Griffith, white as a ghost, and unable to shake off the forebodings
Catharine had communicated to him, walked incessantly up and down the
room; and, at his earnest request, one or other of the four doctors in
attendance was constantly coming to him with information.
The case proceeded favorably, and, to Griffith's surprise and joy, a
healthy boy was born about two o'clock in the morning. The mother was
reported rather feverish, but nothing to cause alarm.
Griffith threw himself on two chairs and fell fast asleep.
Towards morning he found himself shaken, and there was Ashley, the young
doctor, standing beside him with a very grave face. Griffith started up,
and cried, "What is wrong, in God's name?"
"I am sorry to say there has been a sudden hemorrhage, and the patient
is much exhausted."
"She is dying, she is dying!" cried Griffith, in anguish.
"Not dying. But she will infallibly sink, unless some unusual
circumstance occur to sustain vitality."
Griffith laid hold of him. "O sir, take my whole fortune, but save her!
save her! save her!"
"Mr. Gaunt," said the young doctor, "be calm, or you will make matters
worse. There is one chance to save her; but my professional brethren are
prejudiced against it. However, they have consented, at my earnest
request, to refer my proposal to you. She is sinking for want of blood;
if you consent to my opening a vein and transfusing healthy blood from a
living subject into hers, I will undertake the operation. You had better
come and see her; you will be more able to judge."
"Let me lean on you," said Griffith. And the strong wrestler went
tottering up the stairs. There they showed him poor Kate, white as the
bed-clothes, breathing hard, and with a pulse that hardly moved.
Griffith looked at her horror-struck.
"Death has got hold of my darling," he screamed. "Snatch her away! for
God's sake, snatch her from him!"
The young doctor whipped off his coat, and bared his arm.
"There," he cried, "Mr. Gaunt consents. Now, Corrie, be quick with the
lancet, and hold this tube as I tell you; warm it first in that water."
Here came an interruption. Griffith Gaunt griped the young doctor's arm,
and, with an agonized and ugly expression of countenance, cried out,
"What, _your_ blood! What right have you to lose blood for her?"
"The right of a man who loves his art better than his blood," cried
Ashley, with enthusiasm.
Griffith tore off his coat and waistcoat, and bared his arm to the
elbow. "Take every drop I have. No man's blood shall enter her veins but
mine." And the creature seemed to swell to double his size, as, with
flushed cheek and sparkling eyes, he held out a bare arm corded like a
blacksmith's, and white as a duchess's.
The young doctor eyed the magnificent limb a moment with rapture; then
fixed his apparatus and performed an operation which then, as now, was
impossible in theory; only he did it. He sent some of Griffith Gaunt's
bright red blood smoking hot into Kate Gaunt's veins.
This done, he watched his patient closely, and administered stimulants
from time to time.
She hung between life and death for hours. But at noon next day she
spoke, and, seeing Griffith sitting beside her, pale with anxiety and
loss of blood, she said: "My dear, do not thou fret. I died last night.
I knew I should. But they gave me another life; and now I shall live to
a hundred."
They showed her the little boy; and, at sight of him, the whole woman
made up her mind to live.
And live she did. And, what is very remarkable, her convalescence was
more rapid than on any former occasion.
It was from a talkative nurse she first learned that Griffith had given
his blood for her. She said nothing at the time, but lay, with an
angelic, happy smile, thinking of it.
The first time she saw him after that, she laid her hand on his arm,
and, looking Heaven itself into his eyes, she said, "My life is very
dear to me now. 'T is a present from thee."
She only wanted a good excuse for loving him as frankly as before, and
now he had given her one. She used to throw it in his teeth in the
prettiest way. Whenever she confessed a fault, she was sure to turn
slyly round and say, "But what could one expect of me? I have his blood
in my veins."
But once she told Father Francis, quite seriously, that she had never
been quite the same woman since she lived by Griffith's blood; she was
turned jealous; and moreover it had given him a fascinating power over
her, and she could tell blindfold when he was in the room. Which last
fact, indeed, she once proved by actual experiment. But all this I leave
to such as study the occult sciences in this profound age of ours.
Starting with this advantage, Time, the great curer, gradually healed a
wound that looked incurable.
Mrs. Gaunt became a better wife than she had ever been before. She
studied her husband, and found he was not hard to please. She made his
home bright and genial; and so he never went abroad for the sunshine he
could have at home.
And he studied her. He added a chapel to the house, and easily persuaded
Francis to become the chaplain. Thus they had a peacemaker, and a
friend, in the house, and a man severe in morals, but candid in
religion, and an inexhaustible companion to them and their children.
And so, after that terrible storm, this pair pursued the even tenor of a
peaceful united life, till the olive-branches rising around them, and
the happy years gliding on, almost obliterated that one dark passage,
and made it seem a mere fantastical, incredible dream.
* * * * *
Mercy Vint and her child went home in the coach. It was empty at
starting, and, as Mrs. Gaunt had foretold, a great sense of desolation
fell upon her.
She leaned back, and the patient tears coursed steadily down her comely
cheeks.
At the first stage a passenger got down from the outside, and entered
the coach.
"What, George Neville!" said Mercy.
"The same," said he.
She expressed her surprise that he should be going her way.
"'T is strange," said he, "but to me most agreeable."
"And to me too, for that matter," said she.
Sir George observed her eyes were red, and, to divert her mind and keep
up her spirits, launched into a flow of small talk.
In the midst of it, Mercy leaned back in the coach, and began to cry
bitterly. So much for that mode of consolation.
Upon this he faced the situation, and begged her not to grieve. He
praised the good action she had done, and told her how everybody admired
her for it, especially himself.
At that she gave him her hand in silence, and turned away her pretty
head. He carried her hand respectfully to his lips; and his manly heart
began to yearn over this suffering virtue,--so grave, so dignified, so
meek. He was no longer a young man; he began to talk to her like a
friend. This tone, and the soft, sympathetic voice in which a gentleman
speaks to a woman in trouble, unlocked her heart; and for the first
time in her life she was led to talk about herself.
She opened her heart to him. She told him she was not the woman to pine
for any man. Her youth, her health, and love of occupation, would carry
her through. What she mourned was the loss of esteem, and the blot upon
her child. At that she drew the baby with inexpressible tenderness, and
yet with a half-defiant air, closer to her bosom.
Sir George assured her she would lose the esteem of none but fools. "As
for me," said he, "I always respected you, but now I revere you. You are
a martyr and an angel."
"George," said Mercy, gravely, "be you my friend, not my enemy."
"Why, madam," said he, "sure you can't think me such a wretch."
"I mean, our flatterers are our enemies."
Sir George took the hint, given, as it was, very gravely and decidedly;
and henceforth showed her his respect by his acts; he paid her as much
attention as if she had been a princess. He handed her out, and handed
her in; and coaxed her to eat here, and to drink there; and at the inn
where the passengers slept for the night, he showed his long purse, and
secured her superior comforts. Console her he could not; but he broke
the sense of utter desolation and loneliness with which she started from
Carlisle. She told him so in the inn, and descanted on the goodness of
God, who had sent her a friend in that bitter hour.
"You have been very kind to me, George," said she. "Now Heaven bless you
for it, and give you many happy days, and well spent."
This, from one who never said a word she did not mean, sank deep into
Sir George's heart, and he went to sleep thinking of her, and asking
himself was there nothing he could do for her.
Next morning Sir George handed Mercy and her babe into the coach; and
the villain tried an experiment to see what value she set on him. He did
not get in, so Mercy thought she had seen the last of him.
"Farewell, good, kind George," said she. "Alas! there's naught but
meeting and parting in this weary world."
The tears stood in her sweet eyes, and she thanked him, not with words
only, but with the soft pressure of her womanly hand.
He slipped up behind the coach, and was ashamed of himself, and his
heart warmed to her more and more.
As soon as the coach stopped, my lord opened the door for Mercy to
alight. Her eyes were very red; he saw that. She started, and beamed
with surprise and pleasure.
"Why, I thought I had lost you for good," said she. "Whither are you
going? to Lancaster?"
"Not quite so far. I am going to the 'Packhorse.'"
Mercy opened her eyes, and blushed high. Sir George saw, and, to divert
her suspicions, told her merrily to beware of making objections. "I am
only a sort of servant in the matter. 'T was Mrs. Gaunt ordered me."
"I might have guessed it," said Mercy. "Bless her; she knew I should be
lonely."
"She was not easy till she had got rid of me, I assure you," said Sir
George. "So let us make the best on 't, for she is a lady that likes to
have her own way."
"She is a noble creature. George, I shall never regret anything I have
done for _her_. And she will not be ungrateful. O, the sting of
ingratitude! I have felt that. Have you?"
"No," said Sir George; "I have escaped that, by never doing any good
actions."
"I doubt you are telling me a lie," said Mercy Vint.
She now looked upon Sir George as Mrs. Gaunt's representative, and
prattled freely to him. Only now and then her trouble came over her, and
then she took a quiet cry without ceremony.
As for Sir George, he sat and studied, and wondered at her.
Never in his life had he met such a woman as this, who was as candid
with him as if he had been a woman. She seemed to have a window in her
bosom, through which he looked, and saw the pure and lovely soul within.
In the afternoon they reached a little town, whence a cart conveyed them
to the "Packhorse."
Here Mercy Vint disappeared, and busied herself with Sir George's
comforts.
He sat by himself in the parlor, and missed his gentle companion.
In the morning Mercy thought of course he would go.
But instead of that, he stayed, and followed her about, and began to
court her downright.
But the warmer he got, the cooler she. And at last she said, mighty
dryly, "This is a very dull place for the likes of you."
"'T is the sweetest place in England," said he; "at least to me; for it
contains--the woman I love."
Mercy drew back, and colored rosy red. "I hope not," said she.
"I loved you the first day I saw you, and heard your voice. And now I
love you ten times more. Let me dry thy tears forever, sweet Mercy. Be
my wife."
"You are mad," said Mercy. "What, would you wed a woman in my condition?
I am more your friend than to take you at your word. And what must you
think I am made of, to go from one man to another, like that?"
"Take your time, sweetheart; only give me your hand."
"George," said Mercy, very gravely, "I am beholden to you; but my duty
it lies another way. There is a young man in these parts" (Sir George
groaned) "that was my follower for two years and better. I wronged him
for one I never name now. I must marry that poor lad, and make him
happy, or else live and die as I am."
Sir George turned pale. "One word: do you love him?"
"I have a regard for him."
"Do you love him?"
"Hardly. But I wronged him, and I owe him amends. I shall pay my debts."
Sir George bowed, and retired sick at heart, and deeply mortified. Mercy
looked after him and sighed.
Next day, as he walked disconsolate up and down, she came to him and
gave him her hand. "You were a good friend to me that bitter day," said
she. "Now let me be yours. Do not bide here: 'twill but vex you."
"I am going, madam," said Sir George, stiffly. "I but wait to see the
man you prefer to me. If he is not too unworthy of you, I'll go, and
trouble you no more. I have learned his name."
Mercy blushed; for she knew Paul Carrick would bear no comparison with
George Neville.
The next day Sir George took leave to observe that this Paul Carrick did
not seem to appreciate her preference so highly as he ought. "I
understand he has never been here."
