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CARLYLE’S LAUGH
AND OTHER SURPRISES
CARLYLE’S LAUGH
AND OTHER SURPRISES
BY
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
MDCCCCIX
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published October 1909_
NOTE
The two papers in this volume which bear the titles “A Keats Manuscript”
and “A Shelley Manuscript” are reprinted by permission from a work
called “Book and Heart,” by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, copyright, 1897,
by Harper and Brothers, with whose consent the essay entitled “One of
Thackeray’s Women” also is published. Leave has been obtained to reprint
the papers on Brown, Cooper, and Thoreau, from Carpenter’s “American
Prose,” copyrighted by the Macmillan Company, 1898. My thanks are also
due to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for permission to
reprint the papers on Scudder, Atkinson, and Cabot; to the proprietors of
“Putnam’s Magazine” for the paper entitled “Emerson’s Foot-Note Person”;
to the proprietors of the New York “Evening Post” for the article
on George Bancroft from “The Nation”; to the editor of the “Harvard
Graduates’ Magazine” for the paper on “Göttingen and Harvard”; and to the
editors of the “Outlook” for the papers on Charles Eliot Norton, Julia
Ward Howe, Edward Everett Hale, William J. Rolfe, and “Old Newport Days.”
Most of the remaining sketches appeared originally in the “Atlantic
Monthly.”
T. W. H.
CONTENTS
I. CARLYLE’S LAUGH 1
II. A SHELLEY MANUSCRIPT 13
III. A KEATS MANUSCRIPT 21
IV. MASSASOIT, INDIAN CHIEF 31
V. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 45
VI. CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN 55
VII. HENRY DAVID THOREAU 65
VIII. EMERSON’S “FOOT-NOTE PERSON,”—ALCOTT 75
IX. GEORGE BANCROFT 93
X. CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 119
XI. EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 137
XII. EDWARD EVERETT HALE 157
XIII. A MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL, RUFUS SAXTON 173
XIV. ONE OF THACKERAY’S WOMEN 183
XV. JOHN BARTLETT 191
XVI. HORACE ELISHA SCUDDER 201
XVII. EDWARD ATKINSON 213
XVIII. JAMES ELLIOT CABOT 231
XIX. EMILY DICKINSON 247
XX. JULIA WARD HOWE 285
XXI. WILLIAM JAMES ROLFE 313
XXII. GÖTTINGEN AND HARVARD A CENTURY AGO 325
XXIII. OLD NEWPORT DAYS 349
XXIV. A HALF-CENTURY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 367
I
CARLYLE’S LAUGH
CARLYLE’S LAUGH
None of the many sketches of Carlyle that have been published since
his death have brought out quite distinctly enough the thing which
struck me more forcibly than all else, when in the actual presence of
the man; namely, the peculiar quality and expression of his laugh. It
need hardly be said that there is a great deal in a laugh. One of the
most telling pieces of oratory that ever reached my ears was Victor
Hugo’s vindication, at the Voltaire Centenary in Paris, of that author’s
smile. To be sure, Carlyle’s laugh was not like that smile, but it was
something as inseparable from his personality, and as essential to the
account, when making up one’s estimate of him. It was as individually
characteristic as his face or his dress, or his way of talking or of
writing. Indeed, it seemed indispensable for the explanation of all of
these. I found in looking back upon my first interview with him, that
all I had known of Carlyle through others, or through his own books, for
twenty-five years, had been utterly defective,—had left out, in fact, the
key to his whole nature,—inasmuch as nobody had ever described to me his
laugh.
It is impossible to follow the matter further without a little bit of
personal narration. On visiting England for the first time, in 1872, I
was offered a letter to Carlyle, and declined it. Like all of my own
generation, I had been under some personal obligations to him for his
early writings,—though in my case this debt was trifling compared with
that due to Emerson,—but his “Latter-Day Pamphlets” and his reported
utterances on American affairs had taken away all special desire to meet
him, besides the ungraciousness said to mark his demeanor toward visitors
from the United States. Yet, when I was once fairly launched in that
fascinating world of London society, where the American sees, as Willis
used to say, whole shelves of his library walking about in coats and
gowns, this disinclination rapidly softened. And when Mr. Froude kindly
offered to take me with him for one of his afternoon calls on Carlyle,
and further proposed that I should join them in their habitual walk
through the parks, it was not in human nature—or at least in American
nature—to resist.
We accordingly went after lunch, one day in May, to Carlyle’s modest
house in Chelsea, and found him in his study, reading—by a chance very
appropriate for me—in Weiss’s “Life of Parker.” He received us kindly,
but at once began inveighing against the want of arrangement in the
book he was reading, the defective grouping of the different parts, and
the impossibility of finding anything in it, even by aid of the index.
