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- color: white; - width: .01em; - display: none; - } - - .transnote { - page-break-inside: avoid; - margin-left: 2%; - margin-right: 2%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - padding: .5em; - } - - hr { - margin-top: .1em; - margin-bottom: .1em; - visibility: hidden; - color: white; - width: .01em; - display: none; - } - -} - - </style> - </head> - -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mere Literature and Other Essays, by Woodrow Wilson</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Mere Literature and Other Essays</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Woodrow Wilson</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 17, 2021 [eBook #66074]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MERE LITERATURE AND OTHER ESSAYS ***</div> - -<div class="bbox"> -<p class="bold center">Books by Woodrow Wilson</p> - -<hr class="narrow" /> - -<div class="blockquot hang"> - -<p>CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT. A Study in -American Politics. 16mo, $1.25.</p> - -<p>MERE LITERATURE, and Other Essays. 12mo, -$1.50.</p> -</div> - -<p class="p1 center"> -HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br /> -<span class="smcap">Boston and New York</span> -</p> -</div> - -<div class="newpage p4 center wspace"> -<h1> -MERE LITERATURE</h1> - -<p class="p2 large"><i>AND OTHER ESSAYS</i></p> - -<p class="p2"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br /> - -WOODROW WILSON</p> - -<div id="if_logo" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 7em;"> - <img style="width: 7em;" src="images/logo.png" width="366" height="474" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="p2 smaller">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> -HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br /> -<span class="bold">The Riverside Press, Cambridge</span> -</p> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p class="newpage p4 center small"> -Copyright, 1896,<br /> -<span class="smcap">By</span> WOODROW WILSON</p> - -<p class="p1 small center"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="newpage p4 center vspace"> -TO<br /> -<span class="larger">STOCKTON AXSON<br /></span></p> - -<p class="center smaller vspace">BY EVERY GIFT OF MIND A CRITIC<br /> -AND LOVER OF LETTERS<br /> -BY EVERY GIFT OF HEART A FRIEND<br /> -THIS LITTLE VOLUME<br /> -IS AFFECTIONATELY<br /> -DEDICATED -</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> - -<table id="toc" summary="Contents"> -<tr class="small"> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - <td class="tdr">PAGE</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">I.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mere Literature</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_1">1</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">II.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Author Himself</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_28">28</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">III.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">On an Author’s Choice of Company</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_50">50</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">IV.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Literary Politician</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_69">69</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">V.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Interpreter of English Liberty</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_104">104</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">VI.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Truth of the Matter</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_161">161</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">VII.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Calendar of Great Americans</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_187">187</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">VIII.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Course of American History</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_213">213</a></td> -</tr> -</table> - -<p class="p2 narrow"><span class="small">⁂</span> All but one of the essays brought together in this volume -have already been printed, either in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, the -<i>Century Magazine</i>, or the <i>Forum</i>. The essay on Burke appears -here for the first time in print.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_1" class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="MERE_LITERATURE"><span class="larger">MERE LITERATURE.</span></h2> -</div> - -<hr class="narrow" /> - -<h2 class="nobreak p1" id="I">I.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">“MERE LITERATURE.”</span></h2> - -<p><span class="firstword">A singular</span> phrase this, “mere literature,”—the -irreverent invention of a scientific age. Literature -we know, but “mere” literature? We are -not to read it as if it meant <em>sheer</em> literature, literature -in the essence, stripped of all accidental or -ephemeral elements, and left with nothing but its -immortal charm and power. “Mere literature” is -a serious sneer, conceived in all honesty by the -scientific mind, which despises things that do not -fall within the categories of demonstrable knowledge. -It means <em>nothing but literature</em>, as who -should say, “mere talk,” “mere fabrication,” -“mere pastime.” The scientist, with his head -comfortably and excusably full of knowable things, -takes nothing seriously and with his hat off, except -human knowledge. The creations of the human -spirit are, from his point of view, incalculable -vagaries, irresponsible phenomena, to be regarded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span> -only as play, and, for the mind’s good, only as -recreation,—to be used to while away the tedium -of a railway journey, or to amuse a period of rest -or convalescence; mere byplay, mere make-believe.