to stay a few months; he remained seventeen years. The first sight
that greeted the newly arrived American in Liverpool was the
mail-coach bringing the news of the battle of Waterloo. Irving's
sympathies were with Napoleon. "In spite of all his misdeeds he is a
noble fellow, and I am confident will eclipse in the eyes of posterity
all the crowned wiseacres that have crushed him by their overwhelming
confederacy." In the year 1818 the Irving brothers went into
bankruptcy. Washington's interest in the business was that of a
younger brother who had little responsibility. But of late years he
had been much harassed by the accumulating troubles. With the end of
the business anxieties he turns to literature with a whole-souled
devotion. His home friends tried to secure for him the position of
Secretary of the Legation in London; his brother William wrote that
Commodore Decatur was keeping open for his acceptance the office of
Chief Clerk in the Navy Department; but Irving turned the offers
aside. Irving is usually imaged as a sunshiny, genial, easy-going
gentleman into whose blood little of the iron of firmness had been
infused. The fact that he not only refused these offers but also
rejected offers from Scott and Murray shows that he had will enough to
keep to the bent of his genius at a time when he needed money and
influence. Murray offered him a salary of L1000 a year to be the
editor of a periodical.
The first number of the _Sketch Book_ appeared in May, 1819, and
consisted mainly in point of merit of two papers, _The Wife_ and _Rip
Van Winkle_. The series was finished in 1820. The work was highly
successful in America, and Irving was deeply moved by the cordial
expressions of praise that reached him. His manly nature is revealed
in a letter to a friend in which he says,--"I hope you will not
attribute all this sensibility to the kind reception I have met to an
author's vanity. I am sure it proceeds from very different sources.
Vanity could not bring the tears into my eyes as they have been
brought by the kindness of my countrymen. I have felt cast down,
blighted, and broken-spirited, and these sudden rays of sunshine
agitate me more than they revive me. I hope--I hope I may yet do
something more worthy of the appreciation lavished on me."
Irving had not intended to publish the _Sketch Book_ in England, but
owing to reprints by others he was obliged to take the matter in his
own hands. Murray refused to undertake the work. Then Irving became
his own publisher. But the work sold so well that Murray bought the
copyright for two hundred pounds.
In 1826 we find Irving in Spain. To the American reader the name of
Spain is forever associated with that of Irving, for _The Alhambra_,
_The Conquest of Granada_, and _The Life of Columbus_ are the rich
evidences of his absorption of the spirit of Spain. The _Life of
Columbus_ was written with great care. Irving wanted to produce
something that would do credit to the scholarship of his loved
America. Murray paid about fifteen thousand dollars for the English
copyright. For the _Conquest of Granada_ he received ten thousand
dollars, and for _The Alhambra_ a Mr. Bentley paid five thousand.
While Irving was in Madrid one of his most welcome visitors was
Longfellow, then a young man of twenty, fresh from college. Writing to
his father Longfellow says,--"Mr. Rich's family is very agreeable, and
Washington Irving always makes one there in the evening. This is
altogether delightful, for he is one of those men who put you at ease
with them in a moment. He makes no ceremony whatever with one, and of
course is a very fine man in society, all mirth and good humor. He has
a most beautiful countenance, and a very intellectual one, but he has
some halting and hesitating in his conversation, and says very
pleasant, agreeable things in a husky, weak, peculiar voice. He has a
dark complexion, dark hair, whiskers already a little gray. This is a
very offhand portrait of so illustrious a man."
It is interesting to compare this sketch with one that Longfellow drew
from memory many years later,--"I had the pleasure of meeting Mr.
Irving in Spain, and found the author, whom I had loved, repeated in
the man. The same playful humor, the same touches of sentiment, the
same poetic atmosphere; and what I admired still more, the entire
absence of all literary jealousy, of all that mean avarice of fame
which counts what is given to another as so much taken from one's
self.... Passing his house at the early hour of six one summer
morning, I saw his study window already wide open. On my mentioning it
to him afterwards he said, 'Yes, I am always at work by six.' Since
then I have often remembered that sunny morning and that open window,
so suggestive of his sunny temperament and his open heart, and equally
so of his patient and persistent toil."
Irving's career is usually looked upon as ideal. In many ways it was
singularly blessed. Friends, influence, fame, and wealth were his.