He then went on to speak of Parker himself, and of other Americans
whom he had met. I do not recall the details of the conversation, but
to my surprise he did not say a single really offensive or ungracious
thing. If he did, it related less to my countrymen than to his own, for
I remember his saying some rather stern things about Scotchmen. But
that which saved these and all his sharpest words from being actually
offensive was this, that, after the most vehement tirade, he would
suddenly pause, throw his head back, and give as genuine and kindly a
laugh as I ever heard from a human being. It was not the bitter laugh
of the cynic, nor yet the big-bodied laugh of the burly joker; least of
all was it the thin and rasping cackle of the dyspeptic satirist. It was
a broad, honest, human laugh, which, beginning in the brain, took into
its action the whole heart and diaphragm, and instantly changed the worn
face into something frank and even winning, giving to it an expression
that would have won the confidence of any child. Nor did it convey the
impression of an exceptional thing that had occurred for the first time
that day, and might never happen again. Rather, it produced the effect
of something habitual; of being the channel, well worn for years, by
which the overflow of a strong nature was discharged. It cleared the
air like thunder, and left the atmosphere sweet. It seemed to say to
himself, if not to us, “Do not let us take this too seriously; it is my
way of putting things. What refuge is there for a man who looks below the
surface in a world like this, except to laugh now and then?” The laugh,
in short, revealed the humorist; if I said the genial humorist, wearing a
mask of grimness, I should hardly go too far for the impression it left.
At any rate, it shifted the ground, and transferred the whole matter to
that realm of thought where men play with things. The instant Carlyle
laughed, he seemed to take the counsel of his old friend Emerson, and to
write upon the lintels of his doorway, “Whim.”
Whether this interpretation be right or wrong, it is certain that the
effect of this new point of view upon one of his visitors was wholly
disarming. The bitter and unlovely vision vanished; my armed neutrality
went with it, and there I sat talking with Carlyle as fearlessly as if
he were an old friend. The talk soon fell on the most dangerous of all
ground, our Civil War, which was then near enough to inspire curiosity;
and he put questions showing that he had, after all, considered the
matter in a sane and reasonable way. He was especially interested in the
freed slaves and the colored troops; he said but little, yet that was
always to the point, and without one ungenerous word. On the contrary,
he showed more readiness to comprehend the situation, as it existed
after the war, than was to be found in most Englishmen at that time.
The need of giving the ballot to the former slaves he readily admitted,
when it was explained to him; and he at once volunteered the remark that
in a republic they needed this, as the guarantee of their freedom. “You
could do no less,” he said, “for the men who had stood by you.” I could
scarcely convince my senses that this manly and reasonable critic was
the terrible Carlyle, the hater of “Cuffee” and “Quashee” and of all
republican government. If at times a trace of angry exaggeration showed
itself, the good, sunny laugh came in and cleared the air.
We walked beneath the lovely trees of Kensington Gardens, then in
the glory of an English May; and I had my first sight of the endless
procession of riders and equipages in Rotten Row. My two companions
received numerous greetings, and as I walked in safe obscurity by their
side, I could cast sly glances of keen enjoyment at the odd combination
visible in their looks. Froude’s fine face and bearing became familiar
afterwards to Americans, and he was irreproachably dressed; while
probably no salutation was ever bestowed from an elegant passing carriage
on an odder figure than Carlyle. Tall, very thin, and slightly stooping;
with unkempt, grizzly whiskers pushed up by a high collar, and kept
down by an ancient felt hat; wearing an old faded frock coat, checked
waistcoat, coarse gray trousers, and russet shoes; holding a stout
stick, with his hands encased in very large gray woolen gloves,—this
was Carlyle. I noticed that, when we first left his house, his aspect
attracted no notice in the streets, being doubtless familiar in his own
neighborhood; but as we went farther and farther on, many eyes were
turned in his direction, and men sometimes stopped to gaze at him. Little
he noticed it, however, as he plodded along with his eyes cast down or
looking straight before him, while his lips poured forth an endless
stream of talk. Once and once only he was accosted, and forced to answer;
and I recall it with delight as showing how the unerring instinct of
childhood coincided with mine, and pronounced him not a man to be feared.
We passed a spot where some nobleman’s grounds were being appropriated
for a public park; it was only lately that people had been allowed to
cross them, and all was in the rough, preparations for the change having
been begun. Part of the turf had been torn up for a road-way, but there
was a little emerald strip where three or four ragged children, the
oldest not over ten, were turning somersaults in great delight. As we
approached, they paused and looked shyly at us, as if uncertain of their
right on these premises; and I could see the oldest, a sharp-eyed little
London boy, reviewing us with one keen glance, as if selecting him in
whom confidence might best be placed. Now I am myself a child-loving
person; and I had seen with pleasure Mr. Froude’s kindly ways with
his own youthful household: yet the little _gamin_ dismissed us with
a glance and fastened on Carlyle. Pausing on one foot, as if ready
to take to his heels on the least discouragement, he called out the
daring question, “I say, mister, may we roll on this here grass?” The
philosopher faced round, leaning on his staff, and replied in a homelier
Scotch accent than I had yet heard him use, “Yes, my little fellow,
r-r-roll at discraytion!” Instantly the children resumed their antics,
while one little girl repeated meditatively, “He says we may roll at
discraytion!”—as if it were some new kind of ninepin-ball.