</p> - -<p>And so very whimsical things sometimes happen, -because of this scientific and positivist spirit of the -age, when the study of the literature of any language -is made part of the curriculum of our colleges. -The more delicate and subtle purposes of -the study are put quite out of countenance, and -literature is commanded to assume the phrases and -the methods of science. It would be very painful -if it should turn out that schools and universities -were agencies of Philistinism; but there are some -things which should prepare us for such a discovery. -Our present plans for teaching everybody -involve certain unpleasant things quite inevitably. -It is obvious that you cannot have universal education -without restricting your teaching to such things -as can be universally understood. It is plain that -you cannot impart “university methods” to thousands, -or create “investigators” by the score, -unless you confine your university education to -matters which dull men can investigate, your laboratory -training to tasks which mere plodding diligence -and submissive patience can compass. Yet, -if you do so limit and constrain what you teach,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span> -you thrust taste and insight and delicacy of perception -out of the schools, exalt the obvious and -the merely useful above the things which are only -imaginatively or spiritually conceived, make education -an affair of tasting and handling and smelling, -and so create Philistia, that country in which they -speak of “mere literature.” I suppose that in -Nirvana one would speak in like wise of “mere -life.”</p> - -<p>The fear, at any rate, that such things may happen -cannot fail to set us anxiously pondering certain -questions about the systematic teaching of -literature in our schools and colleges. How are we -to impart classical writings to the children of the -general public? “Beshrew the general public!” -cries Mr. Birrell. “What in the name of the -Bodleian has the general public got to do with -literature?” Unfortunately, it has a great deal to -do with it; for are we not complacently forcing the -general public into our universities, and are we not -arranging that all its sons shall be instructed how -they may themselves master and teach our literature? -You have nowadays, it is believed, only to -heed the suggestions of pedagogics in order to know -how to impart Burke or Browning, Dryden or Swift. -There are certain practical difficulties, indeed; but -there are ways of overcoming them. You must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span> -have strength if you would handle with real mastery -the firm fibre of these men; you must have a -heart, moreover, to feel their warmth, an eye to see -what they see, an imagination to keep them company, -a pulse to experience their delights. But if -you have none of these things, you may make shift -to do without them. You may count the words -they use, instead, note the changes of phrase they -make in successive revisions, put their rhythm into -a scale of feet, run their allusions—particularly -their female allusions—to cover, detect them in -their previous reading. Or, if none of these things -please you, or you find the big authors difficult -or dull, you may drag to light all the minor writers -of their time, who are easy to understand. By setting -an example in such methods you render great -services in certain directions. You make the higher -degrees of our universities available for the large -number of respectable men who can count, and -measure, and search diligently; and that may prove -no small matter. You divert attention from thought, -which is not always easy to get at, and fix attention -upon language, as upon a curious mechanism, which -can be perceived with the bodily eye, and which is -worthy to be studied for its own sake, quite apart -from anything it may mean. You encourage the -examination of forms, grammatical and metrical,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span> -which can be quite accurately determined and quite -exhaustively catalogued. You bring all the visible -phenomena of writing to light and into ordered -system. You go further, and show how to make -careful literal identification of stories somewhere -told ill and without art with the same stories told -over again by the masters, well and with the transfiguring -effect of genius. You thus broaden the -area of science; for you rescue the concrete phenomena -of the expression of thought—the necessary -syllabification which accompanies it, the inevitable -juxtaposition of words, the constant use of -particles, the habitual display of roots, the inveterate -repetition of names, the recurrent employment -of meanings heard or read—from their confusion -with the otherwise unclassifiable manifestations of -what had hitherto been accepted, without critical -examination, under the lump term “literature,” -simply for the pleasure and spiritual edification to -be got from it.