church instead and comes to me to-morrow. People all go to church
to-day, and it is a sort of Sunday. Thanksgiving day in November and
Fast-day in March or April are the two State religious observances in
Massachusetts.
I am going to send a bit of the Mayflower which grows chiefly about
Plymouth, where the Pilgrim Fathers landed, and it is called after
their ship, ‘The Mayflower.’ They are rare. The spring is beautiful
here also, though so slow. The American weeping elms are extremely
graceful, with their long pendent branches hung thick with buds. There
are sharpish frosts, however, at times, so that there is no appearance
of leaf as yet, except upon these Mayflowers, which I think must have
been specially sheltered or forced. I saw, by-the-by, a great bittern
at Concord; it rose from a pond, and makes an odd noise, on account of
which they call it the stake-driver. There were some Andromedas, just
budding, covering all the banks of the pond.
General Pierce’s speech is not really at all aggressive; I believe he
was forced to say something for his party, but he kept within the lines
pretty well. They say that when he read the passage about territories
that must become theirs, there was a general cheer; and when he went
on to say that under his government no movement not perfectly fair and
just should be made, there was a dead silence. Everett’s speech is made
a good deal of; but I don’t think he’s up to the mark, and I believe
the old Whigs are quite stranded. Circumstances may split the Democrats
(Pierce’s people), and they may form into parties, one aggressive and
the other conservative. Free soil, perhaps. For they say Mexico must
be dropping in soon, and then there’ll be all the old question of
Extension of Slave Area over again.
I am going to write an article in the ‘North American Review,’ on
recent English poetry. I have been interrupted in my regular quiet
Plutarch work, which suits me much better than reviewing Alexander
Smith & Co. M. Arnold’s ‘Tristram’ has been giving me pleasure.
I have been reading Mrs. Gaskell’s ‘Ruth’; it is really very good, but
it _is_ a little too timid, I think. Ruth did well, but there is also
another way, and a more hopeful way. Such at least is my feeling. I
do not think she has got the whole truth. I do not think that such
overpowering humiliation should be the result in the soul of the not
really guilty, though misguided girl, any more than it should be,
justly, in the judgment of the world.
I really am very comfortably settled, on very easy terms with the
American world in general, and have nothing to complain of, except
perhaps the fact which appears to be true everywhere, that to get
a livelihood one must do work according to other people’s fancies,
instead of one’s own, which of course are the best, but under the
circumstances must give way.
Do you know the Nortons have been so good as to offer me house-room
during their absence at Newport? so in three weeks’ time you must
conceive of me as embowered among the pines of Shady Hill, about
two-thirds of a mile from this present Mrs. Howe’s. It will be cooler
too. July, August, and the beginning of September are the hot months.
April 28.
I have had a sort of rheumatic cold. The east winds come in, in the
midst of the warmth, with damp icy chills from the icebergs. I have
had similar sensations in Italy. This day four years I was in Rome,
witnessing the battle in which the French got beaten.
May 12.
Last night I went to a ‘reception,’ that is the next thing after
a wedding. At seven o’clock Miss ----, daughter of a German, once
Professor, was united to a German merchant, in the presence of about
seventy friends, in their drawing-room. I went, and found the groomsman
at the door; he took me up, led me to the end of the room, where stood
the newly-married lady, holding white flowers in her hand. I made my
bow, turned to the right, and presented my congratulations to the
lady’s mother, and retired. And so the thing went on for a couple of
hours nearly. It is quite the old custom, older a great deal than ours,
which only dates from the time when the law was passed enacting that
all marriages should be performed before twelve at noon, some time in
the middle of 1700-1800.
The most agreeable part of the proceeding was the leave-taking of the
young people, who were her friends, which began towards the end of the
evening.
On the whole, I do think that pupilising and writing is my proper
vocation, and that if I could afford to stick to it, and do whatever
work is offered me really well, I should in time be well paid for it.
People talk in their sanguine way, but they don’t know how hard it is
for the unfortunate solitary schoolmaster to get through his work from
day to day: they don’t know how, with no real affection to recur to
when he is overworked, he is obliged to run no chances of overworking
himself; how he must, as it were, use only his left hand to work
with, because he has to _hold on_ with his right for fear of falling
altogether. This is not indolence, and so forth.
