a very nice elderly man and his elderly sister, Jake Borg and Elisa
Borg. Jake loved his sister, and his sister loved her cat--a Maltese
cat of the largest variety. Both Jake and Elisa spent an hour or so
each day in talking about the cat, and of how dangerous it was for the
cat to insist upon walking on the back fence during the very hours when
Jake was practising with his flint-lock at a target erected upon the
fence. Jake, it appears, was a member of the village patriotic shooting
society and was the president of it, and his whole heart and soul were
wrapped up in it. The society used flint-locks rather than percussion
caps because the time occupied by the explosion, being quite long with
flint-locks, the nerves of the patriots would be the better steeled
to bear the noise. Thus, during the forenoon, for several years, the
devoted couple discussed the question whether or not the pet cat would
be hit by the pet bullets; and it became alarmingly evident that such
would be the case, unless one or the other of the afflicted persons
should desist from the practice of his hobby. There were various other
people who came in to help the principal characters in the play to
discuss the peril. Neither party in the great conflict would budge
from his principle--the one, for patriotic reasons, the other out of
Christian piety and affection for dumb animals.
The anguish of the situation became so intense that it was almost a
relief when the cat was shot by the heroic burgher in the very shot by
which he completed a hundred consecutive bull’s-eyes--or would have
completed them, but for the fated animal. Jake’s life was ruined by
this failure; as Elisa’s was ruined by the loss of her companion, and
the village life was ruined because there remained nothing to talk
about thereafter. So, all the inhabitants of that Norwegian hamlet
shut their windows tight, and continued each in the pursuit of his
own serious hobby, neither washing, nor smiling, nor making allowance
for the hobbies of the rest, but only grinding out remorsely the
magnificent tragic material of Norwegian life.
DR. HOWE.
There are men who have great fame during their lives, and then
disappear forever; and there are others who live unknown to their
contemporaries, and then emerge upon posterity, and cast back a
perpetual reproach upon their own times which were not worthy of them.
To neither of these classes does Dr. Howe belong; for he was a hero in
his own day, and has left behind him so many memorials of his mind and
times that he can never become wholly lost to the world. He belongs
rather to that class of reappearing reputations which die through
successive resurrections, and distribute their message to humanity
through many undulations of loss and rediscovery.
One cannot tell where to set the boundary to such men’s influence,
for while the student writes, the shadow moves. The scribbler who is
assigning values and labels to history becomes an instrument in the
hands of his subject, and something is accomplished through him which
is beyond his own horizon. This is the mechanism through which great
men reach the world. The present age has all but forgotten Dr. Howe:
his name has for some years been on the road to oblivion. For I do not
count as fame the dusty memorials and busts of dead philanthropists
which adorn and disfigure college libraries. Their honored and
obliterated features carry something, but it is not fame. They are like
neglected finger-boards which have fallen by the wayside and are calmly
undergoing unimaginable dissolution through the soft handling of the
elements. Wordsworth might have addressed a sonnet to these men had he
not been so preoccupied with external nature. “Behold, this man was
once the sign-board of classical learning, this of electricity, this of
natural science.” But Wordsworth would have been obliged first to rub
the moss from the inscriptions.
Some years ago it looked as if Dr. Howe, the great and famous Dr. Howe,
had fallen by the wayside of progress and was to remain forever a dead
finger-post and a reminiscence in the history of the world’s care for
the blind. To-day a new image of him is beginning to form above the
mass of letters, documents, and written reports which his busy life
bequeathed to the garret, and in which his daughter, Laura E. Richards,
has recently quarried for a book of memoirs. She has produced two large
volumes which give us Dr. Howe from the intimate side of his character,
and in a way that no man can be publicly known to his contemporaries.
It is of this new image or _vita nuova_ of Dr. Howe that I mean to
speak.
There is a variety of interest in his life, which shatters the
picture of a philanthropist and leaves in its place the picture of
an adventurer--an unselfish adventurer; that is to say, a sort of
Theseus or Hercules, an unaccountable person who visits this world from
somewhere else. After all, this is the impression he made upon his
own times. Perhaps we are getting a breeze of the same wind that blew
through him in life: I cannot tell. At any rate, it was not to Laura
Bridgman only that Howe was sent into the world. I confess to a feeling
that he was one of the greatest of Americans and one of the best men
who ever lived.