Six years later, I went with my friend Conway to call on Mr. Carlyle once
more, and found the kindly laugh still there, though changed, like all
else in him, by the advance of years and the solitude of existence. It
could not be said of him that he grew old happily, but he did not grow
old unkindly, I should say; it was painful to see him, but it was because
one pitied him, not by reason of resentment suggested by anything on his
part. He announced himself to be, and he visibly was, a man left behind
by time and waiting for death. He seemed in a manner sunk within himself;
but I remember well the affectionate way in which he spoke of Emerson,
who had just sent him the address entitled “The Future of the Republic.”
Carlyle remarked, “I’ve just noo been reading it; the dear Emerson, he
thinks the whole warrld’s like himself; and if he can just get a million
people together and let them all vote, they’ll be sure to vote right and
all will go vara weel”; and then came in the brave laugh of old, but
briefer and less hearty by reason of years and sorrows.
One may well hesitate before obtruding upon the public any such private
impressions of an eminent man. They will always appear either too
personal or too trivial. But I have waited in vain to see some justice
done to the side of Carlyle here portrayed; and since it has been very
commonly asserted that the effect he produced on strangers was that of
a rude and offensive person, it seems almost a duty to testify to the
very different way in which one American visitor saw him. An impression
produced at two interviews, six years apart, may be worth recording,
especially if it proved strong enough to outweigh all previous prejudice
and antagonism.
In fine, I should be inclined to appeal from all Carlyle’s apparent
bitterness and injustice to the mere quality of his laugh, as giving
sufficient proof that the gift of humor underlay all else in him. All
his critics, I now think, treat him a little too seriously. No matter
what his labors or his purposes, the attitude of the humorist was always
behind. As I write, there lies before me a scrap from the original
manuscript of his “French Revolution,”—the page being written, after
the custom of English authors of half a century ago, on both sides of
the paper; and as I study it, every curl and twist of the handwriting,
every backstroke of the pen, every substitution of a more piquant word
for a plainer one, bespeaks the man of whim. Perhaps this quality came
by nature through a Scotch ancestry; perhaps it was strengthened by the
accidental course of his early reading. It may be that it was Richter
who moulded him, after all, rather than Goethe; and we know that Richter
was defined by Carlyle, in his very first literary essay, as “a humorist
and a philosopher,” putting the humorist first. The German author’s
favorite type of character—seen to best advantage in his Siebenkäs
of the “Blumen, Frucht, und Dornenstücke”—came nearer to the actual
Carlyle than most of the grave portraitures yet executed. He, as is
said of Siebenkäs, disguised his heart beneath a grotesque mask, partly
for greater freedom, and partly because he preferred whimsically to
exaggerate human folly rather than to share it (_dass er die menschliche
Thorheit mehr travestiere als nachahme_). Both characters might be
well summed up in the brief sentence which follows: “A humorist in
action is but a satirical improvisatore” (_Ein handelnder Humorist ist
blos ein satirischer Improvisatore_). This last phrase, “a satirical
improvisatore,” seems to me better than any other to describe Carlyle.
II
A SHELLEY MANUSCRIPT
A SHELLEY MANUSCRIPT
Were I to hear to-morrow that the main library of Harvard University,
with every one of its 496,200 volumes, had been reduced to ashes, there
is in my mind no question what book I should most regret. It is that
unique, battered, dingy little quarto volume of Shelley’s manuscript
poems, in his own handwriting and that of his wife, first given by Miss
Jane Clairmont (Shelley’s “Constantia”) to Mr. Edward A. Silsbee, and
then presented by him to the library. Not only is it full of that aroma
of fascination which belongs to the actual handiwork of a master, but
its numerous corrections and interlineations make the reader feel that
he is actually traveling in the pathway of that delicate mind. Professor
George E. Woodberry had the use of it; he printed in the “Harvard
University Calendar” a facsimile of the “Ode to a Skylark” as given in
the manuscript, and has cited many of its various readings in his edition
of Shelley’s poems. But he has passed by a good many others; and some of
these need, I think, for the sake of all students of Shelley, to be put
in print, so that in case of the loss or destruction of the precious
volume, these fragments at least may be preserved.
There occur in this manuscript the following variations from Professor
Woodberry’s text of “The Sensitive Plant”—variations not mentioned by
him, for some reason or other, in his footnotes or supplemental notes,
and yet not canceled by Shelley:—
“Three days the flowers of the garden fair
Like stars when the moon is awakened, were.”
III, 1-2.
[_Moon_ is clearly _morn_ in the Harvard MS.]
“And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant.”
III, 100.
[The prefatory _And_ is not in the Harvard MS.]
“But the mandrakes and toadstools and docks and darnels
Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels.”
III, 112.
[The word _brambles_ appears for _mandrakes_ in the Harvard MS.]
These three variations, all of which are interesting, are the only ones I
have noted as uncanceled in this particular poem, beyond those recorded
by Professor Woodberry. But there are many cases where the manuscript
shows, in Shelley’s own handwriting, variations subsequently canceled
by him; and these deserve study by all students of the poetic art.