Mercy colored, but made no reply; and Sir George was sorry he had
taunted her. He followed her about, and showed her great attention, but
not a word of love.
There were fine trout streams in the neighborhood, and he busied himself
fishing, and in the evening read aloud to Mercy, and waited to see Paul
Carrick.
Paul never came; and from a word Mercy let drop, he saw that she was
mortified. Then, being no tyro in love, he told her he had business in
Lancaster, and must leave her for a few days. But he would return, and
by that time perhaps Paul Carrick would be visible.
Now his main object was to try the effect of correspondence.
Every day he sent her a long love-letter from Lancaster.
Paul Carrick, who, in absenting himself for a time, had acted upon his
sister's advice, rather than his own natural impulse, learned that Mercy
received a letter every day. This was a thing unheard of in that
parish.
So then Paul defied his sister's advice, and presented himself to Mercy;
when the following dialogue took place.
"Welcome home, Mercy."
"Thank you, Paul."
"Well, I'm single still, lass."
"So I hear."
"I'm come to say let bygones be bygones."
"So be it," said Mercy, dryly.
"You have tried a gentleman; now try a farrier."
"I have; and he did not stand the test."
"Anan."
"Why did you not come near me for ten days?"
Paul blushed up to the eyes. "Well," said he, "I'll tell you the truth.
'T was our Jess advised me to leave you quiet just at first."
"Ay, ay. I was to be humbled, and made to smart for my fault; and then I
should be thankful to take you. My lad, if ever you should be really in
love, take a friend's advice; listen to your own heart, and not to
shallow advisers. You have mortified a poor sorrowful creature, who was
going to make a sacrifice for you; and you have lost her forever."
"What d'ye mean?"
"I mean that you are to think no more of Mercy Vint."
"Then it is true, ye jade; ye've gotten a fresh lover already."
"Say no more than you know. If you were the only man on earth, I would
not wed you, Paul Carrick."
Paul Carrick retired home, and blew up his sister, and told her that she
had "gotten him the sack again."
The next day Sir George came back from Lancaster, and Mercy lowered her
lashes for once at sight of him.
"Well," said he, "has this Carrick shown a sense of your goodness?"
"He has come,--and gone."
She then, with her usual frankness, told him what had passed. "And,"
said she, with a smile, "you are partly to blame; for how could I help
comparing your behavior to me with his? _You_ came to my side when I was
in trouble, and showed me respect when I expected scorn from all the
world. A friend in need is a friend indeed."
"Reward me, reward me," said Sir George, gayly; "you know the way."
"Nay, but I am too much _your_ friend," said Mercy.
"Be less my friend then, and more my darling."
He pressed her, he urged her, he stuck to her, he pestered her.
She snubbed, and evaded, and parried, and liked him all the better for
his pestering her.
At last, one day, she said: "If Mrs. Gaunt thinks it will be for your
happiness, I _will_--in six months' time; but you shall not marry in
haste to repent at leisure. And I must have time to learn two
things,--whether you can be constant to a simple woman like me, and
whether I can love again, as tenderly as you deserve to be loved."
All his endeavors to shake this determination were vain. Mercy Vint had
a terrible deal of quiet resolution.
He retired to Cumberland, and, in a long letter, asked Mrs. Gaunt's
advice.
She replied characteristically. She began very soberly to say that she
should be the last to advise a marriage between persons of different
conditions in life. "But then," said she, "this Mercy is altogether an
exception. If a flower grows on a dunghill, 't is still a flower, and
not a part of the dunghill. She has the essence of gentility, and indeed
her _manners_ are better bred than most of our ladies. There is too much
affectation abroad, and that is your true vulgarity. Tack 'my lady' on
to 'Mercy Vint,' and that dignified and quiet simplicity of hers will
carry her with credit through every court in Europe. Then think of her
virtues,"--(here the writer began to lose her temper,)--"where can you
hope to find such another? She is a moral genius, and acts well, no
matter under what temptation, as surely as Claude and Raphael paint
well. Why, sir, what do you seek in a wife? Wealth? title? family? But
you possess them already; you want something in addition that will make
you happy. Well, take that angelic goodness into your house, and you
will find, by your own absolute happiness, how ill your neighbors have
wived. For my part, I see but one objection: the child. Well, if you are
man enough to take the mother, I am woman enough to take the babe. In
one word, he who has the sense to fall in love with such an angel, and
has not the sense to marry it, if he can, is a fool.
"Postscript.--My poor friend, to what end think you I sent you down in
the coach with her?"
* * * * *
Sir George, thus advised, acted as he would have done had the advice
been just the opposite.
He sent Mercy a love-letter by every post, and he often received one in
return; only his were passionate, and hers gentle and affectionate.
But one day came a letter that was a mere cry of distress.
"George, my child is dying. What shall I do?"
He mounted his horse, and rode to her.
He came too late. The little boy had died suddenly of croup, and was to
be buried next morning.
The poor mother received him up stairs, and her grief was terrible. She
clung sobbing to him, and could not be comforted. Yet she felt his
coming. But a mother's anguish overpowered all.
Crushed by this fearful blow, her strength gave way for a time, and she
clung to George Neville, and told him she had nothing left but him, and
one day implored him not to die and leave her.
Sir George said all he could think of to comfort her; and at the end of
a fortnight persuaded her to leave the "Packhorse," and England, as his
wife.
She had little power to resist now, and indeed little inclination.
They were married by special license, and spent a twelvemonth abroad.
At the end of that time they returned to Neville's Court, and Mercy took
her place there with the same dignified simplicity that had adorned her
in a humbler station.
Sir George had given her no lessons; but she had observed closely, for
his sake; and being already well educated, and very quick and docile,
she seldom made him blush except with pride.
They were the happiest pair in Cumberland. Her merciful nature now found
a larger field for its exercise, and, backed by her husband's purse, she
became the Lady Bountiful of the parish and the county.
The day after she reached Neville's Court came an exquisite letter to
her from Mrs. Gaunt. She sent an affectionate reply.
But the Gaunts and the Nevilles did not meet in society.
Sir George Neville and Mrs. Gaunt, being both singularly brave and
haughty people, rather despised this arrangement.
But it seems that, one day, when, they were all four in the Town Hall,
folk whispered and looked; and both Griffith Gaunt and Lady Neville
surprised these glances, and determined, by one impulse, it should never
happen again. Hence it was quite understood that the Nevilles and the
Gaunts were not to be asked to the same party or ball.
The wives, however, corresponded, and Lady Neville easily induced Mrs.
Gaunt to co-operate with her in her benevolent acts, especially in
saving young women, who had been betrayed, from sinking deeper.
Living a good many miles apart, Lady Neville could send her stray sheep
to service near Mrs. Gaunt; and _vice versâ_; and so, merciful, but
discriminating, they saved many a poor girl who had been weak, not
wicked.
So then, though they could not eat nor dance together in earthly
mansions, they could do good together; and methinks, in the eternal
world, where years of social intercourse will prove less than cobwebs,
these their joint acts of mercy will be links of a bright, strong chain,
to bind their souls in everlasting amity.
It was a remarkable circumstance, that the one child of Lady Neville's
unhappy marriage died, but her nine children by Sir George all grew to
goodly men and women. That branch of the Nevilles became remarkable for
high principle and good sense; and this they owe to Mercy Vint, and to
Sir George's courage in marrying her. This Mercy was granddaughter to
one of Cromwell's ironsides, and brought her rare personal merit into
their house, and also the best blood of the old Puritans, than which
there is no blood in Europe more rich in male courage, female chastity,
and all the virtues.
GUROWSKI.
The late Count Gurowski came to this country from France in November,
1849, and resided at first in New York. He made his appearance at
Boston, I think, in the latter part of 1850, and, being well introduced
by letters from men of note in Paris, was received with attention in the
highest circles of society. Among his friends at this period were
Prescott, Ticknor, Longfellow, Lowell, Parker, Sumner, Felton, and
Everett,--the last named of whom was then President of Harvard
University. The eccentric appearance and character of the Count, of
course, excited curiosity and gave rise to many idle rumors, the most
popular of which declared him to be a Russian spy, though what there was
to spy in this country, where everything is published in the newspapers,
or what the Czar expected to learn from such an agent, nobody undertook
to explain. The phrase was a convenient one, and, like many others
equally senseless, was currently adopted because it seemed to explain
the incomprehensible; and certainly, to the multitude, no man was ever
less intelligible than Gurowski.
To those, however, who cared for precise information, the French and
German periodicals of the day, in which his name frequently figured,
furnished sufficient to determine his social and historical status. From
authentic sources it was soon learned that he was the head of a
distinguished noble family of Poland; that he was born in 1805, and had
taken part in the great insurrection of 1831 against the Russians, for
which he had been condemned to death, while his estates were confiscated
and assigned to a younger brother, who had remained loyal to the Czar.
It was known also that at Paris, where he had found refuge, he had been
a special favorite of Lafayette and of the leading republicans, and an
active member of the Polish Revolutionary Committee, till, in 1835, he
published _La Vérité sur la Russie_, in which work he maintained that
the interests of Poland and of all the other Slavic countries would be
promoted by absorption into the Russian Empire and union under the
Russian Czar. This book drew upon him the indignant denunciation of his
countrymen, who regarded it as a betrayal of their cause, and led to the
revocation of his sentence of death, and to an invitation to enter the
service of Nicholas. He accordingly went to St. Petersburg in 1836,
where his sister had long resided, personally attached to the Empress
and in high favor at the imperial court. He was employed at first in the
private chancery of the Emperor, and afterwards in the Department of
Public Instruction, in which he suggested and introduced various
measures tending to Russianize Poland by means of schools and other
public institutions. He seems for some years to have been in favor, and
on the high road to power and distinction. In 1844, however, he fled
from St. Petersburg secretly, and took refuge at the court of Berlin. He
was pursued, and his extradition demanded of the Prussian government.
What his offence was I have never learned, but can readily suppose that
it was only a too free use of his tongue, which was at all times
uncontrollable, and was always involving him in difficulties wherever he
resided. He was quite as likely to contradict and snub the Czar as
readily as he would the meanest peasant, and, for that matter, even more
readily. His flight from Russia caused a good deal of discussion in the
Continental newspapers, and it is certain that for some reason or other
strong and pertinacious efforts were made by the Russian government to
have him delivered up. The Czar had at that time great influence over
the court of Berlin; and Gurowski was at length privately requested by
the Prussian government, in a friendly way, to relieve them of
embarrassment by withdrawing from the kingdom. He accordingly went to
Heidelberg and afterwards to Munich, and for two years subsequently was
a Lecturer on Political Economy at the University of Berne, in
Switzerland. At a later period he visited Italy, and for a year previous
to his arrival in this country had resided in Paris. Besides his first
work on Panslavism, already mentioned, he had published several others
in French and German, which had attracted considerable attention by the
force and boldness of their ideas, and the wide range of erudition
displayed in them. Finally, it became known to those who cared to
inquire, that one of his brothers, Ignatius Gurowski, was married to an
infanta of Spain, whom I believe he had persuaded to elope with him;
that Gurowski himself was a widower, with a son in the Russian navy and
a daughter married in Switzerland; and that some compromise had been
made about his confiscated estates by which his "loyal" brother had
agreed to pay him a slender annual allowance, which was not always
punctually remitted.
