ENGLISH AND GERMAN HISTORIANS
When I went to England in 1886 to collect materials for a life of
Young Sir Henry Vane, John Fiske gave me a letter to Dr. Richard
Garnett, then Superintendent of the Reading Room in the British
Museum. He afterwards became Sir Richard Garnett and was promoted to
be Keeper of Printed Books, perhaps the highest position among the
librarians of the world, a post to which he did honour. Dr. Garnett,
slender and alert, the heaped-up litter of volumes and manuscripts in
his study telling at a glance where his tastes lay, was nevertheless
as he needed to be most practical and business-like. Though an
accomplished littérateur touching with versatility poetry, criticism,
history, philosophy, and still other fields, this was his hobby only,
his main work being when I knew him to make available for readers
crowding from all lands seeking information of all kinds, the
treasures of this wonderful store-house. He treated me with the
kindest courtesy, but I have no reason to feel that I was an
exception. He stood on that threshold, a welcomer of all scholars, for
his good nature was no more marked than the comprehensiveness of his
information and the dexterity with which without the least delay, he
put into the hands of each searcher the needed books. Perhaps it was
an unusual favour that, influenced no doubt, by my good introduction,
he took a half-hour out of his busy morning to conduct me himself
through the Egyptian collection. We passed rapidly among statues and
hieroglyphics, his abundant knowledge appearing transiently as he
touched upon object after object while at the same time in an incisive
and witty vein he spoke of America and the events of the day. Pausing
at last before the great scarabaeus of polished syenite whose huge
size required a place in the centre of the corridor, he said with
a twinkle, "I must tell you a story about this of which one of your
countrymen is the hero. I was walking with him here in the collection
and expected from him some expression of awe, but like so many of you
Americans, he wouldn't admit that he saw anything that couldn't be
paralleled in the United States until we stood before the scarabaeus.
Here his mood changed; his face fell, he slowly walked around the
scarabaeus three times and then exclaimed, 'It's the all-firedest,
biggest _bug_ I ever saw in all my born days'"! I palliated
patriotically the over-breezy nonchalance of my countryman and thought
I had got at the bottom of the joke, but that evening at a little tea
I was undeceived. A small company were present of men and women, talk
flowed easily and when it came my turn I told the story of the Yankee
and the scarabaeus which I had heard that day. As I brought out with
emphasis the "all-firedest, biggest _bug_," I noticed that a
frost fell on the mirth, silence reigned for a moment interrupted only
by gasps from the ladies. What impropriety had I committed? Presently
a little man behind the coffee-urn at the far end of the table, whom
I had heard was a bit of a scientist, piped up: "Perhaps the Professor
doesn't know that in England, when we talk about bugs, we mean that
_cimex_ which makes intolerable even the most comfortable bed."
At last I had Dr. Garnett's story in its full force.
When I explained to Dr. Garnett my errand, an elaborate investigation
of an historic figure, said he: "You must know Samuel Rawson Gardiner,
the best living authority for the period of the English Civil War.
Now Dr. Gardiner is peculiar. His great history of that period as yet
takes in nothing later than 1642. Up to that date he will have all the
information and help you generously. Of the time beyond that date he
will have nothing to say, be mute as a dumb man. He has not finished
his investigations and has a morbid caution about making any
suggestion based on incomplete data." A day or two afterward I was
in the Public Record Office in Fetter Lane, the roomy fire-proof
structure which holds the archives of England. You sit in the Search
Room, a most interesting place. Rolls and dusty tomes lie heaped about
you, the attendants go back and forth with long strips of parchment
knotted together by thongs, hanging down to the floor before and
behind, written-over by the fingers of scribes in the mediaeval days
and sometimes in the Dark Ages. The past becomes very real to you as
you scan Domes Day Book which once was constantly under the eye of
William the Conqueror, or the documents of kings who reigned before
the Plantagenets. As I sat busy with some original letters of Henry
Vane, written by him when a boy in Germany in the heart of the Thirty
Years' War, a vigorous brown-haired man came up to me with a pleasant
smile and introduced himself as Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Dr. Garnett
had told him about me and about my especial quest, and with rare
kindness, he offered to give me hints. It was for me a fortunate
encounter, for no other man knew, as Gardiner did, the ground I
desired to cover. He put into my hands old books, unprinted diaries,
scraps of paper inscribed by great figures in historic moments, the
solid sources, and also the waifs and strays from which proper history
must be built up. He would look in upon me time after time in the
Search Room; in the Reading Room of the British Museum we sat side by
side under the great dome. We were working in the same field and the
experienced master passed over to the neophyte the yellow papers and
mildewed volumes in, which he was digging, with suggestions as to how
I might get out of the chaff the wheat that I wanted. He invited me to
his home at Bromley in Kent, where he allowed me to read the proofs
of the volume in his own great series which was just then in press.
It related to matters that were vital to my purpose and I had the rare
pleasure of reading a masterly work and seeing how the workman
built, inserting into his draft countless marginal emendations, the
application of sober second thought to the original conception.
