of M. Du Chaillu with an air of courteous self-restraint, listened
also, and apparently in a like mood, to Sir William Turner in the
reading of his very able paper on the pathological aspect of the
doctrine of "Heredity," as recently expounded in the revolutionary
hypothesis of Professor Weismann, a famous German pundit in pathology.
It was the first appearance of the so-called Weismann "theory" before
the scientific public of England. Professor Weismann rejects the
view that the characteristics acquired by parents through their own
experiences or environment can be transmitted to their offspring. It
is only those characteristics that have pre-existed in the germ of
reproduction: that is, the congenital peculiarities alone; those which
distinguish the race and breed that can be transmitted, according
to the teachings of Professor Weismann. A German philosopher, for
example, may transmit a superfluous toe or a prognathic jaw, but not
his portentously developed brain. Sir William Turner did not accept
in full the German's "theory." Under the exclusive operation of a law
which transmits only from congenital variations, how is it conceivable
that the development of species can be brought about? On the other
hand, does not the law of the survival of the fittest operate to
correct the tendency to transmit defects of structure and organization?
Thus, affirmed our sturdy Anglo-Saxon savant, the hereditary tendency,
properly understood, is in perfect harmony with the theory of natural
selection. It is needless to say that the Section and the speaker
were quite at one upon these perplexing points. The conclusions of
Darwin upon "Descent" were as little open to assault as their own
conviction as to the origin of the Anglo-Saxon race. At all events, an
Englishman's established opinions would not tumble at the first blast
of a ram's horn from Germany or France.
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
(Bas relief by a French Artist.)]
The discussion of the physical peculiarities of our ancestors never
loses its interest among the thinkers of the various branches of the
English race. How trippingly upon the tongue of the Anglo-Saxon child
come the familiar lines of the English poet, a bard of the Georgian
period:
"Deep-blooming, strong,
And yellow-haired, the blue-eyed Saxon came."
a pleasing description of peculiarities which holds good of the
Northern races to this day. But by a process of ethnic differentiation
the separate or divergent races, with changed _milieu_ and lapse of
time, took on some structural change; the Scandinavian, for example
(and possibly the Kentuckian), coming to the front with cranial
dimensions exceptionally large and mental capacities to correspond.
Laing's curious note to Snorro Sturleson (quoted by Lytton) says that
in the Antiquarian Museum of Copenhagen the handles of almost all the
swords of the early ages, in these collections, "indicate a size of
hand very much smaller than the hands of modern people of any class
or race." The Norman is said to have retained this peculiarity of
physical structure longer than the Scandinavian from whom he sprang.
It was probably the result of social conditions which soon ceased to
exist. "Here and there," says an eminent English writer, "amongst
plain countryfolk settled from time immemorial in the counties peopled
with the Anglo-Dane (Scandinavian), may be found the 'Scythian hand
and foot,' the high features, and the reddish auburn hair." "But
amongst the far more mixed breed," he adds, "of the larger landed
proprietors (comprehended in the peerage), the Saxon attributes of race
are strikingly conspicuous, and amongst them the large hand and foot
common to all of the Germanic tribes." (Lord Lytton.) Virginia and the
Virginian States were peopled chiefly from the former class. If any
inquirer wishes to prosecute this inquiry under favorable conditions,
he may find a contemporary transmission of racial peculiarities in
the vast Scandinavian population in our Northern belt or tier of
States--men of the old blood, in a broad, congenial field, with
boundless energy and big brains.
VIII
One of the most interesting results of a very prolonged process of
ethnic differentiation is mentioned by John Fiske, in comparing two
remote branches of the so-called "Aryan" race--the short, fat, pursy
Hindoo, and the wiry, long-limbed Kentuckian. It is not incredible
that these were simply original marks of race--"Scythian," in the one
instance; Scandinavian in the other. It is a far cry, too, from old
Benares to the Bluegrass; but it is possible that if missionaries from
Kentucky could remain in Hindustan long enough there might be a gradual
reversion of the Occidental variety to the ancient or original type.