Such was the substance of what was known, or at least of what I knew and
can now recall, of Gurowski, soon after his arrival in Boston, sixteen
years ago. He came to Massachusetts, I think, with some expectation of
becoming connected with Harvard University as a lecturer or professor,
and took up his residence in Cambridge in lodgings in a house on Main
Street, nearly opposite the College Library. In January, 1851, he gave,
at President Everett's house, a course of lectures upon Roman
jurisprudence, of which I have preserved the following syllabus, printed
by him in explanation of his purpose.
* * * * *
"COUNT DE GUROWSKI proposes to give Six Lectures upon the Roman
Jurisprudence, or the Civil Law according to the following syllabus:--
"As the history of the Roman Law is likewise the history of
the principle of the _Right_ (_das Recht_) as it exists in
the consciousness of men, and of its outward manifestation
as a law in an organized society; a philosophical outline of
this principle and of its manifestations will precede.
"The philosophical and historical progress of the notion or
conception of the _Right_, through the various moments or
data of jurisprudential formation by the Romans. Explanation
of the principal elements and facts, out of which was framed
successively the Roman law.
"Such are, for instance, the Ramnian, the Sabinian, or
Quiritian; their influence on the character of the
legislation and jurisprudence.
"The peculiarity and the legal meaning of the _jus
quiritium_. Explanation of some of its legal rites, as those
concerning matrimony, _jus mancipi, in jure cessio_, etc.
"The primitive _jus civile_ derived from _the jus
quiritium_. Point out the principal social element on which,
and through which, the _jus privatum_, connected with the
_jus civile_, was developed.
"The primitive difference between both these two kinds of
_jus_.
"Other elements of the Roman Civil Law. The _jus gentium_,
its nature and origin. How it was conceived by the Romans,
and how it acted on the Roman community. Its agency,
enlightening and softening influence on the Roman character,
and on the severity of the primitive _jus civile_.
"The nature, the agency of the prætorian or _edictorial_
right and jurisprudence.
"A condensed sketch of the Roman civil process. The
principal formalities and rules according to the _jus
quiritium, jus civile_, and the _edicta prætorum_.
Difference between the magistrate and the judge.
"The scientific development of the above-mentioned data in
the formation of the Roman Law, or the period between
Augustus and Alex. Severus. Epoch of the imperial
jurisconsults; its character.
"Decline. The codification of the Roman Law, or the
formation of the Justinian Code. Sketch of it during the
mediæval and modern periods.
"Count Gurowski is authorized to refer to Hon. Edward
Everett, Prof. Parsons, Prof. Parker, Wm. H. Prescott, Esq.,
Hon. T. G. Gary, Charles Sumner, Esq., Hon. G. S. Hillard,
Prof. Felton.
"CAMBRIDGE, January 24, 1851."
The lectures were not successful, being attended by only twenty or
thirty persons, who did not find them very interesting. The truth is,
that few Americans care anything for the Roman law, or for the history
of the principle of the _Right_ (_das Recht_); nor for the Ramnian,
Sabinian, or Quiritian jurisprudence; nor whether the _jus civile_ was
derived from the _jus quiritium_, or the _jus quiritium_ from the _jus
civile_,--nor do I see why they should care. But even if the subject had
been interesting in itself, Gurowski's imperfect pronunciation of our
language at that time would have insured his failure as a lecturer. He
had a copious stock of English words at command; but as he had learned
the language almost wholly from books, his accent was so strongly
foreign that few persons could understand him at first, except those of
quick apprehension and some knowledge of the French and German idioms
which he habitually used.
The favor with which Gurowski had been received in the high circles of
Boston society soon evaporated, as his faults of temper and of manner,
and his rough criticisms on men and affairs, began to be felt.
Massachusetts was then in the midst of the great conservative and
proslavery reaction of 1850, and Gurowski's dogmatic radicalism was not
calculated to recommend him to the ruling influences in politics,
literature, or society. He denounced with vehemence, and without stint
or qualification, slavery and its Northern supporters. Nothing could
silence him, nobody could put him down. It was in vain to appeal to Mr.
Webster, then at the height of his reputation as a Union-saver and great
constitutional expounder. "What do I care for Mr. Webster," he said on
some occasion when the Fugitive Slave Law was under discussion in the
high circles of Beacon Street, and the dictum of the great expounder had
been triumphantly appealed to. "I can read the Constitution as well as
Mr. Webster." "But surely, Count, you would not presume to dispute Mr.
Webster's opinion on a question of constitutional law?" "And why not?"
replied Gurowski, in high wrath, and in his loudest tones. "I tell you I
can read the Constitution as well as Mr. Webster, and I say that the
Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional,--is an outrage and an imposition
of which you will all soon be ashamed. It is a disgrace to humanity and
to your republicanism, and Mr. Webster should be hung for advocating it.
He is a humbug or an ass," continued the Count, his wrath growing
fiercer as he poured it out,--"an ass if he believes such an infamous
law to be constitutional; and if he does not believe it, he is a humbug
and a scoundrel for advocating it." Beacon Street, of course, was aghast
at this outburst of blasphemy; and the high circles thereof were
speedily closed against the plain-spoken radical who dared to question
Mr. Webster's infallibility, and who made, indeed, but small account of
the other idols worshipped in that locality.
It was at this time, in the spring of 1851, that I became acquainted
with Gurowski. I was standing one day at the door of the reading-room in
Lyceum Hall in Cambridge, of which city I was then a resident, when I
saw approaching through Harvard Square a strange figure which I knew
must be the Count, who had often been described to me, but whom till
then I had never chanced to see. He was at the time about forty-five
years of age, of middle size, with a large head and big belly, and was
partly wrapped in a huge and queerly-cut cloak of German material and
make. On his head he wore a high, bell-shaped, broad-brimmed hat, from
which depended a long, sky-blue veil, which he used to protect his eyes
from the sunshine. His waistcoat was of bright red flannel, and as it
reached to his hips and covered nearly the whole of his capacious front,
it formed a startlingly conspicuous portion of his attire. In addition
to the veil, his eyes were protected by enormous blue goggles, with
glasses on the sides as well as in front. These extraordinary
precautions for the defence of his sight were made necessary by the fact
that he had lost an eye, not in a duel, as has been commonly reported,
but by falling on an open penknife when he was a boy of ten years old.
The wounded eye was totally ruined and wasted away, and had been the
seat of long and intense pain, in which, as is usual in such cases, the
other eye had participated. During the first year or two of his
residence in this country he was much troubled by the intense sunshine;
but afterwards becoming used to it, he left off his veil, and in other
respects conformed his costume to that of the people.
There were several gentlemen in the reading-room whom we both knew, one
of whom introduced me to Gurowski, who received me very cordially, and
immediately began to talk with much animation about Kossuth and Hungary,
concerning which I had recently published something. He was exceedingly
voluble, and seemed to have, even then, a remarkably copious stock of
English words at command; but his pronunciation, as before remarked, was
very imperfect, and until I grew accustomed to his accent I found it
difficult to comprehend him. This, however, made little difference to
Gurowski. He would talk to any one who would listen, without caring much
whether he was understood or not. On this occasion he soon became
engaged in a discussion with one of the gentlemen present, a Professor
in the University, who demurred to some of his statements about Hungary;
and in a short time Gurowski was foaming with rage, and formally
challenged the Professor to settle the dispute with swords or pistols.
This ingenious mode of deciding an historical controversy being blandly
declined, Gurowski, apparently dumfounded at the idea of any gentleman's
refusing so reasonable a proposition, abruptly retreated, asking me to
go with him, as he said he wished to consult me; to which request I
assented very willingly, for my curiosity was a good deal excited by his
strange appearance and evidently peculiar character.
He walked along in silence, and we soon reached his lodgings, which were
convenient and comfortable enough. He had a parlor and bedroom on the
second floor, well furnished, though in dire confusion, littered with
books, papers, clothing, and other articles, tossed about at random. He
gave me a cigar, and, sitting down, began to talk quite calmly and
rationally about the affair at the reading-room. His excitement had
entirely subsided, and he seemed to be sorry for his rudeness to the
Professor, for whom he had a high regard, and who had been invariably
kind to him. I spoke to him pretty roundly on the impropriety of his
conduct, and the folly of which he had been guilty in offering a
challenge,--a proceeding peculiarly repugnant to American, or at least
to New England notions, and which only made him ridiculous. There was
something so frank and childlike in his character, that, though I had
known him but an hour, we seemed already intimate, and from that time to
the day of his death I never had any hesitation in speaking to him about
anything as freely as if he were my brother.
He took my scolding in good part, and was evidently ashamed of his
conduct, though too proud to say so. He wanted to know, however, what he
had best do about the matter. I advised him to do nothing, but to let
the affair drop, and never make any allusion to it; and I believe he
followed my advice. At all events, he was soon again on good terms with
the gentleman he had challenged.
I spent several hours with Gurowski on this occasion, and, as we both at
that time had ample leisure, we soon grew intimate, and fell into the
habit of passing a large part of the day together. For a long period I
was accustomed to visit him every day at his lodgings, generally in the
morning, while he came almost every afternoon to my house. He had a good
deal of wit, but little humor, and did not relish badinage. His chief
delight was in serious discussions on questions of politics, history, or
theology, on which he would talk all day with immense erudition and a
wonderful flow of "the best broken English that ever was spoken." He was
well read in Egyptology and in mediæval history, and had a wide general
knowledge of the sciences, without special familiarity with any except
jurisprudence. He disdained the details of the natural sciences, and
despised their professors, whose pursuits seemed to him frivolous. He
was jealous of Agassiz, and of the fame and influence he had attained in
this country, and was in the habit of spitefully asserting that the
Professor spoke bad French, and was a mere icthyologist, who would not
dare in Europe to set up as an authority in so many sciences as he did
here. Even the amiable Professor Guyot, the most unassuming man in the
world, who then lived in Cambridge, was also an object of this paltry
jealousy. "How finely Guyot humbugs you Americans with his slops,"
Gurowski said to me one day. I replied that "slops" was a very unworthy
and offensive word to apply to the productions of a man like Guyot, who
certainly was of very respectable standing in his department of physical
geography. "O bah! bah! you do not understand," exclaimed Gurowski. "I
do not mean the slops of the kitchen, but the slops of the
continent,--the slops and indentations which he talks so much about."
_Slopes_ was, of course, the word he meant to use; and the incident may
serve as a good illustration of the curious infelicities of English with
which his conversation teemed.
But the truth is that Gurowski spared nobody, or scarcely anybody, in
his personal criticisms. Of all his vast range of acquaintance in New
England, Felton, Longfellow, and Lowell were the only persons of note of
whom he spoke with uniform respect. It was really painful to see how
utterly his vast knowledge and his great powers of mind were rendered
worthless by a childishness of temper and a habit of contradiction which
made it almost impossible for him to speak of anybody with moderation
and justice. He had also a sort of infernal delight in detecting the
weak points of his acquaintances, which he did with fearful quickness
and penetration. The slightest hint was sufficient. He saw at a glance
the frail spot, and directed his spear against it. Failings the most
secret, peculiarities the most subtle, which had, perhaps, been hidden
from the acquaintances of years, seemed to reveal themselves at the
first glance of his single eye.