When an American publisher undertook the issuing of a new edition of
Irving's works in 1848, there was much uncertainty as to the success
of the venture, but the author received eighty-eight thousand dollars
from 1848 to 1859. He also had the satisfaction of working to the
last, although the last year was one of suffering. "I am rather
fatigued, my dear, by my night's rest," he replied to the anxious
inquiry of a niece. He had been hard at work upon his _Life of
Washington_, and he sometimes feared he might have overtaxed his
brain. "I do not fear death," he said, "but I would like to go down
with all sails set."
This modest prayer was granted. To the day of his death he was able to
receive visitors, talk intelligently, read for his own pleasure, and
take short drives. The day before he died he attended church, and on
coming home he remarked that he must "get a dispensation to allow
whist on Sunday evenings," because he dreaded the long, lonely nights.
On Monday he went to bed, and as he turned to arrange the pillows he
gave a slight exclamation and instantly expired.
By his mother's side they laid him, in a cemetery overlooking the
Hudson and the valley of Sleepy Hollow, a region made forever famous
by the genial pen of Irving. "I could not but remember his last words
to me," writes a friend who made a pilgrimage to the spot on the day
of the funeral, "when his book was finished and his health was
failing: 'I am getting ready to go. I am shutting up my doors and
windows.' And I could not but feel that they were all open now, and
bright with the light of eternal morning."
XLVIII
COOPER AND "THE SPY"
James Fenimore Cooper is one of the most interesting characters in the
history of American authorship. Irving, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell,
Holmes, and Hawthorne early in life showed their literary bent, and
lived academic and peaceful careers. They were also popular. Cooper
was thirty years old before he thought of writing, and his life was
embittered by the consciousness that he was the target of the most
bitter criticism, both at home and abroad. Yet not one of the
distinguished authors I have named is more widely known to-day than
Cooper. Matthew Arnold has said somewhere that an author's place in
the future is to be determined by his contemporaneous ranking in
foreign lands. If that is true the names of Mark Twain, Cooper, Walt
Whitman, and Poe will rank high in the annals of posterity, for their
European fame is said to be the most general of any of the American
writers.
There is an appealing fascination about the boyhood days of Cooper.
When James was a babe of fourteen months his father moved to the
headwaters of the Susquehanna. The family consisted of fifteen
persons; James, the future novelist, was the eleventh of twelve
children. Their home was in the midst of the forest. Near by was the
charming lake, Otsego. The father owned several thousand acres, and
was, probably, the most prominent man in that sparsely-settled region.
What boy would want a finer opportunity to indulge all the wild
propensities that lurk in the untamed heart of every healthy
youngster? To roam in the untracked forest, to sail the lake, to hunt,
to fish, to dream of the great unknown world lying just beyond the
sun-tipped trees,--what can the schools give in exchange for this? Is
it surprising that the wholesomeness of the forest and the charm and
freshness of God's out-of-doors found their way into the man's novels,
when so many delightful boyhood experiences must have found their way
into the boy's heart?
As I said, Cooper was thirty years old before he began to write. He
had studied under an Episcopal rector, and was intending to enter the
junior class at Yale; the rector died and Cooper entered the second
term of the freshman class; for some frolic in which he was engaged he
was dismissed; he then entered the navy, where he gathered valuable
experience which he worked afterwards into literature; he married;
resigned, and lived the quiet life of a country gentleman. One day he
threw down an English novel he had been reading and said to his wife,
"I believe I could write a better story myself." Now this is a feeling
that many of us have had, but few of us are put to the test. Cooper's
wife fortunately told him to make the trial. He did so, and
_Precaution_ was the result. This was published in 1820. As a novel
it is a failure; as a literary document it is highly interesting.
_Precaution_ is a story of English life. Why should Cooper write of
American life when all Americans seemed to consider American life dull
and prosaic? Politically we were free; intellectually we were slaves.
The English lark sang in American poetry and English lords talked in
American novels. It was not until 1837 that Emerson gave that famous
address, _The American Scholar_, an event which Lowell calls "without
any former parallel in our literary annals," and which Holmes declared
to be "our intellectual Declaration of Independence."
