DANIEL WEBSTER.DANIEL WEBSTER.[1]
"The open manner in which disunion, secession, or a separation of the States, is suggested and recommended in some parts of the country, naturally calls on those to whom are confided the power and trust of maintaining the Constitution, and seeing that the laws of the United States be faithfully executed, to reflect upon the duties which events not yet indeed probable, but possible, may require them to perform. In the Northern and Eastern States, these sentiments of disunion are espoused principally by persons of heated imaginations, assembling together and passing resolutions of such wild and violent character as to render them nearly harmless. It is not soin other parts of the country. There are States in the South in which secession and dismemberment are proposed or recommended by persons of character and influence, filling stations of high public trust, and, it is painful to add, in some instances, not unconnected with the Government of the United States itself. Legislatures of some of the States have directed the government of those States to reassemble them in the contingency of the passage of certain laws by Congress. While these occurrences do not constitute an exigency calling for any positive proceeding either by the Executive Government of the United States or by Congress, yet they justly awaken attention, and admonish those in whose hands the administration of the government is placed, not to be found either unadvised, surprised, or unprepared, should a crisis arrive. The Constitution of the United States is founded on the idea of a division of power between the general government and the respective State governments; and this division is marked out and defined by the Constitution of the United States with as much distinctness and accuracy as the nature of the subject and the imperfection of language will admit. The powers of Congress are specifically enumerated, and all other powers necessary to carry these specified powers into effect are also expressly granted. The Constitution was adopted by the people in the several States, acting through the agency of conventions chosen by themselves; the Legislatures of the States had nothing to do with this proceeding, but to regulate the time and manner in which these conventions thus chosen by the people, the true source of all power, should assemble. The Constitution of the United States purports to be a perpetual form of government; it contains no limits for its duration, and suggests no means and no form of proceeding by which it can be dissolved, or its obligations dispensed with; it requires the personal allegiance of every citizen of the United States, and demands a solemn oath for its support from every man employed in any public trust, whether under the Government of the United States, or any State government. This obligation and this oath are enjoined in broad and general terms without qualification or modification, and with reference to no supposed possible change of circumstances or events.
"No man can sit in a State Legislature, or on the bench of a State court, or execute the process of such court, or hold a commission in the militia, or fill any other office in a State government, without having first taken and subscribed an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. Without looking, therefore, to what might be the result of forcible revolution, since such cases can, of course, be governed by no previously established rule, it is certainly the manifest duty of all those who are entrusted with the Government of the United States in its several branches and departments to uphold and maintain that government to the full extent of its constitutional power and authority, to enact all laws necessary to that end, and to takecare that those laws be executed by all the means created and conferred by the Constitution itself. We are to look to but one future, and that a future in which the Constitution of the country shall stand as it now stands; laws passed in conformity to it to be executed as they have hitherto been executed, and the public peace maintained as it has hitherto been maintained. Whatsoever of the future may be supposed to lie out of this line, is not so much a thing to be expected, as a thing to be feared and dreaded, and to be guarded against by the firmest resolution and the utmost vigilance of all who are entrusted with the conduct of public affairs; no alternative can be presented which is to authorize them to depart from the course which they have sworn to pursue. In conferring the necessary powers on the general government, it was foreseen that questions as to the just extent of those powers might occur, and that cases of conflict between the laws of the United States and the laws of individual States might arise. It was of indispensable necessity, therefore, that the manner in which such questions should be settled, and the tribunal which should have the ultimate authority to decide them, should be established and fixed by the Constitution itself: and this has been clearly and amply done. By the Constitution of the United States, that instrument itself, all acts of Congress passed in conformity to it, and public treaties, constitute the supreme law of the land, and are to be of controlling force and effect, anything in any State constitution or State law to the contrary notwithstanding; and the judges in every State, as well as of the courts of the United States, are expressly bound thereby. The supreme rule, then, is plainly and clearly declared and established: it is the Constitution of the United States, the laws of Congress passed in pursuance thereof, and treaties made under the authority of the United States. And here the great and turning question arises, Who in the last resort is to construe and interpret this supreme law? If it be alleged, for example, that a particular act of a State Legislature is a violation of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore void, what tribunal has authority finally to determine this important question? It is evident that if this power had not been vested in the tribunals of the United States, the government would have wanted the means of its own preservation; all its granted powers would have depended upon the variable and uncertain decisions of State courts.
"It is a well-established maxim in political organization, that the judicial power must be made co-extensive with the constitutional and legislative power; otherwise there can be no adequate provision for the interpretation and execution of the laws. In conformity with this plain and necessary principle, the Constitution declares that the judicial power of the United States shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States and treaties, no matter in what court such a case arises. Whenever and wherever such a case comes up, the judicialpower of the United States extends to it, and attaches upon it; and if it arise in any State court, the acts of Congress have made provision for its transfer to the Supreme Court of the United States, there to be finally heard and adjudged. This proceeding is well known to the profession, and need not now be particularly stated or rehearsed. Finally, the President of the United States is by the Constitution made commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and of the militia when called into the actual service of the United States; and all these military means are put under his control in order that he may be able to see that the laws be faithfully executed. The Government of the United States, therefore, though a government of limited powers, is complete in itself, and, to the extent of those powers, possesses all the faculties for legislation, interpretation and execution of the laws, and nothing is necessary but fidelity in all those who are elected by the people to hold office in its various departments to cause it to be upheld, maintained, and efficiently administered.
"The Constitution assigns particular classes of causes to the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and other courts are to exercise such powers and duties as are or may be prescribed by Congress. Congress has not as yet found it necessary or expedient to confer on the circuit or other inferior courts all the jurisdiction created or authorized by the Constitution; thus there are many cases in which a summary jurisdiction usually belonging to courts, such as that of mandamus and injunction, are not provided for by general law, but some such cases are provided for. Thus by the act of March 2, 1833, it is declared that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts of the United States shall extend to all cases in law or equity arising under the revenue laws of the United States; and if any person be injured in his person or property on account of any act by him done under any revenue law of the United States, he may bring suit immediately in the Circuit Court of the United States; and if he be sued in any State court for such act, he may cause such suit to be immediately removed into the Circuit Court of the United States; and if the State court refuse a copy of its record, that record may be supplied by affidavit; and if the defendant be under arrest, or in custody, he is to be brought byhabeas corpusbefore the Circuit Court of the United States. Under the first part of these provisions, writs of mandamus and injunction may be issued, and all other writs and processes suitable to the case; and any judge of any court of the United States is authorized to grant writs ofhabeas corpusin all cases of prisoners committed or confined for any act done in pursuance of a law of the United States, or of any order, process or decree of any court of the United States. These provisions are all found in the permanent sections of the act of Congress already referred to. The importance and efficiency of these provisions, if events were to arise in which obstruction to the collection of revenue shouldbe attempted or threatened, are too obvious to require comment. The several district attorneys of the United States will take especial care to inform themselves of these enactments of law, and be prepared to cause them to be enforced in the first and in every case which may arise, justly calling for their application.
