The eye has opinions of its own. Pour into the mind, by all its other
avenues, the most minute and authentic knowledge of a man, and, when you
_see him_, your opinion is more or less changed or modified. This is our
apology for adding another to the numberless descriptions of Kossuth.
Having been favored with an opportunity to stand near him during the
delivery of one of his most stirring speeches, we found that our
previous impression of him was altered, or, rather, perhaps, somewhat
added to. Trifling as the difference of our view from that of others may
be, Kossuth is a star about whom the astronomy can scarce be too minute;
and our distant readers, who are in the habit of hearing of new planets
from us, may be willing to see how also the Magyar looks, through the
small telescope of our quill.
With our distant readers mainly in view, we shall be excused for
describing Kossuth’s surroundings, as well as himself, with a
particularity unnecessary for the city reader.
It has been difficult, without some official errand, to approach near
enough to the Magyar to distinguish the finer lines of his face, and we
were beginning to despair of this privilege when the Delegation arrived
from Baltimore, and, from friends among them, we received an invitation
to go in at the presentation of the _silver book_. This, we may
anticipatorily explain, was the “freedom of the city” in a written
address, of folio size, and bound between two leaves of massive silver;
the whole enclosed in a case of red velvet. It was suitably and
creditably magnificent; and its history would not all be told without
mentioning that it received a kiss from Madame Kossuth—Mr. Brantz Mayer
having mindfully and courteously presented it to that lady—the
Governor’s Secretary insisting on taking charge of it—and she refusing
to release it before pressing it to her lips. Baltimore’s blood will
warm with the compliment.
On reaching the Irving House at the hour when the silver book was to be
presented, we found the hotel in a state of siege, inside and out.
Broadway was packed with people, and the staircases of the hotel were
hardly passable. One Hungarian officer, in brilliant uniform, stood
sentry at the drawing-room door, and here and there a Magyar hat, with
its go-against-the-wind-looking black feather, wound through the crowd;
but by the numerous “highly respectables” in body coats and important
expressions of countenance, there were evidently uncounted Committees
waiting to get audience _within_, while flags and bands of music
indicated the more popular deputations whose hopes were on the balcony
_without_.
There seemed little chance of any special reception by the Magyar, when
Howard sent word that he could give the Baltimore Delegation his own
private parlor, where Kossuth would presently come to them. We took
advantage of the “presently” to get a look into the street, from one of
the front windows. It was a sea of upturned faces, with hats all falling
one way, like shadows—Kossuth the light. He stood on the balcony. The
many colored flags of the “European Democracy” throbbed over the
crowd—Italians, Germans, Frenchmen, Poles—the refugees of all nations
standing gazing on the prophet of Liberty. It was a scene, and had a
meaning, for history. Yet it was but the _one hour’s event, in a day all
occupied with such_. A band of one hundred of the clergy had linked an
imperishable testimonial to _the hour before_. The reply to the
Baltimore Delegation contained truths that will radiate through all time
_from the hour after_. Truly, a man’s life may be so high and so deep,
that, to measure it by its length, is meaningless.
The Baltimoreans made their way to the room appointed, which was
immediately crowded by privileged spectators, and reporters for the
press, with a small party of ladies in the corner. We were kindly urged
to take our place directly behind Judge Le Grand, who was the central
figure of the Delegation group, and, as Kossuth stood but four or five
feet distant, during his reply to the addresses, and with his eye upon
the Judge almost unvaryingly, we were so fortunate as to see him with
every advantage of the closest observation.
Madam Kossuth was presently introduced with Madam Pulzky, her companion,
and seated a little in advance of the lady spectators. She is an
invalid, pale and slightly bent—her figure fragile, and her expression
of face a mingled imprint of bodily suffering and conscious belonging to
greatness. Her countenance, we observed, though earnestly attentive, was
profoundly tranquil, alike through the more even flow of her husband’s
eloquence and its overwhelming and impassioned outbreaks.
The crowd near the door parted at last, and Kossuth entered. The
gentleman on whose arm he leaned led him to the centre of the room, and
presented him to the Delegation.
The reader must remember the tumultuous scene, of which Kossuth had been
the centre a moment before, when we say that he entered and was
presented to the Committee, with a face as calm as if he had just risen
from his morning prayer. He bowed, with grave and deliberate deference,
at each introduction. It had been communicated to the gentlemen in the
room, that, from the injury of movement to his chest after the
hemorrhage of the morning, he must be excused from shaking hands, and he
bowed only—assuming the attitude of a listener, with an immediate
earnestness which showed that he felt little strength for more than the
main purpose of the interview. He stood in the centre of the room,
motionless, and the reading of the Addresses proceeded.