_Precaution_ has been called a failure, but it was not so much of a
failure that Cooper's friends discouraged him from trying again. No,
it was a first attempt and gave promise of something better. Why not
write about American scenes and events? The very neighborhood in which
he lived had been the scene of many stirring adventures during the
Revolutionary conflict. "Years before, while at the residence of John
Jay, his host had given him, one summer afternoon, the account of a
spy that had been in his service during the war. The coolness,
shrewdness, fearlessness, but above all the unselfish patriotism of
the man had profoundly impressed the Revolutionary leader who had
employed him. The story made an equally deep impression upon Cooper at
the time. He now resolved to take it as the foundation of the tale he
had been persuaded to write."
Near the close of 1821 _The Spy_ appeared. In March of the following
year a third edition was on the market. The work soon appeared in
England, published by Miller, the same publisher that had first
ventured to bring Irving's _Sketch Book_ before the English public. In
England the book was at once successful. This meant much to the
American estimate of the author's ability, for American critics were
afraid to praise a work that had not yet been applauded by England. In
this same year, 1822, a French translation appeared. In France the
work was enthusiastically received. This was the first of many
translations into many European languages. Its influence in teaching
patriotism cannot be estimated, nor can its value as an effective
retort to the sneer "Who reads an American book?" ever be overlooked.
About the early life of Cooper there are unfortunately but few
anecdotes. One reason for this lack of _personalia_ about a man who
had a most vigorous personality is due to his dying request. He
enjoined upon his family that they permit no authorized biography to
appear. Because of this we have lost much that would be valuable in
estimating the character of Cooper. There is a story that when he was
a young man he engaged in a foot-race for a prize of a basket of
fruit. "While Cooper and his competitor were preparing to start, a
little girl stood by full of eagerness for the exciting event. Cooper
quickly turned and picked her up in his arms. 'I'll carry her and beat
you!' he exclaimed, and away they went, Cooper with his laughing
burden, the other runner untrammeled. It is almost needless to add
that Cooper won the race, else why should the story have been
preserved?" One cannot help speculating about the size of the girl and
the speed of the rival runner, if this story is true.
A more satisfying story is that told of Cooper's meeting with Scott.
In 1826 Cooper went to Europe. With a family of ten persons he moved
about for seven years. Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, and
England were visited. When in Paris the two romancers met.
"Est ce Monsieur Cooper que j'ai l'honneur de voir?"
"Monsieur je m'appelle Cooper."
"Eh bien, donc, je suis Walter Scott."
After a minute or two of French Sir Walter suddenly recollected
himself and said: "Well, here have I been _parley vooing_ to you in a
way to surprise you, no doubt, but these Frenchmen have got my tongue
so set to their lingo that I have half forgotten my own language."
I have said that Cooper was not popular. This is not putting it strong
enough. He was more than unpopular; he was hated by his neighbors, and
slandered by the press at home and abroad. This lamentable condition
of affairs was not due to any despicable qualities in the man, for
Cooper was a kind father, an affectionate husband, a good citizen, and
an honest, truth-loving man. These seem admirable qualities. Of few of
us can much higher praise be spoken. Why then did the citizens of
Cooper's home village hold a mass meeting and pass resolutions to the
effect that Cooper had rendered "himself odious to a greater portion
of the citizens of this community," and why should _Fraser's
Magazine_, three thousand miles away, call Cooper "a liar, a bilious
braggart, a full jackass, an insect, a grub, and a reptile"?
The cause is not far to seek. Cooper was the most disputatious man in
the history of American literature. Cooper used to tell the story of
the man who in an argument was met with: "Why it is as plain as that
two and two make four." "But I deny that too," was the retort, "for
two and two make twenty two." Cooper was himself that sort of a man.
He always had a quarrel on his hands. The more pugnacious a man is,
the more militant he will find society. He instituted libel suits
against the most prominent editors in the country, among them Horace
Greeley and Thurlow Weed. And what is more to the point,--he won his
cases. But this did not make him any more popular with the press. When
we remember that Billingsgate was an important part of the literary
equipment of the critic of Cooper's time, we need not be surprised
that Cooper's pugnacity evoked such sweet disinterestedness as Park
Benjamin indulged in when he called Cooper "a superlative dolt, and a
common mark of scorn and contempt of every well-informed American."
