than its predecessor, and with much greater deliberation. The first
occupied me little over one year; the second, though covering only
one-fifth the time, was in hand three. There were long interruptions,
it is true; the Puget Sound business, and the writing of a short _Life
of Farragut_. But the chief cause of delay was a much more extensive
preparation. This was owing largely to the crowded activities of the
brief twenty years treated, and still more to wider outlook. I
attempted, indeed, nothing that could be called original research. I
still relied wholly upon printed matter, but in that I wandered far.
The privilege was accorded me of free access to the alcoves of what
was then the Astor Library, now, while keeping its name, incorporated
with the New York Public Library; and I rummaged its well-stocked
shelves, following up every clue, especially memoirs, pamphlets, and
magazines, contemporary with my period. From the estimate I had formed
of the effect of commerce upon the outcome of the hostilities, it was
necessary to digest the statistics of the times, much of which existed
in tabulated form; and, for commercial policy, the State Papers, and
debates in Parliament, as well as in the French National Convention. I
now had not only interest in my task, but pride; for the favorable
criticism upon the first sea-power book not only had surprised me, but
had increased my ambition and my self-confidence. It was a distinct
help that there was no expectation of pecuniary advantage; no
publisher or magazine editor pressing for "copy," on which dollars
depended. I now often recall with envy the happiness of those days,
when the work was its own reward, and quite sufficient, too, almost as
good as a baby; when there were no secondary considerations, however
important, to dispute for the first place. I have never knowingly let
work leave my hands in shape less good than the best I can turn out;
but I have often felt the temptation to do so, and wished--almost, not
quite--that there was no money in it. I recast Dr. Johnson's saying:
"None but a blockhead would write unless he needed money." None but a
blockhead would write for money, unless he had to.
Though not embarrassed by publishers, I found a more formidable enemy
on my tracks in 1892. There had been a change in the Bureau of
Navigation, and the new chief, under whom the College was, thought my
help to it less necessary than my going to sea. To an advocate of
allowing me time, he replied, summarily, "It is not the business of a
naval officer to write books." As an aphorism the remark is doubtless
unassailable; but, with a policy thus defined, my position, again to
quote Boatswain Chucks, became "precarious and not at all permanent."
That my turn for sea service had come was indisputable. I could
pretend to no grievance, but I did want first to finish that book. Yet
I have recalled with happiness that I was enabled to work steadfastly
on, my pulse beating no quicker for fear I should be interrupted and
my task left unfinished. I remember a Boston publisher telling me of
the anxiety felt by one of his distinguished clients, lest death
should overtake him before that which he had planned was completed.
The feeling is common to man, and one is touched by the apparent
tragedy when men of promise and achievement are so removed, their aims
unaccomplished, as were recently Professor Rawson Gardiner and Sir
William Hunter; but it was given me early to realize that there is no
such thing as being cut off unbetimes. If I were called at the end of
a day's stint, or the pen fell from my hand in the midst of it, that
which was appointed me was done; if well done, what mattered the rest?
This quietness came to me through a chain of thought. I had been
experiencing, as many others have, the weariness of a long-winded job,
the end of which seemed to recede with each day's progress; and there
came to my mind Long-fellow's "Village Blacksmith:"
"Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
_Each evening sees it close_."
Would it were so with me! And a voice replied, "Is it not so with you?
with all?" Since then I have understood; though the flesh is often
weak, and even the calm of the study cannot always exclude the
contagious fever of our American pace. In the particular juncture, the
Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Tracy, took my view of relative
importances, and time was secured me. The manuscript was complete by
the late spring of 1892, and the book published in December, having
meantime been used for lectures in the first session of the College in
its new building; a renewal of life which has since proved continuous.
During this interval occurred another presidential campaign. Mr.