Seventy years ago his name was known to everybody in the civilized
world. The part he took in the Greek Revolution (1825-29) had made
him famous while still a very young man, and his success in teaching
the blind deaf-mute, Laura Bridgman, (1837-41) seemed at the time,
and still seems, one of the great triumphs in the history of human
intellect. The world rang with it. The miracle was done in the sight of
all men, and humanity stood on the benches and shouted themselves blind
with applause. This accomplishment, which was the great accomplishment
of his life, will always remain Dr. Howe’s trade-mark and proverbial
significance; but other parts of his life almost equal it in permanent
value. The historical interest of the Greek Revolution, and of the
latter half of the anti-slavery period, are supplemented by the
scientific interest of all Dr. Howe’s philanthropic work and by the
personal interest of an extraordinary and unique character.
Samuel Gridley Howe was born in Boston in 1801, and was thus just
twenty years old when the Greek Revolution broke out in 1821. In that
year he was graduated at Brown University, Providence, and thereafter
studied medicine for three years in Boston. Byron’s poems had prepared
the youths of Europe and of America for the Greek struggle, and Howe
was one of the young men who responded in person to Byron’s final call
to arms. Howe did not reach Greece till a few months after Byron’s
death at Missolonghi in 1824. Howe spent six years in campaigning with
the Greek patriots. He had enlisted in the capacity of a surgeon;
but the exigencies of the primitive and very severe guerilla warfare
tended to obliterate official rank and to throw the work upon those
who had executive ability. The war was a scramble of patriot banditti
and peasant militia against Mahommetan ruffians. The name of Greece,
the name of Byron, the beauty of the scenery in whose midst the war
proceeded, the heart-rending nature of the struggle and its happy
outcome, all combine to make this the most romantic war in history. It
was one of the last wars before that effective development of steam and
gunpowder which have forever merged the picturesque in the horrible.
The young Howe kept a journal, which shows a character entirely at
one with his rapturously poetic surroundings. Before I had read this
journal I did not know that the United States had ever produced a man
of this type, the seventeenth century navigator, whose daily life
is made up of hair-breadth escapes and who writes in the style of
Robinson Crusoe.--“Passed a pirate boat, but he saw too many marks of
preparation about us to attack us; in fact, if vessels only knew what
cowards these pirates are they would never be robbed, for the least
resistance will keep them off. Give me a vessel with moderately high
sides, two light guns and twelve resolute men, and I would pledge my
all on sailing about every port of the archipelago and beating off
every vessel which approaches. The pirates always come in long, light,
open boats which pull from sixteen to thirty-six and forty oars. They
sometimes have a gun, and always select calm weather to attack. But how
to get up the sides of a vessel if twelve men with cutlasses were to
oppose them.”...
“But it was a great fault on the part of commanders of vessels of war
not to have made examples. A few bodies hanging at their yard-arms,
and displayed round among the islands, would have had more effect than
all they have done.”...
There we have the reality of which Stevenson’s tales are the reflection
and the traditional imitation. Again--“If he challenges, I shall have
my choice of weapons. I am pretty good master of the small sword, and
think I could contrive to disarm him and make him beg on his knees, for
I am sure he is one of the most arrant cowards.”... Again--“They passed
along the beach at full gallop not far from us, and I gave them a rifle
ball which missed them.”... In another place--“But one of them held
his head out long enough for me to take aim at it and level him with a
rifle ball; he fell sprawling upon his face, and I hardly know whether
pleasure or pain predominated in my mind as I witnessed his fall. Said
I ‘A moment more and I may fall in the same way.’”...
On another occasion--“I plied my rifle as fast as possible, and luckily
was not called to one single wounded man, they being sheltered by the
high sides of the vessel.”... It must be remembered that inasmuch as
Howe was a surgeon he had no right to be fighting at all; but dear me!
we are on the Spanish main in Elizabeth’s time; and, as Howe observed a
few days later, “I had been directed to keep below, but the scene was
too interesting for a young man to lose sight of.”...
