It was a question now whether I could get the appointment of a consulate
which I had already applied for, quite as much, I believe, upon the
incentive of my fellow-citizens as from a very natural desire of my own.
It seemed to be the universal feeling, after the election of Lincoln,
that I who had written his life ought to have a consulate, as had
happened with Hawthorne, who had written the life of Franklin Pierce. It
was thought a very fitting thing, and my fellow-citizens appeared
willing I should
[Illustration: _Looking into the State House grounds toward the broad
flight of steps before the west front of the building_]
have any consulate, but I, with constitutional unhopefulness, had fixed
my mind upon that of Munich, as in the way to further study of the
German language and literature, and this was the post I asked for in an
application signed by every prominent Republican in the capital, from
the Governor down. The Governor was now William Dennison, who afterward
became Postmaster-General, and who had always been my friend, rather in
the measure of his charming good will than my merit, from my first
coming to Columbus; Chase had already entered Lincoln's Cabinet as
Secretary of the Treasury. But in spite of this backing the President,
with other things on his mind, did not respond in any way until some
months had dragged by, when one day I received without warning an
official envelope addressed to me as "Consul at Rome, now at Columbus,
Ohio." Rome was not exactly Munich, and the local language and
literature were not German, but I could not have expected the State
Department to take cognizance of a tacit ideal of mine, and the
consulate was at any rate a consulate, which perhaps most of my friends
supposed was what I wanted. It was welcome enough, for I was again to be
dropped from the high horse which I had been riding for nearly a year
past; one of those changes in the _State Journal_ which Greeley, in his
unsolicited lecture, had imputed to it for unworthiness was at hand, and
the gentleman who was buying a controlling share in it might or might
not wish to write the editorials himself. At any rate the Roman
consulship was not to be declined without inquiry, but as there was no
salary, and the consul was supposed to live upon the fees taken, I tried
to find out how much the fees might annually come to. Meanwhile I was
advised by prudence to accept the appointment provisionally; it would be
easy to resign it if I could not afford to keep it; and I waited to see
what the new proprietor meant to do.
Apparently he meant to be editor as well as proprietor, and Price and I
must go, which we made ready to do as soon as the new proprietor came
into his own. Three or four times in my life I have suffered some such
fate as I suffered then; but I never lost a place except through the
misfortune of those who gave it me; then with whatever heart I could I
accepted the inevitable. At the worst, I was yet "Consul at Rome now at
Columbus," and I had my determination to work. I was never hopeful, I
was never courageous, but somehow I was dogged. I had no overweening
belief in myself, and yet I thought, at the bottom of my soul, that I
had in me the make of the thing I was bent on doing, the thing
literature, the greatest thing in the world.
When our new proprietor arrived Price and I disabled his superiority,
probably on no very sufficient grounds, but he had the advantage in not
wanting our help, and I decided to go to Washington and look personally
into the facts of the Roman consulship. As perhaps some readers of this
may know, it ultimately turned into the Venetian consulship, but by just
what friendly magic, has been told with sufficient detail in a chapter
of _Literary Friends and Acquaintance_ and need not be rehearsed here.
As for Price, he had nothing at all before him, but he was by no means
uncheerful. We had certainly had a joyous though parlous year together;
our jokes could not have been numbered in a season when the only excuse
for joking was that it might as well be that as weeping, though probably
we had our serious times, especially when we foreboded a fresh dismay in
our chief at some escapade in derision or denunciation of the
well-meaning patriots' efforts to hold the Union together with mucilage.
But the time came when all this tragical mirth was to end. We found that
we did not dislike the new owner, and he liked us well enough, but he
was eager to try his hand at our work, and some time early in August we
quitted the familiar place. If there was any form of adieu with our
gentle chief I do not remember it, and in fact my mind holds no detail
of our parting except the last hour of it, when we found ourselves
together at midnight in the long, gloomy barn then known as the Little
Miami Depot, where we were to take our separate ways in the dark which
hid us from each other forever. We walked up and down a long time,
talking, talking, talking, laughing, promising each other to be faithful
in letters, and wearing our souls out in the nothings which people say
at such times with the vain endeavor to hold themselves together against
the fate which is to sunder them in the voluntary death of parting. We
heard the whistle of an approaching train, we shook hands, we said
good-by, and then in a long wait repeated the nothings again and again.
But my train on the Central Ohio was already there; and as Price obeyed
the call to board his train for Cleveland, I mounted mine for
Washington, and we never saw each other again. It is long since he died,
and I who still survive him after fifty years offer his memory this vow
of abiding affection. If we somewhere should somewhen meet, perhaps it
will be with a fond smile for the time we were young and so glad
together, with so little reason.