Harrison was defeated and Mr. Cleveland elected. I was now ready to go
to sea, but by this time had decided that authorship had for me
greater attractions than following up my profession, and promised a
fuller and more successful old age. I would have retired immediately,
had I then fulfilled the necessary forty years' service; but of these
I still lacked four. My purpose was to take up at once the War of
1812, while the history of the preceding events was fresh in my mind;
and in this view I asked to be excused from sea duty, undertaking that
I would retire when my forty years were complete. The request was
probably inadmissible, for I could have given no guarantees; and the
precedent might have been bad. At any rate, it was not granted,
luckily for me; for by a combination of unforeseen circumstances the
ship to which I was ordered, the _Chicago_, was sent to Europe as
flag-ship of that station, and on her visit to England, in 1894,
occasion was taken by naval officers and others to express in public
manner their recognition of the value they thought my work had been to
the appreciation of naval questions there. This brought my name
forward in a way that could not but be flattering, and affected
favorably the sale of the books; the previous readers of which had
seemingly been few, though from among those few I had received
pleasant compliments. Upon this followed the conferring upon me
honorary degrees by the two universities; D.C.L. by Oxford, and LL.D.
by Cambridge. After my return, in 1895, LL.D. was extended also by
Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, in the order named, and by McGill in
Montreal.
Another very pleasing and interesting experience while in London was
dining with the Royal Navy Club. This is an ancient institution,
dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Its list of
members carries many celebrated names, among others Nelson. It has no
club-house, and exists as an organization only; meeting for dinners on
or near the dates of some half-dozen famous naval victories, the
anniversaries of which it thus commemorates yearly. There is by rule
one guest of the evening, and one only, who is titularly the guest of
the presiding officer; but on this occasion an exception was made for
our admiral and myself. Unfortunately, he, who was much the better
after-dinner speaker, was ill and could not attend. The rule thus
remained intact, and I have understood that this was the first time in
the history of the club that the guest had been a foreigner.
The _Chicago_ had left England and was lying at Antwerp when the time
for conferring degrees arrived. My attendance in person was requisite,
but only a week could be spared from the ship for the purpose. This
made it impossible for me to be present in both cases at the high
ceremonial, where the honors are bestowed upon the full group of
recipients. Oxford had been first to tender me her distinction, and I
accordingly arranged my journey with a view to her celebration; two
days before which I went down to Cambridge, and was there received and
enrolled at a private audience, before the accustomed officials and
some few visitors from outside. What the circumstances lacked in the
pomp of numbers and observance, and in the consequent stimulus to
interest which a very novel experience arouses, was compensated to me
by the few hours of easy social intercourse with a few eminent
persons, whom I had the pleasure of then meeting very informally.
The great occasion at Oxford presents a curious combination of
impressiveness and horse-play, such as is associated with the Abbot of
Misrule, in the stories of the Middle Ages. It is this smack and
suggestion of antiquity, of unnumbered such occasions in the misty
past, when the student was half-scholar and half-ruffian, which make
the permitted license of to-day not only tolerable, but in a sense
even venerable. The good-humor and general acceptance on both sides,
by chaffers and chaffed, testified to recognized conditions; and there
is about a hoary institution a saving grace which cannot be
transferred to _parvenus_. Practised in a modern Cis-Atlantic seat of
learning, as I have seen it done, without the historical background,
the same disregard of normal decorum becomes undraped rowdyism--boxing
without gloves. The scene and its concurrences at Oxford have been
witnessed by too many, and too often described, for me to attempt
them. I shall narrate only my particular experiences. I had been
desired to appear in full uniform--epaulettes, cocked hat, sword, and
what is suggestively called "brass-bound" coat; swallow-tailed, with a
high collar stiffened with lining and gold lace, set off by trousers
with a like broad stripe of lace, not inaptly characterized by some
humorist as "railroad" trousers. The theory of these last, I believe,
is that so much decoration on hat and collar, if not balanced by an
equivalent amount below, is top-heavy in visual effect, if not on
personal stability. Whatever the reason, it is all there, and I had it
all at Oxford; all on my head and back, I mean, except the epaulettes.
For to my concern I found that over all this paraphernalia I must also
wear the red silk gown of a D.C.L. It became evident, immediately upon
trial, that the silk and the epaulettes were agreeing like the
Kilkenny cats, so it was conceded that these naval ornaments should be
dispensed with; the more readily as they could not have been seen. In
the blend, and for the occasion, my legal laurels prevailed over my
professional exterior.