If Mr. Fiske's deductions be correct, as possibly they are, the Aryan
brothers have wandered far apart, and perhaps it is hardly safe, in
studying the genetic conditions of development in the Bluegrass, to
stray beyond the broad, well-traveled highway that reaches from the
Baltic Sea through Normandy and the British Isles to the shores of the
Old Dominion, to the Blue Ridge Mountains, the "Hills of Breathitt,"
and the Bluegrass lowlands of Kentucky. The streams of population from
the Scandinavian seas are still flowing, and in all likelihood the
Scandinavians of the Virginian States (the old settled populations
of the States of the South and West) will ultimately fuse with the
Scandinavian populations of the North and establish in the heart of the
continent the empire of the world. The great Scandinavian settlements
of the Northwest are now almost equal in numbers to the Anglo-Norman
populations that from the days of the Virgin Queen have been gathering
and growing in Old Virginia and in the Virginian sisterhood of States.
Coleridge once said that England's insular position had made her a
mother of nations. It would seem that like conditions--an environing
wilderness and an estranging sea--have helped to make Virginia a
"mother of States." The lawless elements that poured into Kentucky
were not segregated by social or other necessities, and, cast out by
time or poverty, permanently isolated in one rude locality. This was
at one time a popular theory among the savants. But there was always
a tendency to _lawlessness_ wherever the Anglo-Norman went. If any
"convict" blood muddied the turbulent, brawling stream of migration,
it was not from the _race_, but from the chance intermingling of a
degenerate _caste_ or _breed_, and whether you find that degenerate
admixture in the rugged highlands or in the lovely champaign country
at their feet, the convict blood is still there. In the highlands or
the lowlands, in the mountains or the Bluegrass, generation after
generation is weighted with the curse. The family, the clan, the
community never loses the criminal taint. But the great, strong,
daring, gifted _race_ sweeps on untouched by the vile marks of
degeneracy that would put a proud, ambitious caste to shame.
The trade of political assassination was plied with great activity
in the good old Norman times, but apparently there was nothing that
was beastly, or basely criminal, in the work; on the contrary, it
seems to have been palliated almost invariably by the conditions of a
traditional feud, and, where sentiment or authority was very exacting,
the offense was sometimes justified under "the forms of law." This
was not murder in any ordinary or vulgar sense. It was merely an
indispensable _modus vivendi_ in times that imperiled men's bodies as
well as tried their souls; one of those protective devices conceived by
the savagery of mediæval statecraft in a transition period of Christian
civilization. Even at this day it is difficult for a competent and
experienced Anglo-Norman jury to detect decisive evidence of crime
when looking through the subtile meshes of a technical defense.
William himself had a strong disinclination to take life under the
forms of law; and, possibly, had his loyal guardians yielded to a
like weakness in the early days of his succession, the solid fabric
of English or Anglo-Norman civilization would now be as unsubstantial
as a castle in Spain. But they did not share the weakness of their
ward, and promptly settled the right of succession by assassinating
all troublesome pretenders to the throne. The only sin of blood upon
William's soul--"the blackest act of his life"--was the execution
of a judicial sentence against Waltheof upon the hill of St. Giles.
The only inexplicable crime of Waltheof's life was his murder of the
brothers Carl, staunch comrades who had stood by his side at York. The
judicial murder was wrought by the orders of a _Norman king_. It was
apparently premeditated, and done with the utmost deliberation and
under established forms of law. The Carl brothers were the victims of
an ancient feud. Their grandsire had slain the father of Waltheof, and
the grandsons of the murderer were slain to avenge this ancient deed of
blood. They were the victims of a transmitted _hate_: of a vindictive
passion that had lost its heat. But the murderer perished at last,
under the forms of law which he had denied to the innocent victims of
a feud. He could slay with impunity on his own account, but he was not
allowed to conspire even in thought against the king. He, too, suffered
the penalty long years after the offense. Waltheof was the last of the
_Saxon earls_.
Not long ago that eminent publicist, Mr. Andrew D. White, delivered
an address on the subject of "High Crime in the United States." The
following excerpt will be read with interest:
"Simply as a matter of fact the United States is, among all civilized
nations of the world, the country in which the crime of murder is most
frequently committed and least frequently punished. Deaths by violence
are increasing rapidly. Our record is now larger than that of any other
country in the world. The number of homicides that are punished by
lynching exceeds the number punished by due process of law.
"There is too much overwrought sentimentality in favor of the criminal.
The young ward toughs look up with admiration to local politicians who
have spent a part of their lives in State prison. Germs of maudlin
sentimentality are widespread. On every hand we hear slimy, mushy-gushy
expressions of sympathy; the criminal called 'plucky,' 'nervy,'
'fighting against fearful odds for his life.'