"Declarations merely theoretical, or resolutions only declaratory of opinions, from however high authority emanating, cannot properly be made the subject of legal or judicial proceedings. They may be very intemperate, they may be very exceptional, they may be very unconstitutional; but until something shall be actually done or attempted, hindering or obstructing the execution of the laws of the United States, or injuring those employed in their execution, the officers of the government will remain vigilant indeed, and prepared for events, but without any positive exercise of authority. It is most earnestly to be hoped that the returning good sense of the people in all the States, and an increase of harmony and brotherly good will everywhere, may prevent the necessity of resorting to the exercise of legal authority; it is to be hoped that all good citizens will be much more inclined to reflect on the value of the Union and the benefits which it has conferred upon all, than to speculate upon impracticable means for its severance or dissolution. No State legislation, it is evident, is competent to declare such severance or dissolution—the people of no State have clothed their Legislature with any such authority; any act therefore proclaiming such severance by a Legislature, would be merely null and void as altogether exceeding its constitutional powers. No State was brought into the Union by the Legislature thereof, and no State can be put out of the Union by the Legislature thereof. Doubtless it is to be admitted that revolution, forcible revolution, may produce dismemberment more or less extensive; but there is no power on earth competent, by any peaceable or recognized manner of proceeding, to discharge the consciences of the citizens of the United States from the duty of supporting the Constitution. The government may be overthrown, or the Union broken into fragments by force of arms or force of numbers, but neither can be done by any prescribed form or peaceable existing authority."
FOOTNOTES:[1]The above portrait of Daniel Webster is taken from a book just issued by the Fowler & Wells Co., New York, entitled, "A Natural System of Elocution and Oratory," founded upon analysis of the Human Constitution. By Thomas A. Hyde and William Hyde. Among other valuable subjects which this book contains is a description and analysis of Webster oratory.
[1]The above portrait of Daniel Webster is taken from a book just issued by the Fowler & Wells Co., New York, entitled, "A Natural System of Elocution and Oratory," founded upon analysis of the Human Constitution. By Thomas A. Hyde and William Hyde. Among other valuable subjects which this book contains is a description and analysis of Webster oratory.
[1]The above portrait of Daniel Webster is taken from a book just issued by the Fowler & Wells Co., New York, entitled, "A Natural System of Elocution and Oratory," founded upon analysis of the Human Constitution. By Thomas A. Hyde and William Hyde. Among other valuable subjects which this book contains is a description and analysis of Webster oratory.
In the list of contributors to the old "New England Magazine,"—of which this is in a manner the legitimate successor,—among other names afterward famous is that of Nathaniel Hawthorne, then an obscure writer for various periodicals, and the ill-paid author of those juvenile histories that gave Mr. S. G. Goodrich ("Peter Parley") a literary reputation he scarcely earned.
The writer has a copy of this respectable and for a time popular monthly, with which he would be reluctant to part. It contains, for the first time printed, "The White Old Maid," one of the weirdest and most fascinating of the "Twice-Told Tales."
My present object is to invite the notice of readers of the "New England Magazine" of our day to the last completed work from the hand of that man of marvellous genius,
"Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,And left the tale half told."
"Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,And left the tale half told."
I remember with what concern I once heard a resident of Concord, a man not unknown in the world of letters, speak of certain evils likely to result from "Hawthorne's fall."
This, to me, conveyed only the idea of physical disaster, and it was with a sentiment of relief, commensurate with the contempt inspired by such an explanation, that I was given to understand that it was the great author's unselfish effort in behalf of his old college comrade and life-long friend, that was supposed to imply a state of moral declension fitly indicated by the sinister word.
It was thus that men and women, full of the cheap patriotism of the time, and puffed up with a sort of loyal egotism that blinded them to the possibilities of honest purpose in any whose views on politics and public affairs varied never so slightly from their accepted standard of right, ventured to condemn what they were constitutionally incapable of judging with either coolness or fair appreciation.
The "Life of Franklin Pierce" is by no means a great book, and neither the subject nor its treatment entitles it to a place among the immortal works that preceded and followed it; but tothose of us who knew and loved the writer, and to those who through his books got some glimpses of the singular purity of his moral nature, a quality of friendship that excludes the idea of selfish interest seems its author's only and sufficient motive.
When the storm of civil war broke upon us, these worthy critics flung themselves with tongue, or pen, or sword—chiefly with tongue—into the good cause, and were scandalized at the vision of one who would fain have dreamed while they, after their various methods, were fighting; of a poet so far aloft in the regions of ideal fancy that the confused voices of battle well-nigh failed to reach him. And yet, in the words of one of their own writers,
"There was but one man living whom the country could so ill afford to lose as this strange, wayward, fitful, unreasonable poet and dreamer, who sneered at the war, and at the great nation that waged it, with the pettishness of a spoiled child."
"There was but one man living whom the country could so ill afford to lose as this strange, wayward, fitful, unreasonable poet and dreamer, who sneered at the war, and at the great nation that waged it, with the pettishness of a spoiled child."
But the charge that Hawthorne sneered at the righteous war, or, far worse, at his country, is full of an injustice which seems more bitter because it comes from one whose hearty admiration of theAuthorshould have lifted him to a clearer appreciation of theManin his purity and lofty patriotism.
The writer concludes the article from which I have quoted, and which, in keen analysis and generous, literary judgment, is rarely equalled by any of Hawthorne's reviewers, with these and like ill-considered words:—
"Wherever he turned his weary steps, there stood in his path the genius of the time, not beautiful, not romantic, to his eyes; not even grand—but stern enough and in grim earnest, demanding of him what he could not give,—the heart and voice of an American citizen in the hour of America's danger."
"Wherever he turned his weary steps, there stood in his path the genius of the time, not beautiful, not romantic, to his eyes; not even grand—but stern enough and in grim earnest, demanding of him what he could not give,—the heart and voice of an American citizen in the hour of America's danger."
The writer forgot, or, blinded by strong feeling, failed to perceive, that the silence which, with him as with hundreds of good and earnest men, would indeed have indicated a fatal lack of patriotic emotion, was in the case of Hawthorne only the inevitable shrinking of a rare and sensitive spirit from contact with the awful realities of conflict.
When the "Artist of the Beautiful" descended from the serene atmosphere, where his lofty spiritual nature had its true home and highest sphere of action, and devoted his delicate gifts tothe useful mysteries of watch-making, the result, while eminently satisfactory to his old employer and well-wisher, the jeweller, and doubtless of blessed effect on the poor artist's purse, was disastrous in loss to the world of thought, and in its influence on his better and real self.
A writer of tenderer sympathies and nicer discrimination, takes a more kindly and a wiser view:—
"About the whole question of the war, Hawthorne's mind was, I think, always hovering between two views. He sympathized with it in principle; but its inevitable accessories—the bloodshed, the bustle, and above all, perhaps, the bunkum which accompanied it—were to him absolutely hateful.... To any one who knew the man, the mere fact that Hawthorne should have been able to make up his mind to the righteousness and expediency of the war at all, is evidence of the strength of that popular passion which drove the North and South into conflict."
"About the whole question of the war, Hawthorne's mind was, I think, always hovering between two views. He sympathized with it in principle; but its inevitable accessories—the bloodshed, the bustle, and above all, perhaps, the bunkum which accompanied it—were to him absolutely hateful.... To any one who knew the man, the mere fact that Hawthorne should have been able to make up his mind to the righteousness and expediency of the war at all, is evidence of the strength of that popular passion which drove the North and South into conflict."
But it was not Hawthorne's silence that provoked to fiercest expression the safe zeal of certain literary loyalists. This last sketch from that pen, the secret of whose magic was never communicated, and which, precious in itself, is invaluable because the last, was published in the summer of 1862—less than two years before its author's death. Its title, "Chiefly about War Matters," suggests its character. It was, in fact, a series of pictures of scenes in and about Washington at this stage of the great contest.
The present writer attempts nothing here like a review of this remarkable essay, entirely worthy as it was of its subject and its author's genius; it is simply my purpose to call the reader's attention to a production, which, more than anything else in Hawthorne's writings, has kindled the hostile criticism of shallow and uncongenial minds.
So quaintly characteristic is its commencement that I am tempted to give its opening paragraphs in full:—
"There is no remoteness of life and thought, no hermetically scaled seclusion, except, possibly, that of the grave, into which the disturbing influences of this war do not penetrate. Of course, the general heart-quake of the country long ago knocked at my cottage-door, and compelled me, reluctantly, to suspend the contemplation of certain fantasies to which, according to my harmless custom, I was endeavoring to give a sufficiently lifelike aspect to admit of their figuring in a romance. As I make no pretensionsto statecraft or soldiership, and could promote the common weal neither by valor nor counsel, it seemed at first a pity that I should be debarred from such unsubstantial business as I had contrived for myself, since nothing more genuine was to be substituted for it."But I magnanimously considered that there is a kind of treason in inoculating one's self from the universal fear and sorrow, and thinking one's idle thoughts in the dread time of civil war; and could a man be so cold and hard-hearted, he would better deserve to be sent to Fort Warren than many who have found their way thither on the score of violent but misdirected sympathies."I remember the touching rebuke administered by King Charles to that rural squire, the echo of whose hunting-horn came to the poor monarch's ear on the morning before a battle, where the sovereignty and constitution of England were at stake. So I gave myself up to reading newspapers, and listening to the click of the telegraph, like other people, until after a great many months of such pastime, it grew so abominably irksome that I determined to look a little more closely at matters with my own eyes."
"There is no remoteness of life and thought, no hermetically scaled seclusion, except, possibly, that of the grave, into which the disturbing influences of this war do not penetrate. Of course, the general heart-quake of the country long ago knocked at my cottage-door, and compelled me, reluctantly, to suspend the contemplation of certain fantasies to which, according to my harmless custom, I was endeavoring to give a sufficiently lifelike aspect to admit of their figuring in a romance. As I make no pretensionsto statecraft or soldiership, and could promote the common weal neither by valor nor counsel, it seemed at first a pity that I should be debarred from such unsubstantial business as I had contrived for myself, since nothing more genuine was to be substituted for it.
"But I magnanimously considered that there is a kind of treason in inoculating one's self from the universal fear and sorrow, and thinking one's idle thoughts in the dread time of civil war; and could a man be so cold and hard-hearted, he would better deserve to be sent to Fort Warren than many who have found their way thither on the score of violent but misdirected sympathies.
"I remember the touching rebuke administered by King Charles to that rural squire, the echo of whose hunting-horn came to the poor monarch's ear on the morning before a battle, where the sovereignty and constitution of England were at stake. So I gave myself up to reading newspapers, and listening to the click of the telegraph, like other people, until after a great many months of such pastime, it grew so abominably irksome that I determined to look a little more closely at matters with my own eyes."
It was in the early days of March that Hawthorne, in company with his friend and publisher, Wm. D. Ticknor, left Boston on a visit to Washington and the seat of war, then in its immediate vicinity.
The sketches of natural scenery are touched with the same pencil that gave us the charming picture of daily life at the Old Manse.
It was in New York that the travellers had the first clear intimation of the unnatural order of things consequent on a state of civil war. Here they found a rather prominent display of military goods at the shop windows—such as swords, with gilded scabbards and trappings, epaulettes, carbines, revolvers, and sometimes a great iron cannon at the edge of the pavement, as if Mars had dropped one of his pocket-pistols there while hurrying to the field.
As railway companions, they had now and then a volunteer in his French-gray great coat, returning from furlough, or a new-made officer travelling to join his regiment in his new-made uniform, which was perhaps all of the military character that he had about him; but proud of his eagle buttons, and likely enough to, do them honor before the gilt should be wholly dimmed.
The country, in short, so far as bustle and movement went, was more quiet than in ordinary times, because so large a proportion of its restless elements had been drawn towards the seat of conflict.
But the air was full of a vague disturbance.
The author's patriotic alarm seems to have been especially excited by the host of embryo warriors that filled the cars and thronged the stations all along the journey. One cause of this terror will seem to us now all the more amusing because there are not wanting those who will doubtless honestly believe that in giving it expression he wrote with something of prophetic unction:—
"One terrible idea occurs in reference to this matter. Even supposing the war should end to-morrow, and the army melt into the mass of the population within the year, what an incalculable preponderance will there be of military titles and pretentions for at least half a century to come! Every country neighborhood will have its general or two, its three or four colonels, half a dozen majors, and captains without end—besides noncommissioned officers and privates, more than the recruiting officers ever knew of,—all with their campaign stories which will become the staple of fireside talk forevermore."Military merit, or rather, since that is not so readily estimated, military notoriety, will be the measure of all claims to civil distinction."One bullet-headed general will succeed another in the presidential chair; and veterans will hold the offices at home and abroad, and sit in Congress and the State Legislature, and fill all the avenues of public life. And yet I do not speak of this deprecatingly, since, very likely, it may substitute something more real and genuine, instead of the many shams on which men have heretofore founded their claims to public regard; but it behooves civilians to consider their wretched prospects in the future, and assume the military button before it is too late."
"One terrible idea occurs in reference to this matter. Even supposing the war should end to-morrow, and the army melt into the mass of the population within the year, what an incalculable preponderance will there be of military titles and pretentions for at least half a century to come! Every country neighborhood will have its general or two, its three or four colonels, half a dozen majors, and captains without end—besides noncommissioned officers and privates, more than the recruiting officers ever knew of,—all with their campaign stories which will become the staple of fireside talk forevermore.
"Military merit, or rather, since that is not so readily estimated, military notoriety, will be the measure of all claims to civil distinction.
"One bullet-headed general will succeed another in the presidential chair; and veterans will hold the offices at home and abroad, and sit in Congress and the State Legislature, and fill all the avenues of public life. And yet I do not speak of this deprecatingly, since, very likely, it may substitute something more real and genuine, instead of the many shams on which men have heretofore founded their claims to public regard; but it behooves civilians to consider their wretched prospects in the future, and assume the military button before it is too late."
The day of their arrival in Washington was the date of McClellan's historic movement on Manassas:—
"On the very day of our arrival sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march towards Manassas; and almost with their first steps into the Virginia mud, the phantasmagory of a countless host and impregnable ramparts, before which they had so long remained quiescent, dissolved quite away."It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a gigantic enemy, and, beholding him suddenly collapse, had discovered to himself and the world that he had merely punctured an enormously swollen bladder."There are instances of a similar character in old romances, where great armies are long kept at bay by the arts of the necromancers, whobuild airy towers and battlements, and muster warriors of terrible aspect, and thus feign a defence of seeming impregnability, until some bolder champion of the besiegers dashes forward to try an encounter with the foremost foeman, and finds him melt away in the death-grapple. With such heroic adventures let the march upon Manassas be hereafter reckoned."The whole business, though connected with the destinies of a nation, takes inevitably a tinge of the ludicrous."The vast preparation of men and warlike material,—the majestic patience and docility,—with which the people waited through those weary and dreary months,—the martial skill, courage, and caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,—and at last the shock with which we were brought suddenly up against nothing at all!"
"On the very day of our arrival sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march towards Manassas; and almost with their first steps into the Virginia mud, the phantasmagory of a countless host and impregnable ramparts, before which they had so long remained quiescent, dissolved quite away.
"It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a gigantic enemy, and, beholding him suddenly collapse, had discovered to himself and the world that he had merely punctured an enormously swollen bladder.
"There are instances of a similar character in old romances, where great armies are long kept at bay by the arts of the necromancers, whobuild airy towers and battlements, and muster warriors of terrible aspect, and thus feign a defence of seeming impregnability, until some bolder champion of the besiegers dashes forward to try an encounter with the foremost foeman, and finds him melt away in the death-grapple. With such heroic adventures let the march upon Manassas be hereafter reckoned.
"The whole business, though connected with the destinies of a nation, takes inevitably a tinge of the ludicrous.
"The vast preparation of men and warlike material,—the majestic patience and docility,—with which the people waited through those weary and dreary months,—the martial skill, courage, and caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,—and at last the shock with which we were brought suddenly up against nothing at all!"
It is in dealing with ponderous and awful blunders like this that the satiric power of the writer finds its favorite field of action.
It is not strange that, in those excited times of bitterness and strife, certain genuine but shallow souls should have counted it little short of treason to extract anything like fun from an episode which for us, in the day of it, was full of very solemn mortification. In this sketch, as indeed all through his works, it is in the delineation of individual character—in the analysis of motives—that Hawthorne's peculiar and amazing power is especially manifest, intermingled withal with a certain droll self-distrust and deprecation of adverse criticism, to which he has here given expression in a series of foot-notes, ostensibly from the editor's pen, but written in fact by the author himself.
The mixture of candor and apologetic self-disapproval in these addenda has a sufficiently odd effect, intermingled as it is with the utmost freedom of comment and criticism.
Prominent generals, cabinet ministers, and even the President himself, are dealt with in a vein of satiric candor, but with a pervasive spirit of good-nature evident enough and of sufficient breadth to disarm even official sensitiveness of anything like rancor.
Whatever personal descriptions the author may have meditated, or accomplished and afterward suppressed, the only full-length portrait he has given us is that of McClellan, of all the deeper interest and value now that both these famous Americans are numbered with the dead.
His impressions of President Lincoln seemed colored with a trace of prejudice, which, however unjust and unfortunate it may appear to us now, was really only the inevitable consequence of the wide intellectual gulf that yawned between those two men, both of positive character, and with tastes and sympathies the most radically opposite. But despite this unavoidable repulsion, Hawthorne's keen, resistless insight did not fail to penetrate the wonderful purity and simplicity of Lincoln's character. In a final word he does him ample justice:—
"He is evidently a man of keen faculties, and, what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character."As to his integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never deceived. Before he actually entered upon his great office, and for a considerable time afterwards, there is no reason to suppose that he adequately estimated the gigantic task about to be imposed upon him, or, at least, had any distinct idea how it was to be managed; and I presume there may have been more than one veteran politician to propose to himself to take the power out of President Lincoln's hands into his own, leaving our honest friend only the public responsibility for the good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development of his statesmanly qualities at that period may have justified such designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself into as good a statesman (to speak modestly) as his prime minister."
"He is evidently a man of keen faculties, and, what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character.
"As to his integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never deceived. Before he actually entered upon his great office, and for a considerable time afterwards, there is no reason to suppose that he adequately estimated the gigantic task about to be imposed upon him, or, at least, had any distinct idea how it was to be managed; and I presume there may have been more than one veteran politician to propose to himself to take the power out of President Lincoln's hands into his own, leaving our honest friend only the public responsibility for the good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development of his statesmanly qualities at that period may have justified such designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself into as good a statesman (to speak modestly) as his prime minister."
So long as a general's sword is seemingly invincible, and the uniformity of his success silences even the cavillings of envy,—that most persistent of all the unlovely emotions,—just so long he may safely count on a unanimity of public approval. But let disaster befall, and, justly or otherwise, it matters little which, the voices just now most vociferous for coronation, bellow the loudest for crucifixion! Few of our commanders in the late war had bitterer evidence of this than McClellan. Idolized while victorious, he was vituperated with corresponding violence the instant fortune showed signs of wavering in her fidelity. At this distance from those stirring times we can easily perceive that the idolatry and the abuse were alike unjust and even ridiculous; the same wisdomthat pronounces it unsafe to praise a man until death has set the seal to his earthly reputation, deems it no less a folly to bestow adulation or excessive blame on a military commander before the end of his campaigns. To his brief estimate of McClellan's character and qualifications for his post of vast responsibility, our author brought an admirable coolness of judgment, and that wonderful insight into men and motives so seldom at fault. Keenly alive to the ridiculousness of the attack on Manassas, and declaring that "no rebel artillery has played upon us with such overwhelming effect," he was capable, with a fairness sufficiently amazing in any critic of those days, of doing full justice to the general's indubitable ability and patriotism. He closes his sketch of McClellan, by no means the least valuable part of the article we are considering, with this decided expression of opinion: "I shall not give up my faith in his soldiership until he is defeated, nor in his courage and integrity even then."
An odd peculiarity of Hawthorne's mind was the incertitude—I use this vile word in lack of a better at the moment—that seemed at times to invest his reasoning powers with a sort of Indian summer haziness.
This idiosyncrasy had a striking exemplification when our travellers met "a party of contrabands escaping out of the mysterious depths of Secessia."
"They were unlike the specimens of their race whom we are accustomed to see at the North, and, in my judgment, were far more agreeable."So rudely were they attired,—as if their garb had grown upon them spontaneously,—so picturesquely natural in manners, and wearing such a crust of primeval simplicity (which is quite polished away from the Northern black man), that they seemed a kind of creature by themselves, not altogether human, but perhaps quite as good, and akin to the fauns and rustic deities of olden times. I wonder if I shall excite anybody's wrath by saying this?"It is no great matter at all events. I felt most kindly towards the poor fugitives, but knew not precisely what to wish in their behalf, nor in the least how to help them. For the sake of the manhood which is latent in them, I would not have turned them back; but I should have felt almost as reluctant on their own account to hasten them forward to the strangers' land; and I think my prevalent idea was that, whoever may be benefited by the results of this war, it will not be the present generation of negroes,the childhood of whose race has now gone forever, and who must henceforth fight a hard battle with the world on very unequal terms. On behalf of my own race, I am glad, and can only hope that an inscrutable Providence means good to both parties."
"They were unlike the specimens of their race whom we are accustomed to see at the North, and, in my judgment, were far more agreeable.
"So rudely were they attired,—as if their garb had grown upon them spontaneously,—so picturesquely natural in manners, and wearing such a crust of primeval simplicity (which is quite polished away from the Northern black man), that they seemed a kind of creature by themselves, not altogether human, but perhaps quite as good, and akin to the fauns and rustic deities of olden times. I wonder if I shall excite anybody's wrath by saying this?
"It is no great matter at all events. I felt most kindly towards the poor fugitives, but knew not precisely what to wish in their behalf, nor in the least how to help them. For the sake of the manhood which is latent in them, I would not have turned them back; but I should have felt almost as reluctant on their own account to hasten them forward to the strangers' land; and I think my prevalent idea was that, whoever may be benefited by the results of this war, it will not be the present generation of negroes,the childhood of whose race has now gone forever, and who must henceforth fight a hard battle with the world on very unequal terms. On behalf of my own race, I am glad, and can only hope that an inscrutable Providence means good to both parties."
The whimsical feature in Hawthorne's character to which we have alluded, is thus noticed by an intimate and valued friend of the great author:—
"Nobody disliked slavery more cordially than he did; and yet the difficulty of what was to be done with the slaves weighed constantly upon his mind. He told me once that while he had been consul at Liverpool a vessel arrived there with a number of negro sailors, who had been brought from slave States, and would, of course, be enslaved on their return. He fancied that he ought to inform the men of the fact, but then he was stopped by the reflection—who was to provide for them if they became free? and, as he said with a sigh, 'While I was thinking, the vessel sailed.' So I recollect, on the old battlefield of Manassas, on which I strolled in company with Hawthorne, meeting a batch of runaway slaves—weary, footsore, wretched, and helpless beyond conception; we gave them food and wine, some small sums of money, and got them a lift upon a train going northward; but not long afterwards Hawthorne turned to me with the remark, 'I am not sure that we were doing right, after all. How can those poor beings find food and shelter away from home?'"Thus this ingrained and inherent doubt incapacitated him from following any course vigorously."He thought on the whole that Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison and the abolitionists were in the right, but then he was never quite certain that they were not in the wrong after all; so that his advocacy of their cause was of a very uncertain character."
"Nobody disliked slavery more cordially than he did; and yet the difficulty of what was to be done with the slaves weighed constantly upon his mind. He told me once that while he had been consul at Liverpool a vessel arrived there with a number of negro sailors, who had been brought from slave States, and would, of course, be enslaved on their return. He fancied that he ought to inform the men of the fact, but then he was stopped by the reflection—who was to provide for them if they became free? and, as he said with a sigh, 'While I was thinking, the vessel sailed.' So I recollect, on the old battlefield of Manassas, on which I strolled in company with Hawthorne, meeting a batch of runaway slaves—weary, footsore, wretched, and helpless beyond conception; we gave them food and wine, some small sums of money, and got them a lift upon a train going northward; but not long afterwards Hawthorne turned to me with the remark, 'I am not sure that we were doing right, after all. How can those poor beings find food and shelter away from home?'
"Thus this ingrained and inherent doubt incapacitated him from following any course vigorously.
"He thought on the whole that Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison and the abolitionists were in the right, but then he was never quite certain that they were not in the wrong after all; so that his advocacy of their cause was of a very uncertain character."
There is a constant temptation to transcend proper limits in quoting from this most characteristic production of our great author.
It was my purpose simply to recall to the minds of readers an article whose authorship was scarcely known at the time of its appearance (in the July of 1862), and which has never been included in its writer's collected works.
Nothing in Hawthorne's books—not even excepting "Twice-Told Tales"—is more suggestive and eloquent of the man and the author.
The same matchless purity of style, with never a sophomoric flight nor a tinge of dulness; replete with subtle humor, and anirony whose tempered edge scarcely wounds by reason of the attendant richness of good nature that "steals away its sharpness"; as in the same soil that nourishes the keen, aggressive nettle, is always found a certain herb of healing potency. I cannot refrain from giving our readers some passages near the close. They are descriptive of certain guests at Willard's Hotel, in Washington, where the travellers lived during their stay at the Capital.
This portion of Hawthorne's last magazine article recalls forcibly passages in the first of his published stories, "The Gray Champion."
"It is curious to observe what antiquated figures and costumes sometimes make their appearance at Willard's. You meet elderly men with frilled shirt-fronts, for example, the fashion of which adornment passed away from among the people of this world half a century ago."It is as if one of Stuart's portraits were walking abroad."I see no way of accounting for this, except that the troubles of the times, the impiety of traitors, and the peril of our sacred Union and Constitution have disturbed in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated and half-accomplished sacrilege."If it be so, their wonted fires are not altogether extinguished in their ashes,—in their throats, I might rather say,—for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be loath to venture upon."But, really, one would be glad to know where these strange figures come from."It shows, at any rate, how many remote, decaying villages and country neighborhoods of the North, and forest nooks of the West, and old mansion houses in cities, are shaken by the tremor of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the matter."The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an extraordinary vigor and venerability of life that can overcome the rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an interest in new things; whereas, hundreds of commonplace young men come hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of finding out what they are fit for. And this war (we may say so much in its favor) has been the means of discovering that important secret to not a few."
"It is curious to observe what antiquated figures and costumes sometimes make their appearance at Willard's. You meet elderly men with frilled shirt-fronts, for example, the fashion of which adornment passed away from among the people of this world half a century ago.
"It is as if one of Stuart's portraits were walking abroad.
"I see no way of accounting for this, except that the troubles of the times, the impiety of traitors, and the peril of our sacred Union and Constitution have disturbed in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated and half-accomplished sacrilege.
"If it be so, their wonted fires are not altogether extinguished in their ashes,—in their throats, I might rather say,—for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be loath to venture upon.
"But, really, one would be glad to know where these strange figures come from.
"It shows, at any rate, how many remote, decaying villages and country neighborhoods of the North, and forest nooks of the West, and old mansion houses in cities, are shaken by the tremor of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the matter.
"The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an extraordinary vigor and venerability of life that can overcome the rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an interest in new things; whereas, hundreds of commonplace young men come hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of finding out what they are fit for. And this war (we may say so much in its favor) has been the means of discovering that important secret to not a few."
The writer remembers the vivid and untiring pleasure with which, when a child, he read and re-read that marvellous book for little people, "Grandfather's Arm Chair." It opened to him a new world of poetry and beauty—a revelation which close and severest study of the great author's mind and character, as developed in his maturer works, has but made broader and deeper.
With a grateful memory of the first, I write these few lines to recall almost the latest of Hawthorne's writings; the very last indeed, save the charming fragment that gave to the world of letters "Little Pansy"—"The sweetest child," says Alexander Smith, "in English literature."
I cannot close this brief and cursory notice more appropriately than in the words of a dear friend and appreciative admirer of our author, James Russell Lowell:—
"This now 'sacred and happy spirit' was cruelly misunderstood among men. There were those who would have taken him away from his proper and peculiar sphere, in which he has done more for the true fame of his country than any other man, and made him a politician and reformer."Even the faithfulness of his friendships was turned into reproach."Him in whom New England was embodied as never before, making a part of every fibre of his soul, we have heard charged with want of patriotism."There were certain things and certain men with whom his essentially aristocratic nature could not sympathize, but he was American to the core. Just after Bull Run he wrote to a friend, 'If the event of this day has left the people of the North in the same grim and bloody mood in which it has left me, it will be a costly victory to the South.'"But it is unworthy of this noble man to defend him from imputations which never touched him. As the years go by, his countrymen will grow more and more proud of him, more and more satisfied that it is, after all, something considerable to be only a genius."
"This now 'sacred and happy spirit' was cruelly misunderstood among men. There were those who would have taken him away from his proper and peculiar sphere, in which he has done more for the true fame of his country than any other man, and made him a politician and reformer.
"Even the faithfulness of his friendships was turned into reproach.
"Him in whom New England was embodied as never before, making a part of every fibre of his soul, we have heard charged with want of patriotism.
"There were certain things and certain men with whom his essentially aristocratic nature could not sympathize, but he was American to the core. Just after Bull Run he wrote to a friend, 'If the event of this day has left the people of the North in the same grim and bloody mood in which it has left me, it will be a costly victory to the South.'
"But it is unworthy of this noble man to defend him from imputations which never touched him. As the years go by, his countrymen will grow more and more proud of him, more and more satisfied that it is, after all, something considerable to be only a genius."
One day, when all the city streetLay sultry in the summer heat,I stood on Hoosac's rocky crest,And drank a draught of joy and rest.The bracing Berkshire breezes blewAcross the hills, and sweeping throughThe grateful valleys, gently fannedThe sun-scorched brow of Greylock grand.From off the cragged hills Taghkonic,High o'er the river Housatonic,An eagle in his strength was soaring,The paltry earth beneath ignoring.Swift did his wings his will obey;Straight north by east he coursed his way;Proudly he took his fearless flight,Toward fair Monadnock's hazy height.Then on this rugged mountain wall,A deeper silence seemed to fall:Over this road, though broad and wide,No traveller was seen to ride.Only in vision rumbled byA creaking coach with driver high,Who cracked his whip, and rang his cheers—Echoes they were of other years.A group of graves were clustered here;The wind wailed o'er them wild and drear:—Could souls rise higher to the LightWhen soaring from this mountain height?And as I mused, the twilight fell:I heard a distant evening bell;And in the valley far below,I heard the home-bound cattle low.Far down where winds the Deerfield stream,I saw a light,—a sudden gleam,As up the narrow river ridingThe Western train came swiftly gliding.Then full to Hoosac's height it came,When, with a sudden flare of flame,Boldly the barrier it defiedAnd plunged into the mountain side.The train was lost to sound and sight,But still I knew it kept its flight:I marked its subterranean way;—Below the little graveyard lay.Ah! trav'ller, through this cavern deep,Fast in thy thoughts or book asleep,Dost know that high above thy headThere rest the ashes of the dead?
One day, when all the city streetLay sultry in the summer heat,I stood on Hoosac's rocky crest,And drank a draught of joy and rest.
The bracing Berkshire breezes blewAcross the hills, and sweeping throughThe grateful valleys, gently fannedThe sun-scorched brow of Greylock grand.
From off the cragged hills Taghkonic,High o'er the river Housatonic,An eagle in his strength was soaring,The paltry earth beneath ignoring.
Swift did his wings his will obey;Straight north by east he coursed his way;Proudly he took his fearless flight,Toward fair Monadnock's hazy height.
Then on this rugged mountain wall,A deeper silence seemed to fall:Over this road, though broad and wide,No traveller was seen to ride.
Only in vision rumbled byA creaking coach with driver high,Who cracked his whip, and rang his cheers—Echoes they were of other years.
A group of graves were clustered here;The wind wailed o'er them wild and drear:—Could souls rise higher to the LightWhen soaring from this mountain height?
And as I mused, the twilight fell:I heard a distant evening bell;And in the valley far below,I heard the home-bound cattle low.
Far down where winds the Deerfield stream,I saw a light,—a sudden gleam,As up the narrow river ridingThe Western train came swiftly gliding.
Then full to Hoosac's height it came,When, with a sudden flare of flame,Boldly the barrier it defiedAnd plunged into the mountain side.
The train was lost to sound and sight,But still I knew it kept its flight:I marked its subterranean way;—Below the little graveyard lay.
Ah! trav'ller, through this cavern deep,Fast in thy thoughts or book asleep,Dost know that high above thy headThere rest the ashes of the dead?
A little remote from the centre of a village, on that strip of seacoast in the southeastern part of New Hampshire, lived a self-made trader, Joshua Jackson. He occupied a small, unpainted house, two stories in front, with the roof sloping down at the back part to one story. In the rear was the barn, with its generous red door, a well with its long "sweep," a pig-pen, and a hen-pen; but the hens seemed equally or more at home in the barn, with liberty of the yard, and sometimes they took a peep of curiosity into the back entry of the house.
Here, with his mother, lived Joshua Jackson, familiarly known as "Uncle Josh." It is a kind instinct which makes humanity in the rural districts claim, as uncle or aunt, any single man or woman who is left one side of the common lot of marriage and its ties. It is a relationship accepted in silent, good-natured consent on both sides. It was difficult to think of Uncle Josh as ever having been young. His hair, his complexion, his eyes, and even his coat, all seemed nearly of a color—a kind of snuff-colored red. He had a limping, rolling gait, affected by some infirmity of lameness which had, perhaps, prevented him from engaging in farming or fishing, which employed most men of the village; so he went into trade.
One of the "fore rooms," so called, of the house was his shop; the floor was of immaculate neatness, and carefully sanded every morning. On one side stood a cluster of barrels, one empty barrel surmounted by a board, exactly a yard long, the edge notched for the quarters and inches. This was his counter, and held a clumsy pair of scales. On the other side was a rude table containing boxes of cotton cloth, cambrics or checked goods, sewing cotton, buttons, thimbles, scissors, jack-knives, needles, and pins. On the mantel-shelf stood a pile of white, blue-edged plates, and mugs, and pitchers, from which projected sticks of red and white candy, like miniature barber's poles, and heaps of "gibraltars," hard and solid, sweet and brittle, and honest. Every child knew that they were a cent apiece, and thought them worth it.
No errand was half as welcome as one to Uncle Josh, when they might take an egg and get a skein of cotton. Sometimes he dived down into a cask of raisins as he passed by it, and filled the hand of the waiting messenger when he gave her whatever she came for, and took her money. Uncle Josh made no charges; he went on the cash system. He would barter, but he kept no running accounts with any one. The youngest child might go to him with the same certainty of right measure and weight as the shrewdest adult. One bright-faced little girl, who used to come often into his store, neatly dressed in her high-necked tier, and cape-bonnet, seemed to be a great favorite with him. He would sometimes say, half aside, that she was "pooty as a queen," although why the sturdy republican should make that comparison is a mystery. One day he stood at the open door, wistfully watching her as she walked off with her light, elastic step, and his mother, who had come in from the back room, answered to his unspoken thought, "Yes, she does, look a sight as Liza used to." The one woman whom others had connected with the idea of Uncle Josh's marrying had been dead long ago. It was said he had meant to ask her to be his wife when he should have laid by a certain sum of money, but the shy and reticent man suddenly found her "spoken for," as the villagers termed it, by the mate of a vessel. She died of consumption, unmarried. Uncle Josh never referred to this passage in his life, but his mother knew his mind, and why his words grew fewer than ever. The little Molly reproduced the soft hazel eyes and the trim air he so well remembered in her aunt.
Uncle Josh had a way of calling all strangers "furiners." A pale-faced girl who was boarding at the seashore for her health was delighted to be sent by her hostess, or any of the family, on an errand to the queer, quaint, old store, kept by "the funny old man." "You're a furiner, I guess," he said to her one day. "No, indeed, sir," she answered quickly, with an indignant blush, "I am not a foreigner. I came from Rochester, New York." "Why! such a long piece off, poor child, poor child," he muttered, as he went to a mug and took out a bright red sugar heart, and pressed it in her hand. "Ain't you dreadful homesick to live so fur?" "Oh, no; my home is very pleasant, and my father and mother are travelling; but they left me here because I have not been strong since I had the fever, and the doctor said I must bathe every dayin the ocean. I have nice times. They keep cows where I board, and let me milk them a little sometimes. I am going to stay all summer." "Yes, yes; there are getting to be a great many furiners here in the summer." "What did Uncle Josh mean?" she asked on her return to the house; "did he take me for an Irish or a German girl? He asked if I was a foreigner." "Oh, he meant a stranger here in the village—some one not born here. He always calls 'em so. A good many folks do."
When Uncle Josh first went to Boston to buy his stock in trade, it was said that a merchant of whom he made large purchases, thought he did not know about trusting so queer and shabby looking a customer,—he should have to require good security. To his surprise, the countryman looked at the amount, unbuttoned his coat, and, from an ample old pocket-book he counted off his money; then from the depths of his pantaloon's pocket he brought up a round piece of leather twisted together for fastening, and from this he counted the exact change. Then he directed how the goods should be sent to him by such a schooner at a certain wharf. "Thank you, Mr. Jackson," said the merchant; "I hope we shall always be able to accommodate you. You prefer to pay down now, I see; but if you would like to have your bill remain awhile on credit at any time, we shall be happy to trust you." "It is very kind in you, but I don't trade on promises. 'Tain't my way. I thank ye all the same."
One day Uncle Josh happened to be in a merchant's store when the head of the establishment was absent. The clerk who waited on him had the pertness and superior airs of youth, sometimes seen even fifty years ago. He thought it fine fun to chaff the old countryman so shabbily dressed, and who drawled his words, and seemed so heavy and lumbering in his movements. As his customer said he guessed he would take so much of one thing, and then of another, the clerk said, "You are running up quite an account, it seems to me. Dipping in pretty deep for a man like you, hey?" "Perhaps I am," answered the old man; "I'll let 'em go," and walked out of the store. Another clerk who had finished business with a customer, came forward, and said to his fellow-clerk, "What made Mr. Jackson go off so suddenly?" "Who? That old cove? I rather think he was miffed at something I said about his dipping in deep. He didn't look as if he could afforda mouse-trap." "He? why, he's worth his weight in gold—always money down on the spot. If you've offended him, the governor'll be in your hair, I can tell you." "Goodness!" cried the terrified clerk, "I'll go after him, and bring him back," and off he started in quick pursuit. He could easily distinguish the rusty-looking suit, and limping, sidelong gait, even among the crowd of passengers on the sidewalk. When he had nearly overtaken him, he called out, "Here, sir, Mr. Jackson! Please stop," but the countryman still continued to move on at his slow pace. The clerk came up to him, and touched his hat, saying, "Please excuse me, Mr. Jackson. I am sure I didn't mean anything. I hope you will go back to the store, and let us wait on you. I am sure Mr. —— would be so sorry to miss your custom. I hope you will excuse—" "You can go back to the store, young man," answered Mr. Jackson, "and tell your master I don't trade on excuses."
When the honest old man was gathered to his fathers, those who had known him in trade missed him. He always recognized a good article, and was willing to pay a fair price for it. He believed in a system of just equivalents in all business; he was exact to the smallest fraction, but not mean. He was simple, upright, honest, in all his dealings, never using his shrewdness to the disadvantage of his fellow-men.
This is an age of biography. We have the two-volumed "Lives and Letters," and the brief and popular biography, with many of varying length and value between the two. And the contents of these two are outlined for us, again and again, in magazines and newspaper sketches. The histories of famous men and women are told and retold. It is the public's own fault if there is not a more general interest in, and a better knowledge of, the work of the notable characters of the century than ever before. This implies, also, a certain familiarity with the great movements of reform and philanthropy, and with the literature of the time. Some, however, who had a large share in the noblest work of this century, are less known, and less brought into notice, than we should expect. Among such is Mrs. L. M. Child. Her letters, published in 1880, were prefaced by a brief memorial sketch by the poet Whittier, and contained in an appendix the tribute of Wendell Phillips. An account of her life-work, written by Susan Coolidge, appeared in the "Famous Women" series. But her life, in many aspects, might profitably have the attention of this younger generation, who know little either of her antislavery work or of her literary attainments or fame. In both these departments her work seems like that of a pioneer. She helped to clear the way for the antislavery leaders,—Garrison and Higginson, Curtis and Lowell and Whittier. And in a similar manner she led the way into those paths where, for two or three decades, the woman-author has been so conspicuously advancing,—where her success has been so brilliant and varied. As to her literary genius, in the words of Whittier, "It is not too much to say that half a century ago she was the most popular literary woman in the United States." And again, "It is not exaggeration to say that no man or woman of that period rendered more substantial service to the cause of freedom, or made such a doing it." And when we add that her benevolence and 'great renunciation' in philanthropy—unobtrusive as they were—give her a valid claim to lasting remembrance, that the originality, insight, and force of character manifest in her letters, place themamong the most valuable and suggestive of the letters of women, and that her truth, beneficence, and devotion would have made her life and character memorable if she had not written a line, we have stated only the barest truth; yet reason sufficient, why we of this generation should know more of her life and genius.
Lydia Maria Francis, afterwards Mrs. Child, was born in Medford, Mass., 1802. Her education was obtained in her native town, with the advantage of only one term in a private seminary. Her first book, "Hobomok," appeared in 1821, followed in 1823 by another novel, "The Rebels." These gave her a good degree of popularity. In 1827 she established "The Juvenile Miscellany," "pioneer to a long line of children's magazines." In 1828 she was married to David Lee Child, and they made their home in Boston. Within a very few years she wrote and published "The Frugal Housewife," "The Mother's Book," "The Girl's Own Book," "The History of Women," and the "Biographies of Good Wives."
Then, while all around her were heard the murmurs of popular praise and approval, and while in addition to the appreciation of countless humbler readers, she was winning commendation from the highest literary authorities,—in 1833 she "startled the country by the publication of her noble 'Appeal in behalf of that class of Americans called Africans.'" Mr. Whittier says: "It is quite impossible for any one of the present generation to imagine the popular surprise and indignation which the book called forth, or how entirely its author cut herself off from the favor and sympathy of a large number of those who had previously delighted to do her honor." And he continues: "Social and literary circles, which had been proud of her presence, closed their doors against her. The sale of her books, the subscriptions to her magazine, fell off to a ruinous extent. She knew all she was hazarding, and made the great sacrifice, prepared for all the consequences which followed."
She said in the preface: "I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken, but though I expect ridicule and censure, I do not fear them. A few years hence the opinion of the world will be a matter in which I have not even the most transient interest, but this book will be abroad on its mission of humanity, long after the hand that wrote it is mingling with thedust. Should it be the means of advancing, even one single hour, the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I would not exchange the consciousness for all Rothschild's wealth or Sir Walter's fame." "Thenceforward," says Mr. Whittier again, "her life was a battle, a constant rowing hard against the stream of popular prejudice and hatred. And through it all, pecuniary privations, loss of friends and position, the painfulness of being suddenly thrust from the still air of delightful studies into the bitterest and sternest controversy of the age, she bore herself with patience, fortitude, and unshaken reliance on the justice and ultimate triumph of the cause she had espoused."
In a short time thereafter she had published four more antislavery books or pamphlets. "Philothia," a romance whose scene is laid in ancient Greece, appeared in 1836. For eight years, dating from 1844, Mr. and Mrs. Childs were joint-editors of "The Anti-Slavery Standard," published in New York. She had a room in the house of Isaac Hopper,—"a house where disinterestedness and noble labor were as daily breath." It was during this time that she wrote her "Letters from New York," under which title her letters to "The Boston Courier" appeared in a volume having an enormous sale. In 1852, having given up the editorship of "The Standard," Mrs. Child said: "We made a humble home in Wayland, Mass., where we spent twenty-two pleasant years entirely alone, without any domestic; mutually serving each other, and dependent on each other for intellectual companionship."
During those years she was deeply and actively interested in the progress of the Civil War. Its premonitions roused her. She warmly defended the cause of John Brown, sending him a letter offering to go nurse him in prison. Very soon she was deep in every sort of undertaking,—collecting funds, collecting supplies, urging Whittier to the writing of patriotic songs, sewing, knitting, quilting. Her intense interest was manifested by generous contributions of money, how earned or saved, she only knew. She said, "Nobles or princes cannot invent any pleasure equal to earning with one hand and giving with the other." Twenty dollars at one time, two hundred at another, and perhaps four hundred at yet another, she gave. During these years, too, she was writing and compiling other books,—"The Progress of Religious Ideas,""Looking towards Sunset," and "A Romance of the Republic." It was in the last of these peaceful years that she wrote: "David and I are growing old. He will be eighty in three weeks, and I was seventy-two last February. But we keep young in our feelings. We are, in fact, like two old children; as much interested as ever in the birds and wild flowers, and with sympathies as lively as ever in all that concerns the welfare of the world. Our habitual mood is serene and cheerful."
Only a few months after these words were written, her husband died, and she left the place so full of memories of him to find a home elsewhere. Of these later years it was said: "She lived among a singularly peaceful and intelligent community as one of themselves, industrious, wise, and happy; with a frugality whose motive of wide benevolence was in itself a homily and a benediction." She died in 1880.