He was very fond of controversy, and would prolong a discussion from day
to day with apparently unabated interest. I remember once we had a
discussion about some point of mediæval history of which I knew little,
but about which I feigned to be very positive, in order to draw out the
stores of his knowledge, which was really immense in that direction.
After a hot dispute of several hours we parted, leaving the question as
unsettled as ever. The next day I called at his lodgings early in the
afternoon. I knocked at the door of his room. He shouted, "Come in"; but
as I opened the door I heard him retreating into his adjacent bedroom.
He thrust his head out, and, seeing who it was, came back into the
parlor, absolutely in a state of nature. He had not even his spectacles
on. In his hand he held a pair of drawers, which he had apparently been
about to assume when I arrived. Shaking this garment vehemently with one
hand, while with the other he gave me a cigar, he broke out at once in a
torrent of argument on the topic of the preceding day. I made no reply;
but at the first pause suggested that he had better dress himself. To
this he paid no attention, but stamped round the room, continuing his
argument with his usual vehemence and volubility. Half an hour had
elapsed, when some one knocked. Gurowski roared, "Come in!" A
maid-servant opened the door, and of course instantly retreated. I
turned the key, and again entreated the Count to put on his clothes. He
did not comply, but kept on with his argument. Presently some one else
rapped. "It is Desor," said the Count; "I know his knock; let him in."
Desor was a Swiss, a scientific man, who lodged in the adjacent house.
Gurowski apparently was involved in a dispute with him also, which he
immediately took up, on some question of natural history. The Swiss,
however, did not seem to care to contest the point, whatever it was, and
soon went away. On his departure Gurowski again began his mediæval
argument; but I positively refused to stay unless he put on his clothes.
He reluctantly complied, and went into his bedroom, while I took up a
book. Every now and then, however, he would sally out to argue some
fresh point which had suggested itself to him; and his toilet was not
fairly completed till, at the end of the third hour, the announcement of
dinner put an end to the discussion.
Disappointed in his hopes of getting employment as a lecturer or
teacher, on which he had relied for subsistence, Gurowski felt himself
growing poorer and poorer as the little stock of money he had brought
from Europe wasted away. The discomforts of poverty did not tend to
sweeten his temper nor to abate his savage independence. He grew prouder
and fiercer as he grew poorer. He was very economical, and indulged in
no luxuries except cigars, of which, however, he was not a great
consumer, seldom smoking more than three or four a day. But with all his
care, his money was at length exhausted, his last dollar gone. He had
expected remittances from Poland, which did not come; and he now learned
that, from some cause which I have forgotten, nothing would be sent him
for that year at least. He used to tell me from day to day of the
progress of his "decline and fall," as he called it, remarking
occasionally that, when the worst came to the worst, he could turn
himself into an Irishman and work for his living. I paid little
attention to this talk, for really the idea of Gurowski and manual labor
was so ridiculously incongruous that I could not form any definite
conception of it. But he was more in earnest than I supposed.
Going one day at my usual hour to his lodgings, I found him absent. I
called again in the course of the day, but he was still not at home, and
the people of the house informed me that he had been absent since early
morning. The next day it was the same. On the third day I lay in wait
for him at evening at his lodgings, to which he came about dark, in a
most forlorn condition, with his hands blistered, his clothes dusty, and
exhibiting himself every mark of extreme fatigue. He was cheerful,
however, and very cordial, and gave me an animated account of his
adventures in his "Irish life," as he called it. It seems he had formed
an acquaintance with Mr. Hovey, the proprietor of the large nurseries
between Boston and the Colleges, and on the morning of the day on which
I found him absent from his lodgings he had gone to Hovey and offered
himself as a laborer in his garden. Hovey was astounded at the
proposition, but the Count insisted, and finally a spade was given to
him, and he set to work "like an Irishman," as he delighted to express
it. It was dreadfully wearisome to his unaccustomed muscles, but
anything, he said, was better than getting in debt. He could earn a
dollar a day, and that would pay for his board and his cigars. He had
clothes enough, he thought, to last him the rest of his
life,--especially, he added somewhat dolefully, as he was not likely to
live long under the Irish regimen.
I thought the joke had been carried far enough, and that it was time to
interfere. I accordingly went next day to Boston, and, calling on the
publisher of a then somewhat flourishing weekly newspaper, now extinct,
called "The Boston Museum," I described to him the situation and the
capacities of Gurowski, and proposed that he should employ the Count to
write an article of reasonable length each week about European life, for
which he was to be paid twelve dollars. I undertook to revise Gurowski's
English sufficiently to make it intelligible. The publisher readily
acceded to this proposition; and the Count, when I communicated it to
him, was as delighted as if he had found a gold mine, or, in the
language of to-day, "had struck ile." He was already, in spite of his
philosophic cheerfulness, heartily sick of his labor with the spade, for
which he was totally unfitted. He resumed his pen with alacrity, and
wrote an article on the private life of the Russian court, which I
copied, with the necessary revision, and carried to the publisher of the
Museum, who was greatly pleased with it, and readily paid the stipulated
price.
For several months Gurowski continued to write an article every week,
which he did very easily, and the pay for them soon re-established his
finances on what, with his simple habits, he considered a sound basis.
In fact, he soon grew rich enough, in his own estimation, to spend the
summer at Newport, which he said he wanted to do, because the Americans
of the highest social class evidently regarded a summer visit to that
place as the chief enjoyment of their life and the crowning glory of
their civilization. He went thither in June, 1851, and after that I only
saw him at long intervals, and for very brief periods.
His stay at Newport was short, and he went from there to New York, where
he soon became an editorial writer for the Tribune. To a Cambridge
friend of mine, who met him in Broadway, he expressed great satisfaction
with his new avocation. "It is the most delightful position," he said,
"that you can possibly conceive of. I can abuse everybody in the world
except Greeley, Ripley, and Dana." He inquired after me, and, as my
friend was leaving him, sent me a characteristic message,--"Tell C----
that he is an ass." My friend inquired the reason for this flattering
communication; and Gurowski replied, "Because he does not write to me."
Busy with many things which had fallen to me to do after his departure,
I had neglected to keep up our correspondence, at which he was sometimes
very wrathful, and wrote me savagely affectionate notes of remonstrance.
Besides writing for the Tribune, Gurowski was employed by Ripley and
Dana on the first four volumes of the New American Cyclopædia, for
which he wrote the articles on Alexander the Great, the Alexanders of
Russia, Aristocracy, Attila, the Borgias, Bunsen, and a few others. It
was at this time also that he wrote his books, "Russia as it is," and
"America and Europe." In preparing for publication his articles and his
books, he had the invaluable assistance of Mr. Ripley, who gratuitously
bestowed upon them an immense amount of labor, for which he was very ill
requited by the Count, who quarrelled both with him and Dana, and for a
time wantonly and most unjustly abused them both in his peculiar lavish
way.
For two or three years longer I lost sight of him, during which period
he led a somewhat wandering life, visiting the South, and residing
alternately in Washington, Newport, Geneseo, and Brattleborough. The
last time I saw him in New York was at the Athenæum Club one evening in
December, 1860, just after South Carolina had seceded. A dispute was
raging in the smoking-room, between Unionists on one side and
Copperheads on the other, as to the comparative character of the North
and South. Gurowski, who was reading in an adjoining room, was attracted
by the noise, and came in, but at first said nothing, standing in
silence on the outside of the circle. At last a South-Carolinian who was
present appealed to him, saying, "Count, you have been in the South, let
us have your opinion; you at least ought to be impartial." Gurowski
thrust his head forward, as he was accustomed to do when about to say
anything emphatic, and replied in his most energetic manner: "I have
been a great deal in the South as well as in the North, and know both
sections equally well, and I tell you, gentlemen, that there is more
intelligence, more refinement, more cultivation, more virtue, and more
good manners in one New England village than in all the South together."
This decision put an end to the discussion. The South-Carolinian
retreated in dudgeon, and Gurowski, chuckling, returned to his book or
his paper.
Shortly after this he took up his abode in Washington, where he soon
became one of the notables of the city, frequenting some of the best
houses, and almost certain to be seen of an evening at Willard's, the
political exchange of the capital, where his singular appearance and
emphatic conversation seldom failed to attract a large share of
attention. The proceeds of the books he had published, never very large,
had by this time been used up; and he was consequently very poor, for
which, however, he cared little. But some of the Senators, who liked and
pitied the rough-spoken, but warm-hearted and honest old man, persuaded
Mr. Seward to appoint him to some post in the State Department created
for the occasion. His nominal duty was to explore the Continental
newspapers for matter interesting to the American government, and to
furnish the Secretary of State, when called upon, with opinions upon
diplomatic questions. As he once stated it to me in his terse way, it
was "to read the German newspapers, and keep Seward from making a fool
of himself." The first part of this duty, he said, was easy enough, but
the latter part rather difficult. He kept the office longer than I
expected, knowing his temper and habit of grumbling; but even Mr.
Seward's patience was at length exhausted, and he was dismissed for
long-continued disrespectful remarks concerning his official superior.
Some time in 1862 I met Gurowski in Washington, at the rooms of Senator
Sumner, which he was in the habit of visiting almost every evening. I
had not seen him for a long time, and he greeted me very cordially; but
I soon perceived that his habit of dogmatism had increased terribly, and
that he was more impatient than ever of contradiction. He began to talk
in a high tone about McClellan, the Army of the Potomac, and the
probable duration of the Rebellion. His views for the most part seemed
sound enough, but were so offensively expressed that, partly in
impatience and partly for amusement, I soon began to contradict him
roundly on every point. He became furious, and for nearly an hour
stormed and stamped about the room, in the centre of which sat Mr.
Sumner in his great chair, taking no part in the discussion, but making
occasional ineffectual attempts to pacify Gurowski, who at length rushed
out of the room in a rage too deep for even his torrent of words to
express. After his departure, Mr. Sumner remarked that he reminded him
of the whale in Barnum's Museum, which kept going round and round in its
narrow tank, blowing with all its might whenever it came to the surface,
which struck me at the time as a singularly apt comparison.
I met Gurowski the next evening at the Tribune rooms, near Willard's,
and found him still irritated and disposed to "blow." I checked him,
however, told him I had had enough of nonsense, and wanted him to talk
soberly; and, taking his arm, walked with him to his lodgings, where,
while he dressed for a party, which he always did with great care, I
made him tell me his opinion about men and affairs. He was unusually
moderate and rational, and described the "situation," as the newspapers
call it, with force and penetration. The army, he thought, was
everything that could be desired, if it only had an efficient commander
and a competent staff. I asked what he thought of Lincoln. "He is a
beast." This was all he would say of him. I knew, of course, that he
meant _bête_ in the French sense, and not in the offensive English sense
of the word. The truth was, that Gurowski had little relish for humor,
and the drollery which formed so prominent a part of Lincoln's external
character was unintelligible and offensive to him. At a later period, as
I judge from his Diary, he understood the President better, and did full
justice to his noble qualities.