In addition to this denunciation of Cooper as a man, there have in
recent years arisen severe criticisms on Cooper as a writer. "There
are nineteen rules," writes Mark Twain, "governing literary art in the
domain of romantic fiction--some say twenty-two. In _Deerslayer_
Cooper violated eighteen of them." And then Mark Twain gives us the
detailed specifications. It is very cleverly put, this criticism of
Mark Twain's. But the astounding fact remains that the one rule Cooper
did not violate seems to secure him a place in the Pantheon of
authors. Along with Poe, and Whitman, and Mark himself, Cooper is
found in various editions on the shelves of the bookdealers and in the
libraries of the book-lovers from the Thames to the Volga. If Cooper
had observed only one or two more of the rules of literary art, where
would he stand? One is reminded of the Dutchman who was told that this
clock would run eight days without winding. "Ach, Himmel, what would
she do if she was woundt?"
The one literary sin that Cooper does not commit is dulness. He is
interesting. Of course there are some of Cooper's works that no one
cares to read now. But he is to be judged by his best, not by his
worst. Balzac is something of a novelist himself, and has a right to
be heard. "If Cooper," says Balzac in a passage quoted by every writer
who touches upon Cooper, "had succeeded in the painting of character
to the same extent that he did in the painting of the phenomena of
nature, he would have uttered the last word of our art." This is no
mean praise. Cooper is read because he is interesting. He shall
continue to be read for another reason. He is wholesome and vigorous.
The air we breathe is the air of the pine forest and the salt sea.
Youth is forever attracted by the mystery and adventure of primitive
life. As America becomes more and more densely settled the imagination
will turn back to the early times when the bear and the deer, the
settler and Indian were tracking the trail through the forest and
along the shore. For this reason Cooper is likely to remain an abiding
force in American literature.
XLIX
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY AND BISMARCK
John Lothrop Motley, the American historian, a writer who in his _The
Rise of the Dutch Republic_ produced a history as fascinating as a
romance and a work that was immediately in Europe translated into
three different languages, was, after graduation from Harvard, a
student at Goettingen. Here he studied German so well that in after
years he was asked by the emperor of Austria whether he were not a
German. Here too he became acquainted with Bismarck.
That they were great friends is evident from letters by Bismarck
himself. "I never pass by old Logier's House, in the
Friedrichstrasse--wrote Bismarck in 1863--without looking up at the
windows that used to be ornamented by a pair of red slippers sustained
on the wall by the feet of a gentleman sitting in the Yankee way, his
head below and out of sight. I then gratify my memory with remembrance
of 'good old colony times when we were roguish chaps.'" And here is
another part of a letter which illustrates that even dignitaries like
to unbend and become like boys again. This letter was written by the
minister of foreign affairs to the minister of the United States at the
court of Vienna:
Berlin, May 23d, 1864.
Jack my Dear,-- ... what do you do that you never write a line
to me? I am working from morn to night like a nigger, and you
have nothing to do at all--you might as well tip me a line as
well as looking at your feet tilted against the wall of God
knows what a dreary color. I cannot entertain a regular
correspondence; it happens to me that during five days I do
not find a quarter of an hour for a walk; but you, lazy old
chap, what keeps you from thinking of your old friends? When
just going to bed in this moment my eye met with yours on your
portrait, and I curtailed the sweet restorer, sleep, in order
to remind you of Auld Lang Syne. Why do you never come to
Berlin? It is not a quarter of an American's holiday from
Vienna, and my wife and me should be so happy to see you once
more in this sullen life. When can you come, and when will
you? I swear that I will make out the time to look with you on
old Logier's quarters, ... and at Gerolt's, where they once
would not allow you to put your slender legs upon a chair. Let
politics be hanged and come to see me. I promise that the
Union Jack shall wave over our house, and conversation and the
best old hock shall pour damnation upon the rebels. Do not
forget old friends, neither their wives, as mine wishes nearly
as ardently as myself to see you, or at least to see as
quickly as possible a word of your handwriting.
Sei gut und komm oder schreibe.
Dein,
V. BISMARCK.
In a letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1878, Bismarck in answer to an
inquiry tells how the two became friends.
"I met Motley at Goettingen in 1832, I am not sure if at the beginning
of the Easter term or Michaelmas term. He kept company with German
students, though more addicted to study than we members of the
fighting clubs. Although not having mastered yet the German language
he exercised a marked attraction by a conversation sparkling with wit,
humor, and originality. In autumn of 1833, having both of us emigrated
from Goettingen to Berlin for the prosecution of our studies, we
became fellow lodgers in the house No. 161 Friedrichstrasse. There we
lived in the closest intimacy, sharing meals and outdoor exercise.