I spent the best part of the night in review and it was for me a
training well worth the sacrifice of sleep. In the pleasant July
afternoon we sat down to tea in the little shaded garden where I
met the son and daughter of my host and also Mrs. Gardiner, an
accomplished writer and his associate in his labours. The interval
between tea and dinner we filled up with a long walk over the fields
of Kent during which appeared the social side of the man. He told me
with modesty that he was descended from Cromwell through Ireton, and
the vigour of his stride, with which I found it sometimes hard to keep
up, made it plain that he was of stalwart stock and might have marched
with the Ironsides. A day or two later he bade me good-bye; he and
his wife departing for the continent for a long bicycle tour. The
indefatigable scholar was no less capable in the fields and on the
high road than in alcoves and the Search Room.
Lecky was not in England at the time of my visit and I can only claim
to have had with him an epistolary acquaintance. To some extent I have
worked on the same themes with him, and preserve among my treasures
certain letters in which he made me feel that he regarded my
accomplishment as not unworthy. Sir Charles Dilke and the Bishop
of Oxford, William Stubbs, author of the great _Constitutional
History_, I also never met, but I have letters from them which I
keep with those of Lecky as things which my children will prize. With
Edward A. Freeman, however, I came into cordial relations, a character
well worthy of a sketch. He once came to America where with his fine
English distinction behind him he met a good reception. He deported
himself after the fashion of many another great Englishman, somewhat
clumsily. At St. Louis he amusingly misapprehended conditions.
Remembering the origin of the city he took it for granted that the
audience which greeted him was for the most part of French descent,
whereas probably not a dozen persons present had a trace of French
blood in their veins. Because backwoodsmen a few generations before
had possessed that region he took it for granted that we were
backwoodsmen still. He addressed us under these misconceptions,
the result being a "talking down" to a company of supposedly Latin
extraction and quite illiterate. The fact was that the crowd,
Anglo-Saxon with a strong infusion of German, was made up of people of
high intelligence, the best whom the city could furnish, a city at the
time noted for its interest in philosophical pursuits and the home
of a highly educated class. Freeman's well-meant remarks would have
seemed elementary to an audience of school-children. The address
was quite inadequate and the unfortunate visitor had a rather cool
reception. Freeman was only one of many in all this. The astronomer
R.A. Proctor came to similar grief for a similar _gaucherie_, and
even so famous a man as Lord Kelvin suffered in like manner. I have
been told that at Yale University when addressing a college audience
zealous for their own institution, he stumbled badly on the threshold
by enlarging on the great privilege he was enjoying in speaking to the
students of Cornell, proceeding blandly under the conviction that
he was at Ithaca instead of under the elms of New Haven. But this
clumsiness in Freeman and in others was only a surface blemish. He was
a great writer treating with profound learning the story of Greece and
Rome and South-western Europe in general, and illuminating as probably
no other man has done the distant Saxon and early Norman dimnesses
that lie in the background of our own past. I held him in thorough
respect and when, following an article I had prepared in London
for the _Pall Mall Gazette_, I received a polite note from him
inviting me to come to see him at Somerleaze near Wells, I was much
rejoiced. I went thither, passing through the beautiful green heart of
England. In Wiltshire from the car-window I caught sight of a distant
down on which, the substratum of chalk showing through the turf
skilfully cut away, appeared the figure of a gigantic white horse, the
memorial of an old Saxon battle; thence passing near Glastonbury
and skirting the haunts of ancient Druids in the Mendip Hills, I was
attuned for a meeting with a scholar who more than any other man of
the time had aroused interest in the old life of England. I alighted
at Wells where a trap was waiting, and drove between hedgerows for
two miles to the secluded mansion. It lay back from the road, a roomy
manor house thickly surrounded by groves and gardens. I was put at
ease at once by the friendly welcome of Mrs. Freeman, a charming
hostess who met me at the door. Freeman soon entered, a veteran of
sixty, his florid English face set off by a long beard, and hair
rather dishevelled, tawny, and streaked with gray. Like Gardiner he
was of vigorous mould and we presently strode off together through the
lanes of the estate with the sweet landscape all about us. His talk
was animated and related for the most part to the objects which we
passed and the points that came into view on the more distant hills.
