traitor to the United States. Being finally released on bail, he went
for his health to England and Canada; and then he resided in Memphis
and at "Beauvoir," Mississippi, which latter place was his home when
he died. This home, "Beauvoir," he had arranged to purchase from Mrs.
Dorsey, who was a kind and devoted friend to his family and had
assisted him in his writing; but on her death in 1879, it was found
that she had left a will bequeathing it to him and to his daughter
Varina Anne. He, like Lee, had always declined the many offers of
homes and incomes made by their devoted and admiring friends.
On him, as President of the Confederacy, seems to have fallen in some
sense the whole odium of the failure of that cause; and this passage
from Winnie Davis' "An Irish Knight" has a touching application to his
case: "Thus died Ireland's true knight, sinking into the grave clothed
in all the bright promise of his youth; never to put on the sad livery
of age; never to feel the hopelessness of those who live to see the
principles for which they suffered trampled and forgotten by the
onward march of new interests and new men. Perhaps Freedom like some
deity of ancient Greece, loved him too well to let the slurs and
contumely of outrageous fortune dim the bright lustre of his virgin
fame." He is enshrined in the hearts of thousands.
His daughter, Varina Anne, or Winnie, "the Child of the Confederacy,"
as she is lovingly called, is a writer of some ability. She was
educated in Europe, and has written "An Irish Knight" [story of Robert
Emmet], and articles for magazines. Mrs. Jefferson Davis' Life of Mr.
Davis is a work of rare excellence and interest. See also _Davis
Memorial Volume_, by J. Wm. Jones.
WORKS.
Rise and Fall of the Confederacy.
Autobiography, [unfinished; it is included in Mrs. Davis' book.]
Mr. Davis' writings have a force and dignity of style that accord well
with his character. "His orations and addresses are marked by
classical purity, chaste elegance of expression, a certain nobleness
of diction, and a just proportion of sentence to idea."--John P.
McGuire.
TRIP TO KENTUCKY AT SEVEN YEARS OF AGE, AND VISIT TO GENERAL JACKSON.
(_From Autobiography in Mrs. Davis' Life of Davis._[16])
My first tuition was in the usual log-cabin school-house; though in
the summer when I was seven years old, I was sent on horseback through
what was then called "The Wilderness"--by the country of the Choctaw
and Chickasaw nations--to Kentucky, and was placed in a Catholic
institution then known as St. Thomas, in Washington county, near the
town of Springfield.
. . . When we reached Nashville we went to the Hermitage. Major Hinds
wished to visit his friend and companion-in-arms, General Jackson. The
whole party was so kindly received that we remained there for several
weeks. During that period I had the opportunity a boy has to observe a
great man--a stand-point of no small advantage--and I have always
remembered with warm affection the kind and tender wife who then
presided over his house.
General Jackson's house at that time was a roomy log-house. In front
of it was a grove of fine forest trees, and behind it were his cotton
and grain fields. I have never forgotten the unaffected and well-bred
courtesy which caused him to be remarked by court-trained diplomats,
when President of the United States, by reason of his very impressive
bearing and manner.
Notwithstanding the many reports that have been made of his profanity,
I remember that he always said grace at his table, and I never heard
him utter an oath. In the same connection, although he encouraged his
adopted son, A. Jackson, Jr., Howell Hinds, and myself in all contests
of activity, pony-riding included, he would not allow us to wrestle;
for, he said, to allow hands to be put on one another might lead to a
fight. He was always very gentle and considerate. . . .
Our stay with General Jackson was enlivened by the visits of his
neighbors, and we left the Hermitage with great regret and pursued our
journey. In me he inspired reverence and affection that has remained
with me through my whole life.
LIFE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Those who have intimately known the official and personal life of our
Presidents cannot fail to remember how few have left the office as
happy men as when they entered it, how darkly the shadows gathered
around the setting sun, and how eagerly the multitude would turn to
gaze upon another orb just rising to take its place in the political
firmament.
[Illustration: ~Beauvoir.~]
Worn by incessant fatigue, broken in fortune, debarred by public
opinion, prejudice, or tradition, from future employment, the wisest
and best who have filled that office have retired to private life, to
remember rather the failure of their hopes than the success of their
efforts. He must, indeed, be a self-confident man who could hope to
fill the chair of Washington with satisfaction to himself, with
assurance of receiving on his retirement the meed awarded by the
people to that great man, that he had "done enough for life and for
glory," or even feeling that the sacrifice of self had been
compensated by the service rendered to his country.