His ear was so exquisite and his sense of the _balance_ of a phrase so
remarkable, that it is always interesting to see the path by which he
came to the final utterance, whatever that was. I have, therefore, copied
a number of these modified lines, giving, first, Professor Woodberry’s
text, and then the original form of language, as it appears in Shelley’s
handwriting, italicizing the words which vary, and giving the pages of
Professor Woodberry’s edition. The cancelation or change is sometimes
made in pen, sometimes in pencil; and it is possible that, in a few
cases, it may have been made by Mrs. Shelley.
“Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky.”
“Gazed through _its tears_ on the tender sky.”
I, 36.
“The beams which dart from many a star
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar.”
“The beams which dart from many a _sphere_
Of the _starry_ flowers whose hues they bear.”
I, 81-82.
“The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,
Then wander like spirits among the spheres
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears.”
“The unseen clouds of the dew, which _lay_
Like fire in the flowers till _dawning day_,
Then _walk_ like spirits among the spheres
Each _one_ faint with the _odor_ it bears.”
I, 86-89.
“Like windless clouds o’er a tender sky.”
“Like windless clouds _in_ a tender sky.”
I, 98.
“Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress.”
“Whose waves never _wrinkle_, though they impress.”
I, 106.
“Was as God is to the starry scheme,”
“Was as _is God_ to the starry scheme.”
I, 4.
“As if some bright spirit for her sweet sake
Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake.”
“As some bright spirit for her sweet sake
Had deserted _the_ heaven while the stars were awake.”
II, 17-18.
“The freshest her gentle hands could pull.”
“The freshest her gentle hands could _cull_.”
II, 46.
“The sweet lips of the flowers and harm not, did she.”
“The sweet lips of flowers,” etc.
II, 51.
“Edge of the odorous cedar bark.”
“Edge of the odorous _cypress_ bark.”
II, 56.
“Sent through the pores of the coffin plank.”
“_Ran_ through,” etc.
III, 12.
“Between the time of the wind and the snow.”
“Between the _term_,” etc. [probably accidental].
III, 50.
“Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes.”
“Dammed it with,” etc.
III, 69.
“At noon they were seen, at noon they were felt.”
“At noon they were seen & noon they were felt.”
III, 73.
[“&” perhaps written carelessly for “at.”]
“Their decay and sudden flight from frost.”
“Their decay and sudden flight from _the_ frost.”
III, 98.
“To own that death itself must be.”
“To _think_ that,” etc.
III, 128.
These comparisons are here carried no further than “The Sensitive Plant,”
except that there is a canceled verse of Shelley’s “Curse” against Lord
Eldon for depriving him of his children,—a verse so touching that I think
it should be preserved. The verse beginning—
“By those unpractised accents of young speech,”
opened originally as follows:—
“By that sweet voice which who could understand
To frame to sounds of love and lore divine,
Not thou.”
This was abandoned and the following substituted:—
“By those pure accents which at my command
Should have been framed to love and lore divine,
Now like a lute, fretted by some rude hand,
Uttering harsh discords, they must echo thine.”
This also was erased, and the present form substituted, although I
confess it seems to me both less vigorous and less tender. Professor
Woodberry mentions the change, but does not give the canceled verse. In
this and other cases I do not venture to blame him for the omission,
since an editor must, after all, exercise his own judgment. Yet I cannot
but wish that he had carried his citation, even of canceled variations, a
little further; and it is evident that some future student of poetic art
will yet find rich gleanings in the Harvard Shelley manuscript.
III
A KEATS MANUSCRIPT
A KEATS MANUSCRIPT
“Touch it,” said Leigh Hunt, when he showed Bayard Taylor a lock of
brown silky hair, “and you will have touched Milton’s self.” The magic
of the lock of hair is akin to that recognized by nomadic and untamed
races in anything that has been worn close to the person of a great
or fortunate being. Mr. Leland, much reverenced by the gypsies, whose
language he spoke and whose lore he knew better than they know it, had a
knife about his person which was supposed by them to secure the granting
of any request if held in the hand. When he gave it away, it was like
the transfer of fairy power to the happy recipient. The same lucky spell
is attributed to a piece of the bride’s garter, in Normandy, or to pins
filched from her dress, in Sussex. For those more cultivated, the charm
of this transmitted personality is best embodied in autographs, and the
more unstudied and unpremeditated the better. In the case of a poet,
nothing can be compared with the interest inspired by the first draft
of a poem, with its successive amendments—the path by which his thought
attained its final and perfect utterance. Tennyson, for instance, was
said to be very indignant with those who bore away from his study certain
rough drafts of poems, justly holding that the world had no right to
any but the completed form. Yet this is what, as students of poetry,
we all instinctively wish to do. Rightly or wrongly, we long to trace
the successive steps. To some extent, the same opportunity is given
in successive editions of the printed work; but here the study is not
so much of changes in the poet’s own mind as of those produced by the
criticisms, often dull or ignorant, of his readers,—those especially who
fail to catch a poet’s very finest thought, and persuade him to dilute
it a little for their satisfaction. When I pointed out to Browning some
rather unfortunate alterations in his later editions, and charged him
with having made them to accommodate stupid people, he admitted the
offense and promised to alter them back again, although, of course,
he never did. But the changes in an author’s manuscript almost always
come either from his own finer perception and steady advance toward the
precise conveyance of his own thought, or else from the aid he receives
in this from some immediate friend or adviser—most likely a woman—who is
in close sympathy with his own mood. The charm is greatest, of course, in
seeing and studying and touching the original page, just as it is. For
this a photograph is the best substitute, since it preserves the original
for the eye, as does the phonograph for the ear. Even with the aid of
photography only, there is as much difference between the final corrected
shape and the page showing the gradual changes, as between the graceful
yacht lying in harbor, anchored, motionless, with sails furled, and the
same yacht as a winged creature, gliding into port. Let us now see, by
actual comparison, how one of Keats’s yachts came in.