It was rather the talk of a local antiquary than of a historian in
a comprehensive sense, though now and then a quickly uttered phrase
linked a trifling detail with the great world movement; the spirit
was most kindly. Returning to the house he stooped to the ground and
picked up a handsome peacock's feather which he gave with a bow as a
souvenir of the walk. At dinner we met Miss Freeman, an accomplished
daughter. There was only one guest besides myself, a man whom I felt
it was good fortune to meet. It was the Rev. William Hunt, since
that time well known as a large contributor to Leslie Stephen's great
Dictionary of National Biography, President of the English Historical
Society, and author of many valuable works. It so happened that a few
weeks before, my Life of Samuel Adams had come under his notice and
gained his approval, which he had expressed in a cordial fashion
in the Saturday Review by an article which had caused me much
satisfaction. An evening followed full of interesting things. Miss
Freeman played the piano for us with much skill, and then came a most
animated talk which, though genial, was critically pungent. The United
States was often sharply attacked and I was put to all my resources
to parry the prods that were directed at our weak places. I did
not escape some personal banter. Feeling that I was in a congenial
atmosphere I announced with warmth my persistent love for England,
though my stock had been fixed in America since 1635. I spoke of
a cherished tradition of my family. The chronicler, Florence of
Worcester, describes an ancient battle in the year of 1016 between
Edmond Ironside and the Danes. The battle was close and the Danes at
one point had taken captive a Saxon champion who looked very much like
the king. By cutting off his head and holding it up before the Saxon
army they well-nigh produced a panic, for the Saxons believed that
their king was slain, and Edmond had a lively quarter of an hour in
correcting the error and restoring order. He finally did so and won
victory at last. The chronicler gave the name of the Saxon who thus
suffered untimely decapitation as Hosmer. I told the story and Freeman
at once insisted that it should be confirmed. He sent his daughter to
the library, who returned bearing a huge tome containing the chronicle
of Florence of Worcester. Freeman turned at once to the date, 1016,
and there was the passage in the quaint mediaeval Latin. It was indeed
a Hosmer who unwittingly had so nearly brought Edmond Ironside to
grief. "Was I descended from the man?" queried Freeman. Quite proud
that my story had been substantiated and perhaps a bit vainglorious
over the fact that a man of my name had looked like a king, I was not
slow in saying that I probably was, that my line for six hundred years
after that date, honest yeomen, had lived near the spot, in the fields
of Kent. Freeman assented to the probability, but it was suggested by
others present that there was a further tradition. The Hosmer of 1016
had lost his head, the Hosmers since that day had been constantly
losing theirs, in fact, there had been no man of that name since that
time in England who had any head worth speaking of, indeed they
were said to be born without heads. Had this curious heredity been
transmitted to the American line? I was forced to admit with confusion
that I could cite no circumstances to rebut the suspicion, but all
was good-natured though pungent, and when we broke up I retired to
the guest chamber in a pleasant excitement. Freeman, who conducted me
himself, brought the guest-book, calling my attention to the fact that
the chamber had shortly before been occupied by Gladstone. The next
morning we drove to Wells where, under the guidance of Freeman and Mr.
Hunt, I studied for some hours the beautiful cathedral. It is not so
large as many cathedrals, but few of them are more interesting. The
front is finely impressive; a curious, inverted arch in the choir
which descends from the ceiling to meet an arch rising from the floor
at a point midway between the roof and pavement is a unique thing in
architecture, a master-stroke of the mediaeval builder who solved
a problem of construction and at the same time produced a thing of
beauty. I remember, too, in a chapel, an example of a central column
rising like a slender stem of a lily and foliating at the top into
a graceful tracery, springing from the columns which surround and
enclose the space. All this is elaborated with exquisite detail in the
white stone. My guides, who were full of feeling for the architectural
perfection, knew well the story of the builders and the interesting
events with which through the centuries a masterpiece had been
associated. It was a charming visit closed, appropriately, by this
inspection under Freeman's guidance, of the cathedral of Wells.
Goldwin Smith was a cosmopolite; a citizen as much of Canada and the
United States as of England; a man indeed who would have preferred to
call himself a citizen of the world. But in England he was born and
bred and began his career; under the Union Jack he died, and he may
rightly be classed as an English historian. My acquaintance with
Goldwin Smith began a quarter of a century back, in the interchange
of notes and books. I was interested in the same fields which he had
illustrated. I looked upon him as more than any other writer, perhaps,
my master. I was in love with his spirit from the first and thought
that no other man had considered so well topics connected with the
unity of English-speaking men in a broad bond of brotherhood. I did
not set eyes on him until 1903, being for that year President of the
American Library Association which was to meet at Niagara Falls. I
invited Goldwin Smith to give the principal address. The librarians of
Canada, as well as the United States, were to assemble on the frontier
between the two countries, and it seemed desirable that a man standing
under two flags should be spokesman and this character fitted Goldwin
Smith precisely. But that year he became eighty years old. In the
spring he was ill and did not dare to undertake in June an elaborate
address. When we assembled at Niagara Falls, however, I found him
there. He had come from Toronto to show his good-will and he spoke
several times in our meetings; deliverances which, while neither long
nor formal, were well worth hearing. He was a stately presence, tall,
slender, and erect even at eighty, with a commanding face and head
which had every trait of dignity. I had several opportunities for
private talk and it appeared that his natural force was by no means
abated. It would no doubt be more just to class him as a critic in
politics, literature, and philosophy rather than an historian, but in
the latter capacity, too, his service was great. His talk was fluent,
incisive, and put forward without reference to what might be the
prejudices or indeed the well-based principles of his listeners. He
lashed bitterly the Congress of the United States for refusing through
fear of Irish disapproval to do honour to John Bright. His tongue
was a sword and cut sharply, and while he won respect always, often
excited opposition and sometimes hatred. Napoleon in particular was a
_bête noire_, to whom he denied even the possession of military
genius. His courage was serene and he was quite indifferent as to
whether he were hissed or applauded. He moved in a lofty atmosphere
and the praise and blame of men counted for little with him, as on his
high plane he discussed and judged. But it was impossible to entertain
for Goldwin Smith any other feeling than profound respect, his
accomplishments were vast, his memory unfailing, his ideals the
highest, his sense of justice the keenest. His was a nature perhaps to
evoke veneration rather than affection, and yet to men worthy of it he
could be heartily cordial and friendly. The inscription on the stone
erected to his memory at Cornell University is "Above all nations is
humanity." In his thought any limitation of the sympathies within the
comparatively narrow bounds of one country was a vice rather than a
virtue, and no nation was worthy to endure which did not stand for
the good of the world at large; into love for all humanity narrower
affections should emerge. He invited me to spend some days at the
Grange at Toronto in his beautiful home, but circumstances made it
impossible. I am glad to have seen Goldwin Smith at Niagara; that
majestic environment befitted the subduing stateliness of his
presence, his intellect, power, and elevation of view. He was one of
the most exalted men I have ever known.