FAREWELL TO THE SENATE, 1861, ON THE OCCASION OF THE SECESSION OF
MISSISSIPPI FROM THE UNION.
I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate
that I have satisfactory evidence that the state of Mississippi, by a
solemn ordinance of her people, in convention assembled, has declared
her separation from the United States. Under these circumstances, of
course, my functions are terminated here. It has seemed to me proper,
however, that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to
my associates, and I will say but very little more. The occasion does
not invite me to go into argument, and my physical condition would not
permit me to do so, if it were otherwise; and yet it seems to become
me to say something on the part of the State I here represent on an
occasion so solemn as this.
It is known to Senators who have served with me here that I have for
many years advocated, as an essential attribute of State sovereignty,
the right of a State to secede from the Union. Therefore, if I had not
believed there was justifiable cause, if I had thought that
Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation, or without an
existing necessity, I should still, under my theory of the
government, because of my allegiance to the State of which I am a
citizen, have been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted
to say that I do think she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her
act. I conferred with her people before that act was taken, counselled
them then that, if the state of things which they apprehended should
exist when their convention met, they should take the action which
they have now adopted.
I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine with the
advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union, and to
disregard its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the
law. Such is not my theory. Nullification and Secession, so often
confounded, are, indeed, antagonistic principles. Nullification is a
remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against the
agent of the States. It is only to be justified when the agent has
violated his constitutional obligations, and a State, assuming to
judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act, and
appeals to the other States of the Union for a decision; but when the
States themselves, and the people of the States have so acted as to
convince us that they will not regard our constitutional rights, then,
and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession in its
practical application.
A great man, who now reposes with his fathers, and who has often been
arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, advocated the doctrine of
nullification because it preserved the Union. It was because of his
deep-seated attachment to the Union--his determination to find some
remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound
South Carolina to the other States--that Mr. Calhoun advocated the
doctrine of nullification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful, to be
within the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but only
to be the means of bringing the agent before the tribunal of the
States for their judgment.
Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a
time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again when a better
comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable
rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying
that each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which
it has made to any agent whomsoever. . .
In the course of my service here, associated at different times with a
great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with whom I have
served long; there have been points of collision, but, whatever of
offence there has been to me, I leave here. I carry with me no hostile
remembrance. Whatever offence I have given which has not been
redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have,
Senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer you my apology for any
pain which, in the heat of the discussion, I have inflicted. I go
hence unencumbered by the remembrance of any injury received, and
having discharged the duty of making the only reparation in my power
for any injury offered.
Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement which the
occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for me to bid you a
final adieu.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] By Permission of Mrs. Davis.
EDGAR ALLAN POE.
~1809=1849.~
EDGAR ALLAN POE was born in Boston while his parents were filling a
theatrical engagement there. His father's family was of Baltimore, his
grandfather being Gen. David Poe of the Revolutionary War, and his
father, also named David Poe, having been born and reared in that
city. His mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Arnold, was an
English actress of fascinating beauty and manners.
Left an orphan in 1811, Edgar was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy
merchant of Richmond, and was educated at private schools and the
University of Virginia, and in 1830 he entered West Point. But he got
himself dismissed the next year and devoted himself thereafter to a
literary life. Mr. Allan declining to aid him further, he had a
wretched struggle for existence.
He seems to have gone to Baltimore and made acquaintance with some of
his relatives; and there he won a prize of $100 by a story, "MS. Found
in a Bottle," and was kindly helped by John Pendleton Kennedy. He
became editor of the "Southern Literary Messenger," in Richmond, and
was afterward engaged on various other magazines, writing stories,
poems, book-reviews, and paragraphs, in untiring abundance.
He married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1836, and their life
together was in itself ideally happy, like the life in the Valley of
the Many-Coloured Grass; and Mrs. Clemm, his aunt and mother-in-law,
was the good genius who watched over "her two strange children" with
an unwearying devotion, deserving the tribute of the love and
gratitude embalmed in his sonnet called "Mother."
His engagement with any one magazine rarely lasted long, and there is
much diversity of opinion as to the cause; some ascribing it to Poe's
dissipated, irregular habits and irritable temper, others to the
meagre support of the magazines, still others to Poe's restless
disposition and desire to establish a periodical of his own. His
uncontrolled and high-strung nature, so sensitive that a single glass
of wine or swallow of opium caused temporary insanity, the
uncertainty of his means of subsistence, his wife's frail health and
her death in 1847, were causes sufficient to render unsteady even a
more solid character than Poe seems to have possessed.