I was particularly curious to know what he thought of Seward, whom he
had good opportunities of seeing at that time, as he was still in the
service of the State Department. He pronounced him shallow and
insincere, and ludicrously ignorant of European affairs. The
diplomatists of Europe, he said, were all making fun of his despatches,
and looked upon him as only a clever charlatan.
This proved to be my last conversation with Gurowski. I met him once
again, however, at Washington, in the spring of 1863. I was passing up
Fifteenth Street, by the Treasury Department, and reached one of the
cross-streets just as a large troop of cavalry came along. The street
was ankle-deep with mud, only the narrow crossing being passable, and I
hurried to get over before the cavalry came up. Midway on the crossing I
encountered Gurowski, wrapped in a long black cloak and a huge felt hat,
rather the worse for wear. He threw open his arms to stop me, and,
without any preliminary phrase, launched into an invective on Horace
Greeley. In an instant the troop was upon us, and we were surrounded by
trampling and rearing horses, and soldiers shouting to us to get out of
the way. Gurowski, utterly heedless of all around him, raised his voice
above the tumult, and roared that Horace Greeley was "an ass, a traitor,
and a coward." It was no time to hold a parley on that question, and,
breaking from him, I made for the opposite sidewalk, then, turning, saw
Gurowski for the last time, enveloped in a cloud of horsemen, through
which he was composedly making his way at his usual meditative pace.
THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ACCOMPLICES.
Andrew Johnson has dealt the most cruel of all blows to the
respectability of the faction which rejoices in his name. Hardly had the
political Pecksniffs and Turveydrops contrived so to manage the Johnson
Convention at Philadelphia that it violated few of the proprieties of
intrigue and none of the decencies of dishonesty, than the
commander-in-chief of the combination took the field in person, with the
intention of carrying the country by assault. His objective point was
the grave of Douglas, which became by the time he arrived the grave also
of his own reputation and the hopes of his partisans. His speeches on
the route were a volcanic outbreak of vulgarity, conceit, bombast,
scurrility, ignorance, insolence, brutality, and balderdash. Screams of
laughter, cries of disgust, flushings of shame, were the various
responses of the nation he disgraced to the harangues of this leader of
American "conservatism." Never before did the first office in the gift
of the people appear so poor an object of human ambition, as when Andrew
Johnson made it an eminence on which to exhibit inability to behave and
incapacity to reason. His low cunning conspired with his devouring
egotism to make him throw off all the restraints of official decorum, in
the expectation that he would find duplicates of himself in the crowds
he addressed, and that mob diffused would heartily sympathize with Mob
impersonated. Never was blustering demagogue led by a distempered sense
of self-importance into a more fatal error. Not only was the great body
of the people mortified or indignant, but even his "satraps and
dependents," even the shrewd politicians--accidents of an Accident and
shadows of a shade--who had labored so hard at Philadelphia to weave a
cloak of plausibilities to cover his usurpations, shivered with
apprehension or tingled with shame as they read the reports of their
master's impolitic and ignominious abandonment of dignity and decency in
his addresses to the people he attempted alternately to bully and
cajole. That a man thus self-exposed as unworthy of high trust should
have had the face to expect that intelligent constituencies would send
to Congress men pledged to support _his_ policy and _his_ measures,
appeared for the time to be as pitiable a spectacle of human delusion as
it was an exasperating example of human impudence.
Not the least extraordinary peculiarity of these addresses from the
stump was the immense protuberance they exhibited of the personal
pronoun. In Mr. Johnson's speech, his "I" resembles the geometer's
description of infinity, having "its centre everywhere and its
circumference nowhere." Among the many kinds of egotism in which his
eloquence is prolific, it may be difficult to fasten on the particular
one which is most detestable or most laughable; but it seems to us that
when his arrogance apes humility it is deserving perhaps of an intenser
degree of scorn or derision than when it riots in bravado. The most
offensive part which he plays in public is that of "the humble
individual," bragging of the lowliness of his origin, hinting of the
great merits which could alone have lifted him to his present exalted
station, and representing himself as so satiated with the sweets of
unsought power as to be indifferent to its honors. Ambition is not for
him, for ambition aspires; and what object has he to aspire to? From his
contented mediocrity as alderman of a village, the people have insisted
on elevating him from one pinnacle of greatness to another, until they
have at last made him President of the United States. He might have been
Dictator had he pleased; but what, to a man wearied with authority and
dignity, would dictatorship be worth? If he is proud of anything, it is
of the tailor's bench from which he started. He would have everybody to
understand that he is humble,--thoroughly humble. Is this caricature?
No. It is impossible to caricature Andrew Johnson when he mounts his
high horse of humility and becomes a sort of cross between Uriah Heep
and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Indeed, it is only by quoting
Dickens's description of the latter personage that we have anything
which fairly matches the traits suggested by some statements in the
President's speeches. "A big, loud man," says the humorist, "with a
stare and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which
seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A man with a great
puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a
strained skin to his face, that it seemed to hold his eyes open and lift
his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being
inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never
sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was continually
proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his
old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility."
If we turn from the moral and personal to the menial characteristics of
Mr. Johnson's speeches, we find that his brain is to be classed with
notable cases of arrested development. He has strong forces in his
nature, but in their outlet through his mind they are dissipated into a
confusing clutter of unrelated thoughts and inapplicable phrases. He
seems to possess neither the power nor the perception of coherent
thinking and logical arrangement. He does not appear to be aware that
prepossessions are not proofs, that assertions are not arguments, that
the proper method to answer an objection is not to repeat the
proposition against which the objection was directed, that the proper
method of unfolding a subject is not to make the successive statements a
series of contradictions. Indeed, he seems to have a thoroughly
animalized intellect, destitute of the notion of relations, with ideas
which are but the form of determinations, and which derive their force,
not from reason, but from will. With an individuality thus strong even
to fierceness, but which has not been developed in the mental region,
and which the least gust of passion intellectually upsets, he is
incapable of looking at anything out of relations to himself,--of
regarding it from that neutral ground which is the condition of
intelligent discussion between opposing minds. In truth, he makes a
virtue of being insensible to the evidence of facts and the deductions
of reason, proclaiming to all the world that he has taken his position,
that he will never swerve from it, and that all statements and arguments
intended to shake his resolves are impertinences, indicating that their
authors are radicals and enemies of the country. He is never weary of
vaunting his firmness, and firmness he doubtless has, the firmness of at
least a score of mules; but events have shown that it is a different
kind of firmness from that which keeps a statesman firm to his
principles, a political leader to his pledges, a gentleman to his word.
Amid all changes of opinion, he has been conscious of unchanged will,
and the intellectual element forms so small a portion of his being,
that, when he challenged "the man, woman, or child to come forward" and
convict him of inconstancy to his professions, he knew that, however it
might be with the rest of mankind, he would himself be unconvinced by
any evidence which the said man, woman, or child might adduce. Again,
when he was asked by one of his audiences why he did not hang Jeff
Davis, he retorted by exclaiming, "Why don't you ask me why I have not
hanged Thad Stevens and Wendell Phillips? They are as much traitors as
Davis." And we are almost charitable enough to suppose that he saw no
difference between the moral or legal treason of the man who for four
years had waged open war against the government of the United States,
and the men who for one year had sharply criticised the acts and
utterances of Andrew Johnson. It is not to be expected that nice
distinctions will be made by a magistrate who is in the habit of denying
indisputable facts with the fury of a pugilist who has received a
personal affront, and of announcing demonstrated fallacies with the
imperturbable serenity of a philosopher proclaiming the fundamental laws
of human belief. His brain is entirely ridden by his will, and of all
the public men in the country its official head is the one whose opinion
carries with it the least intellectual weight. It is to the credit of
our institutions and our statesmen that the man least qualified by
largeness of mind and moderation of temper to exercise uncontrolled
power should be the man who aspired to usurp it. The constitutional
instinct in the blood, and the constitutional principle in the brain, of
our real statesmen, preserve them from the folly and guilt of setting
themselves up as imitative Caesars and Napoleons, the moment they are
trusted with a little delegated power.
Still we are told, that, with all his defects, Andrew Johnson is to be
honored and supported as a "conservative" President engaged in a contest
with a "radical" Congress! It happens, however, that the two persons who
specially represent Congress in this struggle are Senators Trumbull and
Fessenden. Senator Trumbull is the author of the two important measures
which the President vetoed; Senator Fessenden is the chairman and organ
of the Committee of Fifteen which the President anathematizes. Now we
desire to do justice to the gravity of face which the partisans of Mr.
Johnson preserve in announcing their most absurd propositions, and
especially do we commend their command of countenance while it is their
privilege to contrast the wild notions and violent speech of such
lawless radicals as the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from
Maine, with the balanced judgment and moderate temper of such a pattern
conservative as the President of the United States. The contrast prompts
ideas so irresistibly ludicrous, that to keep one's risibilities under
austere control while instituting it argues a self-command almost
miraculous.
Andrew Johnson, however, such as he is in heart, intellect, will, and
speech, is the recognized leader of his party, and demands that the
great mass of his partisans shall serve him, not merely by prostration
of body, but by prostration of mind. It is the hard duty of his more
intimate associates to translate his broken utterances from
_Andy-Johnsonese_ into constitutional phrase, to give these versions
some show of logical arrangement, and to carry out, as best they may,
their own objects, while professing boundless devotion to his. By a
sophistical process of developing his rude notions, they often lead him
to conclusions which he had not foreseen, but which they induce him to
make his own, not by a fruitless effort to quicken his mind into
following the steps of their reasoning, but by stimulating his passions
to the point of adopting its results. They thus become parasites in
order that they may become powers, and their interests make them
particularly ruthless in their dealings with their master's consistency.
Their relation to him, if they would bluntly express it, might be
indicated in this brief formula: "We will adore you in order that you
may obey us."
The trouble with these politicians is, that they cannot tie the
President's tongue as they tied the tongues of the eminent personages
they invited from all portions of the country to keep silent at their
great Convention at Philadelphia. That Convention was a masterpiece of
cunning political management; but its Address and Resolutions were
hardly laid at Mr. Johnson's feet, when, in his exultation, he blurted
out that unfortunate remark about "a body called, or which assumed to
be, the Congress of the United States," which, it appears, "we have seen
hanging on the verge of the government." Now all this was in the
Address of the Convention, but it was not so brutally worded, nor so
calculated to appall those timid supporters of the Johnson party who
thought, in their innocence, that the object of the Philadelphia meeting
was to heal the wounds of civil war, and not to lay down a programme by
which it might be reopened. Turning, then, from Mr. Johnson to the
manifesto of his political supporters, let us see what additions it
makes to political wisdom, and what guaranties it affords for future
peace. We shall not discriminate between insurgent States and individual
insurgents, because, when individual insurgents are so overwhelmingly
strong that they carry their States with them, or when States are so
overwhelmingly strong that they force individuals to be insurgents, it
appears to be needless. The terms are often used interchangeably in the
Address, for the Convention was so largely composed of individual
insurgents that it was important to vary a little the charge that they
usurped State powers with the qualification that they obeyed the powers
they usurped. At the South, individual insurgents constitute the State
when they determine to rebel, and obey it when they desire to be
pardoned. An identical thing cannot be altered by giving it two names.
