether in attempting to cheek the elongation of a
dude's boots, or to control the fashion of dressing a lady's
hair. The press does much to keep within bounds the social
expenditures of the wealthy ; a work the satirists have per-
formed with considerable success in all past times. Juvenal
ridicules the epicure who boasted of his delicate gastronomic
taste, which at the first mouthful could tell unerringly the
exact place from which the oysters were taken. The shrewd-
ness of law-makers in devising means to improve the manners
of the people has not often equaled that of the Locrians. who.
to prevent extravagance, made a law that no free woman
should be allowed more than one maid to follow hei- unless
she was drunk.
MAN AND PATRIOT.
IN a character like Washington it is difficult to dissociate
the man from his achievements. Washington is too nearly
apotheosized to submit readily to candid criticism. He is
understood as a soldier and as a statesman, but only slightly
as a man. Mr. Ford's ''The True George Washington'' comes
nearer unveiling the great patriot than anything ever before
attempted concerning him in a literary way. Mr. Ford shows
him human, a compound of iiesh, blotxl. sinew, and bone, and
possessed of feeling and sentiment just lilve otlier people, and
yet he in no sense degrades him or causes him to decline in the
real respect and (^steem of his admirers. It requires an elfort
to realize how liigli Washington stands among the great ones
of the earth; and it is only when we do fully realize it that
we cease wondering why he is so generally looked upon as a
demigod. "To be the tirst of Greece." says Montaigne, "is to
be the first of the Avorld.'' Few eharaetei's of Gr(>ece. or of
MISCELLANEA 229
auy otlu'i- land, have a loftiei- or sefiirci- nit-lie in fame's tem-
ple than the "Father of his Country." Great men have been
honored variously, but sehlom in such a markinl degree as is
accorded him in our recognition of the twenty-second day of
February, the day of his birth. All civilized nations, in using
the calendai'. in a fasliion deify Julius and Augustus Caesar,
each having one of the months named after him. This is a
great distinction, perhaps the greatest that couhl be mentioned.
Aside from these men. who else has greater distinction shown
him than our national hero, on account of whom ninety millions
of people turn from their serious business pursuits one day in
each year to pay a tribute of regard and gratitude f
The most flattering biographers of Washington no longer
elaim for him a distinguished ancestry. He was but little
better off in this respect than Dr. Johnson, who claimed not
to know who his grandfather was. The most that can be said.
and it is enough, is, that Washington descended from respect-
able paternal and maternal stock. His boyhood, embellished
somewhat by the myths of Mason Weems, cherry tree included,
being for the greater part of his life fatherless, was made all
too serious by unnatural responsibilities. It was nnich given
up to outdoor lif(\ His heart-susceptibilities were at least nor-
mally human, for Ave are told that his early love affairs were
numerous. It is an incident worthy of mention that one of
his sweethearts, pretty Lucy Grymes. who afterwards married
Harry Lee, was the mother of "Light Horse Harry." the author
of "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his
countrymen." and was likewise grandmother of General Robert
E. Lee of Confederate fame. Fortune favored Washington in
his final choice of a wife, for in the widow^ Martha Custis he
had for his life's completeness one who both brought wealtli
and was "herself a dower." This union, besides being happy,
made Washington one of the richest men in the colonies.
It is to be noticed that the greatest men are often modest
men. This is even especially true of military men. as Wash-
ington. Grant. Thomas. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson prove.
Washington never boasted of his deeds, and received commen-
dation Avith becoming diffidence. He stannnered out his ac-
knoAvledgiiiciits when thanked by the House of Bui-gesses for
230 MISCELLANEA
his part in the French and Indian war. (Courage was to Wash-
ington as natural as breathing. When young he was reckk^ss
in his boldness, and even "loved to hear the bullets whistle."