</p> - -<p>An instructive differentiation ensues. In contrast -with the orderly phenomena of speech and -writing, which are amenable to scientific processes -of examination and classification, and which take -rank with the orderly successions of change in -nature, we have what, for want of a more exact -term, we call “mere literature,”—the literature<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span> -which is not an expression of form, but an expression -of spirit. This is a fugitive and troublesome -thing, and perhaps does not belong in well-conceived -plans of universal instruction; for it offers -many embarrassments to pedagogic method. It -escapes all scientific categories. It is not pervious -to research. It is too wayward to be brought under -the discipline of exposition. It is an attribute of -so many different substances at one and the same -time, that the consistent scientific man must needs -put it forth from his company, as without responsible -connections. By “mere literature” he means -mere evanescent color, wanton trick of phrase, perverse -departures from categorical statement,—something -<em>all</em> personal equation, such stuff as -dreams are made of.</p> - -<p>We must not all, however, be impatient of this -truant child of fancy. When the schools cast her -out, she will stand in need of friendly succor, and -we must train our spirits for the function. We -must be free-hearted in order to make her -happy, for she will accept entertainment from no -sober, prudent fellow who shall counsel her to mend -her ways. She has always made light of hardship, -and she has never loved or obeyed any, save those -who were of her own mind,—those who were indulgent -to her humors, responsive to her ways of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span> -thought, attentive to her whims, content with her -“mere” charms. She already has her small following -of devotees, like all charming, capricious -mistresses. There are some still who think that -to know her is better than a liberal education.</p> - -<p>There is but one way in which you can take -mere literature as an education, and that is directly, -at first hand. Almost any media except her own -language and touch and tone are non-conducting. -A descriptive catalogue of a collection of paintings -is no substitute for the little areas of color and -form themselves. You do not want to hear about -a beautiful woman, simply,—how she was dressed, -how she bore herself, how the fine color flowed -sweetly here and there upon her cheeks, how her -eyes burned and melted, how her voice thrilled -through the ears of those about her. If you have -ever seen a woman, these things but tantalize and -hurt you, if you cannot see her. You want to be -in her presence. You know that only your own -eyes can give you direct knowledge of her. Nothing -but her presence contains her life. ’Tis -the same with the authentic products of literature. -You can never get their beauty at second hand, or -feel their power except by direct contact with them.</p> - -<p>It is a strange and occult thing how this quality -of “mere literature” enters into one book, and is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span> -absent from another; but no man who has once -felt it can mistake it. I was reading the other -day a book about Canada. It is written in what -the reviewers have pronounced to be an “admirable, -spirited style.” By this I take them to mean -that it is grammatical, orderly, and full of strong -adjectives. But these reviewers would have known -more about the style in which it is written if they -had noted what happens on page 84. There a -quotation from Burke occurs. “There is,” says -Burke, “but one healing, catholic principle of -toleration which ought to find favor in this house. -It is wanted not only in our colonies, but here. The -thirsty earth of our own country is gasping and -gaping and crying out for that healing shower from -heaven. The noble lord has told you of the right -of those people by treaty; but I consider the right -of conquest so little, and the right of human nature -so much, that the former has very little consideration -with me. I look upon the people of Canada -as coming by the dispensation of God under the -British government. I would have us govern it in -the same manner as the all—wise disposition of -Providence would govern it. We know he suffers -the sun to shine upon the righteous and the -unrighteous; and we ought to suffer all classes to -enjoy equally the right of worshiping God according<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span> -to the light he has been pleased to give them.” -The peculiarity of such a passage as that is, that it -needs no context. Its beauty seems almost independent -of its subject matter. It comes on that -eighty-fourth page like a burst of music in the -midst of small talk,—a tone of sweet harmony -heard amidst a rattle of phrases. The mild noise -was unobjectionable enough until the music came. -There is a breath and stir of life in those sentences -of Burke’s which is to be perceived in nothing else -in that volume. Your pulses catch a quicker -movement from them, and are stronger on their -account.