Motley by that time had arrived at talking fluently: he occupied
himself not only in translating Goethe's poem, _Faust_, but tried his
hand even in composing German verses. Enthusiastic admirer of
Shakspere, Byron, Goethe, he used to spice his conversation abundantly
with quotations from these his favorite authors. A pertinacious
arguer, so much so that sometimes he watched my awakening in order to
continue a discussion on some topic of science, poetry, or practical
life cut short by the chime of the small hours, he never lost his mild
and amiable temper.... The most striking feature of his handsome and
delicate appearance was uncommonly large and beautiful eyes. He never
entered a drawing-room without exciting the curiosity and sympathy of
the ladies."
While the sheets of Motley's history were passing through the press in
1856, he paid a visit to Bismarck at Frankfort:
"When I called," says Motley, "Bismarck was at dinner, so I left my
card, and said I would come back in half an hour. As soon as my card
had been carried to him (as I learned afterwards) he sent a servant
after me to the hotel, but I had gone another way. When I came back I
was received with open arms. I can't express to you how cordially he
received me. If I had been his brother, instead of an old friend, he
could not have shown more warmth and affectionate delight in seeing
me. I find I like him better even than I thought I did, and you know
how high an opinion I always expressed of his talents and
disposition. He is a man of very noble character, and of very great
powers of mind. The prominent place which he now occupies as a
statesman sought _him_. He did not seek it or any other office. The
stand which he took in the Assembly from conviction, on the occasion
of the outbreak of 1848, marked him at once to all parties as one of
the leading characters of Prussia....
"In the summer of 1851, he told me that the minister, Manteuffel,
asked him one day abruptly, if he would accept the post of ambassador
at Frankfort, to which (although the proposition was as unexpected a
one to him as if I should hear by the next mail that I had been chosen
governor of Massachusetts) he answered after a moment's deliberation,
yes, without another word. The king, the same day, sent for him, and
asked him if he would accept the place, to which he made the same
brief answer, 'Ja.' His majesty expressed a little surprise that he
made no inquiries or conditions, when Bismarck replied that anything
which the king felt strong enough to propose to him, he felt strong
enough to accept. I only write these details that you may have an idea
of the man. Strict integrity and courage of character, a high sense of
honor, a firm religious belief, united with remarkable talents, make
up necessarily a combination which cannot be found any day in any
court; and I have no doubt that he is destined to be prime minister,
unless his obstinate truthfulness, which is apt to be a
stumbling-block for politicians, stands in his way....
"Well, he accepted the post and wrote to his wife next day, who was
preparing for a summer's residence in a small house they had taken on
the sea-coast, that he could not come because he was already
established in Frankfort as minister. The result, he said, was three
days of tears on her part. He had previously been leading the life of
a plain country squire with a moderate income, had never held any
position in the government or in diplomacy, and had hardly ever been
to court."
L
THE YOUTH OF GEORGE TICKNOR
George Ticknor was born in 1791. His father, he says, fitted him for
college. He never went to a regular school. President Wheelock,
Professor Woodward, and others connected with Dartmouth College, who
were in the habit of making his father's house their home in the long
winter vacations, took much notice of him; and the professor, after
examining him in Cicero _Orations_ and the Greek Testament, gave him a
certificate of admission before he was ten years old. "Of course," he
adds, "I knew very little, and the whole thing was a form, perhaps a
farce. There was no thought of my going to college then, and I did not
go till I was fourteen, but I was twice examined at the college (where
I went with my father and mother every summer) for advanced standing,
and was finally admitted as a junior, and went to reside there from
Commencement, August, 1805." He learned very little at college. "The
instructors generally were not as good teachers as my father had been,
and I knew it." He consequently took no great interest in study,
although he liked reading Horace, and had mathematics enough to enjoy
calculating the great eclipse of 1806, and making a projection of it
which turned out nearly right. To supply the deficiency in classical
acquirements with which he left college, he was placed under Dr. John
Gardiner, of Trinity Church, who was reputed a good scholar, having
been bred in the mother country under Dr. Parr.