His cool daring at Braddock's Defeat, when he was only
twenty-two years old. is almost unexampled. Here he had
two horses shot under him, besides having four bullets pass
througli his clothing. The critical juncture which brought out
his qualities in a signal manner at Trenton and Princeton, had
the energizing force of despair. His courage at this time de-
termined the fate of the colonies. That he was kind was
shown by his treatment of his slaves, his care for his step-
children, and the adoption of his step-son's children, and by
his affectionate attention to young La Fayette, the son of his
friend and ally. His generosity appeared in giving his serv-
ices during the entire Revolutionary War, and in being utterly
free from the spirit of jealousy. When his associates or sub-
ordinates were more successful than he. it pleased rather than
soured him. General Grant resembled him in this respect. He
was an adept in diplomacy, one of the tirst qualities of a man
of affairs. He dealt successfully with (*ongress, and managed
his French allies with skill as rare as it was little appreciated.
For nothing was AVashington more eminent than for his forti-
tude and patience. Without these qualities in a marked degree
he would never have won independence for the colonies. Under
the greatest discouragements he kept a firm heart. Though
ever- retreating, he yet always inspired confidence. Valley
Forge could not break his imperturbable spirit nor the Con-
way cabal force him to resign. He was determined upon com-
plete success, and his superb dignity in its pursuit impressed
all Europe.
Washington's sdiolarly and literary attainments were
hardly more than ordinary. He had a librar.y of about nine
hundred volumes, but was not a great reader, except of books
relating to war and agriculture. He wrote a great deal, but for
the most part what was commonplace. Some of his letters of
friendship and tomplimcmt are more than ordinarily graceful.
He seldom spoke in public, like Jefferson having no gifts
in that direction. That he was not averse to gaiety and annise-
ments is manifest from his fondness for dancing and the theatre.
MISCELLANEA 281
He cared little for music and art. and was not gi\'en to saying
brilliant things. A sense of hnmor has been denied him. and,
it would seem, with good reason. Mr. Lodge, in his admirable
life of Washington, makes a herculean effort to prove that his
hero had humor, but with no signal success. It is doubtful
if Washington ever joked. His life was serious from the be-
ginning, being sobered by a great weight of care. He was
naturally of strong passions, but these were under nearly per-
fect control. When angry he was known to indulge in severe
language. It is a matter of history that he used "wicked words"
at Monmouth. Discernment was a marked characteristic of
AVashington.
He judged men as unerringly as Grant did, gener'ally choos-
ing the titting one for a place of responsibility. Pie never
failed to recognize the essential. When the messenger reported
to him the battle of Bunker Hill, he asked the most important
question possible, "Did the militia stand fire?" and when
answered in the affirmative he was content. He was a stickler
for official ceremony, and was in consequence accused of royal
tendencies. The display at his inauguration was far removed
from the Jeffersonian simplicity of a later time. Yet it was the
office, not the man, he would adorn. His personal and domestic
habits were in general simple. He liked to go to bed at nine
o'clock, whenever it was possible. Display in dress was evi-
dently a matter of pride with him, though his black velvet
suit, knee-breeches, diamond buckles, and powdered hair were
only in keeping with the custom of the leading Virginia families
of the time. He was fond of horses, dogs, hunting, fishing, and
athletic sports. He had an imposing figure, being "six feet
two" in his boots.
Like every other man of great eminence he had his enemies
and detractors. They called him proud and cold and found
fault with his boM^ Once while in office the cry of impeach-
ment was raised against him. As was the case with Grant, he
was called commonplace, stolid, and lacking in genius. His
enemies even said he was not a true American, but only a
veneered Englishman. Our own historians are lavish in their
praise of Washington. Excepting a few discordant notes, like
those of Carlyle, foreign writers have been profuse in their
232 MISCELLANEA
expressions of admiration for him. Landor ranked Washing-
ton second to none. Thackeray, in "The Virginians," lauds
him Avithout stint. As a man Washington seems to have been
lacking in warmth of feeling and in humor, two qualities most
conspicuous in Lincoln's character; but for thorough devotion
to country he is without a peer. As William Shakspeare is
called the prince of poets, and as Sir Philip Sidney is called
the typical gentleman, so George Washington may be called
the model patriot of all time.
JOINT HONORS.