Of my friend Bishop Phillips Brooks, I hope to say something
by-and-by. I only mention now that when I asked him in 1886 for a
letter or two to friends in England, whither I was going to collect
material for a life of the colonial governor, he heartily said, "I
will give you a letter to the best Englishman I know, and that is
James Bryce."
Arriving one July day in London, I posted my letter and received at
once an invitation from Mr. Bryce to call upon him in Downing Street,
where, as Under Secretary of State, he then made his official home.
Mark Twain's tears over the grave of Adam, a relative buried in a
strange land, all will recall. On a basis as good perhaps, I walked
through Downing Street with a certain sense of proprietorship, for did
it not bear the name and had it not been the home of my brother in the
pleasant Harvard bond, Sir George Downing, of the class of 1642? In
the ante-room with its upholstery of dark-green leather I mused for
a few minutes alone, over diplomatic conferences of which it had
probably been the scene, but Mr. Bryce quickly entered, slight and
sinewy, in his best years, kindly, courteous to the man sent by a
friend whom he held among the closest. Bryce at that time was on the
threshold of his fame. He had written _The Holy Roman Empire_
which I knew well. He had been Regius Professor at Oxford, whose
shades he had not long before forsaken for politics. That he had a
special interest in and knowledge of America, the world did not know.
He apologised for turning me off briefly then, but "Come to dinner,"
said he, "at my house to-night in Bryanstone Square." I was prompt to
keep the appointment. A drizzle filtered through the night as the cab
arrived at the door, but there was a cheery light in the windows and
a warm welcome to the entering guest. There were three or four besides
myself; a young officer just home from the campaign in the Soudan, Dr.
Richter the authority in music and art, and the brother and sister of
the host. I felt it a high distinction that I handed out to dinner
the stately lady, the mother of my host. The conversation was general.
Bits of African experience from the young soldier, glimpses into
Richter's special fields, and a contribution or two from the
Mississippi Valley, from me. In the talk that followed the dinner Mr.
Bryce showed himself at home in German as much as in English, but what
surprised me most was his puzzling curiosity about minutiae of our own
politics. Why did the Mayor of Oshkosh on such and such dates veto
the propositions of the aldermen as to the gas supply? And why did the
supervisors of Pike County, Missouri, pass such and such ordinances as
regards the keeping of dogs? These, or similar questions were fired at
me rapidly, uttered with a keen attention as to my reply. I was quite
confused and lame on what was supposedly my own ground. How queer, I
thought, was the interest and the knowledge of this stranger. But in
a few months I felt better. _The American Commonwealth_ appeared,
revealing Bryce as a man who had set foot in almost our every State
and Territory, and who had an intimacy with America such as no
American even possessed.
I am speaking here of historians, but may appropriately give a
little space to an account of that wonderful acre or two of ground
at Westminster, where for so many centuries the history of the
English-speaking race has been to such an extent focused.
In looking up Young Sir Henry Vane, it seemed fitting to have some
knowledge of Parliament, and I welcomed the chance when, on the 19th
of August, 1886, Parliament convened. It was a time of agitation. At
the election just previous the Liberals, with Gladstone at the head
of the Cabinet, had undergone defeat and the Conservatives had come in
with Lord Randolph Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The
first night was sure to be full of turmoil and excitement. Through
Mr. Bryce's good offices I had a seat in the Strangers' Gallery. The
student of history must always tread the precincts of Westminster with
awe. There attached to the Abbey is the Chapter House. The central
column divides overhead into the groins that form the arched ceiling,
the stones at its base still bearing a stain from the rubbing elbows
of mediaeval legislators, the floor worn by their hurrying feet, for
from the time of Edward I. the Chapter House remained for centuries
the legislative meeting-place. The old St. Stephen's Chapel to which
Parliament at length removed was burned some eighty years since, but
Westminster Hall, its attachment--the great hall of William Rufus,
escaped and the new buildings of Parliament stand on the site of its
former home. The present House of Commons occupies the ground of the
old Chapel and in size and arrangement differs little from it. The
Hall is small. The seven hundred members seated on the benches which
slope up from the centre, crowd the floor space, while the galleries
for the press at one end, for strangers at the other, and for the use
of the Lords and the Diplomatic corps at the sides give only meagre
accommodation. I passed into the building at nightfall, getting
soul-stirring glimpses into the great area of Westminster Hall, in
which burned only one far-away light. Its grandeur was more impressive
in the dimness than in the glare. The lofty associations of the spot,
coronations of kings, the reverberations of eloquence, the illustrious
victims that had gone out from its tribunal to the scaffold thronged
in my thought as I momentarily paused. But time pressed and I passed
on to the central Hall where I stood in a jostling crowd, absorbed in
the present with little thought of the fine frescoes that lined the
walls or of the history that had been made in that environment. I was
to send in my card to Mr. Bryce and while I stood puzzled as to what
course to take, a good friend came to my side in the person of Sir
Henry Norman. He had not then received his knightly title but was
simply assistant to W.T. Stead on the _Pall Mall Gazette_,
pushing his way, but already marked for a distinguished and eccentric
career. He came to America as a youth and entered the Harvard
Theological School. Inverting his pyramid, after beginning with the
cone, he put in the base, taking up the work of undergraduate, and
studying for an A.B. At Harvard he is best remembered as Creon in
the _Oedipus Tyrannus_, where his handsome face and figure and
mellifluous Greek won much admiration. Soon after, he cast to the
winds both his Greek and theology and was in London fighting his way
in the Press. Since then he has become famous for Oriental travel and
observation, in which field he is an authority, and also as a member
of Parliament. A friendship with him had been conciliated for me by a
good letter from Edwin D. Mead, and I was glad to have him by my side
that night. Through his help I soon was in the hands of Mr. Bryce and
under his guidance found the way to my appointed seat. The House was
in an uproar as I entered and from my point of vantage I looked down
upon the scene, undignified, but full of most virile life. At the
opposite end of the Hall sat Speaker Peel, in gown and wig, his
sonorous cries of "Order! order!" availing little it seemed, to quiet
the assembly. In the centre of the Chamber stood the famous table,
the mace reposing at the end, the symbol that the House was in formal
session. On one side sat the members of the new Cabinet, the foremost
and most interesting figure, Lord Randolph Churchill. Opposite to
them across the width of the table were the leaders of the opposition,
Gladstone at the fore. The benches were densely crowded with members.