There was a touch of the buccaneer about Howe. His slight tendency
toward lawlessness kept cropping out all through his life. It appears
in an assault which he made on a sentinel at Rome in 1844, and in all
his anti-slavery work--of which later. A great descriptive power is
revealed in this journal, which he kept during the months when he often
slept with his head on a stone and subsisted on fried wasps. As an
example of vivid sketching take the following:
“On the road I had met bodies of peasantry of the lower class called
Vlachoi (Wallachians), driving before them all their little stock,
perhaps a few dozen sheep, as many goats, a donkey and a half-dozen
fowls, all guarded by a pair of fine-looking mountain dogs and followed
by the father lugging his rough capote, with gun in hand and an old
pistol and knife in his belt, and the mother with her baby lashed to
her back in a bread-trough, a kettle on her head, and sundry articles
of furniture in her hands. A troop of dirty ragged boys and girls,
brought up the rear, each bearing a load of baggage proportionate to
their strength, a little donkey carrying all the rest of the furniture
and farming tools, in fine, all their goods and chattels. Land they
have none; they feed their flocks on the high mountains in summer,
and now on the approach of winter they descend to the warmer valleys,
where they build a wigwam and pass the winter.”... Sieges and battles
on land and sea, assassinations and conspiracies, pictures of natural
scenery and domestic life, of happiness, pathos, humor, heroism,--the
diaries abound in all such things; and the pictures often burn and
glow and sparkle. I cannot tell whether this sparkle is a literary
quality, or a ray from Howe’s character, or an illusion of my own. But
certainly, something remarkable appears in the step and carriage of the
young man. He does not stay in the book, he walks into the room where
you are reading. The substance and setting of these Greek journals at
times remind us of George Borrow’s books; but Howe’s writing is done
without literary intention and therefore speaks from a more unusual
depth. No time has been spent over these jottings, the recorder is
hardly more responsible for them than the pen that writes them down.
The scenes have whirled themselves upon the paper. Howe was always
somewhat wanting in the reverence for letters which obtains in Boston.
He regarded himself as inferior in literary attainment to several of
his friends. He had, however, the descriptive power sometimes found
in condottieri. It is the thrilling stuff they deal in that endows
these men with such talent. I cannot forbear transcribing a passage
from a very different style of adventurer, Trelawney. It does not
concern Howe directly; but it may serve as a sample page from the Greek
revolutionary period. The passage is quoted by Sanborn in his Life of
Howe.
“On our way from Argos to Corinth, in 1823, we passed through the
defiles of Dervenakia; our road was a mere mule-path for about two
leagues, winding along in the bed of a brook, flanked by rugged
precipices. In this gorge, and a more rugged path above it, a large
Ottoman force, principally cavalry, had been stopped in the previous
autumn, by barricades of rocks and trees, and slaughtered like droves
of cattle by the wild and exasperated Greeks. It was a perfect picture
of the war, and told its own story; the sagacity of the nimble-footed
Greeks and the hopeless stupidity of the Turkish commanders were
palpable. Detached from the heaps of dead we saw the skeletons of some
bold riders, who had attempted to scale the acclivities, still astride
the skeletons of their horses, and in the rear, as if in the attempt to
back out of the fray, the bleached bones of the negroes’ hands still
holding the hair ropes attached to the skulls of the camels--death,
like sleep, is a strange posture-master. There were grouped in a
narrow space 5,000 or more skeletons of men, horses, camels, and
mules; vultures had eaten their flesh, and the sun had bleached their
bones.”... Is not this picture worthy of the prophet Ezekiel? It was
among such scenes as this that the Greek Revolution went forward.