IT is difficult to name the first American. It is easy enough
to name the first two. They are, as nearly every one will
admit, Washington and Lincoln. These appear like equal
suns revolving about some common centre. From the prerog-
ative given him by the hallowing influence of over a hundred
years. AVashington may at present lay claim to the higher dis-
tinction. Whether the future is to reverse the prol)abilities
and place Lincoln on the higher pedestal, time alone must de-
cide. Washington was supported by the dignity of social rank
and the pride of birth ; Liiicoln. ])y the dignity of charming
and almost miraculous human-heartedness. joined to other ex-
traordinary gifts. Both were patriots of unsullied worth and
conspicuous among the Avorld's greatest and best. Greatness
is comparative. Ah'n of action, to be among the foremost of
the ages, must be associated with civil and national affairs of
the first consideration. Alexander and Caesar, in the fortunate
al)sorptioii of empire they enjoyed, each had a world for a
kingdom. Even in the competitions of later civilizations and
in the greater equalizing of imperial possessions, the most illus-
trious have been in some manner the exponents of great nat-
ional power. Washington's renown grows with the inereasiug
renown of the republic he founded. To save and perpetuate
the same republic in its maturer and unrivabni glory was the
means of discovering in Lincoln such rare human qualities as
only at infrequent intervals amaze mankind.
On manv accounts it is unfortunate tliat these two men
MISCELLANEA 283
have birthdays so near together. It would seein a prodigality
of patriotism to have two such kindred holidays in tlse same
month. Although a few of the States have ventured to do
this, it is not likely that a national holiday will ever be ae-
corded Lincoln, a thing that would be inevitable had he been
born'under another zodiacal sign.
In noting the grounds on w^hich Lincoln's fame rests, it is
worth while considering the anomaly of almost universal esteem
in which he is held in all sections of the country, the South
even not excepted. What greater glory can a mortal achieve
than to have the affection of those coerced by him in awful
war? The Caesars. Julius and Augustus, were placed in the
calendar on account of qualities of head only. Lincoln is to
be raised to the skies for qualities of both heart and head.
Since it seems so unlikely that the shortest month of the
year is ever to contain two national holidays commemorative
of distinguished Americans, why not make "honors easy" be-
tween Washington and Lincoln, take the middle point betAveen
their birth-dates, and make February 17th a national holiday
for both?
234 MISCEI.LANEA
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.
BANNER of hope and bringer of the day.
In dreams foreseen, of better things to be,
Thy clustering stars, with empyrean ray.
Shall pilot man to loftier destiny!
IN MEMO RIAM — HORACE LATHROP.
THE voj'age is ended, sails hauled down, and coiled
Away the ropes." This, Dante's euphemism
For death, is fitly said of thee, whose life
A lengthy voyage of duty, conflict, care
Has been: whose sails, alas, now furled for aye,
Were swelled by breath of loyalty and truth:
Whose ropes were cords of love, that stood the stress
Of every storni and sea, till worn by time
They snapped like gossamer, without a strain.
At last, in death's great calm.
MY MOTHER.
To me a face of kindliest sympathy
Comes peering through the rifts of cloudy years;
Its benedictory smile awakens all
The powers of memory, causing to live
Again that dear and saintly one. my Mother.
Her accents, as of old. articulate
Become, whether of praise or of reproof,
The sweetest accents human ear e'er heard.
Her face and voice a talismanic charm
Throw o'er the heart and sense, a charm unfading.
Itself enough to counteract the ills
Of life and make me truly glad to be.
MISCELLANEA 235
THE GIRLS.
THROUGH the din of departed years come voices familiar and
bright ;
Through memory's portals visions come, radiant with light:
They're the voices and visions of girls, as I knew them in days gone by:
How the corridors ring with their laughter: love's greeting how it
beams from each eye!
It's a joy at the call of fancy to re-people those halls at will.
For it stirs my soul to rapture and it sends through my heart a thrill.
If there's aught can make life worth living, with its rush and mad-
dening whirls.
It's the retrospective visions and the remembered voices of girls.
THE WADLEIGH COLORS.
OF gold and blue our colors be.
Tints borrowed from the sun and sky;
Our pride to wear them worthily.
Our aim their praise to magnify.
Badges be they of truth and love,
Of duty and pure friendship's tie;
Constant remebrancers, to prove
Our loyalty shall never die.
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