Under my feet where I could not see them were the Irish members, not
visible but noisily audible. Many men of note were in their seats that
night. A powerful voice was ringing through the Chamber as I took my
seat, which I soon found was that of Bradlaugh. His utterance was a
sustained declamation. But there were ejaculations, sometimes mere
hoots and cat-calls, sometimes crisply-shouted sentences rose into the
air. "I belong to a society for the abolition of the House of Lords,"
came thundering up. It was from Sir Wilfred Lawson, the radical from
Carlisle, whose statue now stands on the Thames Embankment. Lord
Randolph Churchill made that night what I suppose was the great speech
of his life, for some two hours facing the Irish members waging a
forensic battle, memorable for even the House of Commons. From my
perch I looked directly into his face at a distance of not many feet
as he confronted the Irish crowd. Rather short of stature, he was a
compact figure, and his face had in it combative energy as the marked
characteristic. He outlined the policy of the new government with
serene indifference to the stormy disapproval which almost every
sentence evoked. When the outcry became deafening, he paused with a
grim smile on his bull-dog face until the interruption wore itself
out. "This disturbance makes no difference to me," he would quietly
say, "I am only sorry to have the time of the House wasted in such
unreasonable fashion." Then would come another prod and a new chorus
of howls rolling thunderously from the cavern under my feet. It is
not in line with my present plan to describe this speech; that may be
found in Hansard under the date. I touch only on the outside manner
as he fought his fight. It was a fine example of cool, imperturbable,
unshrinking assault, and I thought that in some such way his ancestor,
the great Duke of Marlboro, might have ruled the hour at Blenheim and
Malplaquet. Many years after it fell to me to introduce to an audience
his son Winston Churchill who, when his father was Chancellor of the
Exchequer, was a schoolboy at Harrow. I took occasion to describe
briefly the battle I had seen his father wage at Westminster. It
pleased Winston Churchill then fresh from the fields of South Africa.
"That was indeed a great speech of my father's," he said. Since then
the son has developed into a combatant probably not less formidable
than his forebears.
This was well worth while for me, desiring to see the Parliament of
England in its most interesting moods, but something came later which
I treasure more. While the conflict proceeded, in his place near
the mace but a yard or two distant from the conspicuous figure sat
Gladstone. I had seen him enter the House, a massive frame dressed in
a dark frock-coat which hung handsomely upon his broad shoulders, with
the strong head and face above, set in a lion-like mane of disordered
hair. He sat unmoved and quiet throughout the conflict as he might
have done at a ladies' tea-party, but now he rose to speak. At once
complete silence pervaded the Chamber. I believe I have never seen so
impressive an exhibition of the power of a great personality. Foes as
well as friends waited almost breathless for the words that were to
come. It was a time of crisis. He had just met defeat. What could the
discredited leader say?
He began in a voice scarcely above a whisper, though in the silence it
was distinctly audible, but the tones strengthened and deepened as he
proceeded. His audience hung upon his every word, and so he discoursed
for half an hour. It was not a great speech,--a series of calm,
unimpassioned statements in which clearness of phrase and absolute
abstention from aggressive attack upon his opponents were the most
marked characteristics. It was courteous toward friend and foe,
and foes no less than friends received each clear-cut sentence with
attention most respectful. I was a bit disappointed not to see the old
lion aroused and in his grandeur. But it is a thing to prize that I
witnessed a manifestation made in his full strength and in the acme of
his dominance. It was worth while to see that even in no great mood,
the force of his leadership was recognised and reserve power of the
man fully felt. Like every Achilles, Gladstone was held by the heel
when dipped. One may well feel that he came short as a theologian. The
scholars slight his Homeric disquisitions. Consistency was a virtue
which he probably too often scouted, but his high purpose, his
spotlessness of spirit, and strong control of men no one can gainsay.
In the slang of the street of that time he was the "G.O.M.," the Grand
Old Man as well to those who fought him as to those who loved him.