The surprise of a man who had placed himself at a window to watch for
the coming of a stranger, but discovers, after a while, that the
stranger has been for some time enjoying the welcome of the household
within, may vaguely express the feeling to which we awoke, after looking
for five minutes at Kossuth. He had been, from the first instant, in
full possession of our heart, and yet the eyes that we had set to
scrutinize him had not noted a single feature. It was the strongest
instance we had ever experienced, of what we knew to be true, by lesser
examples, that the soul, _with neighborhood only_, makes recognitions of
what could neither be painted nor sculptured, neither uttered nor
written. His mere _presence_ opened to him the door, told who he was,
and set the heart, like Mary, to the washing of his feet. We loved and
revered the man—why, or with what beginning or progress, we could not
have explained. But—let us describe what we afterwards called upon the
eye to take note of.
Kossuth is of medium height, with hollow chest and the forward-brought
shoulders of a sedentary life. His head is set firmly, not proudly or
aristocratically erect, upon his neck. He stood so long and so
tranquilly immovable in single postures, that it raised a question in
our mind whether he could be of the nervous construction which men of
great intellect oftenest are; and, on looking at the hand, that tablet
of nervous action, we saw that he was not. The broad smooth back of it
was unwritten with needless suffering, and the thumb joint projected,
like that of a man used to manual labor. It was a hand, had we seen its
like elsewhere, from whose owner we should have expected nothing more
poetical or heroic than a well-considered vote. We found a subsequent
confirmation of this, we may mention, in the singular immovableness of
the sockets, and lids of his eyes, during the eloquent outpourings of
his heart which followed. When his lips were compressed, and a quivering
movement in his chin showed that emotion was restrained with difficulty,
his eye was immovably serene, and its largely spread lids were as
tranquil as the sky around a moon unclouded. We were strongly impressed
with these outer signs of the two natures of Kossuth. He has a heart
like other men—his exquisitely moulded chin and lips of exceeding
physical beauty and expression sufficiently show. But, from all that can
reach these, his intellect is islanded away. The upper part of his face
is calmly separate, not only from the movement, but from the look, of
emotion. It is a mind unreachable by nerves—a brain that thinks on, as
the sun pursues its way across the heavens, unhindered by the clouds
that may gather beneath. A face, in the lower part of which, sensuous
beauty is so remarkably complete—and, around the temples, and beneath
the brow of which, is so stamped the divine impress of an intellect high
above weakness and human by limit only—we had never before seen.
It was quite evident that Kossuth had entered the room, simply to fulfil
a duty—feeling unequal to it, from his illness of the morning and the
fatigues he had already undergone—and with no idea of making more than
the briefest acknowledgment of courtesy for what he should hear from the
Committee. Even his dress showed that he was not prepared for “an
occasion.” He wore a brown cut-away coat, (which must have been selected
for him by a waiter, sent to a ready made clothes shop with a verbal
description of the gentleman to be fitted,) a black waistcoat buttoned
to the throat, no shirt visible, and trousers of uninfluenceable
salt-and-pepper. That the mien and bearing of an Oriental gentleman, as
well as the dignity of a prophet, were as fully and impressively
recognizable through these Edward-P.-Fox-ables, as through the braided
cloak and under the black plume of the Magyar, is a standard, though a
homely one, by which some may be helped to an estimate of the man.
We have seen repeated mention of the “perpetual smile” of Kossuth. This
conveys a wrong impression. He may smile often and easily when receiving
introductions or bowing to the cheers of a crowd; but it is a
demonstration which, habitually, he keeps very much in reserve, and
which, of all the visible weapons of his eloquence, is the most rarely
and aptly introduced, the most captivating and effective. We are
inclined to think his heavy mustache accidentally favors this, by aiding
the unexpectedness of the smile, and by leaving its fading glow to the
imagination—but, at moments when the lips of another orator would be
cloud-wrapt in the darkest expression of solemnity, a gleam, like the
breaking away for a transfiguration, comes suddenly over the lips of
Kossuth—as beautiful and inspired a smile certainly as was ever seen on
the face of a human being—and the effect is in the peculiar triumph
that he achieves. Love irresistibly follows conviction.
As we said before, Kossuth had evidently no idea of making the speech
which was drawn from him by the Baltimore Delegation—drawn from him, we
think, by the superior cast of the gentlemen who formed it, and by the
fitness, both of the manner and accompaniments of the honors they paid
him. He spoke altogether extemporaneously, and with difficulty and
hesitation, at first; but, with one or two brilliant and successful
illustrations, his words grew more fluent, and, in the following
passage, he became fully and gloriously aroused. It was the first
mention he had yet made to the world of his intention to return to
Hungary _a soldier_!
“As for the future, I shall devote my life to the resurrection
of my native land. I will endeavor to wrest Hungary from the
power of tyrants and despots, to procure for her her sovereign
rights, and the fundamental rights which belong to every nation.