The principle which runs through the Philadelphia Address is, that
insurgent States recover their former rights under the Constitution by
the mere fact of submission. This is equivalent to saying that insurgent
States incurred no guilt in rebellion. But States cannot become
insurgent, unless the authorities of such States commit perjury and
treason, and their people become rebels and public enemies; perjury,
treason, and rebellion are commonly held to be crimes; and who ever
heard, before, that criminals were restored to all the rights of honest
citizens by the mere fact of their arrest?
The doctrine, moreover, is a worse heresy than that of Secession; for
Secession implies that seceded States, being out of the Union, can
plainly only be brought back by conquest, and on such terms as the
victors may choose to impose. No candid Southern Rebel, who believes
that his State seceded, and that he acted under competent authority when
he took up arms against the United States, can have the effrontery to
affirm that he had inherent rights of citizenship in "the foreign
country" against which he plotted and fought for four years. The
so-called "right" of secession was claimed by the South as a
constitutional right, to be peaceably exercised, but it passed into the
broader and more generally intelligible "right" of revolution when it
had to be sustained by war; and the condition of a defeated
revolutionist is certainly not that of a qualified voter in the nation
against which he revolted. But if insurgent States recover their former
rights and privileges when they submit to superior force, there is no
reason why armed rebellion should not be as common as local discontent.
We have, on this principle, sacrificed thirty-five hundred millions of
dollars and three hundred thousand lives, only to bring the insurgent
States into just those "practical relations to the Union" which will
enable us to sacrifice thirty-five hundred millions of dollars more, and
three hundred thousand more lives, when it suits the passions and
caprices of these States to rebel again. Whatever they may do in the way
of disturbing the peace of the country, they can never, it seems,
forfeit their rights and privileges under the Constitution. Even if
everybody was positively certain that there would be a new rebellion in
ten years, unless conditions of representation were exacted of the
South, we still, according to the doctrine of the Johnsonian jurists,
would be constitutionally impotent to exact them, because insurgent
States recover unconditioned rights to representation by the mere fact
of their submitting to the power they can no longer resist. The
acceptance of this principle would make insurrection the chronic disease
of our political system. War would follow war, until nearly all the
wealth of the country was squandered, and nearly all the inhabitants
exterminated. Mr. Johnson's prophetic vision of that Paradise of
constitutionalism, shadowed forth in his exclamation that he would stand
by the Constitution though all around him should perish, would be
measurably realized; and among the ruins of the nation a few haggard and
ragged pedants would be left to drone out eulogies on "the glorious
Constitution" which had survived unharmed the anarchy, poverty, and
depopulation it had produced. An interpretation of the Constitution
which thus makes it the shield of treason and the destroyer of
civilization must be false both to fact and sense. The framers of that
instrument were not idiots; yet idiots they would certainly have been,
if they had put into it a clause declaring "that no State, or
combination of States, which may at any time choose to get up an armed
attempt to overthrow the government established by this Constitution,
and be defeated in the attempt, shall forfeit any of the privileges
granted by this instrument to loyal States." But an interpretation of
the Constitution which can be conceived of as forming a possible part of
it only by impeaching the sanity of its framers, cannot be an
interpretation which the American people are morally bound to risk ruin
to support.
But even if we should be wild enough to admit the Johnsonian principle
respecting insurgent States, the question comes up as to the identity of
the States now demanding representation with the States whose rights of
representation are affirmed to have been only suspended during their
rebellion. The fact would seem to be, that these reconstructed States
are merely the creations of the executive branch of the government, with
every organic bond hopelessly cut which connected them with the old
State governments and constitutions. They have only the names of the
States they pretend to _be_. Before the Rebellion, they had a legal
people; when Mr. Johnson took hold of them, they had nothing but a
disorganized population. Out of this population he by his own will
created a people, on the principle, we must suppose, of natural
selection. Now, to decide who are the people of a State is to create its
very foundations,--to begin anew in the most comprehensive sense of the
word; for the being of a State is more in its people, that is, in the
persons selected from its inhabitants to be the depositaries of its
political power, than it is in its geographical boundaries and area.
Over this people thus constituted by himself, Mr. Johnson set
Provisional Governors nominated by himself. These Governors called
popular conventions, whose members were elected by the votes of those to
whom Mr. Johnson had given the right of suffrage; and these conventions
proceeded to do what Mr. Johnson dictated. Everywhere Mr. Johnson;
nowhere the assumed rights of the States! North Carolina was one of
these creations; and North Carolina, through the lips of its Chief
Justice, has already decided that Mr. Johnson was an unauthorized
intruder, and his work a nullity, and even Mr. Johnson's "people" of
North Carolina have rejected the constitution framed by Mr. Johnson's
Convention. Other Rebel communities will doubtless repudiate his work,
as soon as they can dispense with his assistance. But whatever may be
the condition of these new Johnsonian States, they are certainly not
States which can "recover" rights which existed previous to their
creation. The date of their birth is to be reckoned, not from any year
previous to the Rebellion, but from the year which followed its
suppression. It may, in old times, have been a politic trick of shrewd
politicians, to involve the foundations of States in the mists of a
mythical antiquity; but we happily live in an historical period, and
there is something peculiarly stupid or peculiarly impudent in the
attempt of the publicists of the Philadelphia Convention to ignore the
origins of political societies for which, after they have obtained a
certain degree of organization, they claim such eminent traditional
rights and privileges. Respectable as these States may be as infant
phenomena, it will not do to _Methuselahize_ them too recklessly, or
assert their equality in muscle and brawn with giants full grown.
It is evident, from the nature of the case, that Mr. Johnson's labors
were purely experimental and provisional, and needed the indorsement of
Congress to be of any force. The only department of the government
constitutionally capable to admit new States or rehabilitate insurgent
ones is the legislative. When the Executive not only took the initiative
in reconstruction, but assumed to have completed it; when he presented
_his_ States to Congress as the equals of the States represented in that
body; when he asserted that the delegates from his States should have
the right of sitting and voting in the legislature whose business it was
to decide on their right to admission; when, in short, he demanded that
criminals at the bar should have a seat on the bench, and an equal voice
with the judges, in deciding on their own case, the effrontery of
Executive pretension went beyond all bounds of Congressional endurance.
The real difference at first was not on the question of imposing
conditions,--for the President had notoriously imposed them
himself,--but on the question whether or not additional conditions were
necessary to secure the public safety. The President, with that facility
"in turning his back on himself" which all other logical gymnasts had
pronounced an impossible feat, then boldly look the ground, that, being
satisfied with the conditions he had himself exacted, the exaction of
conditions was unconstitutional. To sustain this curious proposition he
adduced no constitutional arguments, but he left various copies of the
Constitution in each of the crowds he recently addressed, with the
trust, we suppose, that somebody might be fortunate enough to find in
that instrument the clause which supported his theory. Mr. Johnson,
however, though the most consequential of individuals, is the most
inconsequential of reasoners; every proposition which is evident to
himself he considers to fulfil the definition of a self-evident
proposition; but his supporters at Philadelphia must have known, that,
in affirming that insurgent States recover their former rights by the
fact of submission, they were arraigning the conduct of their leader,
who had notoriously violated those "rights." They took up his work at a
certain stage, and then, with that as a basis, they affirmed a general
proposition about insurgent States, which, had it been complied with by
the President, would have left them no foundation at all; for the States
about which they so glibly generalized would have had no show of
organized governments. The premises of their argument were obtained by
the violation of its conclusion; they inferred from what was a negation
of their inference, and deduced from what was a death-blow to their
deduction.
It is easy enough to understand why the Johnson Convention asserted the
equality of the Johnson reconstructions of States with the States now
represented in Congress. The object was to give some appearance of
legality to a contemplated act of arbitrary power, and the principle
that insurgent States recover all their old rights by the fact of
submission was invented in order to cover the case. Mr. Johnson now
intends, by the admission of his partisans, to attempt a _coup d'état_
on the assembling of the Fortieth Congress, in case seventy-one members
of the House of Representatives, favorable to his policy, are chosen, in
the elections of this autumn, from the twenty-six loyal States. These,
with the fifty Southern delegates, would constitute a quorum of the
House; and the remaining hundred and nineteen members are, in the
President's favorite phrase, "to be kicked out" from that "verge" of the
government on which they now are said to be "hanging." The question,
therefore, whether Congress, as it is at present constituted, is a body
constitutionally competent to legislate for the whole country, is the
most important of all practical questions. Let us see how the case
stands.
The Constitution, ratified by the people of all the States, establishes
a government of sovereign powers, supreme over the whole land, and the
people of no State can rightly pass from under its authority except by
the consent of the people of all the States, with whom it is bound by
the most solemn and binding of contracts. The Rebel States broke, _in
fact_, the contract they could not break _in right_. Assembled in
conventions of their people, they passed ordinances of secession,
withdrew their Senators and Representatives from Congress, and began the
war by assailing a fort of the United States. The Secessionists had
trusted to the silence of the Constitution in relation to the act they
performed. A State in the American Union, as distinguished from a
Territory, is constitutionally a part of the government to which it owes
allegiance, and the seceded States had refused to be parts of the
government, and had forsworn their allegiance. By the Constitution, the
United States, in cases of "domestic violence" in a State, is to
interfere, "on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive when
the Legislature cannot be convened." But in this case legislatures,
executives, conventions of the people, were all violators of the
domestic peace, and of course made no application for interference. By
the Constitution, Congress is empowered to suppress insurrections; but
this might be supposed to mean insurrections like Shays's Rebellion in
Massachusetts and the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, and not to
cover the action of States seceding from the Congress which is thus
empowered. The seceders, therefore, felt somewhat as did the absconding
James II. when he flung the Great Seal into the Thames, and thought he
had stopped the machinery of the English government.
Mr. Buchanan, then President of the United States, admitted at once that
the Secessionists had done their work in such a way that, though they
had done wrong, the government was powerless to compel them to do right.
And here the matter should have rested, if the government established by
the Constitution was such a government as Mr. Johnson's supporters now
declare it to be. If it is impotent to prescribe terms of peace in
relation to insurgent States, it is certainly impotent to make war on
insurgent States. If insurgent States recover their former
constitutional rights in laying down their arms, then there was no
criminality in their taking them up; and if there was no criminality in
their taking them up, then the United States was criminal in the war by
which they were forced to lay them down. On this theory we have a
government incompetent to legislate for insurgent States, because
lacking their representatives, waging against them a cruel and unjust
war. And this is the real theory of the defeated Rebels and Copperheads
who formed the great mass of the delegates to the Johnson Convention.
Should they get into power, they would feel themselves logically
justified in annulling, not only all the acts of the "Rump Congress"
since they submitted, but all the acts of the Rump Congresses during the
time they had a Confederate Congress of their own. They may deny that
this is their intention; but what intention to forego the exercise of an
assumed right, held by those who are out of power, can be supposed
capable of limiting their action when they are in?