There lies before me a photograph of the first two stanzas of Keats’s
“Ode on Melancholy,” as they stood when just written. The manuscript
page containing them was given to John Howard Payne by George Keats, the
poet’s brother, who lived for many years at Louisville, Kentucky, and
died there; but it now belongs to Mr. R. S. Chilton, United States Consul
at Goderich, Ontario, who has kindly given me a photograph of it. The
verses are in Keats’s well-known and delicate handwriting, and exhibit
a series of erasures and substitutions which are now most interesting,
inasmuch as the changes in each instance enrich greatly the value of the
word-painting.
To begin with, the title varies slightly from that first adopted,
and reads simply “On Melancholy,” to which the word “Ode” was later
prefixed by the printers. In the second line, where he had half written
“Henbane” for the material of his incantation, he blots it out and puts
“Wolfsbane,” instantly abandoning the tamer suggestion and bringing in
all the wildness and the superstition that have gathered for years around
the Loup-garou and the Wehr-wolf. This is plainly no amendment suggested
afterward by another person, but is due unmistakably to the quick action
of his own mind. There is no other change until the end of the first
stanza, where the last two lines were originally written thus:—
“For shade to shade will come too heavily
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.”
It is noticeable that he originally wrote “down” for “drown,” and, in
afterward inserting the _r_, put it in the wrong place—after the _o_,
instead of before it. This was a slip of the pen only; but it was that
word “heavily” which cost him a struggle. The words “too heavily” were
next crossed out, and under them were written “too sleepily”; then
this last word was again erased, and the word “drowsily” was finally
substituted—the only expression in the English language, perhaps, which
could have precisely indicated the exact shade of debilitating languor he
meant.
[Illustration]
In the other stanza, it is noticeable that he spells “melancholy,”
through heedlessness, “melanancholy,” which gives a curious effect of
prolonging and deepening the incantation; and this error he does not
discover or correct. In the same way he spells “fit,” “fitt,” having
perhaps in mind the “fytte” of the earlier poets. These are trifles, but
when he alters the line, which originally stood,—
“But when the melancholy fit shall come,”
and for “come” substitutes “fall,” we see at once, besides the merit
of the soft alliteration, that he gives more of the effect of doom and
suddenness. “Come” was clearly too business like. Afterwards, instead of—
“Then feed thy sorrow on a morning rose,”
he substitutes for “feed” the inexpressibly more effective word “glut,”
which gives at once the exhaustive sense of wealth belonging so often to
Keats’s poetry, and seems to match the full ecstasy of color and shape
and fragrance that a morning rose may hold. Finally, in the line which
originally stood,—
“Or on the rainbow of the dashing wave,”
he strikes out the rather trite epithet “dashing,” and substitutes the
stronger phrase “salt-sand wave,” which is peculiar to him.
All these changes are happily accepted in the common editions of Keats;
but these editions make two errors that are corrected by this manuscript,
and should henceforth be abandoned. In the line usually printed,—
“Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be,”
the autograph text gives “or” in the place of the second “nor,” a change
consonant with the best usage; and in the line,—
“And hides the green hill in an April shroud,”
the middle word is clearly not “hill,” but “hills.” This is a distinct
improvement, both because it broadens the landscape and because it averts
the jangle of the closing _ll_ with the final words “fall” and “all” in
previous lines.
It is a fortunate thing that, in the uncertain destiny of all literary
manuscripts, this characteristic document should have been preserved for
us. It will be remembered that Keats himself once wrote in a letter that
his fondest prayer, next to that for the health of his brother Tom, would
be that some child of his brother George “should be the first American
poet.” This letter, printed by Milnes, was written October 29, 1818.
George Keats died about 1851, and his youngest daughter, Isabel, who was
thought greatly to resemble her uncle John, both in looks and genius,
died sadly at the age of seventeen. It is pleasant to think that we have,
through the care exercised by this American brother, an opportunity of
coming into close touch with the mental processes of that rare genius
which first imparted something like actual color to English words. To be
brought thus near to Keats suggests that poem by Browning where he speaks
of a moment’s interview with one who had seen Shelley, and compares it to
picking up an eagle’s feather on a lonely heath.