"It may be said that society must fall back on the law of
self-preservation. It should cut through and make war, in my opinion,
for its life. Life imprisonment is not possible, because there is no
life imprisonment.
"_In the next year nine thousand people will be murdered._ As I stand
here to-day, I tell you that nine thousand are doomed to death with
all the cruelty of the criminal heart, and with no regard for home and
families, and two thirds will be due to the maudlin sentiment sometimes
called mercy. I have no sympathy for the criminal. My sympathy is
for those who will be murdered, for their families, and for their
children."
IX
The Normans were a brilliant and enterprising race; but what before
all things (says Freeman) "distinguished them from other nations,
was their _craft_." This was manifest in everything, at all times,
and everywhere--in statesmanship, in war, in traffic, and in the
trivial interactions of social and domestic life. Craft was no more
characteristic of a Norman king in the past than of a Norman trader in
modern times. It is as distinctly racial as the commercial "cuteness"
or cleverness universally attributed to the American people of to-day.
Lord Wolseley may have noted this trait when he said of our people,
"They are a race of English-speaking Frenchmen." He may have observed,
too, even during the War between the States, that Americans were at
times exceedingly _profane in their speech_, just as in the olden
time it was said that the Normans were "peculiarly fond of oaths."
Camden tells us that when Carolus Stultus made over Normandy to
Rollo, the rude ingrate refused to kiss the king's foot. When urged
to do so he viciously exclaimed, "_Ne se, by God!_" "Whence"--adds
the chronicler--"the Normans were familiarly known as _Bigodi_ or
_Bigods_." At every other word, he says, they swore by God. For a like
reason, at a later day, the English were known throughout Europe as
the English "Goddams." All of us know how terribly the army swore
in Flanders. The profane tendencies of the race seemed to have been
stimulated by war. "Then, the SOLDIER," says Shakespeare, "full of
strange oaths." Was it not one of our innocent Bluegrass girls who
declared that up to the close of her "teens" she believed the familiar
phrase "damned Yankee" to be a _single_ word? But it was the Conqueror
of England and the founder of the Anglo-Norman race that swore the
greatest oath of all. When the merry burghers of Alençon were hurling
insults from their walls upon the burly son of Arletta and upon her
sire--the tanner of Falaise--the infuriated Norman swore an oath which
lights up the page of history like the flare of a conflagration--"By
the splendor of God!" he exclaimed as he swept to his wild revenge. The
profanest Kentuckian in his palmiest days never rose in his profanity
to such a plane as this. He preferred the direct and trenchant speech
of that Virgin Queen who helped to shape the destiny of our common
race. "Do as I say," she said to a recalcitrant prelate, "or by God
I will _unfrock_ you!" Even her stately ministers were not safe from
the fire of her Anglo-Norman wrath. In the royal council-chamber she
sometimes fell to cursing like a very drab. In certain Virginian
circles profane swearing seemed to have been proscribed except in a
softened or attenuated form, such as "Jeems' River," as an ejaculatory
substitute for a very blasphemous phrase. Thomas Jefferson did not
regard profane "expletives" as a very rational or philosophic mode of
speech; but George Washington, though puritanically truthful, would
sometimes infuse into an imprecation the spirit and effectiveness of
a prayer. We have all heard of Stonewall Jackson's "teamster" and the
moving quality of his profane speech; but Jubal Early never allowed
the words to be taken out of his mouth in this way. He did his own
swearing, and, presumably, did it well. Swearing or fighting by proxy
was not his forte. Judged by military results, Jackson's was probably
the better method. As a tactical incentive upon the firing line nothing
could be more effective than one of Early's oaths; but for general
strategic purposes, nothing could surpass the effectiveness of the
deadly imprecations that lurked in Stonewall Jackson's prayer. This
was a Cromwellian modification of the Anglo-Norman oath. In the good
old Commonwealth of Kentucky there seems to have been a relapse into
the simpler forms of profanity--Anglo-Norman and Early English. The
historian Collins tells us that one of the pioneer Governors having
refused to notice the "challenge" of a truculent upstart, the fellow
threatened to "post him a coward." "Post and be damned," said the old
soldier, "you will only post yourself a damned liar!" The retort was
profane, but it was in punctilious accord with the spirit and habits
of the time. Better still, it was more effective than a "gut-shot" at
short range. As a rule, the Kentuckian had an instinctive aversion for
puritanic oaths. That consecrated phrase, "Jeems' River," had a brief
career in this State. The last person to use it, probably, was an
elderly, smooth, genial, charming gentleman at the bar who was for many
years the judge of a local court in the good old County of Fleming. He
was in many respects a marked exception to the common rule.[5] It might
have been different had he left the Old Dominion at an earlier date.