In 1827-8 Dr. Howe concluded that the best service he could render
the Greeks was to go to America and procure help. He came to America,
and went about holding public meetings and pleading for the starving
Greeks. Great enthusiasm was excited, and money, food, and clothing
was generously contributed. Howe took charge of a vessel laden with
provisions and clothing, and hastening back to Greece, arrived in time
to prevent thousands from starving. “These American contributions,” he
says, “went directly to the people; and their effect was very great,
not only by relieving from hunger and cold, but by inspiring courage
and hope. I made several depots in different places; I freighted small
vessels and ran up the bays with them. The people came trooping from
their hiding places, men, women, children, hungry, cold, ragged and
dirty. They received rations of flour, corn, biscuit, pork, etc., and
were clad in the warm garments made up by American women. It was one of
the happiest sights a man could witness; one of the happiest agencies
he could discharge. They came, sometimes twenty, thirty, forty miles,
on foot, to get rations and clothing. Several vessels followed mine
and distributions were made.
“An immense number of families from Attica, from Psara, and from other
Islands, had taken refuge in Ægina, and there was the most concentrated
suffering. I established a main depot there, and commenced a systematic
distribution of the provisions and clothing. As the Greeks were all
idle, I concluded it was not best to give alms except to the feeble;
but I commenced a public work on which men, women, and children could
be occupied. The harbor of Ægina was not a natural one, but the work of
the old Greeks. The long walls projecting into the sea for breakwaters
were in pretty good condition, but the land side of the harbor was
nearly ruined from being filled up with débris and washings from the
town.
“I got some men who had a little ‘gumption’ and built a coffer-dam
across the inner side of the harbor. Then we bailed out the water,
and, digging down to get a foundation, laid a solid wall, which made
a beautiful and substantial quay, which stands to this day, and is
called the American Molos or Mole. In this work as many as five hundred
people, men, women, and children, ordinarily worked; on some days as
many as seven hundred, I think.”...
Encouraged by the success of his mole, Dr. Howe determined upon a more
ambitious venture.--“I applied to the government, and obtained a large
tract of land upon the Isthmus of Corinth, where I founded a colony
of exiles. We put up cottages, procured seed, cattle, and tools, and
the foundations of a flourishing village were laid. Capo d’Istria had
encouraged me in the plan of the colony, and made some promises of
help. The government granted ten thousand ‘stremmata’ of land to be
free from taxes for five years; but they could not give much practical
help. I was obliged to do everything, and had only the supplies sent
out by the American committees to aid me. The colonists, however,
coöperated, and everything went on finely. We got cattle and tools,
ploughed and prepared the earth, got up a school-house and a church.
“Everything went on finely, and we extended our domain over to the
neighboring port of Cenchraea, where we had cultivated ground and a
harbor. This was perhaps the happiest part of my life. I was alone
among my colonists, who were all Greeks. They knew I wanted to help
them, and they let me have my own way. I had one civilized companion
for awhile, David Urquhart, the eccentric Englishman, afterward M. P.
and pamphleteer. I had to journey much to and from Corinth, Napoli,
etc., always on horseback, or in boat, and often by night. It was
a time and place where law was not; and sometimes we had to defend
ourselves against armed and desperate stragglers from the bands of
soldiers now breaking up. We had many ‘scrimmages,’ and I had several
narrow escapes with life.
“In one affair Urquhart showed extraordinary pluck and courage,
actually disarming and taking prisoner two robbers, and marching
them before him into the village. I labored here day and night, in
season and out, and was governor, clerk, constable, and everything but
_patriarch_; for, though I was young, I took to no maiden, nor
ever thought about womankind but once. The government (or rather, Capo
d’Istria, the president) treated the matter liberally--for a Greek--and
did what he could to help me.”...
In 1844, about seventeen years after the planting of this Corinthian
colony Howe returned to the Isthmus in the course of his wedding
journey. “As he rode through the principal street of the village,” says
Mrs. Howe, “the elder people began to take note of him and to say to
one another ‘This man looks like Howe.’ At length they cried, ‘It must
be Howe himself’! His horse was surrounded and his progress stayed. A
feast was immediately prepared for him in the principal house of the
place, and a throng of friends, old and new, gathered round him, eager
to express their joy in seeing him.”