IV
MASSASOIT, INDIAN CHIEF
MASSASOIT, INDIAN CHIEF
There was paid on October 19, 1907, one of the few tributes
ever openly rendered by the white races to the higher type of
native Indian leaders. Such was that given by a large company
at Warren, Rhode Island, to Massasoit, the friendly Indian
Sachem who had first greeted the early Pilgrims, on their
arrival at Plymouth in 1620. The leading address was made by
the author of this volume.
The newspaper correspondents tell us that, when an inquiry was one day
made among visitors returning from the recent Jamestown Exposition, as to
the things seen by each of them which he or she would remember longest,
one man replied, “That life-size group in the Smithsonian building
which shows John Smith in his old cock-boat trading with the Indians.
He is giving them beads or something and getting baskets of corn in
exchange.”[1] This seemed to the speaker, and quite reasonably, the very
first contact with civilization on the part of the American Indians.
Precisely parallel to this is the memorial which we meet to dedicate, and
which records the first interview in 1620 between the little group of
Plymouth Pilgrims and Massasoit, known as the “greatest commander of the
country,” and “Sachem of the whole region north of Narragansett Bay.”[2]
“Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,” says the poet
Pope; and nothing is more remarkable in human history than the way in
which great events sometimes reach their climax at once, instead of
gradually working up to it. Never was this better illustrated than when
the Plymouth Pilgrims first met the one man of this region who could
guarantee them peace for fifty years, and did so. The circumstances seem
the simplest of the simple.
The first hasty glance between the Plymouth Puritans and the Indians
did not take place, as you will recall, until the newcomers had been
four days on shore, when, in the words of the old chronicler, “they
espied five or sixe people with a Dogge coming towards them, who were
savages: who when they saw them ran into the Woods and whistled the
Dogge after them.” (This quadruped, whether large or small, had always
a capital letter in his name, while human savages had none, in these
early narratives.) When the English pursued the Indians, “they ran away
might and main.”[3] The next interview was a stormier one; four days
later, those same Pilgrims were asleep on board the “shallope” on the
morning of December 8, 1620 (now December 19), when they heard “a great
and strange cry,” and arrow-shots came flying amongst them which they
returned and one Indian “gave an extraordinary cry” and away they went.
After all was quiet, the Pilgrims picked up eighteen arrows, some “headed
with brass, some with hart’s horn” (deer’s horn), “and others with
eagles’ claws,”[4] the brass heads at least showing that those Indians
had met Englishmen before.
Three days after this encounter at Namskeket,—namely, on December 22,
1620 (a date now computed as December 23),—the English landed at Patuxet,
now Plymouth. (I know these particulars as to dates, because I was
myself born on the anniversary of this first date, the 22d, and regarded
myself as a sort of brevet Pilgrim, until men, alleged to be scientific,
robbed me of one point of eminence in my life by landing the Pilgrims
on the 23d). Three months passed before the sight of any more Indians,
when Samoset came, all alone, with his delightful salutation, “Welcome,
Englishmen,” and a few days later (March 22, 1621), the great chief of
all that region, Massasoit, appeared on the scene.
When he first made himself visible, with sixty men, on that day, upon
what is still known as Strawberry Hill, he asked that somebody be sent
to hold a parley with him. Edmund Winslow was appointed to this office,
and went forward protected only by his sword and armor, and carrying
presents to the Sachem. Winslow also made a speech of some length,
bringing messages (quite imaginary, perhaps, and probably not at all
comprehended) from King James, whose representative, the governor, wished
particularly to see Massasoit. It appears from the record, written
apparently by Winslow himself, that Massasoit made no particular reply
to this harangue, but paid very particular attention to Winslow’s sword
and armor, and proposed at once to begin business by buying them. This,
however, was refused, but Winslow induced Massasoit to cross a brook
between the English and himself, taking with him twenty of his Indians,
who were bidden to leave their bows and arrows behind them. Beyond the
brook, he was met by Captain Standish, with an escort of six armed men,
who exchanged salutations and attended him to one of the best, but
unfinished, houses in the village. Here a green rug was spread on the
floor and three or four cushions. The governor, Bradford, then entered
the house, followed by three or four soldiers and preceded by a flourish
from a drum and trumpet, which quite delighted and astonished the
Indians. It was a deference paid to their Sachem. He and the governor
then kissed each other, as it is recorded, sat down together, and regaled
themselves with an entertainment. The feast is recorded by the early
narrator as consisting chiefly of strong waters, a “thing the savages
love very well,” it is said; “and the Sachem took such a large draught of
it at once as made him sweat all the time he staied.”[5]
A substantial treaty of peace was made on this occasion, one immortalized
by the fact that it was the first made with the Indians of New England.
It is the unquestioned testimony of history that the negotiation was
remembered and followed by both sides for half a century: nor was
Massasoit, or any of the Wampanoags during his lifetime, convicted of
having violated or having attempted to violate any of its provisions.
This was a great achievement! Do you ask what price bought all this?