What brandy is for heroes, strong oaths were for the pioneer. Not mere
dicer's oaths; nor the mauldin imprecations of a sot, nor the rounding
touches of a raconteur; but good, honest, English oaths, such an oath
as that which settled the insistent Corporal Trim--the generous and
daring oath that our Uncle Toby swore when the young Lieutenant lay
sick of a fever. "'He shall not die, by God,' cried my Uncle Toby." And
the accusing spirit that "flew to Heaven's chancery with the oath"
had the grace to blush when he gave it in. God bless our Uncle Toby;
he was the Uncle Toby of us all, and is as fresh in our remembrance
as the good old uncles who told his story and praised his virtues and
swore his oaths by the family fireside in the auld lang syne. Tradition
throws a strong light on one of these old Kentuckians who denounced
with suggestive picturesqueness of phrase a ruthless master who had
sold and separated a family of hereditary slaves:--"He is the damnedest
scoundrel between hell and Guinea!" the old gentleman exclaimed, giving
in effect a touch of lurid or local color to his imprecatory speech.
But when one of his own negroes--a broken, helpless creature--was
accused of marketing for his own benefit the products of the farm, he
gently answered, "Ah, well, I am not sure that, after all, the old
slave is not _taking his own_!" As one recalls that kindly speech,
with its reminiscent touch of Uncle Toby, he recalls, likewise, the
sentiment of a famous line from a foreign source tenderly adapted to a
modern taste--
"_Mais où sont les nègres d'antan?_"
Where are those dusky bondsmen of the past? They mingle their dust with
the dust of them they served: and resting in old country graveyards, in
the peace of immemorial graves, they await the Morning Light and the
Master's Call.
[5] In an admirable letter written in pioneer times to Bolling Stith,
in Kentucky, by his Virginian mother, she says: "I hear you have become
a notorious rattle and never open your mouth without an oath." To
correct this vicious tendency she recommends the example of the "great
and good General Washington." Excellent advice. The General's oaths
were not so frequent as Bolling's. They were louder, deeper, "heartier."
The English traveler, Fordham, says that the Virginians of that day
were "addicted to oaths."
[Illustration: "OUR BEAUTIFUL SCANDINAVIAN."]
Among the most popular of the well-trained African servitors of the
mid-century days in the Bluegrass was our versatile drudge, Ben Briler,
one of the most active and useful functionaries of that old-time tavern
life.
"Ben Briler swept the poker-room--
And gathered up the 'chips';
Was 'mixer,' bootblack, cook, and groom,
And salted down the 'tips.'"
Evil days came to Ben's master, and Ben was sold--becoming the
joint chattel of the young swells of the poker-room. But the joint
chattel proved to be too versatile for his vocation, and one of the
stockholders denounced him as "a damned kinky-headed _corporation_,"
_and kicked him downstairs_. As Governor Desha, in a recent message
to the Legislature, had effectively arraigned those "dangerous
corporations which embodied the interests of powerful men," the prompt
action of the stockholder at the old tavern brought great relief to
the public mind. It showed that corporations could be _reached_--that,
contrary to the general impression, they had "bodies that could be
kicked and souls that could be damned."
The advent of the abolition "emissary," the emancipated negro, and the
"burnt cork" minstrel was practically contemporaneous in Kentucky.
In the gentle mid-century days a company of strolling minstrels had
announced an entertainment at the old county seat of Mason--the town
where Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe (a frequent guest of Mrs. Marshall
Key) first witnessed a "sale" of negro slaves. On the evening announced
for the entertainment, the Courthouse was packed from floor to dome.