But if the United States is a government having legitimate rights of
sovereignty conferred upon it by the people of all the States, and if,
consequently, the attempted secession of the people of one or more
States only makes them criminals, without impairing the sovereignty of
the United States, then the government, with all its powers, remains
with the representatives of the loyal people. By the very nature of
government as government, the rights and privileges guaranteed to
citizens are guaranteed to loyal citizens; the rights and privileges
guaranteed to States are guaranteed to loyal States; and loyal citizens
and loyal States are not such as profess a willingness to be loyal after
having been utterly worsted in an enterprise of gigantic disloyalty. The
organic unity and continuity of the government would be broken by the
return of disloyal citizens and Rebel States without their going through
the process of being restored by the action of the government they had
attempted to subvert; and the power to restore carries with it the power
to decide on the terms of restoration. And when we speak of the
government, we are not courtly enough to mean by the expression simply
its executive branch. The question of admitting and implicitly of
restoring States, and of deciding whether or not States have a
republican form of government, are matters left by the Constitution to
the discretion of Congress. As to the Rebel States now claiming
representation, they have succumbed, thoroughly exhausted, in one of the
costliest and bloodiest wars in the history of the world,--a war which
tasked the resources of the United States more than they would have been
tasked by a war with all the great powers of Europe combined,--a war
which, in 1862, had assumed such proportions, that the Supreme Court
decided that it gave the United States the same rights and privileges
which the government might exercise in the case of a national and
foreign war. The inhabitants of the insurgent States being thus
judicially declared public enemies as well as Rebels, there would seem
to be no doubt at all that the victorious close of actual hostilities
could not deprive the government of the power of deciding on the terms
of peace with public enemies. The government of the United States found
the insurgent States thoroughly revolutionized and disorganized, with no
State governments which could be recognized without recognizing the
validity of treason, and without the power or right to take even the
initial steps for State reorganization. They were practically out of the
Union as States; their State governments had lapsed; their population
was composed of Rebels and public enemies, by the decision of the
Supreme Court. Under such circumstances, how the Commander-in-Chief,
under Congress, of the forces of the United States could re-create these
defunct States, and make it mandatory on Congress to receive their
delegates, has always appeared to us one of those mysteries of unreason
which require faculties either above or below humanity to accept. In
addition to this fundamental objection, there was the further one, that
almost all of the delegates were Rebels presidentially pardoned into
"loyal men," were elected with the idea of forcing Congress to repeal
the test oath, and were incapacitated to be legislators even if they had
been sent from loyal States. The few who were loyal men in the sense
that they had not served the Rebel government, were still palpably
elected by constituents who had; and the character of the constituency
is as legitimate a subject of Congressional inquiry as the character of
the representative.
It not being true, then, that the twenty-two hundred thousand loyal
voters who placed Mr. Johnson in office, and whom he betrayed, have no
means by their representatives in Congress to exert a controlling power
in the reconstruction of the Rebel communities, the question comes up as
to the conditions which Congress has imposed. It always appeared to us
that the true measure of conciliation, of security, of mercy, of
justice, was one which would combine the principle of universal amnesty,
or an amnesty nearly universal, with that of universal, or at least of
impartial suffrage. In regard to amnesty, the amendment to the
Constitution which Congress has passed disqualifies no Rebels from
voting, and only disqualifies them from holding office when they have
happened to add perjury to treason. In regard to suffrage, it makes it
for the political interest of the South to be just to its colored
citizens, by basing representation on voters, and not on population, and
thus places the indulgence of class prejudices and hatreds under the
penalty of a corresponding loss of political power in the Electoral
College and the National House of Representatives. If the Rebel States
should be restored without this amendment becoming a part of the
Constitution, then the recent Slave States will have thirty Presidential
Electors and thirty members of the House of Representatives in virtue of
a population they disfranchise, and the vote of a Rebel white in South
Carolina will carry with it more than double the power of a loyal white
in Massachusetts or Ohio. The only ground on which this disparity can be
defended is, that as "one Southerner is more than a match for two
Yankees," he has an inherent, continuous, unconditioned right to have
this superiority recognized at the ballot-box. Indeed, the injustice of
this is so monstrous, that the Johnson orators find it more convenient
to decry all conditions of representation than to meet the
incontrovertible reasons for exacting the condition which bases
representation on voters. Not to make it a part of the Constitution
would be, in Mr. Shellabarger's vivid illustration, to allow "that Lee's
vote should have double the elective power of Grant's; Semmes's double
that of Farragut's; _Booth's--did he live--double that of Lincoln's, his
victim!_"
It is also to be considered that these thirty votes would, in almost all
future sessions of Congress, decide the fate of the most important
measures. In 1862 the Republicans, as Congress is now constituted, only
had a majority of twenty votes. In alliance with the Northern Democratic
party, the South with these thirty votes might repeal the Civil Rights
Bill, the principle of which is embodied in the proposed amendment. It
might assume the Rebel debt, which is repudiated in that amendment. It
might even repudiate the Federal debt, which is affirmed in that
amendment. We are so accustomed to look at the Rebel debt as dead beyond
all power of resurrection, as to forget that it amounts, with the
valuation of the emancipated slaves, to some four thousand millions of
dollars. If the South and its Northern Democratic allies should come
into power, there is a strong probability that a measure would be
brought in to assume at least a portion of this debt,--say two thousand
millions. The Southern members would be nearly a unit for assumption,
and the Northern Democratic members would certainly be exposed to the
most frightful temptation that legislators ever had to resist. Suppose
it were necessary to buy fifty members at a million of dollars apiece,
that sum would only be two and a half per cent of the whole. Suppose it
were necessary to give them ten millions apiece, even that would only be
a deduction of twenty-five per cent from a claim worthless without their
votes. The bribery might be conducted in such a way as to elude
discovery, if not suspicion, and the measure would certainly be
trumpeted all over the North as the grandest of all acts of
statesmanlike "conciliation," binding the South to the Union in
indissoluble bonds of interest. The amendment renders the conversion of
the Rebel debt into the most enormous of all corruption funds an
impossibility.
But the character and necessity of the amendment are too well understood
to need explanation, enforcement, or defence. If it, or some more
stringent one, be not adopted, the loyal people will be tricked out of
the fruits of the war they have waged at the expense of such unexampled
sacrifices of treasure and blood. It never will be adopted unless it be
practically made a condition of the restoration of the Rebel States; and
for the unconditioned restoration of those States the President, through
his most trusted supporters, has indicated his intention to venture a
_coup d'état_. This threat has failed doubly of its purpose. The timid,
whom it was expected to frighten, it has simply scared into the
reception of the idea that the only way to escape civil war is by the
election of over a hundred and twenty Republican Representatives to the
Fortieth Congress. The courageous, whom it was intended to defy, it has
only exasperated into more strenuous efforts against the insolent
renegade who had the audacity to make it.
Everywhere in the loyal States there is an uprising of the people only
paralleled by the grand uprising of 1861. The President's plan of
reconstruction having passed from a policy into a conspiracy, his chief
supporters are now not so much his partisans as his accomplices; and
against him and his accomplices the people will this autumn indignantly
record the most overwhelming of verdicts.
ART.
MARSHALL'S PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
When we consider the conditions under which the art of successful
line-engraving is attained, the amount and quality of artistic knowledge
implied, the years of patient, unwearied application imperiously
demanded, the numerous manual difficulties to be overcome, and the
technical skill to be acquired, it is not surprising that the names of
so few engravers should be pre-eminent and familiar.
In our own country, at least, the instinct and habit of the people do
not favor the growth and perfection of an art only possible under such
conditions.
So fully and satisfactorily, however, have these demands been met in
Marshall's line-engraving of the head of Abraham Lincoln, executed after
Mr. Marshall's own painting, that we are induced to these preliminary
thoughts as much by a sense of national pride as of delight and
surprise.
Our admiration of the engraving is first due to its value as a likeness;
for it is only when the heart rests from a full and satisfied
contemplation of the face endeared to us all, that we can regard it for
its artistic worth.
Mr. Marshall did not need this last work, to rank him at the head of
American engravers; for his portraits of Washington and Fenimore Cooper
had done that already; but it has lifted him to a place with the
foremost engravers of the world.
The greatness and glory of his success, in this instance, are to be
measured by the inherent difficulties in the subject itself.
The intellectual and physical traits of Abraham Lincoln were such as the
world had never seen before. Original, peculiar, and anomalous, they
seemed incapable of analysis and classification.
While the keen, comprehensive intellect within that broad, grand
forehead was struggling with the great problems of national fate, other
faculties of the same organization, strongly marked in the lower
features of his face, seemed to be making light of the whole matter.
His character and the physical expression of it were unique, and yet
made up of the most complex elements;--simple, yet incomprehensible;
strong, yet gentle; inflexible, yet conciliating; human, yet most rare;
the strangest, and yet for all in all the most lovable, character in
history.
To represent this man, to embody these characteristics, was the work
prescribed the artist. Instead of being fetters, these contradictions
seem to have been incentives to the artist. Justice to himself, as to an
American who loved Lincoln, and justice to the great man, the truest
American of his time, appear also to have been his inspiration.
Neglected now, this golden opportunity might be lost forever, and the
future be haunted by an ideal only, and never be familiarized with the
plain, good face we knew. For what could the future make of all these
caricatures and uncouth efforts at portraiture, rendered only more
grotesque when stretched upon the rack of a thousand canvases? No less a
benefactor to art than to humanity is he who shall deliver the world of
these.
The artist has chosen, with admirable judgment, a quiet, restful,
familiar phase of Mr. Lincoln's life, with the social and genial
sentiments of his nature at play, rather than some more impressive and
startling hour of his public life, when a victory was gained, or an
immortal sentence uttered at Gettysburg or the Capitol, or when, as the
great Emancipator, he walked with his liberated children through the
applauding streets of Richmond. It was tempting to paint him as
President, but triumphant to represent him as a man.
Though the face is wanting in the crowning glory of the dramatic, the
romantic, the picturesque,--elements so fascinating to an artist,--we
still feel no loss in the absence of these; for Mr. Marshall has found
abundant material in the rich and varied qualities that Mr. Lincoln did
possess, and has treated them with the loftier sense of justice and
truth, he has employed no adventitious agencies to give brilliancy or
emphasis to any salient point in the character of the man he portrays;
he has treated Mr. Lincoln as he found him; he has interpreted him as he
would have interpreted himself; in inspiration, in execution, and in
result, he thought of none other, he labored for none other, he has
given us none other, than simple, honest Abraham Lincoln.
Were all the biographies and estimates of the President's character to
be lost, it would seem as if, from this picture alone, the
distinguishing qualities of his head and heart might be saved to the
knowledge of the future; for a rarer exhibition seems impossible of the
power of imparting inner spiritual states to outward physical
expression.
As a work of art, we repeat, this is beyond question the finest instance
of line-engraving yet executed on this continent. Free from carelessness
or coarseness, it is yet strong and emphatic; exquisitely finished, yet
without painful over-elaboration; with no weary monotony of parallel
lines to fill a given space, and no unrelieved masses of shade merely
because here must the shadow fall.
As a likeness, it is complete and final. Coming generations will know
Abraham Lincoln by this picture, and will tenderly and lovingly regard
it; for all that art could do to save and perpetuate this lamented man
has here been done. What it lacks, art is incapable to express; what it
has lost, memory is powerless to restore.
