_To a volume of essays and tales by Wm. D. O'Connor, pub'd posthumously
in 1891_
A hasty memorandum, not particularly for Preface to the following tales,
but to put on record my respect and affection for as sane, beautiful,
cute, tolerant, loving, candid and free and fair-intention'd a nature as
ever vivified our race.
In Boston, 1860, I first met William Douglas O'Connor.[48] As I saw
and knew him then, in his 29th year, and for twenty-five further
years along, he was a gallant, handsome, gay-hearted, fine-voiced,
glowing-eyed man; lithe-moving on his feet, of healthy and magnetic
atmosphere and presence, and the most welcome company in the world.
He was a thorough-going anti-slavery believer, speaker and writer,
(doctrinaire,) and though I took a fancy to him from the first. I
remember I fear'd his ardent abolitionism--was afraid it would probably
keep us apart. (I was a decided and out-spoken anti-slavery believer
myself, then and always; but shy'd from the extremists, the red-hot
fellows of those times.) O'C. was then correcting the proofs of
_Harrington_, an eloquent and fiery novel he had written, and which
was printed just before the commencement of the secession war. He
was already married, the father of two fine little children, and was
personally and intellectually the most attractive man I had ever met.
Last of '62 I found myself led towards the war-field--went to Washington
city--(to become absorb'd in the armies, and in the big hospitals, and
to get work in one of the Departments,)--and there I met and resumed
friendship, and found warm hospitality from O'C. and his noble New
England wife. They had just lost by death their little child-boy,
Phillip; and O'C. was yet feeling serious about it. The youngster had
been vaccinated against the threatening of small-pox which alarm'd the
city; but somehow it led to worse results than it was intended to ward
off--or at any rate O'C. thought that proved the cause of the boy's
death. He had one child left, a fine bright little daughter, and a great
comfort to her parents. (Dear Jeannie! She grew up a most accomplish'd
and superior young woman--declined in health, and died about 1881.)
On through for months and years to '73 I saw and talk'd with O'C. almost
daily. I had soon got employment, first for a short time in the Indian
Bureau (in the Interior Department,) and then for a long while in the
Attorney General's Office. The secession war, with its tide of varying
fortunes, excitements--President Lincoln and the daily sight of him--the
doings in Congress and at the State Capitols--the news from the fields
and campaigns, and from foreign governments--my visits to the Army
Hospitals, daily and nightly, soon absorbing everything else,--with a
hundred matters, occurrences, personalties,--(Greeley, Wendell Phillips,
the parties, the Abolitionists, &c.)--were the subjects of our talk and
discussion. I am not sure from what I heard then, but O'C. was cut out
for a first-class public speaker or forensic advocate. No audience
or jury could have stood out against him. He had a strange charm of
physiologic voice. He had a power and sharp-cut faculty of statement and
persuasiveness beyond any man's else. I know it well, for I have felt
it many a time. If not as orator, his forte was as critic, newer, deeper
than any: also, as literary author. One of his traits was that while he
knew all, and welcom'd all sorts of great _genre_ literature, all lands
and times, from all writers and artists, and not only tolerated
each, and defended every attack'd literary person with a skill or
heart-catholicism that I never saw equal'd--invariably advocated and
excused them--he kept an idiosyncrasy and identity of his own very
mark'd, and without special tinge or undue color from any source. He
always applauded the freedom of the masters, whence and whoever. I
remember his special defences of Byron, Burns, Poe, Rabelais, Victor
Hugo, George Sand, and others. There was always a little touch of
pensive cadence in his superb voice; and I think there was something
of the same sadness in his temperament and nature. Perhaps, too, in
his literary structure. But he was a very buoyant, jovial, good-natured
companion.
So much for a hasty melanged reminiscence and note of William O'Connor,
my dear, dear friend, and staunch, (probably my staunchest) literary
believer and champion from the first, and throughout without halt or
demur, for twenty-five years. No better friend--none more reliable
through this life of one's ups and downs. On the occurrence of the
latter he would be sure to make his appearance on the scene, eager,
hopeful, full of fight like a perfect knight of chivalry. For he was a
born sample here in the 19th century of the flower and symbol of olden
time first-class knighthood. Thrice blessed be his memory! W. W.
Note: [48] Born Jan. 2d, 1832. When grown, lived several years in
Boston, and edited journals and magazines there--went about 1861 to
Washington, D. C., and became a U.S. clerk, first in the Light-House
Bureau, and then in the U.S. Life-Saving Service, in which branch he was
Assistant Superintendent for many years--sicken'd in 1887--died there at
Washington, May 9th, 1889.