sigh; and repeated that gesture of pressing her hand to her eyes, not
to hide tears, but as part of an attempt to concentrate the mental
vision upon those mysteries in life which offer the effect of blank
impenetrable walls. She tore away her hand almost at once, her brief
pantomime declaring the uselessness of trying to understand anything,
verily, of all that happens in this sorrowful world; and whether in
mockery of it, or of herself, or in the wish merely to effect a change
in the current of their thoughts, struck a startling, brilliant chord
on the piano under her hand; and while it still vibrated, another, and
another, and executed a cadenza that seemed to laugh aloud and shake
fool's-bells.
"Do you remember," she sat fairly down before the keyboard, and
preluded while she talked, "the last time? After that scene of blood
and tears, you poor sweet thing, how you played for me, so dearly
obliging as you were? And polonaises and waltzes you played; as well
as elegies and nocturnes. And then I played and then you played. You
played and played, my dear, till you had missed an engagement. I shall
miss one now if I don't hurry off instantly, but let it be missed. I
shall count it well done, if you will sit down here a moment and play
for me."
"Oh," moaned Marie-Aimée, putting up the ever-willing hands, like a
martyr in prayer, "don't ask me. And don't take it ill if I can't. It's
not the same thing any longer." She let her head hang; "I haven't the
heart for it to-night."
"I am a beast!" said Mrs. Bronson heartily, and without adding a note
further to the musical phrase she was in the middle of, jumped up, sick
at herself. And feeling of so little importance before depths of woe
such as she suspected near her that it mattered nothing whether she
apologized, she pressed Marie-Aimée's hand with all her strength, and
murmuring, "I will take myself away," made haste to be gone.
Mrs. Bronson was conscious of a vast relief, by which she first learned
in what suspense she had been living, when a few days later she
recognized Marie-Aimée's hand-writing on a letter to her. She read:
"I went, you see, after all. I am at my sister's, to remain with her
and the dear children until I have thought further what I had better
do. You were right in wishing me to go, though not perhaps for the
reasons you gave. My thoughts are not at all clear upon the subject of
the rightness or wrongness of what I was doing then, or what I have
done since. I felt sure I was justified against the whole world, and
even now I find no good argument against it. Only, it came home to me
that I who used to love everyone and have only feelings of kindness
towards others, was fast coming to hate everybody, myself most, and it
seemed a sufficient sign. But you won't think that was quite all. I did
also think of you, who perhaps--which of us knows her own heart?--care
more than you believe. Very likely not. But on the barest possibility
of the sort, how could I continue obstinately fixed in my position?
"And now, lest the sympathy you showed me be troubled on my account, I
want you to be sure that I shall not be unhappy. For one thing, because
there is something strangely compensating in the assurance a person may
gain that the one she loves is never, to the edge of doom, to lack the
whole love of at least one heart; and then, because I believe you will
grant a request I am about to make, oh, more humbly and supplicatingly
than pen and ink can show: which is that you will try to see him more
truly, to discern what is good and lovable in him; and that--I find it
difficult. Yet why? Let me seem brazen and indelicate, I will finish. I
have thought I divined that he is a pensioner of yours, and sometimes a
straightened one. It cannot be but that you are by nature as generous
as you are kind, nothing else would accord with your forehead and
eyes. I can only think that you have imagined things about him, that
his marriage perhaps was mercenary, and this has been your revenge.
Do differently hereafter. Show him and yourself this respect. Grudge
him not the independence and the honors that beseem the state of the
lion growing old. For, do not deceive yourself, he has been great.
Those upon whom God bestows such a gift are marked for the reverence of
others.
"You will forgive my meddling and will do what I ask? You asked me to
go, and I went. You could not demand it, nor can I demand this. Yet let
it be as a bargain between us, will you?
"For your infinite kindness and gentleness and generosity to myself,
receive the assurance of my utmost gratitude; and for the affection you
were so good as to say you feel for me, a return of affection which is
of sufficient strength, I believe, to outlast all that divides us.