Eile mit Weile: das war selbst Kaiser Augustus’ Devise.
I send some lily of the valley, which does not grow wild, however and
is not native to America.
May 21.
A man who doesn’t go much into the kind of society where people have
the chance of going backwards and forwards, and experimenting, and
learning their own minds and other people’s minds, and correcting their
views by finding out the feelings of others, runs into mistakes more
flagrant and irretrievable than hundreds quite as bad really which
occur continually. Because he has lived quietly and done his daily
duties, and not gone into dancing and flirtation, he has known less
about feminine feelings than worse men do, less perhaps also about his
own. The mere man’s idea of a wife as a helpmate in duty is not in my
judgment an insult to womankind, though it may require modification and
correction. But if that were the worst sin committed against womankind
the world would be better than it is; and many women, it appears to me,
have been misled by their natural aversion to this into accepting worse
things. It is a sad thing for a man to feel that by his very steadiness
and self-sacrificing in doing his plain duty, he has cut himself off
from the happiness which women, alas! are often ready to accord to the
indolent and self-indulgent. Indeed, but I fear it is so, very often.
East winds and rain; such is our present not at all pleasant
dispensation. September, October, November are said to be the most
agreeable months here, and April and May the worst. People fly from
Boston in the spring, if they are at all consumptive.
Shady Hill, Cambridge: June 4.
I woke this morning in a sort of paradise. My room here is a most
delightful change from my late narrow crib, consequently I awoke in
a sort of ecstasy; I have not been in anything like it since I left
Combe. It looks south-eastward, right away to Boston, which is full
in sight, not much above a mile and a half off; and the masts of
some shipping are visible, near where, I think, the steamers lie for
England. It is a great relief to get into a nice house, with everything
pleasant about one.
On Sunday I walked across a bit of wood and got into a bog, which was
all covered with the blue Iris. I picked also some Andromeda and Kalmia.
This climate certainly is to my somewhat rheumatic constitution
extremely trying. Think of passing without notice from 85° in the shade
to a cold icy-damp east wind of 50°. At three o’clock the thermometer
was 89° or 90° in the shade.
June 15.
This is a blazing hot day, which makes me truly wish myself in England.
But it will pass, and indeed there is a cool breeze; but that gives one
a chill at the same time that one is melting with heat. The autumn is
said to be very pleasant, and I myself cared little for the winter. But
from the middle of March onward, God help one!
I went to Longfellow’s and had a very pleasant dinner; Emerson,
Hawthorne, and C. E. Norton. Hawthorne goes July 7. I am going to
Emerson’s next Saturday. I more and more recognise his superiority to
everybody I have seen.
Energy is a very ordinary thing; reasonableness is much less common,
and does ten times the good. Spurring and lashing is not good; one
loses quite as much in sense and sober discernment as one gains in
anything else.
June 21.
It rained heavily in the night. To-day is pretty cool and pleasant, and
the rain-drops lie on the broad tulip-tree leaves among the flowers
which are now coming out, just through my open window. I came back
yesterday from Emerson’s, after a pleasant Sunday. I saw Hawthorne
again, and his children too, Julian and Una, and a little thing about
two years old. Concord is pretty in summer, and a good deal cooler than
Cambridge. I saw also Margaret Fuller’s mother at Emerson’s, and liked
her. There were visitors from New York, a young Englishman, and a young
German that has married a daughter of Concord, both in the artist line,
and living in New York; and there was quite a little crowd of people in
the evening.
June 22.
The hottest day of the year, 94° or more out of doors and 86° in. But
nothing is any real harm but the east wind.
June 23.
Quite cold again, and I have a sore throat with the change.
June 28.
The letter advising me to come home arrived this morning. I have
telegraphed for my berth, and sail with this letter from New York.
LETTERS.
FROM 1853 TO 1861.
LONDON.
_To Charles Eliot Norton, Esq., Cambridge, Massachusetts._
On board the ‘Asia’: July 7, 1853.
Here we are, pretty well on our way across, about 2,200 miles from New
York.