Among the conspicuous figures toward the front was Colonel Robert B., a
fine old Kentuckian of antique Norman type--tall, ruddy, high-featured,
light haired; hearty, convivial, and profane--a boon companion and _bon
vivant_. He sat expectantly but at ease, a bandaged arm resting upon
the seat in front. He was cordially greeted by kinsmen and friends
in every part of the house. The curtain rose and the minstrels filed
upon the stage, looking for all the world like a lot of "free nigger"
swells. Their very appearance was an offense, and provoked at once
a collision with the young Mohawks of the town. The violoncello was
shivered into splinters, and the flutes, fiddles, and castanets went
singing through the air. No trace of harmony was left. There was a
universal dash for windows and doors; none stood upon the order of his
going. All went at once--all except "Colonel Bob," who sat unmoved,
fixed to his seat as if fascinated by the moving scene in front. The
spectators were amazed. "Hell's fire, Bob!" exclaimed an anxious
friend, "don't you know there is a _fight_ going on down there?"
The Colonel looked incredulous. "I wish I may be damned," he said,
"if I didn't think it was _part of the play_!" There was universal
condemnation of these minstrel folk by persons who did not see the
show; but the Colonel, who was a "stayer," insisted that "the niggers
made a good fight."
Unquestionably there is a certain lack of modernity, or at least of
civilized amenity, in such a manifestation as this: but there was a
spontaneous and elemental vivacity in their unpremeditated assault
upon the counterfeit African bucks which betrayed the rude fantastic
humor of their Norman blood, and imparted a pleasant tang to the crude
flavor of early plantation life. Mr. Barrett Wendell finds in the still
earlier life of the West conditions described as existing in the times
of the Plantagenet kings; and Mr. Owen Wister seems inclined to adopt
his startling views. Apparently, then, we must count with inherited
conditions and characteristics even in the politics of the times. The
modern world is probably not ideally moral, but it is sensitively
fastidious and scrupulously observant of "good form." It would wreck
a railway, perhaps, or deplete a bloated insurance exchequer, but it
would not launch an ungentlemanly imprecation or utter a trivial or
unproductive oath. It even discountenances the _oath in court_--
a solemn asseveration or attestation before a judge. It utterly
discredits--socially and otherwise--the blas-_phe_-mous ejaculation or
the vulgar "cuss-word," or the light conversational "swear" familiar
in the dialect of the "back shop," the groggery, and the street. The
variety of oath known as a "swear," considered psychologically, is
not a very serious offense. In a philosophical aspect, indeed, it is
in some sense a temperamental necessity, dependent on physiological
conditions, and is essentially the result of a defensive or protective
instinct. Where not merely idle, wanton, and unmeaning, it is a
psychological _regulator nervorum_. It is the unpremeditated product
of a prompt cerebral reaction. It gives the centers of speech a chance
to rally when thrown into disorder by a sudden attack. There is no
time for the picking and arranging of words, and, except in persons of
lymphatic temperament, no capacity for the leisurely elaborations of
speech. One is confronted, not with a problem, or theory or condition,
but with an _emergency_ that must be decisively met. Silence perhaps
is golden, but there is a certain steel-like quality in trenchant
speech. Profane, "rapid-fire" ejaculation is not only a deeply
implanted instinct, but by frequent indulgence becomes an invincible
habit--a habit so odious and offensive as to make even a Chesterfield
swear. As a racial instinct it survives transplantation to any clime,
and religious training of every sort. Even the disciplinary methods
of Calvinism fail to eradicate it. But an "inherited drill" may at
times soften, or modify, or mask the _mode_ of _manifestation_, as is
cleverly illustrated in the familiar lines--
"The Blue Light Elder knows 'em well--
Says he--'There's Banks, we'll give him--well!
That's Stonewall Jackson's way.'"
A Kentuckian casually encountering a distinguished New Englander at
the buffet of an exclusive Eastern club, exclaimed: "Does a _Puritan_
drink?" "I would not give a damn," was the decisive answer, "for a
Puritan that could not drink, pray, and fight." It is probably no
secret that in our amphibious Scandinavian, General William Nelson,
the swearing instinct was abnormally developed. He did not swear "like
a sailor," to be sure; nor "like a trooper" of the olden time; since
neither soldier nor sailor of the ordinary type was ever gifted with
his extraordinary abundance and facility of profane expression. It is
but just to say, however, that at times he struggled manfully against
the habitual inclination. "Christ give me patience!" he cried when
his favorite aide, Colonel Samuel Owens (a joker of the Norman type),
inadvertently "sat down" upon his military hat. The utterance was a
sincere and reverent appeal for Divine help. He instinctively shrank
from the coming torrent of profane ejaculation, and with a prayerful
effort was bracing himself against the flood.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT JEFFERSON DAVIS]