An impressive incident of the session occurred in the address of the
"Mover of the Queen's Speech." The orator in brilliant court attire,
a suit of plum-coloured velvet with full wig and small-clothes which
seemed almost the only bit of colour in the soberly, sometimes rather
shabbily, dressed assemblage, a costume which through long tradition
attaches to the function which he discharged, prefaced his remarks
with this tribute: "However we may differ from the honourable member
for Midlothian, we are all willing to admit that he is the most
illustrious of living Englishmen." In spite of the general bitterness
of the tumultuous controversy, one felt that there lay beneath it
all a certain fine magnanimity. Both Liberal and Tory believed in
the substantial patriotism and good purpose of the adversary as a
fundamental concession and that all were seeking the best welfare
of England. The differences regarded only the expedients which were
proper for the moment. One could see that foes furious in the arena
might at the same time be closest personal friends. It was not a
riddle that in the tea-rooms and the smoking-rooms Greek and Trojan
could sit together in friendly _tête-à-tête_, or that such
incidents could occur as the genial congratulations extended by
Gladstone to Joseph Chamberlain over the fine promise of his son
Austin Chamberlain making his début in Parliament; congratulations
extended when the two statesmen were at swords' points,--a friendly
talk as it were, through helmet bars when the slash was at the
sharpest.
As I went home that night, through the streets of London, my mind and
heart were full. My special studies at the moment were familiarising
me with what lay behind the scene which I had just beheld. In similar
fashion in the days of Edward I. and Simon De Montfort, the Commons of
England, then struggling up, had wrestled in the narrow Chapter House.
And so they had fought in the Lancastrian time; and after the Tudor
incubus had been lifted off. So under the Stuarts had the wrangling
proceeded from which came at length the "Petition of Right."
Substituting the doublet and the steeple hat for their modern
equivalents, the spectacle of the Long Parliament must have been very
similar. Speaker Lenthall no doubt shouted "Order! Order!" as did
his successor Speaker Peel, while Pym, Hampden, Cromwell, and Vane
passionately inveighed against Prelacy and the "Man of Blood," as
I had just heard the Radicals of the Victorian era overwhelm with
diatribe the obstructors of the popular will. Then, during the
subsoiling which the land, growing arid and worthless through
mediaeval blight, underwent in 1832 and after, when the Reform Bill
and its successors, like deeply penetrating plows, threw to the
surface much that was unsightly, yet full of potentialities for good,
the spot was the same. The conditions and the environment looking at
it in the large were not widely different, the ancient Anglo-Saxon
freedom struggling ever for its foothold as the centuries lapse, now
precariously uncertain as Privilege and Prerogative push hotly, now
fixed and strong in great moments of triumph; and the end is not yet.
In the earlier time the destinies of America were closely interlocked
with England and came up no less for decision in the great arena
at Westminster. The destinies of the two peoples are scarcely less
interlocked at the present moment. We are gravitating toward closer
brotherhood, and the thoughtful American sees reason to study with the
deepest interest each passage of arms in the ancient memorable arena.
* * * * *
I saw in Germany in 1870, usually through the good offices of
Bancroft, our minister, the most eminent historians of that day.
Giesebrecht and von Raumur were no longer living, but men were still
in the foreground to the full as illustrious. Heidelberg in those
days was relatively a more conspicuous university than at present. Its
great men remain to it, though the process of absorption was beginning
which at last carried the more distinguished lights to Berlin. The
lovely little town, whose streets for nearly six hundred years have
throbbed with the often boisterous life of the student population,
is at its best in the spring and early summer. The Neckar ripples
tumultuously into the broad Rhine plain, from which towers to the
height of two thousand feet the romantic Odenwald. From some ruin of
ancient watch-tower or cloister on the height, entrancing views spread
out, the landscape holding the venerable towns of Worms and Speyer,
each with its cathedral dominating the clustered dwellings, while the
lordly Rhine pours its flood northward--a stream of gold when in the
late afternoon it glows in the sunset. The old castle stands on its
height, more beautiful in its decay, with ivy clinging about the
broken arches, and the towers wrecked by the powder-bursts of ancient
wars, than it could ever have been when unshaken.
Among the professors at Heidelberg, von Treitschke was one of the
most eminent, and it was my privilege one day to hear him lecture on
a theme which stirred him--the battle of Leipsic, the great
_Völkerschlacht_ of 1813, when Germany cruelly clipped the
pinions of the Napoleonic eagle. The hall was crowded with young men,
_corps-studenten_ being especially numerous, robust youths in
caps and badges, and many of the faces were patched and scarred from
duels in the Hirsch-Gasse. Von Treitschke, a dark, energetic figure,
was received with great respect. Deafness, from which he suffered,
affected somewhat his delivery. He told the story of the great battle,
the frantic effort against combined Europe of the crippled French, the
defection of the Saxons in the midst of the fight, the final driving
of Napoleon across the Elster, the death of Poniatowski and the
retreat to France. His voice was a deep, sonorous monotone and every
syllable was caught eagerly by his auditors. They and the speaker
were thoroughly at one in their intense German feeling. It was a
celebration of triumph of the Fatherland. The significance of it all
was not apparent, that sunny spring morning, but we were on the eve of
a catastrophe which apparently no one foreboded; Metz, Gravelotte, and
Sedan were only a few months away. The fire which I saw burning so hot
in the souls of both speaker and hearers was part of the conflagration
destined to consume widely and thoroughly before the summer closed.