Mr. Slidell, of Louisiana, and a young man apparently his companion,
are perhaps the most unexceptionable human beings that one sees. Some
Spaniards from Mexico and Cuba are also pleasant to look at, specially
two little boys. A maiden aunt and nephew from Burlington, New Jersey,
sit near me, and are not so bad. A horrid woman from New York whines,
or rather wheines, or whaines, or even whoines just beyond, whom it
is misery even to think of. I feel convinced there is a purgatory for
vulgar people.
Combe Hurst, Surrey: July 15.
Now I am here I find the case is altered a good deal. Still I like
America best; and, but for the greater security which one has in a
fixed salary, would give up all thought of staying here at once. At
least I might take the place for a time. It is a temptation, if I am to
live the rest of my life chez vous, to secure another year’s schooling
on this side first; πολλὰ δὲ διδασκόμενος, in short.
I like America all the better for the comparison with England on my
return. Certainly I think you are more right than I was willing to
admit about the position of the lower classes here. I hope you will
be able to get along without anything like it, and in any case you
have a great blessing in the mere chance of that. Such is my first
reimpression. However, it will wear off soon enough, I dare say; so you
must make the most of my admission. Thackeray, they tell me, is full of
the kind-heartedness and generousness of the Americans, and is faithful
to his purpose of writing no book.
July 20, 1853.
The thing is done; and I am to try my hand in this place. I go to the
Education Office on Monday next. With the prospect of being able to
marry within the year, I could hardly do otherwise. Yet I could not
venture with any comfort without the prospect of America beyond.
_To the same._
Council Office: August 29, 1853.
Really, I may say I am only just beginning to recover my spirits after
returning from the young, and hopeful, and humane republic, to this
cruel, unbelieving, inveterate old monarchy. There are deeper waters of
ancient knowledge and experience about one here, and one is saved from
the temptation of flying off into space, but I think you have beyond
all question the happiest and best country going. Still the political
talk of America, such as one hears it here, is not always true to the
best intentions of the country is it?
Everybody is away from town, except a few stray lawyers and newspaper
contributors. I took a long walk yesterday, calling at Highgate, on the
Horners, with a young Morning Chronicler, son of the Vicar of Conway,
a first-class man at Oxford, and Fellow of University. We went on
beyond Highgate to a place called Muswell Hill, and thence near Colney
Hatch, near the Great Northern Railway, and across the course of the
New River to Southwell, where we got some luncheon, and then came back
to Hornsey, where we got an omnibus, after walking from 12.30 to 5.
I met the other day, at the Horners’, Murray, the ci-devant American,
just come from Egypt, and starting for Berne, where he is to have
office: he is really very American. The Pulskys came in in the
evening. I have met Mr. Pulsky three times in the last twelve months
perhaps--once in England before I came away; then at Mrs. Howe’s,
Boston, with you; and again yesterday, chez Mrs. Horner. We meet with
the utmost unconcern under the oddest changes of circumstances; it is
really very cosmopolitan.
Well, I go on in the office--_operose nihil agendo_--very _operose_,
and very _nihil_ too. London is dead empty, or nearly so. The Lords are
scampering through the last bills, heaven knows how many per night. The
Commons are off grouse-wards, and scarcely any one remains to ask one
to dinner or anything else.
I am very glad to be enrolled among the φ. β. κ’s. What can I do to
express my sense of the honour done me? I assure you I am very glad
of any tie with my sometime fellow-citizens, if I may so call them.
England, we who know America agree, is more endurable because of one’s
knowledge of America as a refuge. However, my employment in England
is in one respect, namely, in its entire freedom from all spiritual
despotism or surveillance, more agreeable than what I used to have.
_To the same._
Council Office: September 21, 1853.
I sometimes get overpowered by the burden and weight of European
metropolitan life, and am driven in spirit to the solution of
Transatlantic new life, but as to the letter of such palingenesy I
can’t say. I like the quill-driving very well. I did not know how tired
I had become of pedagogy or _boy_-driving till I learnt something of it
by the change. Beyond that mere fact, however, I do not know that there
is much interest in composing sheets of agenda.
I am very glad to hear something reasonable about American politics.