Marie-Aimée."
Mrs. Bronson kissed the name, like a school-girl; but glancing back
over the letter could not repress a laugh tinged with disdain as the
thought presented itself: "She wishes to provide against his missing
her. Oh, the poor child, how well she knows him, after all!" Rising
to the noblest height of her nature, she determined to set the figure
of Anthony Bronson's income, as near as her fortune permitted, at
what should represent her own estimate of his loss in Marie-Aimée;
at the same time reflecting that very much less--but very much less,
indeed--would quite as effectually have kept him from missing her
overmuch.
VERSES
BY
A. E. HOUSMAN
There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own:
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.
Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
World without end, are drowned.
His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.
There flowers no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
The heart out of his breast.
Here by the laboring highway
With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning
Lie lost my heart and soul.
_From "A Shropshire Lad."_
MY ELECTION TO THE SENATE
BY
CARL SCHURZ
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
When I arrived in the United States again, the impeachment trial was
over and President Johnson had been acquitted. There had indeed not
been any revolutionary disturbance, but the public mind was much
agitated by what had happened.
I had, since I left Washington, been quietly engaged in editing the
Detroit _Post_, when one day in the spring of 1867 I received, quite
unexpectedly, a proposition from the proprietors of the _Westliche
Post_, a daily journal published in the German language in St. Louis,
Missouri, inviting me to join them, and offering me, on reasonable
terms, a property interest in their prosperous concern. On further
inquiry I found the proposition advantageous, and accepted it. My
connection with the Detroit _Post_, which, owing to the excellent
character of the persons with whom it brought me into contact, had been
most pleasant, was amicably dissolved, and I went to St. Louis to take
charge of the new duties.
A particular attraction to me in this new arrangement was the
association with Dr. Emil Preetorius, one of the proprietors of the
_Westliche Post_. He was a native of the Bavarian Palatinate, the same
province in which in 1849 the great popular uprising in favor of the
National Constitution of Germany had taken place, and of the town of
Alzei, which, according to ancient legend, had been the home of the
great fiddler among the heroes of the Nibelungenlied--"Volker von
Alzeien," grim Hagen's valiant brother in arms. The town of Alzei still
carries a fiddle in its coat of arms. Mr. Preetorius was a few years
older than I. He had already won the diploma of Doctor of Laws when
the revolution of 1848 broke out. With all the ardor of his soul he
threw himself into the movement for free government and had to leave
the Fatherland in consequence. But all the idealism of 1848 he brought
with him to his new home in America. As a matter of course, he at once
embraced the anti-slavery cause with the warmest devotion and became
one of the leaders of the German-born citizens of St. Louis, who, in
the spring of 1861, by their courageous patriotism, saved their city
and their State to the Union. He then remained in public life as a
journalist and as a speaker of sonorous eloquence.
_The Convention of 1868_
In the winter of 1867-8, as I have said, I made a visit to Germany.
Not long after my return to St. Louis, the Republican State Convention
was held for the purpose of selecting delegates for the Republican
National Convention which was to meet at Chicago on the 20th of May. I
was appointed one of the delegates at large, and at its first meeting
the Missouri delegation elected me its chairman. At Chicago a surprise
awaited me which is usually reckoned by men engaged in politics as an
agreeable one. The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Mr.
Marcus L. Ward, informed me that his committee had chosen me to serve
as the temporary chairman of the Republican National Convention. It was
an entirely unexpected honor, which I accepted with due appreciation.
I made as short a speech as is permissible on such occasions, and,
after the customary routine proceedings, surrendered the gavel to the
permanent president, General Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut.