</p> - -<p>It is so with all essential literature. It has a -quality to move you, and you can never mistake it, -if you have any blood in you. And it has also a -power to instruct you which is as effective as it is -subtle, and which no research or systematic method -can ever rival. ’Tis a sore pity if that power cannot -be made available in the classroom. It is not -merely that it quickens your thought and fills your -imagination with the images that have illuminated -the choicer minds of the race. It does indeed exercise -the faculties in this wise, bringing them into -the best atmosphere, and into the presence of the -men of greatest charm and force; but it does a -great deal more than that. It acquaints the mind,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span> -by direct contact, with the forces which really govern -and modify the world from generation to generation. -There is more of a nation’s politics to be -got out of its poetry than out of all its systematic -writers upon public affairs and constitutions. Epics -are better mirrors of manners than chronicles; -dramas oftentimes let you into the secrets of statutes; -orations stirred by a deep energy of emotion -or resolution, passionate pamphlets that survive their -mission because of the direct action of their style -along permanent lines of thought, contain more -history than parliamentary journals. It is not -knowledge that moves the world, but ideals, convictions, -the opinions or fancies that have been held -or followed; and whoever studies humanity ought -to study it alive, practice the vivisection of reading -literature, and acquaint himself with something -more than anatomies which are no longer in use by -spirits.</p> - -<p>There are some words of Thibaut, the great -jurist, which have long seemed to me singularly -penetrative of one of the secrets of the intellectual -life. “I told him,” he says,—he is speaking of -an interview with Niebuhr,—“I told him that I -owed my gayety and vigor, in great part, to my -love for the classics of all ages, even those outside -the domain of jurisprudence.” Not only the gayety<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span> -and vigor of his hale old age, surely, but also his -insight into the meaning and purpose of laws and -institutions. The jurist who does not love the -classics of all ages is like a post-mortem doctor presiding -at a birth, a maker of manikins prescribing -for a disease of the blood, a student of masks setting -up for a connoisseur in smiles and kisses. In -narrating history, you are speaking of what was -done by men; in discoursing of laws, you are seeking -to show what courses of action, and what manner -of dealing with one another, men have adopted. -You can neither tell the story nor conceive the law -till you know how the men you speak of regarded -themselves and one another; and I know of no way -of learning this but by reading the stories they have -told of themselves, the songs they have sung, the -heroic adventures they have applauded. I must -know what, if anything, they revered; I must hear -their sneers and gibes; must learn in what accents -they spoke love within the family circle; with what -grace they obeyed their superiors in station; how -they conceived it politic to live, and wise to die; -how they esteemed property, and what they deemed -privilege; when they kept holiday, and why; when -they were prone to resist oppression, and wherefore,—I -must see things with their eyes, before I -can comprehend their law books. Their jural relationships<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span> -are not independent of their way of living, -and their way of thinking is the mirror of their -way of living.</p> - -<p>It is doubtless due to the scientific spirit of the -age that these plain, these immemorial truths are -in danger of becoming obscured. Science, under -the influence of the conception of evolution, devotes -itself to the study of forms, of specific differences, -of the manner in which the same principle of life -manifests itself variously under the compulsions of -changes of environment. It is thus that it has become -“scientific” to set forth the manner in which -man’s nature submits to man’s circumstances; -scientific to disclose morbid moods, and the conditions -which produce them; scientific to regard -man, not as the centre or source of power, but as -subject to power, a register of external forces instead -of an originative soul, and character as a -product of man’s circumstances rather than a sign -of man’s mastery over circumstance. It is thus -that it has become “scientific” to analyze language -as itself a commanding element in man’s life. -The history of word-roots, their modification under -the influences of changes wrought in the vocal -organs by habit or by climate, the laws of phonetic -change to which they are obedient, and their persistence -under all disguises of dialect, as if they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span> -were full of a self-originated life, a self-directed -energy of influence, is united with the study of -grammatical forms in the construction of scientific -conceptions of the evolution and uses of human -speech. The impression is created that literature -is only the chosen vessel of these forms, disclosing -to us their modification in use and structure from -age to age. Such vitality as the masterpieces of -genius possess comes to seem only a dramatization -of the fortunes of words. Great writers construct -for the adventures of language their appropriate -epics. Or, if it be not the words themselves that -are scrutinized, but the style of their use, that style -becomes, instead of a fine essence of personality, a -matter of cadence merely, or of grammatical and -structural relationships. Science is the study of -the forces of the world of matter, the adjustments, -the apparatus, of the universe; and the scientific -study of literature has likewise become a study of -apparatus,—of the forms in which men utter -thought, and the forces by which those forms have -been and still are being modified, rather than of -thought itself.