There is, at least, some temporary solace to a bereaved country in
this,--that so much has been saved from the remorseless demands of
Death; though the old grief will ever come back to its still uncomforted
heart, when it turns to that tomb by the Western prairie, within whose
sacred silence so much sweetness and kindly sympathy and unaffected love
have passed away, and the strange pathos, that we could not understand,
and least of all remove, has faded forever from those sorrowful eyes.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
_Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. The
Story of a Picture._ By F. B. CARPENTER. New York: Hurd and
Houghton.
The grandeur which can survive proximity was peculiarly Abraham
Lincoln's. Had that great and simple hero had a valet,--it is hard to
conceive of him as so attended,--he must still have been a hero even to
the eye grown severe in dusting clothes and brushing shoes. Indeed,
first and last, he was subjected to very critical examination by the
valet-spirit throughout the world; and he seems to have passed it
triumphantly, for all our native valets, North and South, as well as
those of the English press, have long since united in honoring him.
We see him in this book of Mr. Carpenter's to that advantage which
perfect unaffectedness and sincerity can never lose. It is certainly a
very pathetic figure, however, that the painter presents us, and not to
be contemplated without sadness and that keen sense of personal loss
which we all felt in the death of Abraham Lincoln. During the time that
Mr. Carpenter was making studies for his picture of the President
signing the Emancipation Proclamation, he was in daily contact with
him,--saw him in consultation with his Cabinet, at play with his
children, receiving office-seekers of all kinds, granting many favors to
poor and friendless people, snubbing Secession insolence, and bearing
patiently much impertinence from every source,--jesting, laughing,
lamenting. It is singular that, in all these aspects of his character,
there is no want of true dignity, though there is an utter absence of
state,--and that we behold nothing of the man Lincoln was once doubted
to be, but only a person of noble simplicity, cautious but steadfast,
shrinking from none of the burdens that almost crushed him, profoundly
true to his faith in the people, while surveying the awful calamity of
the war with
"Anxious, pitying eyes,
As if he always listened to the sighs
Of the goaded world."
We have read Mr. Carpenter's book through with an interest chiefly due,
we believe, to the subject; for though the author had the faculty to
observe and to note characteristic and striking things, he has not the
literary art to present them adequately. His style is compact of the
manner of the local reporters and the Sunday-school books. If he depicts
a pathetic scene, he presently farces it by adding that "there was not a
dry eye among those that witnessed it," and goody-goody dwells in the
spirit and letter of all his attempts to portray the religious character
of the President. It is greatly to his credit, however, that his
observation is employed with discretion and delicacy; and as he rarely
lapses from good taste concerning things to be mentioned, we readily
forgive him his want of grace in recounting the incidents which go to
form his entertaining and valuable book.
_Inside: a Chronicle of Secession._ By GEORGE F. HARRINGTON.
New York: Harper and Brothers.
The author of this novel tells us that it was written in the heart of
the rebellious territory during the late war, and that his wife
habitually carried the manuscript to church with her in her pocket,
while on one occasion he was obliged to bury it in the ground to
preserve it from the insidious foe. These facts, in themselves
startling, appear yet more extraordinary on perusal of the volume, in
which there seems to be nothing of perilous value. Nevertheless, to the
ill-regulated imagination of the Rebels, this novel might have appeared
a very dangerous thing, to be kept from ever seeing the light in the
North by all the means in their power; and we are not ready to say that
Mr. Harrington's precautions, though unusual, were excessive. It is true
that we see no reason why he should not have kept the material in his
mind, and tranquilly written it out after the war was over.
Let us not, however, give too slight an idea of the book's value because
the Preface is silly. The story is sluggish, it must be confessed, and
does not in the least move us. But the author has made a very careful
study of his subject, and shows so genuine a feeling for character and
manner that we accept his work as a faithful picture of the life he
attempts to portray. Should he write another fiction, he will probably
form his style less visibly upon that of Thackeray, though it is
something in his favor that he betrays admiration for so great a master
even by palpable imitation; and we hope he will remember that a story,
however slender, must be coherent. In the present novel, we think the
characters of Colonel Juggins and his wife done with masterly touches;
and General Lamum, politician pure and simple, is also excellent.
Brother Barker, of the hard-shell type, is less original, though good;
while Captain Simmons, Colonel Ret Roberts, and other village idlers and
great men, seem admirably true to nature. Except for some absurd
melodrama, the tone of the book is quiet and pleasant, and there is here
and there in it a vein of real pathos and humor.
_Royal Truths._ By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Boston: Ticknor and
Fields.
We imagine that most readers, in turning over the pages of this volume,
will not be greatly struck by the novelty of the truths urged. Indeed,
they are very old truths, and they contain the precepts which we all
know and neglect. Except that the present preacher was qualified to
illustrate them with original force and clearness, he might well have
left them untouched. As it is, however, we think that every one who
reads a page in the book will learn to honor the faculty that presents
them. It is not because Mr. Beecher reproves hatred, false-witness,
lust, envy, and covetousness, that he is so successful in his office. We
all do this, and dislike sin in our neighbors; but it is his power of
directly reproving these evils in each one of us that gives his words so
great weight. He of course does this by varying means and with varying
effect. Here we have detached passages from many different
discourses,--not invariably selected with perfect judgment, but
affording for this reason a better idea of his range and capacity. That
given is not always of his best; but, for all this, it may have been the
best for some of those who heard it. In the changing topics and style of
the innumerable extracts in this volume, we find passages of pure
sublimity, of solemn and pathetic eloquence, of flower-like grace and
sweetness, followed by exhortations apparently modelled upon those of
Mr. Chadband, but doubtless comforting and edifying to Mrs. Snagsby in
the congregation, and not, we suppose, without use to Mrs. Snagsby in
the parlor where she sits down to peruse the volume on Sunday afternoon.
For according to the story which Mr. Beecher tells his publishers in a
very pleasant prefatory letter, this compilation was made in England,
where it attained great popularity among those who never heard the
preacher, and who found satisfaction in the first-rate or the
second-rate, without being moved by the arts of oratory. Indeed, the
book is one that must everywhere be welcome, both for its manner and for
its matter. The application of the "Truths" is generally enforced by a
felicitous apologue or figure; in some cases the lesson is conveyed in a
beautiful metaphor standing alone. The extracts are brief, and the
point, never wanting, is moral, not doctrinal.
_The Language of Flowers._ Edited by MISS ILDREWE. Boston:
De Vries, Ibarra, & Co.
Margaret Fuller said that everybody liked gossip, and the only
difference was in the choice of a subject. A bookful of gossip about
flowers--their loves and hates, thoughts and feelings, genealogy and
cousinships--is certainly always attractive. Who does not like to hear
that Samphire comes from Saint-Pierre, and Tansy from Athanasie, and
that Jerusalem Artichokes are a kind of sunflower, whose baptismal name
is a corruption of _girasole_, and simply describes the flower's love
for the sun? Does this explain all the Jerusalems which are scattered
through our popular flora,--as Jerusalem Beans and Jerusalem Cherries?
The common theory has been that the sons of the Puritans, by a slight
theological reaction, called everything which was not quite genuine on
week-days by that name which sometimes wearied them on Sundays.
It is pleasant also to be reminded that our common Yarrow (_Achillea
millefolium_) dates back to Achilles, who used it to cure his wounded
friend, and that Mint is simply Menthe, transformed to a plant by the
jealous Proserpine. It is refreshing to know that Solomon's Seal was so
named by reason of the marks on its root; and that this root, according
to the old herbalists, "stamped while it is fresh and greene, and
applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruse, black
or blew spots gotten by falls, or woman's wilfulness in stumbling upon
their hasty husband's fists, or such like." It was surely a generous
thing in Solomon, who set his seal of approbation upon the rod, to
furnish in that same signet a balm for injuries like these.
This pretty gift-book is the first really American contribution to the
language of flowers. It has many graceful and some showy illustrations;
its floral emblems are not all exotic; and though the editor's
appellation may at first seem so, a simple application of the laws of
anagram will reveal a name quite familiar, in America, to all lovers of
things horticultural.
_The American Annual Cyclopædia and Register of Important
Events of the Year 1865._ New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Several articles in this volume give it an unusual interest and value.
The paper on Cholera is not the kind of reading to which one could have
turned with cheerfulness last July, from a repast of summer vegetables
and hurried fruits; nor can that on Trichinosis be pleasant to the
friend of pork; but they are both clearly and succinctly written, and
will contribute to the popular understanding of the dangers which they
discuss.
The Cyclopædia, however, has its chief merit in those articles which
present _resumés_ of the past year's events in politics, literature,
science, and art. The one on the last-named subject is less complete
than could be wished, and is written in rather slovenly English; but the
article on literature is very full and satisfactory. A great mass of
biographical matter is presented under the title of "Obituaries," but
more extended notices of more distinguished persons are given under the
proper names. Among the latter are accounts of the lives and public
services of Lincoln, Everett, Palmerston, Cobden, and Corwin; and of the
lives and literary works of Miss Bremer, Mrs. Gaskell, Hildreth,
Proudhon, etc. The article on Corwin is too slight for the subject, and
the notice of Hildreth, who enjoyed a great repute both in this country
and in Europe, is scant and inadequate. Under the title of "Army
Operations," a fair synopsis of the history of the last months of the
war is given; and, as a whole, the Cyclopædia is a valuable, if not
altogether complete, review of the events of 1865.
_History of the Atlantic Telegraph._ By HENRY M. FIELD, D.
D. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
Why Columbus should have been at the trouble to sail from the Old World
in order to find a nearer path to it, as our author states in his
opening chapter, he will probably explain in the future edition in which
he will chastise the occasionally ambitious writing of this. His book is
a most interesting narrative of all the events in the history of
telegraphic communication between Europe and America, and has the double
claim upon the reader of an important theme and an attractive treatment
of it. Now that the great nervous cord running from one centre of the
world's life to the other is quick with constant sensation, the wonder
of its existence may fade from our minds; and it is well for us to
remember how many failures--involving all the virtue of triumph--went
before the final success. And it cannot but be forever gratifying to our
national pride, that, although the idea of the Atlantic telegraph
originated in Newfoundland, and was mainly realized through the patience
of British enterprise, yet the first substantial encouragement which it
received was from Americans, and that it was an American whose heroic
perseverance so united his name with this idea that Cyrus W. Field and
the Atlantic cable are not to be dissociated in men's minds in this or
any time.
Our author has not only very interestingly reminded us of all this, but
he has done it with a good judgment which we must applaud. His brother
was the master-spirit of the whole enterprise; but, while he has
contrived to do him perfect justice, he has accomplished the end with an
unfailing sense of the worth of the constant support and encouragement
given by others.
The story is one gratifying to our national love of adventurous material
and scientific enterprise, as well as to our national pride. We hardly
know, however, if it should be a matter of regret that neither on the
one account nor on the other are we able to receive the facts of the
cable's success and existence with the effusion with which we hailed
them in 1858. Blighting De Sauty, suspense, and scepticism succeeded the
rapture and pyrotechnics of those joyful days; and in the mean time we
have grown so much that to be electrically united with England does not
impart to us the fine thrill that the hope of it once did. Indeed, the
jubilation over the cable's success seems at last to have been chiefly
on the side of the Englishmen, who found our earlier enthusiasm rather
absurd, but who have since learned to value us, and just now can
scarcely make us compliments enough.
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