[Illustration: DR. EMIL PREETORIUS
ONE OF THE PROPRIETORS OF THE WESTLICHE POST, THE NEWSPAPER WITH WHICH
CARL SCHURZ BECAME ASSOCIATED IN 1867]
That General Grant would be nominated as the Republican candidate for
the presidency was a foregone conclusion. As to the nomination for the
vice-presidency, there was a rather tame contest, which resulted in
the choice of Schuyler Colfax, the Speaker of the National House of
Representatives, who at that time enjoyed much popularity and seemed to
have a brilliant future before him, but was fated to be wrecked on the
rocks of finance.
[Illustration: _From the collection of F. H. Meserve_
SCHUYLER COLFAX
WHO WAS ELECTED VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ON THE REPUBLICAN
TICKET OF 1868]
When the Committee on Resolutions made its report, I observed with
surprise that the proposed platform contained nothing on the subject
of an amnesty to be granted to any of the participants in the late
rebellion. This omission struck me as a grave blunder. Should the
great Republican party go into the next contest for the presidency
without, in its profession of faith and its program of policy, holding
out a friendly hand to the erring brethren who were to return to
their old allegiance, and without marking out for itself a policy
of generosity and conciliation? I resolved at once upon an effort
to prevent so grievous a mistake by offering an amendment to the
platform. Not knowing whether the subject had not been thought of in
the committee, or whether a resolution touching it had been debated and
voted down there, and deeming it important that my amendment should
be adopted by the Convention without a discussion that might have
let loose the lingering war passions of some hot-heads, I drew up a
resolution which did not go as far as I should have liked it to go,
but which would substantially accomplish the double object I had in
view--the encouragement of well-disposed Southerners and the commitment
of the Republican party--without arousing any opposition. It was as
follows:
"That we highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance
with which men who have served in the rebellion, but who now frankly
and honestly coöperate with us in restoring the peace of the
country and reconstructing the Southern State governments upon the
basis of impartial justice and equal rights, are received back into
the communion of the loyal people; and we favor the removal of the
disqualifications and restrictions imposed upon the late rebels in the
same measure as the spirit of disloyalty will die out, and as may be
consistent with the safety of the loyal people."
[Illustration: ULYSSES S. GRANT
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1869, THE YEAR OF HIS FIRST INAUGURATION]
The resolution received general applause when it was read to the
Convention, and, as I had hoped, it was adopted and made a part of the
platform without a word of adverse debate.
_Grant, the Candidate of the Whole Republic_
The presidential campaign of 1868 was not one of uncommon excitement or
enthusiasm.
[Illustration: FRANCIS PRESTON BLAIR
THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR VICE-PRESIDENT IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1868]
The Republican candidate, General Grant, was then at the height of his
prestige. He had never been active in politics and never identified
himself with any political party. Whether he held any settled opinions
on political questions, and, if so, what they were, nobody could
tell with any assurance. But people were willing to take him for the
presidency, just as he was. It is quite probable, and it has frequently
been said, that, had the Democrats succeeded in "capturing" him as
their candidate, he would have been accepted with equal readiness on
that side. He was one of the most striking examples in history of the
military hero who is endowed by the popular imagination with every
conceivable capacity and virtue. People believed in perfectly good
faith that the man who had commanded such mighty armies, and conducted
such brilliant campaigns, and won such great battles, must necessarily
be able and wise and energetic enough to lead in the solution of any
problem of civil government; that he who had performed great tasks
of strategy in the field must be fitted to accomplish great tasks of
statesmanship in the forum or in the closet. General Grant had the
advantage of such presumptions in the highest degree, especially as
he had, in addition to his luster as a warrior, won a reputation for
wise generosity and a fine tact in fixing the terms of Lee's surrender
and in quietly composing the disagreements which had sprung from the
precipitate action of General Sherman in treating with the Confederate
General Johnston. On the whole, the country received the candidacy of
General Grant as that of a deserving and a safe man.