</p> - -<p>The essences of literature of course remain the -same under all forms, and the true study of literature -is the study of these essences,—a study, not -of forms or of differences, but of likenesses,—likenesses<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span> -of spirit and intent under whatever varieties -of method, running through all forms of speech -like the same music along the chords of various instruments. -There is a sense in which literature is -independent of form, just as there is a sense in -which music is independent of its instrument. It -is my cherished belief that Apollo’s pipe contained -as much eloquent music as any modern orchestra. -Some books live; many die: wherein is the secret -of immortality? Not in beauty of form, nor even -in force of passion. We might say of literature -what Wordsworth said of poetry, the most easily -immortal part of literature: it is “the impassioned -expression which is in the countenance of all science; -it is the breath of the finer spirit of all knowledge.” -Poetry has the easier immortality because it has -the sweeter accent when it speaks, because its -phrases linger in our ears to delight them, because -its truths are also melodies. Prose has much to -overcome,—its plainness of visage, its less musical -accents, its homelier turns of phrase. But it also -may contain the immortal essence of truth and -seriousness and high thought. It too may clothe -conviction with the beauty that must make it shine -forever. Let a man but have beauty in his heart, -and, believing something with his might, put it -forth arrayed as he sees it, the lights and shadows<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span> -falling upon it on his page as they fall upon it in -his heart, and he may die assured that that beauty -will not pass away out of the world.</p> - -<p>Biographers have often been puzzled by the contrast -between certain men as they lived and as they -wrote. Schopenhauer’s case is one of the most -singular. A man of turbulent life, suffering himself -to be cut to exasperation by the petty worries -of his lot, he was nevertheless calm and wise when -he wrote, as if the Muse had rebuked him. He -wrote at a still elevation, where small and temporary -things did not come to disturb him. ’Tis a -pity that for some men this elevation is so far to -seek. They lose permanency by not finding it. -Could there be a deliberate regimen of life for the -author, it is plain enough how he ought to live, not -as seeking fame, but as deserving it.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indentq">“Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To those who woo her with too slavish knees;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And dotes the more upon a heart at ease.</div> - </div> - - <div class="tb">* * * * *</div> - - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indentq">“Ye love-sick bards, repay her scorn with scorn;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ye love-sick artists, madmen that ye are,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Make your best bow to her and bid adieu;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>It behooves all minor authors to realize the possibility -of their being discovered some day, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span> -exposed to the general scrutiny. They ought to -live as if conscious of the risk. They ought to -purge their hearts of everything that is not genuine -and capable of lasting the world a century, at least, -if need be. Mere literature is made of spirit. The -difficulties of style are the artist’s difficulties with -his tools. The spirit that is in the eye, in the pose, -in mien or gesture, the painter must find in his -color-box; as he must find also the spirit that -nature displays upon the face of the fields or in the -hidden places of the forest. The writer has less -obvious means. Word and spirit do not easily -consort. The language which the philologists set -out before us with such curious erudition is of very -little use as a vehicle for the essences of the human -spirit. It is too sophisticated and self-conscious. -What you need is, not a critical knowledge of -language, but a quick feeling for it. You must -recognize the affinities between your spirit and its -idioms. You must immerse your phrase in your -thought, your thought in your phrase, till each becomes -saturated with the other. Then what you -produce is as necessarily fit for permanency as if it -were incarnated spirit.</p> - -<p>And you must produce in color, with the touch -of imagination which lifts what you write away -from the dull levels of mere exposition. Black-and-white<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span> -sketches may serve some purposes of the -artist, but very little of actual nature is in mere -black-and-white. The imagination never works -thus with satisfaction. Nothing is ever conceived -completely when conceived so grayly, without suffusion -of real light. The mind creates, as great -Nature does, in colors, with deep chiaroscuro and -burning lights. This is true not only of poetry -and essentially imaginative writing, but also of the -writing which seeks nothing more than to penetrate -the meaning of actual affairs,—the writing of -the greatest historians and philosophers, the utterances -of orators and of the great masters of political -exposition. Their narratives, their analyses, -their appeals, their conceptions of principle, are all -dipped deep in the colors of the life they expound. -Their minds respond only to realities, their eyes see -only actual circumstance. Their sentences quiver -and are quick with visions of human affairs,—how -minds are bent or governed, how action is shaped -or thwarted. The great “constructive” minds, as -we call them, are of this sort. They “construct” -by seeing what others have not imagination enough -to see. They do not always know more, but they -always realize more. Let the singular reconstruction -of Roman history and institutions by Theodor -Mommsen serve as an illustration. Safe men distrust<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span> -this great master. They cannot find what he -finds in the documents. They will draw you -truncated figures of the antique Roman state, and -tell you the limbs cannot be found, the features of -the face have nowhere been unearthed. They will -cite you fragments such as remain, and show you -how far these can be pieced together toward the -making of a complete description of private life -and public function in those first times when the -Roman commonwealth was young; but what the -missing sentences were they can only weakly conjecture. -Their eyes cannot descry those distant -days with no other aids than these. Only the -greatest are dissatisfied, and go on to paint that -ancient life with the materials that will render it -lifelike,—the materials of the constructive imagination. -They have other sources of information. -They see living men in the old documents. Give -them but the torso, and they will supply head and -limbs, bright and animate as they must have been. -If Mommsen does not quite do that, another man, -with Mommsen’s eye and a touch more of color on -his brush, might have done it,—may yet do it.</p> - -<p>It is in this way that we get some glimpse of the -only relations that scholarship bears to literature. -Literature can do without exact scholarship, or -any scholarship at all, though it may impoverish<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span> -itself thereby; but scholarship cannot do without -literature. It needs literature to float it, to -set it current, to authenticate it to the race, to get -it out of closets, and into the brains of men who -stir abroad. It will adorn literature, no doubt; -literature will be the richer for its presence; but -it will not, it cannot, of itself create literature. -Rich stuffs from the East do not create a king, nor -warlike trappings a conqueror. There is, indeed, -a natural antagonism, let it be frankly said, between -the standards of scholarship and the standards -of literature. Exact scholarship values -things in direct proportion as they are verifiable; -but literature knows nothing of such tests. The -truths which it seeks are the truths of self-expression. -It is a thing of convictions, of insights, of -what is felt and seen and heard and hoped for. Its -meanings lurk behind nature, not in the facts of -its phenomena. It speaks of things as the man -who utters it saw them, not necessarily as God -made them. The personality of the speaker runs -throughout all the sentences of real literature. That -personality may not be the personality of a poet: -it may be only the personality of the penetrative -seer. It may not have the atmosphere in which -visions are seen, but only that in which men and -affairs look keenly cut in outline, boldly massed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span> -in bulk, consummately grouped in detail, to the -reader as to the writer. Sentences of perfectly -clarified wisdom may be literature no less than -stanzas of inspired song, or the intense utterances -of impassioned feeling. The personality of the -sunlight is in the keen lines of light that run -along the edges of a sword no less than in the burning -splendor of the rose or the radiant kindlings of -a woman’s eye. You may feel the power of one -master of thought playing upon your brain as you -may feel that of another playing upon your heart.</p> - -<p>Scholarship gets into literature by becoming -part of the originating individuality of a master of -thought. No man is a master of thought without -being also a master of its vehicle and instrument, -style, that subtle medium of all its evasive effects -of light and shade. Scholarship is material; it -is not life. It becomes immortal only when it is -worked upon by conviction, by schooled and chastened -imagination, by thought that runs alive out -of the inner fountains of individual insight and -purpose. Colorless, or without suffusion of light -from some source of light, it is dead, and will not -twice be looked at; but made part of the life of a -great mind, subordinated, absorbed, put forth with -authentic stamp of currency on it, minted at some -definite mint and bearing some sovereign image, it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span> -will even outlast the time when it shall have ceased -to deserve the acceptance of scholars,—when it -shall, in fact, have become “mere literature.”