The price practically paid for all the vast domain and power granted to
the white man consisted of the following items: “a pair of knives and
a copper chain with a jewel in it, for the grand Sachem; and for his
brother Quadequina, a knife, a jewel to hang in his ear, a pot of strong
waters, a good quantity of biscuit and a piece of butter.”[6]
Fair words, the proverb says, butter no parsnips, but the fair words of
the white men had provided the opportunity for performing that process.
The description preserved of the Indian chief by an eye-witness is as
follows: “In his person he is a very lusty man in his best years, an able
body, grave of countenance and spare of speech; in his attire little or
nothing differing from the rest of his followers, only in a great chain
of white bone beads about his neck; and at it, behind his neck, hangs a
little bag of tobacco, which he drank, and gave us to drink (this being
the phrase for that indulgence in those days, as is found in Ben Jonson
and other authors). His face was painted with a sad red, like murrey (so
called from the color of the Moors) and oiled, both head and face, that
he looked greasily. All his followers likewise were in their faces, in
part or in whole painted, some black, some red, some yellow, and some
white, some with crosses and other antic works; some had skins on them
and some naked: all strong, tall men in appearance.”[7]
All this which Dr. Young tells us would have been a good description of
an Indian party under Black Hawk, which was presented to the President
at Washington as late as 1837; and also, I can say the same of such a
party seen by myself, coming from a prairie in Kansas, then unexplored,
in 1856.
The interchange of eatables was evidently at that period a pledge of good
feeling, as it is to-day. On a later occasion, Captain Standish, with
Isaac Alderton, went to visit the Indians, who gave them three or four
groundnuts and some tobacco. The writer afterwards says: “Our governor
bid them send the king’s kettle and filled it full of pease which pleased
them well, and so they went their way.” It strikes the modern reader as
if this were to make pease and peace practically equivalent, and as if
the parties needed only a pun to make friends. It is doubtful whether the
arrival of a conquering race was ever in the history of the world marked
by a treaty so simple and therefore noble.
“This treaty with Massasoit,” says Belknap, “was the work of one day,”
and being honestly intended on both sides, was kept with fidelity as long
as Massasoit lived.[8] In September, 1639, Massasoit and his oldest son,
Mooanam, afterwards called Wamsutta, came into the court at Plymouth and
desired that this ancient league should remain inviolable, which was
accordingly ratified and confirmed by the government,[9] and lasted
until it was broken by Philip, the successor of Wamsutta, in 1675. It is
not my affair to discuss the later career of Philip, whose insurrection
is now viewed more leniently than in its own day; but the spirit of
it was surely quite mercilessly characterized by a Puritan minister,
Increase Mather, who, when describing a battle in which old Indian men
and women, the wounded and the helpless, were burned alive, said proudly,
“This day we brought five hundred Indian souls to hell.”[10]
But the end of all was approaching. In 1623, Massasoit sent a messenger
to Plymouth to say that he was ill, and Governor Bradford sent Mr.
Winslow to him with medicines and cordials. When they reached a certain
ferry, upon Winslow’s discharging his gun, Indians came to him from a
house not far off who told him that Massasoit was dead and that day
buried. As they came nearer, at about half an hour before the setting
of the sun, another messenger came and told them that he was not dead,
though there was no hope that they would find him living. Hastening on,
they arrived late at night.
“When we came thither,” Winslow writes, “we found the house so full of
men as we could scarce get in, though they used their best diligence to
make way for us. There were they in the midst of their charms for him,
making such a hellish noise as it distempered us that were well, and
therefore unlike to ease him that was sick. About him were six or eight
women, who chafed his arms, legs and thighs to keep heat in him. When
they had made an end of their charming, one told him that his friends,
the English, were come to see him. Having understanding left, but his
sight was wholly gone, he asked who was come. They told him Winsnow,
for they cannot pronounce the letter _l_, but ordinarily _n_ in place
thereof. He desired to speak with me. When I came to him and they told
him of it, he put forth his hand to me, which I took. When he said twice,
though very inwardly: ‘Keen Winsnow?’ which is to say ‘Art thou Winslow?’
I answered: ‘Ahhe’; that is, ‘Yes.’ Then he doubled these words: ‘Matta
neen wonckanet nanem, Winsnow!’ That is to say: ‘Oh, Winslow, I shall
never see thee again!’ Then I called Hobbamock and desired him to tell
Massasowat that the governor, hearing of his sickness, was sorry for the
same; and though by many businesses he could not come himself, yet he
sent me with such things for him as he thought most likely to do good in
this extremity; and whereof if he pleased to take, I would presently
give him; which he desired, and having a confection of many comfortable
conserves on the point of my knife, I gave him some, which I could scarce
get through his teeth. When it was dissolved in his mouth, he swallowed
the juice of it; whereat those that were about him much rejoiced, saying
that he had not swallowed anything in two days before.”[11]
Then Winslow tells how he nursed the sick chief, sending messengers
back to the governor for a bottle of drink, and some chickens from
which to make a broth for his patient. Meanwhile he dissolved some of
the confection in water and gave it to Massasoit to drink; within half
an hour the Indian improved. Before the messengers could return with
the chickens, Winslow made a broth of meal and strawberry-leaves and
sassafras-root, which he strained through his handkerchief and gave the
chief, who drank at least a pint of it. After this his sight mended more
and more, and all rejoiced that the Englishman had been the means of
preserving the life of Massasoit. At length the messengers returned with
the chickens, but Massasoit, “finding his stomach come to him, ... would
not have the chickens killed, but kept them for breed.”