As for naturalisation, it seems to me a little cloud that must cover
a good space of the political heavens before long. I think the old
countries must abandon their present doctrine of inalienable right. It
seems fair, however, to allow some interval of time; and in case of
‘rebels,’ I should say no fully naturalised citizen, far less a man
going to be a citizen, can claim with any justice to return to his old
country and be protected by his new country. After full five years
Kossuth could not without insult go to Vienna. It would be quite enough
that he should go to Turkey or the Canton Tessin, which I _would_ claim
for him.
The old classical system by which closer ties of relationship between
this country and that, than between this and some third, seems no
bad one. Between America and England, between the British American
Colonies in particular and the United States, one would be glad if
there could exist some isopolity: that a man might be a citizen
in which he pleased, and change about as he chose. Treaties with
different countries might establish different degrees of privilege
very naturally. Had I remained with you, I would gladly have become
an American citizen; but I should not like to pledge myself to fight
against England, except in _defence_ of my new country. It seems to me
it would be well if that degree of transfer were open to one.
_To R. W. Emerson, Esq._
London: Sunday, October 9, 1853.
People are beginning to return now to their beloved metropolis. Here
is a specimen of the sort of thing I used to try and represent to you.
I went out this morning to do civilities, this being the only day of
the week free for that object. I went first to Mr. Frank Newman, with
whom was a certain Dr. Stamm, abroad on a mission to or from a new
Religious Union or League--he delivering himself of a sort of Anima
Mundi Religion; Humanism, I think they call it; F. N. fraternising
from a Theistic distance. Thence I got to old Mr. Crabbe Robinson with
Liberalism and Abolitionism, &c. Then I went across country and made
a call in Belgravia, where presently in came two ladies, one of whom
(called by Mrs. B.’s little girl Miss Lord ----, being sister to Lord
----) is a very fair specimen of aristocratic tradition. Then I fell in
in my walk with Carlyle; and then two or three other casualties, which
I omit. However, these changes of atmosphere do not affect me as they
used to do. On the whole, I do not think there is much here you have to
envy; and there is a hopefulness and a belief-fulness, so to say, on
your side, which is a great compensation.
Your woods are in full beauty, I suppose, about this time. There is
something visible of autumnal richness even here in the Regent’s Park.
Thackeray is off to Paris. He seems restless and uneasy after his
Transatlantic travel. Europe feels small to him.
_To Charles E. Norton, Esq._
[On hearing of his father’s death.]
London: October 13, 1853.
The news your letter brought was no surprise. The change in your father
between the day when you first brought me to Shady Hill, and that when
he bade me good-bye before going to Newport, was too great not to give
some warning. And, quite recently, the accounts which I had had made me
expect that your next letter would be to this purpose.
My own feeling is really, rather than anything else, that of your
happiness in having so long and so much enjoyed the blessing of your
father’s society. This is all the more striking to me, as I was parted
from my father at nine years old, and hardly had begun to know him
properly again before his death, soon after I had taken my degree at
Oxford. I am truly glad that my visit to America was early enough to
let me know your father.
_To the same._
London: November 29, 1853.
It grieved me to the heart to think of my hostages being returned; and
my books, &c. (much as I want them), being already embarked. But thank
you very much for discharging that painful duty. I send you M. Arnold’s
poems. I myself think that the Gipsy Scholar is the best. It is _so_
true to the Oxford country.
December 9, 1853.
All news from your side is very acceptable; political, personal, and
first-personal. I do a little Plutarch continually; only a very little,
I fear; but it always brings up some vision of the Common, or Shady
Hill, or the Appian Way, or the road across from your gate towards
Allen and Farnham’s. Things go on slowly and rather dismally here in
the December fog.
Tell Child not to be _too_ learned about his Chaucer, for my sake;
and, above all, to make the verses scan. I hesitate about recommending
any indications of the metre in the typography. But a set of simple
directions, emphatically and prominently given at the outset (_e.g._
for the sounding or silencing of the final e), will, I think, be
essential. People won’t read Chaucer against their ears.