</p> - -<p>Scholarship is the realm of nicely adjusted opinion. -It is the business of scholars to assess evidence -and test conclusions, to discriminate values -and reckon probabilities. Literature is the realm -of conviction and vision. Its points of view are as -various as they are oftentimes unverifiable. It -speaks individual faiths. Its groundwork is not -erudition, but reflection and fancy. Your thoroughgoing -scholar dare not reflect. To reflect is to let -himself in on his material; whereas what he wants -is to keep himself apart, and view his materials in -an air that does not color or refract. To reflect is -to throw an atmosphere about what is in your -mind,—an atmosphere which holds all the colors -of your life. Reflection summons all associations, -and they so throng and move that they dominate -the mind’s stage at once. The plot is in their -hands. Scholars, therefore, do not reflect; they -label, group kind with kind, set forth in schemes, -expound with dispassionate method. Their minds -are not stages, but museums; nothing is done -there, but very curious and valuable collections are -kept there. If literature use scholarship, it is only -to fill it with fancies or shape it to new standards, -of which of itself it can know nothing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span></p> - -<p>True, there are books reckoned primarily books -of science and of scholarship which have nevertheless -won standing as literature; books of science -such as Newton wrote, books of scholarship such -as Gibbon’s. But science was only the vestibule -by which such a man as Newton entered the temple -of nature, and the art he practiced was not the art -of exposition, but the art of divination. He was -not only a scientist, but also a seer; and we shall not -lose sight of Newton because we value what he was -more than what he knew. If we continue Gibbon -in his fame, it will be for love of his art, not for -worship of his scholarship. We some of us, nowadays, -know the period of which he wrote better -even than he did; but which one of us shall build -so admirable a monument to ourselves, as artists, -out of what we know? The scholar finds his immortality -in the form he gives to his work. It is -a hard saying, but the truth of it is inexorable: be -an artist, or prepare for oblivion. You may write -a chronicle, but you will not serve yourself thereby. -You will only serve some fellow who shall come -after you, possessing, what you did not have, an -ear for the words you could not hit upon; an eye -for the colors you could not see; a hand for the -strokes you missed.</p> - -<p>Real literature you can always distinguish by its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span> -form, and yet it is not possible to indicate the -form it should have. It is easy to say that it -should have a form suitable to its matter; but how -suitable? Suitable to set the matter off, adorn, -embellish it, or suitable simply to bring it directly, -quick and potent, to the apprehension of the reader? -This is the question of style, about which many -masters have had many opinions; upon which you -can make up no safe generalization from the practice -of those who have unquestionably given to the -matter of their thought immortal form, an accent -or a countenance never to be forgotten. Who shall -say how much of Burke’s splendid and impressive -imagery is part and stuff of his thought, or tell -why even that part of Newman’s prose which is devoid -of ornament, stripped to its shining skin, and -running bare and lithe and athletic to carry its -tidings to men, should promise to enjoy as certain -an immortality? Why should Lamb go so quaintly -and elaborately to work upon his critical essays, -taking care to perfume every sentence, if possible, -with the fine savor of an old phrase, if the same -business could be as effectively done in the plain -and even cadences of Mr. Matthew Arnold’s prose? -Why should Gibbon be so formal, so stately, so -elaborate, when he had before his eyes the example -of great Tacitus, whose direct, sententious style had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span> -outlived by so many hundred years the very language -in which he wrote? In poetry, who shall -measure the varieties of style lavished upon similar -themes? The matter of vital thought is not separable -from the thinker; its forms must suit his -handling as well as fit his conception. Any style -is author’s stuff which is suitable to his purpose and -his fancy. He may use rich fabrics with which to -costume his thoughts, or he may use simple stone -from which to sculpture them, and leave them -bare. His only limits are those of art. He may -not indulge a taste for the merely curious or fantastic. -The quaint writers have quaint thoughts; -their material is suitable. They do not merely -satisfy themselves as virtuosi, with collections of -odd phrases and obsolete meanings. They needed -twisted words to fit the eccentric patterns of their -thought. The great writer has always dignity, restraint, -propriety, adequateness; what time he -loses these qualities he ceases to be great. His -style neither creaks nor breaks under his passion, -but carries the strain with unshaken strength. It -is not trivial or mean, but speaks what small meanings -fall in its way with simplicity, as conscious of -their smallness. Its playfulness is within bounds; -its laugh never bursts too boisterously into a -guffaw. A great style always knows what it would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span> -be at, and does the thing appropriately, with the -larger sort of taste.</p> - -<p>This is the condemnation of tricks of phrase, devices -to catch the attention, exaggerations and loud -talk to hold it. No writer can afford to strive -after effect, if his striving is to be apparent. For -just and permanent effect is missed altogether -unless it be so completely attained as to seem like -some touch of sunlight, perfect, natural, inevitable, -wrought without effort and without deliberate purpose -to be effective. Mere audacity of attempt -can, of course, never win the wished for result; -and if the attempt be successful, it is not audacious. -What we call audacity in a great writer -has no touch of temerity, sauciness, or arrogance in -it. It is simply high spirit, a dashing and splendid -display of strength. Boldness is ridiculous -unless it be impressive, and it can be impressive -only when backed by solid forces of character and -attainment. Your plebeian hack cannot afford the -showy paces; only the full-blooded Arabian has -the sinew and proportion to lend them perfect -grace and propriety. The art of letters eschews -the bizarre as rigidly as does every other fine art. -It mixes its colors with brains, and is obedient to -great Nature’s sane standards of right adjustment -in all that it attempts.