From far and near his followers came to see their restored chief, who
feelingly said: “Now I see the English are my friends and love me; and
whilst I live I will never forget this kindness they have showed me.”
It would be interesting, were I to take the time, to look into the
relations of Massasoit with others, especially with Roger Williams; but
this has been done by others, particularly in the somewhat imaginative
chapter of my old friend, Mr. Butterworth, and I have already said
enough. Nor can I paint the background of that strange early society of
Rhode Island, its reaction from the stern Massachusetts rigor, and its
quaint and varied materials. In that new state, as Bancroft keenly said,
there were settlements “filled with the strangest and most incongruous
elements ... so that if a man had lost his religious opinions, he might
have been sure to find them again in some village in Rhode Island.”
Meanwhile “the old benevolent sachem, Massasoit,” says Drake’s “Book
of the Indians,” “having died in the winter of 1661-2,” so died, a few
months after, his oldest son, Alexander. Then came by regular succession,
Philip, the next brother, of whom the historian Hubbard says that for his
“ambitious and haughty spirit he was nicknamed ‘King Philip.’” From this
time followed warlike dismay in the colonies, ending in Philip’s piteous
death.
As a long-deferred memorial to Massasoit with all his simple and modest
virtues, a tablet has now been reverently dedicated, in the presence
of two of the three surviving descendants of the Indian chief, one of
these wearing his ancestral robes. The dedication might well close as it
did with the noble words of Young’s “Night Thoughts,” suited to such an
occasion:—
“Each man makes his own stature, builds himself:
Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids;
Her monuments shall last when Egypt’s fall.”
V
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“Cooper, whose name is with his country’s woven
First in her ranks; her Pioneer of mind.”
These were the words in which Fitz-Greene Halleck designated Cooper’s
substantial precedence in American novel-writing. Apart from this mere
priority in time,—he was born at Burlington, New Jersey, September 15,
1789, and died at Cooperstown, New York, September 14, 1851,—he rendered
the unique service of inaugurating three especial classes of fiction,—the
novel of the American Revolution, the Indian novel, and the sea novel. In
each case he wrote primarily for his own fellow countrymen, and achieved
fame first at their hands; and in each he produced a class of works
which, in spite of their own faults and of the somewhat unconciliatory
spirit of their writer, have secured a permanence and a breadth of range
unequaled in English prose fiction, save by Scott alone. To-day the sale
of his works in his own language remains unabated; and one has only to
look over the catalogues of European booksellers in order to satisfy
himself that this popularity continues, undiminished, through the medium
of translation. It may be safely said of him that no author of fiction
in the English language, except Scott, has held his own so well for half
a century after death. Indeed, the list of various editions and versions
of his writings in the catalogues of German booksellers often exceeds
that of Scott. This is not in the slightest degree due to his personal
qualities, for these made him unpopular, nor to personal manœuvring, for
this he disdained. He was known to refuse to have his works even noticed
in a newspaper for which he wrote, the “New York Patriot.” He never would
have consented to review his own books, as both Scott and Irving did,
or to write direct or indirect puffs of himself, as was done by Poe and
Whitman. He was foolishly sensitive to criticism, and unable to conceal
it; he was easily provoked to a quarrel; he was dissatisfied with either
praise or blame, and speaks evidently of himself in the words of the hero
of “Miles Wallingford,” when he says: “In scarce a circumstance of my
life that has brought me in the least under the cognizance of the public
have I ever been judged justly.” There is no doubt that he himself—or
rather the temperament given him by nature—was to blame for this, but the
fact is unquestionable.
Add to this that he was, in his way and in what was unfortunately the
most obnoxious way, a reformer. That is, he was what may be called a
reformer in the conservative direction,—he belabored his fellow citizens
for changing many English ways and usages, and he wished them to change
these things back again, immediately. In all this he was absolutely
unselfish, but utterly tactless; and inasmuch as the point of view he
took was one requiring the very greatest tact, the defect was hopeless.
As a rule, no man criticises American ways so unsuccessfully as an
American who has lived many years in Europe. The mere European critic
is ignorant of our ways and frankly owns it, even if thinking the fact
but a small disqualification; while the American absentee, having
remained away long enough to have forgotten many things and never to
have seen many others, may have dropped hopelessly behindhand as to
the facts, yet claims to speak with authority. Cooper went even beyond
these professional absentees, because, while they are usually ready to
praise other countries at the expense of America, Cooper, with heroic
impartiality, dispraised all countries, or at least all that spoke
English. A thoroughly patriotic and high-minded man, he yet had no mental
perspective, and made small matters as important as great. Constantly
reproaching America for not being Europe, he also satirized Europe for
being what it was.