There is a curious notion afloat among the German extreme Radicals,
that Russia is more hopeful than feudal Western Europe; that the life
of the Russian commune is pure democracy; and except that every member
is bound to the soil, and cannot quit it except by placing himself
under the quasi-ownership of a seigneur, I believe there is some truth
in the statement. However, I don’t think we can afford to try.
Carlyle has, like Emerson, just lost his mother; like her, I should
think, rather a remarkable woman. He left the Ashburtons’ house in
Hampshire just after I got there, to go and see her at Ecclefechan, in
Annandale.
Will you tell me, please, what is the amount of rate for schools in
Boston and Cambridge? I am right, am I not, in telling people that
children of colour attend the schools at Cambridge, but not at Boston?
For a scrap of news--
Over-worked, over-hurried,
Over-Crokered, over-Murrayed.
Such was the monody uttered over himself by the invalided ex-editor of
the ‘Quarterly,’ on retiring for an Italian seclusion.
_To the same._
London: February 1854.
Here we are enjoying cool weather, with about as much light per diem
as you get in mid-winter, looking, therefore, very cheerful and sunny.
Meantime the Parliament is going to begin its parliamenteering of the
new year; and the Queen, who it was said was afraid her loyal subjects
might pelt her husband, is, it appears, not afraid, and is going to
open session in person. Many people, do you know, really believed
Prince Albert was actually sent to the Tower; and some repairs being in
operation in one of the turrets, a large number of people collected to
look on, in the belief that apartments were to be fitted up for H.R.H.
I read your article on Indian Canals with much pleasure and interest.
I think it is very well done, and I hope it is all true. I fancy the
Company have rather gained in public estimation by their late ordeal of
trial.
Bright, you see, has for the first time come out for the secular
system. It is a great accession to that cause, which, however, I think
myself cannot prevail for our country in general. For the clergy in the
country parishes are almost always the only persons who really exert
themselves, the population in general being at present too apathetic to
think of managing these matters. But in the municipal towns something
perhaps could be done. And certainly all through the land the secular
schools should receive government subsidies, from which at present they
are excluded.
Convocation, you will perhaps observe, is allowed to sit, and there
really is to be an effort to set the old church a-going again; much to
its own and other people’s alarm. The census, by which it appears that
the church people, so far as attending on Census Sunday went, are quite
a minority, has taken the world by surprise.
_To the same._
February 20, 1854.
Many thanks for the ‘Boston Daily Express.’ I do truly hope that you
will get the North ere long thoroughly united against any further
encroachments. I don’t by any means feel that the slave system is an
intolerable crime, nor do I think that our system here is so much
better; but it is clear to me that the only safe ground to go upon is
that of your Northern States. I suppose the rich and poor difficulties
will be creeping in at New York, but one would fain hope that European
analogies will not be accepted even there.
Well, here we are going to war; and really people after their long and
dreary commercial period seem quite glad: the feeling of the war being
just is of course a great thing. The enlightened or official opinion of
the Turkish troops meantime is extremely low.
As for the poems, I really do think seriously of accepting your
benevolent offer, but I don’t think I can set to work to unravel my
weaved-up follies at the present moment. There are very few, indeed,
that I can at all find pleasure in seeing again.
Is it true, as is said, that Longfellow has resigned? If so, he will
come over here and run the gauntlet of idolising young ladies, will
he not? However, I think he is adroit enough to steer through the
Belgravian multitude without much damage.
People talk a good deal about Whewell’s book on the ‘Plurality of
Worlds.’ I recommend Fields to pirate it. It is to show that Jupiter,
Venus, Saturn, &c., are all pretty certainly uninhabitable, being
strange, washy limbos of places, where at the best only mollusks (or
in the case of Venus, salamanders) could exist. Hence we conclude that
we are the only rational creatures, which is highly satisfactory, and
what is more, quite scriptural. Other scientific people, on the other
hand, declare it a most presumptuous essay, conclusions audacious, and
reasoning fallacious, though the facts are allowed; and in that opinion
I, on the ground that there are more things in heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in the inductive philosophy, incline to concur. Meantime,
it is thought possible that Whewell may rise to the Episcopate on the
wings of the orthodox inductive philosophy.
_To the same._
Downing Street: May 9, 1854.