[Illustration: HORATIO SEYMOUR
THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1868]
On the other hand, the Democratic party had not only to bear the
traditional odium of the sympathy of some of its prominent members
with the rebellion, which at that time still counted for much, but it
managed to produce an especially unfavorable impression by the action
of its convention. Its platform stopped but little short of advocating
violence to accomplish the annulment of the reconstruction laws adopted
by Congress, and it demanded the payment of a large part of the
national debt in depreciated greenbacks. The floundering search for a
candidate and the final forcing of the nomination upon the unwilling,
weak, and amiable Horatio Seymour presented an almost ludicrous
spectacle of helplessness, while the furious utterances of the fiery
Frank Blair, the candidate for the vice-presidency, sounded like the
wild cries of a madman bent upon stirring up another revolution when
the people wanted peace. The Democrats were evidently riding for a fall.
[Illustration: JOHN B. HENDERSON
ONE OF THE SEVEN REPUBLICAN SENATORS WHOSE VOTES DEFEATED THE
IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON. HE WAS SUCCEEDED IN THE SENATE BY
CARL SCHURZ]
I was called upon for a good many speeches in the campaign, and had
large and enthusiastic audiences. One of the experiences I had in this
campaign I remember with especial pleasure. The movement in favor
of paying off national bonds, not in coin, but in depreciated paper
money, which found advocacy in the Democratic platform, was in fact not
confined to the ranks of the Democratic party. Although the Republican
Convention had in its platform sternly declared against any form of
repudiation, yet that movement found supporters among the Republicans,
too, especially among people of confused moral notions, small
politicians eager to win a cheap popularity by catering to questionable
impulses, and politicians of higher rank nervously anxious to catch
every popular breeze and inclined to bend to it whenever it seemed to
blow with some force.
_An Appeal to the Plain People_
In the early part of the campaign I was asked to make a series of
speeches in Indiana, and to begin with an outdoor mass-meeting at a
little place--if I remember rightly its name was Corydon--near the
Illinois line, at which a large number of farmers were expected. While
a great crowd was gathering, I dined at the village hotel with the
members of the local committee. They seemed to have something on their
minds, which finally came forth, apparently with some hesitation. One
of them, after a few minutes of general silence, turned to me with a
very serious mien, as if he had to deliver an important message, saying
that they thought it their duty to inform me of a peculiar condition of
the public mind in that region: that the people around there were all,
Republicans as well as Democrats, of the opinion that all the United
States bonds should be paid off in greenbacks and that an additional
quantity of greenbacks should be issued for that purpose; that there
was much feeling on that question, and that they, the committee, would
earnestly ask me, if I could not conscientiously advocate the same
policy, at least not to mention the subject in my speech.
[Illustration: SENATOR CHARLES D. DRAKE
WHOM CARL SCHURZ MET IN JOINT DEBATE, WHILE RUNNING AGAINST DRAKE'S
CANDIDATE FOR THE MISSOURI SENATORSHIP]
Having been informed that there had been a good deal of greenback talk
in that neighborhood, I was not surprised. But I thought it a good
opportunity to administer a drastic lesson to my chicken-hearted party
friends. "Gentlemen," I said, "I have been invited here to preach
Republican doctrines to your people. The Democratic platform advocates
the very policy which you say is favored by your people. The Republican
platform emphatically condemns that policy. I think it is barefaced,
dishonest, rascally repudiation. If your people favor this, they
stand in eminent need of a good, vigorous talking to. But if you, the
committee managing this meeting, do not want me to speak my mind on
this subject, I shall not speak at all. I shall leave instantly, and
you may do with the meeting as you like."
It was as if a bombshell had dropped among my committee-men. They were
in great consternation and cried out accordingly. I had been announced
as the principal speaker. A large number of people had come to hear me.
If I left, there would be a great disappointment which would hurt the
party. But I did not mean it--did I?