In the matter of dress my life certainly culminated when I walked
up--or down--High Street in Oxford with cocked hat, red silk gown, and
sword, the railroad trousers modestly peeping beneath. It must be
admitted that the townsmen either had more than French politeness, or
else were used to incongruities. I did not see one crack a smile;
whether any turned to look or not, I did not turn to see. My
hospitable escort and myself joined the other expectants before the
Sheldonian Theatre, where the ceremonies are held. The audience, of
both sexes, visitors and students, had already crammed the benches and
galleries of the great circular interior when we marched to our seats,
in single file, down a narrow aisle. The fun, doubtless, had been
going on already some time; but for us it was non-existent till we
entered, when the hose was turned full upon us and our several
peculiarities. I am bound to say that to encourage us we got quite as
many cheers as chaff, and the personalities which flew about like
grape-shot were pretty much hit or miss. I noticed that some one from
aloft called out, "Why don't you have your hair cut?" which I
afterwards understood was a delicate allusion to my somewhat
unparalleled baldness; but it happened that two behind me in the
procession was a very distinguished Russian scientist, like myself a
D.C.L. _in ovo_, whose long locks fell over his collar, and I
innocently supposed that so pertinent a remark was addressed to him on
an occasion when _im_pertinence was lord of the ascendant. Thus the
shaft passed me harmless, or fell back blunted from my triple armor of
dulness.
Although in itself in most ways enjoyable, the cruise of the _Chicago_
while it lasted necessarily suspended authorship. I heard intimations
of the common opinion that the leisure of a naval officer's life would
afford abundant opportunity. Even I myself for a moment imagined that
time in some measure might be found for accumulating material, for
which purpose I took along several books; but it was in vain. Neither
a ship nor a book is patient of a rival, and I soon ceased the effort
to serve both. Night work was tried, contrary to my habit; but after a
few weeks I had to recognize that the evening's exertion had dulled my
head for the next morning's duties.
My orders not only interrupted writing, but changed its direction for
a long while. I had foreseen that the War of 1812, as a whole, must be
flat in interest as well as laborious in execution; and, upon the
provocation of other duty, I readily turned from it in distaste. Nine
years elapsed before I took it up; and then rather under the
compulsion of completing my Sea Power series, as first designed, than
from any inclination to the theme. It occupied three years--usefully,
I hope--and was published in 1905. Regarded as history, it is by far
the most thorough work I have done. I went largely to original
documents in Washington, Ottawa, and London, and I believe I have
contributed to the particular period something new in both material
and interpretation. But, whatever value the book may possess to one
already drawn to the subject, it is impossible to infuse charm where
from the facts of the case it does not exist. As a Chinese
portrait-painter is said to have remonstrated with a discontented
patron, "How can pretty face make, when pretty face no have got?"
Thus my orders to the _Chicago_ led to dropping 1812, and to this my
_Life of Nelson_ was directly due. The project had already occurred to
me, for the conspicuous elements of human as well as professional
interest could not well escape one who had just been following him
closely in his military career. _Sea Power in the French Revolution_
having been published less than six months before, the framework of
external events, into which his actions must be fitted, was fresh in
my recollection, as was also the analysis of his campaigns and
battles, available at once for fuller treatment, more directly
biographical. After consultation with my publishers I decided to
undertake the work, and with reference to it chiefly I provided myself
reading-matter. I have already said that the experiment of writing on
board did not succeed. I composed part of the first chapter and then
stopped; but the purpose remained, and was resumed very soon after
leaving the _Chicago_, in May, 1895.
For the writing of biography I had formed a theory of my own, a
guiding principle, closely akin to the part which sea power had played
in my treatment of history. This leading idea was not intended to
exclude other points of view or manners of presentation, but was to
subordinate them somewhat peremptorily. As defined to myself, my plan
was to realize personality by living with the man, in as close
familiarity as was consistent with the fact of his being dead. This
was to be done first, for myself, as the necessary prelude to
transmission to my readers. When there remains a huge mass of
correspondence, by one as frank in utterance and copious in
self-revelation as was Nelson, the opportunity to get on terms of such
intimacy is unique, one-sided though the communication is. Besides,
companions and subordinates have left abundant records of their
association with him, which constitute, as it were, the other side of
conversation; relieving the monologue of his own letters. The first
thing in order is to know the living man; and it seemed to me that,
with such materials, this could be accomplished most fully by steeping
one's self in them, creating an environment closely analogous to the
intercourse of daily life. I believed that passive surrender to these
impressions, rather than conscious labored effort, would gradually
produce the perceptions of immediate contact, to the utmost that the
nature of the case admitted. Johnson doubtless was right in naming
personal acquaintance as chief among the qualifications of a
biographer; failing that, one must seek the best substitute. By
either method the conception of character and temperament is formed;
its reproduction to readers is a matter of power of expression, and of
capacity to introduce aptly, here and there, the minute touches by
which an artist secures likeness and heightens effect.
Whatever the worth of this theory, it was due in large measure to
revulsion from a form of biography, to me always displeasing and
essentially crude, which gives a narrative of external life-events,
disjointed continually by letters. Profuse recourse to letters simply
turns over to the reader the task which the biographer has undertaken
to do for him. Perhaps the biographer cannot do it. Then he had better
not undertake the job. A collection of letters is one thing, a
biography another; and they do not mix well when a career abounds in
incident. Letters are material for biography, as original documents
are material for history; but as documents are not history, so letters
are not biography. The historian and biographer by publishing
virtually contract to present their readers with a digested, reasoned
whole; the best expression, full yet balanced, that they can give of
the truth concerning a period, or a man. It is a labor of time and
patience, and should be also of love; one which the reader is to be
spared, on the principle that a thousand men should not have to do,
each for himself, the work the one writer professes. It is no fair
treatment to tumble at their feet a basketful of papers, and virtually
say, "There! find out the man for yourself."
The interest of lives, of course, varies, and with it the opportunity
of the biographer. I do not mean in degree, which is trite to remark,
but in kind, which is less recognized. There are men the value of
whose memory to their race lies in their thought and words, whose
career is uneventful. Yet even with them the impression of personality
is not as vividly produced by masses of correspondence as it may be by
the petty occurrences of daily life, which for them are the analogues
of the stirring incidents that mark the course of the man of public
action, statesman or warrior. The reason is plain; the character of
few rises to the height of their words, written or spoken. These show
their wisdom, or power, and are uplifting; but their shortcomings,
too, have a virtue. We fight the better for appreciating that victors
have known defeat. The supreme gift of biography to mankind is
personality; not what the man thought or did, but what he was. Herein
is inspiration and reproof; motive force, inspiring or deterrent. If
nothing better, mere recognition, or exultation in an excellence to
which we do not attain, has a saving grace of its own.
For the purposes of his biographer, Dr. Johnson scarcely left London.
Beyond a brief visit to Paris, only a tour through the Hebrides; this
an event so colossal in its elevation above the flat level of his
outward existence, like the church towers in a Dutch landscape, that
it is treated as a thing quite apart, has a volume to itself, severed
from its before and after. Boswell gives letters, certainly, and many;
yet, in the matter of character portrayal, what are they alongside of
the talk? And also, more pertinent, what to Boswell was even the talk,
compared with the intercourse to which the talk was incident? In this
he immersed himself and his strong receptive powers, absorbing the
impression which he has so skilfully reproduced. Such apprehension as
Boswell thus gained for himself is no neutral acquirement; it is a
working force, instinctively selective from that on which it feeds,
and intuitive in its power of arrangement. To copy his result is
futile. Like Nelson, there is but one Boswell; but it may be permitted
to believe that lesser men will profit to the extent of their
capacities by adopting his method. This possibly he never formulated,
in that again proving his genius, the unconscious faculty of a very
self-conscious man; but I conceive the process to have been, first
know your subject yourself thoroughly by close contact and sympathy,
and then so handle your material as to bring out to the reader the
image revealed to you.
This is, in a measure, a plea for picturesque treatment of biography
and of history; not by gaudy coloring and violent contrasts, striving
after rhetorical effect, but in the observance of proportion, of
grouping, of subordination to a central idea; not content with mere
narration, however accurate in details. A narrative which fails in
portrayal, in picturesque impression, is not accurate; and a biography
which presents a man's thoughts and acts, yet does not over and above
them fashion his personality to the reader, is a failure. How much
conscious effort may be necessary to the due handling of materials, I
certainly cannot undertake to say; but persuaded I am that the utmost
results possible to any particular man can be attained only by passive
assimilation, and that so they will be attained to the measure of his
individual capacity. By such digestion a theme apparently dry may be
quickened to interest. Though not a lawyer, nor a student of
constitutions, I found Stubbs's _Constitutional History of England_
fascinating. I have not analyzed my pleasure, but I believe it to have
been due to portrayal; to arrangement of data by a man exceptionally
gifted for vivid presentation, who had so lived with his subject that
it had realized itself to him as a living whole, which he successfully
conveyed to his readers. There is no disjointment. The result is a
great historical picture; or a biography, of law as a benevolent
developing personality, moving amid the struggles and miseries of the
human throng, healing and redressing.
To _The Life of Nelson_ I applied the idea of this method, which I
thought to be helped rather than hindered by my warm admiration for
him, little short of affection. I had faith in the power of
attachment to comprehend character and action; and because of mine I
believed myself safer when necessary to censure. I grieved while I
condemned. I was sure also that, however far below an absolute best I
might fall, the best that I could do must thus come out. Amid approval
sufficient to gratify me, I found most satisfaction in that of a
friend who said he felt as if he had been living with my hero; and of
another who told me that after his day's work, which I knew to be
laborious, he had refreshed his evenings with _Nelson_. In the first
edition I fell into two mistakes of some importance, as well as others
in small details, the effect of which was to confirm me in my theory;
for while they were blemishes, and needed correction, they did not,
and do not, to my mind affect the portrait--the conveyance of true
personality.
Of these errors the most serious, regarded as a fault, was an
inadequate study of Nelson's course at Naples in 1799, so sharply
challenged at that time and afterwards. I recognized the justice of a
criticism which alleged that I had not sufficiently examined the other
side of the case, as presented by Italian authors. This I now did,
rewriting my account for the second edition. I found no reason to
change my estimate of Nelson's conduct, but rather to confirm the
favorable aspects; but what was more instructive to me was that even
so large an oversight did not when remedied affect the portrait. The
personality remained as first conceived; Nelson had acted in
character. The same was substantially true of a more pregnant
incident, the discovery of a number of his letters to his wife, which
had escaped the diligent search made by the editor of his
correspondence, Sir Harris Nicolas. After lying concealed for the
half-century between Nicolas and myself, they turned up shortly after
my book was in print. Here was more self-revelation; how might it
modify my picture? The event was ushered in with a great flourish of
trumpets, the walls of Jericho were about to fall, and I own I felt
anxious. Some of the letters were published; permission to see the
others was refused me. As these have not since been given to the
world, I fancy that they sustain the opinion expressed by me on those
that were; that beyond emphasizing somewhat his hardness to Lady
Nelson during the period of his growing alienation, they add little to
the impression before formed. A slight touch of the brush, another
line in the face, that is all.
The question of Nelson's action at Naples was brought forward in a way
which required from me some controversial writing. To this I have no
intention of alluding here, beyond stating that up to the present my
confidence has not been shaken in my defence of the main lines of his
conduct, clearing him of the deceit and double-dealing alleged against
him. I say this because there may be some who have thought me silenced
by argument, in that I have not seen fit to rise to such crude taunts
as that, "After this Captain Mahan will not undertake," etc. What
Captain Mahan will or will not do is of no particular importance; but
when the repute of such an one as Nelson is at stake, burdened by the
weight of calumny laid upon him by Southey's ill-instructed censures,
it is right to repeat that nothing I have seen since I last wrote,
about 1900, has appeared to me to call for further answer.