Now came a political contest to shame the shortsightedness of the wise
men who framed our constitution. I do not say this in disparagement of
a broad and liberty-loving principle, the Jeffersonian principle that
made demagogic men too strong and government too weak, but I do say, as
all men now must know, that advantage was taken of the theory of states
rights, beast-headed fallacy; and I do aver that Hamilton was the
wisest man that saw the birth of our nation. But this is simply seeking
to make noon-day clear.
Never was there a campaign of such heat and bitterness. Households were
divided and brothers frowned upon one another, and in the distance
hovered the vulture-shaped cloud of war. My Young Master supported
Kentucky's favorite son, as did Old Master, and for months our house
bore the appearance of a committee room. The time came for Bob to
display his power as an orator, and never was there a nobler effort.
It was in the court-house yard. Great men had spoken before the boy
arose to address the crowd. I was standing near, and I thought that
I saw his blood leap; I know that his eye shot fire at me. His first
sentence caught the assembly, the lawyers, the doctors and the sturdy
yeomen. I cannot recall it; I will not try, but I know that it tingled
through me. Since then I have listened to many a speech; I have heard
Wendell Phillips and the great men in Congress, but never have I been
bound by the spell of such impassioned eloquence. To me his words lost
their literal meaning--it was an outpour of passion and emotion. The
crowd went wild, and when the orator stepped from the platform, he was
borne away on the shoulders of men. Old George D. Prentice, author of
an immortal poem, was present with genius shining in his eyes, and the
next day his newspaper declared that another great orator had arisen in
Kentucky, one to take the place of Henry Clay. It was a glad night at
our house. The trees were hung with lanterns, so great was the pressure
of people come to congratulate the blue-grass Demosthenes.
Upon all these proceedings, Mr. Clem looked with a quiet smile.
"You made a great speech," he said to Bob, when we had gone to the
room, late at night. "Yes, you caught me, but what does it all amount
to? I told you that Lincoln would be nominated, and now I tell you he
will be elected."
"Nonsense," Old Master cried. He was walking up and down the room, his
head high with pride. "This country is not yet ready for a revolution."
"That may be, Guilford," said Mr. Clem, "but it is ready for the
election of that man."
"Are you going to support him, sir?" Old Master demanded.
"Did you ever know me to turn my back upon a friend? And he is not only
my friend, but the saviour of this country, the greatest statesman that
this republic has seen."
"Clem," said Old Master, pausing and resting his hand upon a pile
of books that lay on Bob's table, "it is well enough to praise your
friend, for he is no doubt droll and amusing, but when you come to
call him a great statesman, you do injustice to the memory of Clay and
Webster, of Jefferson and Benton."
Mr. Clem laughed. "Guilford," said he, "you are misled just as the
majority of men suffer themselves to be misled. A man brays with the
solemnity of an ass and you think he is great. Over a vital question he
utters a senseless stupidity and you think he has said a wise thing.
You don't know that humor is the cream that rises to the surface of
life's wisdom. Lincoln tells a story and throws a bright light on a
truth; he does not invest a subject with a gloom so thick that no
eye can penetrate it. He makes all things plain, and the province of
greatness is not to enshroud but to simplify. But that's neither here
nor there; he's going to be elected."
"But can't you understand that the country will not accept him, sir?"
"Not accept him? The people will accept whom the people elect."
"But the South will not accept an abolitionist."
"Then the South will have to make the most of it. Of what good will be
her protest? You don't mean that she will secede from the Union?"
"Oh, I hope not," said Old Master. "Surely not," he added. "We cannot
afford to throw away the traditions of our fathers."
It was a sore subject to me, and I was glad when they dropped it. I
hardly knew why, but my flesh always began to creep when abolition was
ventured upon; there was a shudder in it, a threat of trouble, trial
and blood.
Bob had shown no interest in the talk; he had sat in a deep muse, his
hands listless in his lap, his eyes turned upward; but how handsome
was his face, his expression sweetened with success. That day he had
been lifted high and given a glimpse, yes a full sight of the heaven
his heart so fondly craved; he was to be great and he knew it as he sat
there dreaming. Old Master turned to go, and his son came down from the
purple clouds. They looked at each other for a moment.
"Bob."
"Yes, sir."
"You have made me the proudest man in the State; you have done what
Patrick Henry fired me with an ambition to do. It was denied me, and
now I am rejoiced to see it fulfilled in you. The blood of old Kentucky
shook your hand to-night. Now give it to me, sir."
Young master arose and they shook hands with solemn ceremony, Bob
turning his eyes away. "Your eye, sir," said the old man, and the young
man looked into his father's eyes; and they read each other sternly,
and with never a sign of flinching, so completely had each mastered
himself.
"Father, if I have ability it is indeed the fulfillment of your own
ambition, for I felt it as a child, so strongly apart from my own
forces that I knew the current must come from you. I have been told by
old men that I am a second edition of yourself and--"
"A revised and corrected edition, sir," the old man broke in, still
gripping firmly the young fellow's hand.
"But a cheaper edition, I fear," the orator said.
"Enough, captivating flatterer. Good-night."
Old Master strode out, walking hard upon the floor, and Mr. Clem,
who with keen amusement had observed this exchange of fine-tempered
civility, turned to Bob and said:
"By the flint hoofs, you and that old brother of mine will be snatched
out of the sixteenth century before very long. Paw me if I didn't
expect one of you to say, 'I come not here to talk, you know too well
the story of our thralldom.' Bob, the trouble with the South is the
fact that it is not really republican in principle. It is a shapeless
aristocracy writhing about to find a head. Tell me, do you believe in a
democratic form of government?"