Ernst Curtius was probably the most distinguished Hellenist of his
time. He had studied the Greeks on their own soil and gone with German
thoroughness into their literature, history, and art. He had excellent
powers of presentment, wrote exhaustively and yet attractively and won
early recognition. He was selected for the post of tutor to the Crown
Prince, an honour of the highest. The Crown Prince, afterwards Emperor
Frederick, held him in high regard and in 1870 his position in the
world of scholars was of the best. I had the honour to pay him a visit
in his home one pleasant Sunday afternoon in company with Bancroft. I
remember Bancroft's crisp German enunciation as he presented me; "Ich
stelle Ihnen einen Amerikaner vor," and he mentioned my name. I bowed
and felt my hand grasped cordially in a warm, well-conditioned palm,
while a round, genial face beamed good-naturedly. The interview was in
the Professor's handsome garden, his accomplished wife and daughters
were of the party, and I remember _Maiwein_ with pretzels on a
lawn with rose-bushes close beside and music coming through the open
windows of the house. The hospitality was graceful, there was no
profound talk but only pleasant chatter. The daughters were glad to
have a chance to try their English and I was glad for the moment to
slip out of the foreign bond and disport myself for their benefit in
my vernacular, but the Professor needed no practice. His English was
quite adequate, as, on the other hand, the German of Bancroft was well
in hand.
"What other university people would you like to see?" said Bancroft to
me one day. I mentioned von Ranke, Lepsius, and Mommsen as men whose
names were familiar, whose faces I should like to look upon.
"Find out the _sprech-stunden_ of these men," said Bancroft to
his secretary, and presently a slip was put into my hand containing
the hours at which I could be conveniently received. Following the
direction, I was one day admitted to the library of von Ranke, a plain
apartment walled by books from floor to ceiling, with a desk well-worn
by days and nights of work. As I awaited his entrance the facts of
his career were vivid in my mind. He was a man of seventy-five and had
been a scholar almost from his cradle. He was known to me particularly
through his history of the popes, which was and perhaps is still the
judicial authority with regard to the line of pontiffs, but that was
only one book among many. He belonged to a class of which Germany has
been prolific, whose consciences assault them if they let their pens
lie idle, and who have no recourse in self-defence but building about
themselves a barricade of books. After researches in various fields,
von Ranke now was undertaking a history of the world, with no thought
apparently of a probable touch from the dart of death in the near
future; and he did indeed live until nearly ninety and long produced a
volume a year.
He entered presently from an inner room, rather a short, well-rounded
figure with a face marked by a clear eye and much vivacity. He
conversed well in English and was curious about American education and
offered, rather ludicrously, I remember, to exchange the publications
of the University of Berlin with those of the little fresh-water
college in which I was at that time a young teacher. Could the scholar
be aiming a sly sarcastic hit at the bareness of our educational
outposts in the West? But no, his frank look and voice showed that he
was unaware of the real conditions. The talk was not long, there was a
hearty expression of regard for Mr. Bancroft who was fully accepted by
the German learned world as one of their _Gelehrten_, trained as
he had been in youth in their schools, and in that day our best-known
historian. I bowed myself out respectfully from the presence of the
little man and sincerely hope that the merit of his great history is
in no way abated because I took a half-hour of his time.
I met Lepsius, the great Egyptian scholar, one afternoon in his
garden, a hale, straight man of sixty with abundant grey hair
surmounting a fine forehead, with blue eyes full of penetration behind
his spectacles. I had little knowledge of the subject he had studied
so profoundly and almost laughed outright when his pretty daughter
asked me if I had read her father's translation of the _Book of the
Dead_. Of von Ranke's themes I thought I knew something and was
more at ease with him, as with Mommsen whom I met about the same time.
Theodor Mommsen, more than any other, forty years ago, was the leading
historian of Germany. He began his career as a student of law, in
the antiquities of which he became thoroughly versed. In particular
Justinian and the Roman authorities, among whom he stands as chief,
were the objects of Mommsen's research. From jurisprudence he passed
to the study of general history, and of the most interesting period of
Rome he absorbed into his mind all the lore that has survived. This
he digested and set forth in a monumental work, which, translated into
English, has been, in the English-speaking world of scholars at least,
as familiar as household words. At a still later time he was an active
striver in the political agitations of his day.
I sent in my card to Mommsen with some trepidation and was at
once admitted. I found him sitting at leisure among his books and
Bancroft's introduction brought to pass for me a genial welcome. He
was a man not large in frame with dark eyes, and black hair streaked
with grey. No doubt but that like German scholars in general he could
talk English, but he stuck to German and I was rather glad he did
so; I could take him in better as he discoursed fluently in his
mother-tongue. Mommsen was a man of sharp corners who often in his
political career brought grief to adversaries who tried to handle him
without gloves. I was fortunate in catching him in a softer mood and
witnessed an amiability with which he was not usually credited. His
little daughters were in the room, pretty children with whom
the father played with evident pride and joy, interrupting the
conversation to caress the curly pates, and trotting them on his knee.