I assured them that I was in dead earnest. I would stay and speak
only on condition that I should feel at perfect liberty to express my
convictions straightforwardly and impressively. They looked at one
another as if in great doubt what to do, and then, after a whispered
consultation, told me that, of course, if I insisted, they must let
me have my way; but they begged me to "draw it mild." I replied that
I could not promise to "draw it mild," but that I believed they were
mistaken in thinking that their people, if properly told the truth,
would favor the rascally policy of repudiation. They shook their heads
and sighed, and "hoped there would be no row."
The meeting was very large, mostly plain country people, men and
women. The committee-men sat on the platform on both sides of me, with
anxious faces, evidently doubtful of what would happen. I had put the
audience in sympathetic temper when in the due order of my speech I
reached the bond question. Then I did not "draw it mild." I described
the circumstances under which the bonds were sold by our government and
bought by our creditors: the rebellion at the height of its strength;
our armies in the field suffering defeat after defeat; our regular
revenues sadly insufficient to cover the expenses of the war; our
credit at a low ebb; a gloomy cloud of uncertainty hanging over our
future. These were the circumstances under which our government called
upon our own citizens and upon the world abroad for loans of money.
The people whom we then called bond-holders lent their money upon our
promise that the money should be paid back in coin. They did so at a
great risk, for if we had failed in the war, they might have lost all
or much of what they had lent us. Largely owing to the help they gave
us in our extremity, we succeeded. And now are we to turn round and
denounce them as speculators and bloodsuckers, and say that we will not
give them in the day of success and prosperity what we promised them in
the day of our need and distress? Would not that be downright knavery
and a crime before God and men?
When I had advanced thus far, cries of "shame! shame!" came from the
audience. Then I began to denounce the vile politicians who advocated
such a disgraceful course, first the Democrats who had made such
an ignominious proposition a part of their platform, and then the
Republicans who, believing that such a movement might develop some
popular strength, had cowardly bent their knees to it. By this time
my hearers were thoroughly warmed up, and when I opened my whole
vocabulary of strong language, in all parts of the crowd arose such
cries as "You are right!" "Bully for you!" "Give it to them!" "Hit them
again!" and other ebullitions of the unsophisticated mind; and when I
added that I had been told the whole population of this region were in
favor of that crime of repudiating the honest debts of the republic,
and that I had in their name repelled the charge as a dastardly
slander, my hearers broke out in a storm of applause and cheers lasting
long enough to give me time to look round at my committee-men, who
returned my gaze with a smile of pitiable embarrassment on their faces.
_The Moral Cowardice of Politicians a National Danger_
When my speech was over, I asked them what they now thought of the
repudiation sentiment in their neighborhood. Ah, they had "never been
so astonished in their lives." One of them attempted to compliment me
upon my "success in so quickly turning the minds of those people."
But I would not let them have that consoling conception of the facts,
and answered that I had not turned the minds of those people at all;
that their feelings and impulses were originally honest; that I had
only called forth a manifestation of that original honesty; and that
if the local political leaders had believed in the original honesty
of the people and courageously stood up for truth and right instead
of permitting themselves to be frightened by a rascally agitation
and of pusillanimously pandering to it, they would have had the same
experience.
In fact, the same experience has repeated itself in the course of my
political activity again and again until a late period. I have had an
active part in a great many political campaigns and probably addressed
as many popular meetings as any man now living; and I have always found
that whenever any public question under public discussion had in it
any moral element, an appeal to the moral sense of the people proved
uniformly the most powerful argument. I do not, of course, mean to say
that there were not at all times many persons accessible to selfish
motives and liable to yield to the seduction of the opportunity for
unrighteous gain, and that such evil influences were not at times hard
to overcome. But with the majority of the people, notably the "plain
people"--using the term in the sense in which Abraham Lincoln was wont
to use it--I found the question "is this morally right?" to have
ultimately more weight than the question "will this be profitable?"
[Illustration: ALEXANDER T. STEWART
IN WHOSE BEHALF PRESIDENT GRANT ASKED CONGRESS TO SUSPEND THE ACT
ESTABLISHING THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT]