taste, even to a poet so great, a person so unusual, a man so heroic and
loving, I answer, that when on grounds of taste foes withhold
detraction, friends may withhold eulogy; and that at any rate I
recognize no reason for keeping back just words of love and reverence
when, as in this case, they must glow upon the sullen foil of the
printed hatreds of ten years. To that long record of hostility, I am
only glad and proud to be able to oppose this record of affection.—And,
with respect to the crowning enmity of the Secretary of the Interior,
let no person misjudge the motives upon which I denounce it. Personally,
apart from this act, I have nothing against Mr. Harlan. He is of my own
party; and my politics have been from my youth essentially the same as
his own. I do not know him; I have never even seen him; I criticise no
attitude nor action of his life but this; and I criticise this with as
little personality as I can give to an action so personal. I withhold,
too, as far as I can, every expression of resentment; and no one who
knew all I know of this matter could fail to credit me with singular and
great moderation. For, behind what I have related, there is another
history, every incident of which I have recovered from the obscurity to
which it was confided; and, as I think of it, it is with difficulty that
I restrain my just indignation. Instead of my comparatively cold and
sober treatment, this transaction deserves rather the pitiless exposure
and the measureless, stern anger and red-hot steel scourge of Juvenal.
But I leave untold its darkest details; and, waiving every other
consideration, I rest solely and squarely on the general indignity and
injury this action offers to intellectual liberty. I claim that to expel
an author from a public office and subject him to public contumely,
solely because he has published a book which no one can declare immoral
without declaring all the grand books immoral, is to affix a penalty to
thought, and to obstruct the freedom of letters. I declare this act the
audacious captain of a series of acts and a style of opinions whose
tendency and effect throughout Christendom is to dwarf and degrade
literature, and to make great books impossible, except under pains of
martyrdom. As such, I arraign it before every liberal and thoughtful
mind. I denounce it as a sinister precedent; as a ban upon the free
action of genius; as a logical insult to all commanding literature; and
as in every way a most serious and heinous wrong. Difference of opinion
there may and must be upon the topics which in this letter I have
grouped around it, but upon the act itself there can be none. As I drag
it up here into the sight of the world, I call upon every scholar, every
man of letters, every editor, every good fellow everywhere who wields
the pen, to make common cause with me in rousing upon it the full
tempest of reprobation it deserves. I remember Tennyson, a spirit of
vengeance over the desecrated grave of Moore; I think of Scott rolling
back the tide of obloquy from Byron; I see Addison gilding the
blackening fame of Swift; I mark Southampton befriending Shakespeare; I
recall Du Bellay enshielding Rabelais; I behold Hutten fortressing
Luther; here is Boccaccio lifting the darkness from Dante, and
scattering flame on his foes in Florence; this is Bembo protecting
Pomponatius; that is Grostête enfolding Roger Bacon from the monkish
fury; there, covered with light, is Aristophanes defending Æschylus: and
if there lives aught of that old chivalry of letters, which in all ages
has sprung to the succor and defence of genius, I summon it to act the
part of honor and duty upon a wrong which, done to a single member of
the great confraternity of literature, is done to all, and which flings
insult and menace upon every immortal page that dares transcend the
wicked heart or the constricted brain. I send this letter to Victor
Hugo, for its passport through Europe; I send it to John Stuart Mill, to
Newman, and Matthew Arnold, for England; I send it to Emerson and
Wendell Phillips; to Charles Sumner; to every Senator and Representative
in Congress; to all our journalists; to the whole American people; to
every one who guards the freedom of letters and the liberty of thought
throughout the civilized world. God grant that not in vain upon this
outrage do I invoke the judgment of the mighty spirit of literature, and
the fires of every honest heart!
WILLIAM DOUGLAS O’CONNOR,
Of Massachusetts.
LIST OF BOOKS
PUBLISHED BY
BUNCE AND HUNTINGTON,
No. 459, BROOME ST.,
(WEST OF BROADWAY,) NEW YORK.
GOLDEN LEAVES FROM THE AMERICAN POETS. Collected by JOHN W. S. HOWS.
16mo, 550 pp., tinted paper,
vellum cloth, gilt tops, bevelled boards $2 50
Extra cloth, full gilt sides and edges 3 00
Half morocco, or half calf 3 50
Morocco antique, or extra gilt 5 00
GOLDEN LEAVES FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Collected by JOHN W. S. HOWS.
Uniform with “Golden Leaves from the American Poets.”
Vellum cloth, gilt top $2 50
Extra cloth, full gilt sides and edges 3 00
Half morocco, or half calf 3 50
Morocco antique, or extra gilt 5 00
GOLDEN LEAVES FROM THE DRAMATIC POETS. Collected and arranged by JOHN
W. S. HOWS. Uniform with “Golden Leaves” from the British and American
Poets. 16mo, 576 pp.,
vellum cloth, gilt top $2 50
Extra cloth, full gilt sides and edges 3 00
Half morocco, or half calf 3 50
Morocco antique, or extra gilt 5 00
⁂ _The “Golden Leaves” series are now put up in sets in boxes,
but the volumes are also sold separately. Combined they afford,
it is believed, the most complete and desirable selection of
British and American poetry that has yet been made; while the
elegant appearance of the volumes commends them to persons of
taste and culture._
THE MECHANICS’, MACHINISTS’, AND ENGINEERS’ PRACTICAL BOOK OF
REFERENCE. By CHARLES HASLETT, Civil Engineer. Edited by Professor
CHARLES W. HACKLEY, late Professor of Mathematics in Columbia College,
New York. A new edition. 18mo, 518 pp.,
pocket form, morocco tucks $2 50
PARSON AND PEOPLE; or, Incidents in the Every-Day Life of a
Clergyman. By the Rev. EDWARD SPOONER, M. A., Vicar of Heston,
Middlesex. From the Second London Edition. With a Preface by an American
Clergyman.
16mo, cloth, bevelled, with an Illustration $1 25
WHAT TO DO WITH THE COLD MUTTON. A Book of Réchauffés. Together with
numerous approved receipts for the kitchen of a gentleman of moderate
income.
16mo, cloth, 218 pp. 80 cts.
This volume, while including the usual range of receipts, is of special
economical value, as affording valuable directions for re-serving cold
dishes.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN; an Horatian Ode. By Richard Henry
Stoddard.
8vo, paper 25 cts.
THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL. A Record of the Life, Assassination, and
Obsequies of the Martyred President. Containing a sketch of President
Lincoln’s Life; an accurate report of the Assassination; the particulars
of the Obsequies; the principal Funeral Orations; and the Eulogiums
pronounced, both in America and in Europe. Portrait and vignette title.
8vo, 288 pp., extra cloth, bevelled boards $2 00
SOLDIERS’ LETTERS. A Collection of Letters from Soldiers, both
Officers and Privates, relating their Personal Adventures and Sufferings
in the Great Rebellion. With vignette title.
12mo, cloth, 472 pp. $2 00
OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. By HARRIET MARTINEAU.
16mo, 48 pp., paper 20 cts.
TWO MEN; a Novel. By ELIZABETH STODDARD. 12mo,
291 pp., cloth $1 50
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and type-setting errors have been corrected without note.
Hyphenation and archaic spellings have been retained as in the original.