He put keen questions to me as regards America, showing that while
busy with Caesar and the on-goings of the ancient forum he had been
wide awake also to modern happenings. He expressed much regard for
Bancroft and praised Grant for selecting as minister to Germany a
personality so agreeable to European scholars. He told me of the
jubilee of Bancroft which was about to be celebrated with marked
honours. Fifty years before Bancroft had "made his doctor" at
Göttingen, one of the earliest Americans to achieve that distinction,
and the German universities meant to show emphatically their
recognition of his merit. The celebration afterwards took place, not
interrupted by the warlike uproar in which the land was about to be
involved. A proud honour indeed for the American minister. It was
a noteworthy occasion to talk thus familiarly with one of the most
illustrious scholars of the time, and I recall fondly the pleasant
details of the picture.
At Heidelberg the February before I had had an interview with
Schenkel, then the leading theologian of that university. Him I found
in his _Studir-Zimmer_ without fire on a cold day. He seemed to
scorn the use of the _Kachelofen_, the great porcelain stove, and
was wrapped from head to foot in a heavy woollen robe which enveloped
him and was prolonged about his head into a kind of cowl. He presented
a figure closely like the portraits of some old reformers heavily
mantled in a garb approaching the monkish _Tracht_ which they
had forsaken. It seemed out of character for Schenkel, for he was an
avowed liberal and particularly far away from old standards, but the
sharp winter drove a champion of heterodoxy into this outer conformity
with the old. In the case of the Berlin _Gelehrten_, however,
the mediaeval dress was quite discarded. I chanced to see them in
the spring with their windows wide open to the perfume of gardens and
songs of nightingales, and in the case of Mommsen, my picture of
his environment has traits of geniality, for he sat in light summer
attire, his face aglow with fatherly impulses as he played in the soft
air with his children.
One of the most interesting men whom I met in Berlin was Hermann
Grimm, then just rising among the characters of mark, but best known
at that time as the son of the famous Wilhelm Grimm and the nephew
of Jakob Grimm,--the "Brothers Grimm," whose names through their
connection with the fairy tales are stamped in the memories not only
of men and women, but of children throughout the civilised world.
The "Brothers Grimm," it must be remembered, were scholars of the
profoundest. The Teutonic folk-lore engaged them not simply or
mainly as a source of amusement, but as a subject proper for deep
investigation. They painfully gathered in out-of-the-way nooks from
the lips of old grandames in chimney corners and wandering singers in
obscure villages, the survivals of the primitive superstitions of the
people. These they subjected to scientific study as illustrating
the evolution of society, a deep persistent search with results
elaborately systematised, of which the delightful tales so widely
circulated are only a by-product. Aside from their service in the
field of folk-lore they grappled with many another mighty task. The
vast dictionary, in which German words are not only set down in their
present meaning but followed throughout every stage of their etymology
with their relations to their congeners in other tongues indefatigably
traced out, is a marvel of erudition. Theirs also was the great
_Deutsche Grammatik_, a philosophical setting forth of the German
tongue in its connection with its far-spreading Aryan affinities. The
"Brothers Grimm" were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their
deaths they are not divided. Jakob was never married. Wilhelm was
married, the child of the union being the distinguished man with whom
it was my fortune to talk.
They worked together affectionately until far into old age, and I have
described their graves in the _Matthai Kirchhof_ where they lie
side by side.
I found Hermann Grimm in the study which had been the workshop through
long years of his father and uncle. He was a handsome man in his
vigorous years and had married the daughter of Bettine von Arnim,
the Bettine of Goethe. It is not strictly right to class him as a
historian. He was poet, playwright, critic, and novelist, perhaps
mainly these, but soon after, in his position as a professor in the
university, he was to produce his well-known _Vorlesungen über
Göthe_, a work which though mainly critical, at the present time
is a biography of conspicuous merit, which envisages the events of a
famous epoch. I may, therefore, properly include him here, though
the wide range of his activities makes it difficult to place him
accurately. It paved the way for our interview that I knew Ralph Waldo
Emerson, of whom he was, in Germany, the special admirer and student.
He had just translated Emerson into German and sat at the feet of the
Concord sage, infused by his inspiration. Hermann Grimm had never seen
Emerson, and listened eagerly to such details as I could give him of
his personality. He dwelt with enthusiasm upon passages in poems
and essays by which he had been especially kindled, and hung upon my
account of the voice and refined outward traits of the teacher whom
he so reverenced. I afterwards procured a fine photograph of Hermann
Grimm which I sent to Emerson. A kind letter from him, which I still
treasure, let me know that I had put Emerson deeply in my debt; up to
that time he had never seen a portrait of his German disciple, though
the two men had been in affectionate correspondence. At a later
time they met and cemented a friendship which was very dear to both.
Hermann Grimm showed me with pride the relics of his father and uncle;
the rows of well-thumbed volumes; the wellscored _Heften_ over
which their hands had moved; their inkstands and pens; the rough
arm-chairs and tables where they had sat. I think a trace from the
smoke of their pipes and midnight lamp still adhered to the ceiling,
and possibly cobwebs still hung in the corners of the bookcases which
had been there from an ancient day.
Quaint portraits of the "Brothers Grimm" at work in their caps and
rough dressing-gowns were at hand, but Hermann Grimm had rather
the appearance of a well-groomed man of the world. His coat was
fashionable, his abundant hair and flowing beard were carefully
trimmed. He was not a recluse, though faithful to his heredity and
devoted mainly to scholarly research. He was at ease in the clubs
and also at Court and enjoyed the give and take of a social hour with
friends.