Bob sat down, leaned back and put his feet on the table, leaving
Mr. Clem standing behind him; and he glanced back over his shoulder
as he replied: "Do I believe in a democracy? I don't believe in the
rule of ignorance; I don't believe in a goldocracy, the most insolent
and oppressive of all tyrants. I don't believe it just to give
to a plebeian mob the right to snatch a brilliant man from public
life simply because he refuses to grovel to a vulgar taste; I don't
believe--"
"But do you believe in a negro-cracy? Do you believe that the ownership
of a hundred slaves should open all doors to a coarse and ignorant man?"
"No, I don't. I would not let ignorance own a slave."
"Ah, but slaves are bought with money, not with intelligence. Bob, you
are an orator, but after all you are but a fledgling. Now, I want to
ask you a question. What has made this country great, the gentility of
Virginia or the dogged industry of New England? To whom do we owe most,
the silver buckled gentleman or the steeple-hatted puritan?"
"If you measure greatness by material wealth, Uncle Clem--but there's
no use of such an argument. You are too practical for me. You are a
Baconian and I would sit at the feet of Socrates. And progress will say
that you are right."
"And won't you say so, too?"
"I am not progressive. I worship the utterances of the past; you glory
in the achievements of the present. You honor the North because it is
rich, and I love the South because it is poetic. So there we are, and
it is of no use to argue."
"No, I reckon not. Say, did you notice an old fellow with a white hat,
riding a chestnut horse? Didn't get down until you were about half
through with your speech, and then he rolled off, turned his horse
loose and whooped like an Indian. I kept a weather eye on him, and when
the bottom dropped out of the proceedings, I looked him up. Yes, sir,
and his horse is out yonder in the stable now, and a glandered nag of
mine is missing. The old fellow was so wrought up that he was in no
condition to defend himself. So much for oratory. Good-night, lad."
Bob laughed at him as he went out, and remarked to me that the speech
had brought good to one man even if it had worked an injury upon
another member of the human family. "And," he added, "we can't expect
to help more than half of mankind at once. Dan," he said, after a
thoughtful moment, "this has been a great day for me. And she was
there, sitting in a buggy. And when she took my arm to-night I knew she
was proud of me."
I said that her soul must have been filled with an intoxicating joy,
and I lied, for I did not believe that she could entertain an exalted
pride. I knew that her vanity was flattered, a hard luster in her
eye told me that, but I saw that her victory was cold and selfish.
I acknowledged to myself that I had surrounded the young woman with
a prejudice (and in a prejudice there is always more or less of
intuition) and I tried hard to pull it apart that I might see her
clearer; but the prejudice was strong and could not be torn asunder.
Bob was undressing when I left him to go out into the yard, to walk
among the trees. I loved my master, and his success I felt was my
advancement, but with all that I was wretched. To hold aloft a light
that I had found was but to illumine a hopelessness.
As I passed out into the hall, I saw Titine step from the door of Miss
May's room. She carried a pitcher in her hand and I knew that she was
going to the well. I walked slowly behind her until she reached the
hall below and then I called her. She stopped and looked back at me.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Going for water at this time of night?"
"When water is wanted, the time of night makes no difference," she said
as I joined her to pass out upon the rear veranda. We walked along
together toward the well.
"Titine, I don't know you any better now than I did when you first
came."
"And I don't know myself any better, and are you presumed to know me
better than I know myself?"
"No, I suppose not. But since that day we went to the hills you have
never consented to go out alone with me."
"Don't you know why?"
"I can't say that I do."
"Then you are duller than I took you to be."
The moon was shining and the light fell full upon her face, upward
turned; she was smiling and her smile was cold. We had now reached the
well, and I unwound the chain to let the bucket down. She placed her
arms on the curbing and hummed a cool tune of idleness, of a total lack
of interest in what I might be doing.
"Yes, I do know," I said.
"Then you are no duller than I thought you were," she ceased humming
long enough to say. I drew up the dripping bucket and poured the
pitcher full. She reached forth her hand to take it.
"Wait a moment," I pleaded, catching at her hand, but it flew away like
a bird.
"Well," she said, straightening up and looking at me.
"Titine, if you and I were free--"
"If I were free I would be a nun," she broke in. "Give me the pitcher."
"Wait just a moment. Let me kiss you."
She shrieked with laughter. "Oh, how blunt you are. Look out, you'll
break that pitcher."
"Then I could be classed with Gideon's men. They broke their pitchers
before they fought."
"But you are not going to break the pitcher and fight."
"Yes, I'm going to break it and fight for a kiss."
"Oh, what a fool you are. What good would breaking the pitcher do? Give
it to me."
She spoke in a tone of such command that I gave her the vessel, but
I pleaded with her to stay longer; and now I caught her hand. She
struggled to free herself but my grasp was vice-like. "Wait until I
have told you something. Nature intended you for me and I am going to
have you--"
She spat at me like an angry cat, snatched her hand away, so strong was
she, and ran up the path toward the house, the water leaping from the
mouth of the pitcher. I caught up with her.
"Are you offended, Titine?"
"Oh, no, it was too good a joke. Nature intended me for you, indeed.
Nature doesn't know you, simpleton. If she should meet you in the road
she would say, 'who's your master, boy? Oh, young Mr. Gradley, eh? Tell
him with my compliments that he possesses a very fine piece of yellow
property.' Then what would you do? Tell nature that you wanted to marry
another piece of yellow property? She would laugh at you and tell you
to black your master's boots."
She bounded up the stairway, splashing the water, and at the top she
turned to laugh at me.