His writings produced a great sensation. When "The Raven" was
published in 1845, a friend said of its effect in New York, "Everybody
has been raven-mad about his last poem." Mrs. Browning wrote that an
acquaintance of hers who had a bust of Pallas could not bear to look
at it. His fame is as great, or perhaps greater in Europe than in
America, especially in France; and his works have been translated into
French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian.
He died in Baltimore from causes never certainly known, his last
almost unconscious days being spent in a hospital; his dying words
were, "Lord, help my poor soul." He is buried in Westminster
churchyard, and in 1875 a monument was erected over his grave by the
teachers of Baltimore, generously aided by Mr. G. W. Childs of
Philadelphia. A memorial to him has been placed in the Metropolitan
Museum, New York, by the actors of the United States.
No poet has been the subject of more conflicting opinions as to his
life, habits, character, and genius, than Poe. The best lives of him
are those by John H. Ingram, an Englishman, and George E. Woodberry in
the American Men of Letters Series.
WORKS.
Poems.
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.
Literati of New York.
Conchologist's First Book (condensed from Wyatt).
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
Raven and other Poems.
Eureka, a Prose Poem.
Gold Bug, Balloon Hoax, &c.
All his best known stories are highly artistic in finish, powerful in
theme, and often of such a nature as to make one shudder and avoid
them. "Israfel" is considered one of his most beautiful poems, and if
his self-consciousness could have allowed him to omit the last stanza,
it would have been without a flaw.
TO HELEN.
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That, gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
ISRAFEL.
_And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has
the sweetest voice of all God's creatures._--_Koran._
In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute;"
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell)
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.
Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamored moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiades, even,
Which were seven)
Pauses in Heaven.
And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings--
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.
But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty--
Where Love's a grown-up God--
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.
Therefore, thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!
The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit--
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute--
Well may the stars be mute!
Yes, heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely--flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.
If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.
HAPPINESS.
The four elementary conditions of happiness are, life in the open air,
the love of a woman, forgetfulness of all ambition, and the creation
of a new ideal of beauty.--_From Domain of Arnheim._
THE RAVEN.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this, and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,--
This it is, and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door;
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering,
fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore."
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
'Tis the wind and nothing more!"
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no
craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore,
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered--not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before.
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never--nevermore.'"
But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
_She_ shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath
sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore--
Is there--_is_ there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore,
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked,
upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor,
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!
ROBERT TOOMBS.
~1810=1885.~
[Illustration: ~Robert Toombs.~]
ROBERT TOOMBS was born at Washington, Georgia, and studied at the
University of Georgia, then under the presidency of the famous Dr.
Moses Waddell; he afterwards attended Union College, Schenectady,
N. Y., and studied law at the University of Virginia. He settled in
his native town for legal practice and was so successful as to amass a
fortune within a few years. He served in the State Legislature and in
1845 was elected to Congress. In 1861, being a member of the United
States Senate, he took leave of it in order to join his State in
secession. He was appointed to the Confederate Cabinet, but soon
resigned and became a general in the field. After the war he was
ordered to be captured and held for trial as a traitor with Jefferson
Davis and Alexander H. Stephens; but he was never taken. He escaped
after much difficulty and many adventures, and went to Cuba and to
France: but he returned in 1867 to Georgia and resumed the practice
of law.
He was notoriously the Big Rebel, even after the war, and refused to
take the oath of allegiance: when asked by a Northern friend why he
had never sued for pardon, he said, "Pardon for what? I have not
pardoned you all yet." Later in life he said that he regretted not
having re-instated himself in citizenship and taken part in public
affairs. See his Life, by P. A. Stovall, and by C. C. Jones, Jr.
WORKS.
Speeches.
Mr. Toombs' speeches in Congress are said to have been fiery,
powerful, and dogmatic. As a lawyer, Chief-Justice Jackson thus
characterizes his style: "Concentrated fire was always his policy. A
single sentence would win his case. A big thought, compressed into
small compass, was fatal to his foe. It is the clear insight of a
great mind only that shapes out truth in words few and simple. Brevity
is power, wherever thought is strong."
"There is a regular mythology about Toombs at his State University.
The things he said would fill a volume of Sydney Smith, while the
pranks he played would rival the record of Robin Hood."--Stovall's
Life of Toombs.
FAREWELL TO THE SENATE, 1861.
(_From Stovall's Life of Toombs._[17])