So let us leave him for one moment, surrounded by the children of
his adoption, submitting to their gratitude as Hercules might have
submitted, if humanity had recognized him on his return to the scene
of an earthly exploit,--let us leave him, I say, thus posed for the
monument that should express his whole life’s work, while we consider
what manner of man he was.
At whatever point you examine him, you find a man of remarkable
energy and benevolence, of a practical turn of mind, devoid of
mysticism or philosophic curiosity, a man to whom the word is a very
plain proposition, whose eyes see what they see with the power of
microscopes, and are blind to all else. Dr. Howe’s work in Greece
gives a specimen, a prophetic summary, of his whole life-work,
that is to say, it was _practical aid to those laboring under
disability_. The devastation of Greece at that time was incredible.
The peasants were living in caves and hiding their food under ground
from the guerillas. Dr. Howe goes with his hands full of supplies and
distributes them, turning the starving wretches into human beings
again, through his methods, and through his power of organization.
One is reminded by turns of Benjamin Franklin and of Prometheus, in
reading of the astute shifts of this benevolent despot, who deals with
men as if they were children, coercing them into thrift and decency. Of
course the circumstances were extraordinary, or Howe’s peculiar genius
could not have showed itself so early. A man of genius he was, but
the limitations of this remarkable man’s mind are as clear cut as his
features, which had the accuracy of bronze.
Within the field of his peculiar activity he is a great genius. Outside
of that field he was not a genius at all--as will appear by his
political course in 1859. His mission was to deal with persons laboring
under a disability, with criminals, paupers, young people--blind or
deaf people, idiots, the maimed in spirit, the defective--the people
who have no chance, no future, no hope. These were the persons to
whom his life was to be devoted: the Greek sufferers were merely the
earliest in the series of persons whom Howe pitied.
He has left behind voluminous papers and reports, and in them lives
his creed. He can hardly open his mouth without saying something
of universal application to all defective persons in all ages.
From the statement of abstract principles to the details of ward
management--whether he is writing advice to an anxious mother or
addressing the legislature--there is no side of the subject on which
he is not great. His attitude toward defectives and his point of view
about them form a splinter of absolute truth; religion, morality,
practical wisdom, and the divinest longings of the spirit are all
satisfied by it. The sight of any of these persons aroused in him such
a passion of benevolence, such a whirlwind of pity, that he could do
whatever was necessary. He lifted them in his arms and flew away with
them like an angel. It made no difference that the cause was hopeless.
He would labor a year to improve the articulation of an adult idiot,
and rejoice as much over a gain of two vowels as if he had given a new
art to mankind.
As has been seen, Howe was originally attracted to the Greek cause
through its romantic and historic appeal; but the poetry and the
patriotism of the Greek Revolution were, for him, soon merged in
philanthropy. His work in the Greek cause and the books and papers
and speeches he had written had brought him into the world’s eye. He
returned to America a famous man. He was still under thirty years of
age, an unambitious man, unaware that he was in any way remarkable.
He did not take up the cause of the blind because he felt within him
a deep desire, a God-given calling to help the blind, but because the
cause of the blind was brought to his notice by Dr. John D. Fisher,
and other gentlemen in Boston, who had been studying the methods of
the Abbé Haüy in Paris, and who contemplated founding a school for the
blind in Boston. It was a happy hour in which they met Howe; for he was
a man whose response to any call for help was automatic.
He was one of those singular men in whom we can trace no course of
development. Such as they are in early manhood, so they remain. It is
interesting to bring together two passages, one from the beginning and
the other from the latter half of his life, to show the identity of
their intellectual content.
The following is from Howe’s First Report of the Blind Asylum:
“Blindness has been in all ages one of those instruments by which a
mysterious Providence has chosen to afflict man; or rather it has not
seen fit to extend the blessing of sight to every member of the human
family. In every country there exists a large number of human beings,
who are prevented by want of sight from engaging with advantage in the
pursuits of life, and who are thrown upon the charity of their more
favored fellows.”...
The following is from the monumental justification of his ideas as
put forth in the Second Report to the Massachusetts State Board of
Charities in 1866:--