Should Providence assign me a place in the accomplishment of
these great designs, I will take care that they shall receive no
injury from me. I will here remark that I have always been
extremely anxious not to assume or take upon my humble shoulders
any duty which I had not a positive conviction would not answer
me, or which I could not perform. Though I was never in actual
military service, I was ready to help my country in every way I
could. I was not able to be in every place at the same time, and
I had not the boldness to take the practical direction of the
military operations because I feared I was not sufficiently
familiar with military tactics to do so. I thought that if it so
happened that any thing should go amiss, and my people be
defeated, that I should not only be condemned by my countrymen,
but that my conscience would torture me with the feeling, that
if I had not undertook to do a thing which I did not understand,
the fall of my country would not have taken place. This was my
conviction. _I was not master of the practice and strategy of
war, and I gave the cause of my country thus far into other
hands._ I have seen that cause destroyed, and become a failure,
and I weep for my country, not for my own misfortunes. _Since I
have been in exile I have endeavored to improve my intellect
from the movements of the past, and to prepare myself for the
future_, and I rely on my people, whose confidence in me is not
shaken by my misfortunes, nor broken by my calumniators, who
have misrepresented me. _I have had all in my own hands once,
and if I get in the same position again, I will act._ I will not
become a Napoleon nor an Alexander, and labor for the sake of my
own ambition, but I will labor for freedom.”
These are not his words, though they embody the sentiments expressed.
His own language was as much finer, and as different from this, as a
poem is from its story told in prose. The reporters are not to blame,
taking their notes standing amid a crowd as they do—but, (let us say
here,) the public should give Kossuth credit for incomparably more
eloquent speeches than they read. An admirable passage, left out in what
we have quoted, for instance, followed the allusion he made to his
disappointment in Gœrgey, the traitor, the shock it gave to his belief
in the power of one man to read the soul of another, and the lonely
_trust in himself only_, to which it had driven him. To the words and
the manner with which he repeated the declaration that he _believed in
himself_, we do not think we shall ever hear the parallel for impressive
eloquence. Those who heard it would believe in Kossuth—against the
testimony of angels.
Kossuth is too heroic a man to be over-cautious; and, from the kind of
freshly impulsive and chivalric energy with which he spoke of holding
the army in his own hand on his return, we were impressed with the idea
that this evidently unpremeditated giving of shape to his thought for
the future had another element in its momentum. _It was the reading
aloud of a newly turned over leaf of his nature._ In prison, he says, he
prepared himself for the next struggle of Hungary by making “the science
and strategy of war” a study. Profound and careful, of course, must be
the _theory_ of war—but its _practice_ is with trumpet and banner; and
ever so abstruse though the _tactics_ are, they are tried even for the
holiest cause, with those accompaniments, of personal daring and danger,
which have, to all lofty minds, a charm irresistible. Of the statesman
and hero united in Kossuth, the _statesman_ has been more wanted,
hitherto—but there is a call, now, for the _hero_—and, if he betrays
joy and eagerness long suppressed, (as we mean to say he did,) in
answering that he is ready, what American will “wish he had been more
careful?”
In farther illustration of what we are saying, the reader will permit us
to change the scene of our sketch, and speak of Kossuth as we saw him
more recently—addressing the five thousand of our soldiery in the
amphitheatre of Castle Garden. It was not, _there_, the pale, carelessly
dressed, and slightly bent invalid of the few days before. Oh no!
Neither in mien nor in dress would he have been recognized by the
picture we have drawn of him, above. The scene was enough to inspire him
it is true. Five thousand brilliantly equipped men—with but one thought
under every plume and belt, and that thought the cause whose highest
altar was in his own bosom—were marshalled beneath his glance, waiting
breathlessly to hear him. His look, that night, will never be forgot, by
those who saw it. He wore a black velvet frock with standing collar, and
buttons of jet—the single ornament being the slender belt of gold about
his waist, holding a sword gracefully to his side. The marked simplicity
of this elegant dress made his figure distinguished among the brilliant
uniforms of the officers upon the stage; but his countenance, as he
became animated, and walked to and fro before that magnificently arrayed
audience, was the idealization of a look to inspire armies. When Captain
French (to whom we make our admiring compliments) rose in the far
gallery, and insisted on being heard, while he offered a thousand
dollars from the Fusileers to the cause, would any one have doubted that
the life’s blood of those fine fellows _would have come as easy_, with
opportunity?
We stop with this mere description. The Kossuth questions are discussed
sufficiently elsewhere. Our object has been to aid the distant reader in
imagining the personal appearance of the man whose thoughts of lightning
reach them, gleaming gloriously even through the clouds of impoverished
language on which they travel. We close with a prayer—_God keep Kossuth
to take the field for Hungary!_