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span></p> - -<p>You can make no catalogue of these features of -great writing; there is no science of literature. -Literature in its essence is mere spirit, and you -must experience it rather than analyze it too formally. -It is the door to nature and to ourselves. -It opens our hearts to receive the experiences of -great men and the conceptions of great races. It -awakens us to the significance of action and to the -singular power of mental habit. It airs our souls -in the wide atmosphere of contemplation. “In -these bad days, when it is thought more educationally -useful to know the principle of the common -pump than Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn,” as -Mr. Birrell says, we cannot afford to let one single -precious sentence of “mere literature” go by us -unread or unpraised. If this free people to which -we belong is to keep its fine spirit, its perfect temper -amidst affairs, its high courage in the face of -difficulties, its wise temperateness and wide-eyed -hope, it must continue to drink deep and often -from the old wells of English undefiled, quaff the -keen tonic of its best ideals, keep its blood warm -with all the great utterances of exalted purpose -and pure principle of which its matchless literature -is full. The great spirits of the past must -command us in the tasks of the future. Mere -literature will keep us pure and keep us strong.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span> -Even though it puzzle or altogether escape scientific -method, it may keep our horizon clear for us, -and our eyes glad to look bravely forth upon the -world.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_28" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">THE AUTHOR HIMSELF.</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Who</span> can help wondering, concerning the modern -multitude of books, where all these companions of -his reading hours will be buried when they die; -which will have monuments erected to them; which -escape the envy of time and live? It is pathetic -to think of the number that must be forgotten, -after having been removed from the good places to -make room for their betters.</p> - -<p>Much the most pathetic thought about books, -however, is that excellence will not save them. -Their fates will be as whimsical as those of the -humankind which produces them. Knaves find it -as easy to get remembered as good men. It is not -right living or learning or kind offices, simply and -of themselves, but—something else that gives -immortality of fame. Be a book never so scholarly, -it may die; be it never so witty, or never so -full of good feeling and of an honest statement -of truth, it may not live.</p> - -<p>When once a book has become immortal, we -think that we can see why it became so. It contained,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span> -we perceive, a casting of thought which could not -but arrest and retain men’s attention; it said some -things once and for all because it gave them their -best expression. Or else it spoke with a grace or -with a fire of imagination, with a sweet cadence -of phrase and a full harmony of tone, which have -made it equally dear to all generations of those -who love the free play of fancy or the incomparable -music of perfected human speech. Or perhaps it -uttered with candor and simplicity some universal -sentiment; perchance pictured something in the -tragedy or the comedy of man’s life as it was never -pictured before, and must on that account be read -and read again as not to be superseded. There -must be something special, we judge, either in its -form or in its substance, to account for its unwonted -fame and fortune.</p> - -<p>This upon first analysis, taking one book at a -time. A look deeper into the heart of the matter -enables us to catch at least a glimpse of a single -and common source of immortality. The world is -attracted by books as each man is attracted by his -several friends. You recommend that capital fellow -So-and-So to the acquaintance of others because -of his discriminating and diverting powers of observation: -the very tones and persons—it would -seem the very selves—of every type of man live<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span> -again in his mimicries and descriptions. He is the -dramatist of your circle; you can never forget him, -nor can any one else; his circle of acquaintances can -never grow smaller. Could he live on and retain -perennially that wonderful freshness and vivacity -of his, he must become the most famous guest and -favorite of the world. Who that has known a man -quick and shrewd to see dispassionately the inner -history, the reason and the ends, of the combinations -of society, and at the same time eloquent to tell of -them, with a hold on the attention gained by a certain -quaint force and sagacity resident in no other -man, can find it difficult to understand why we -still resort to Montesquieu? Possibly there are -circles favored of the gods who have known some -fellow of infinite store of miscellaneous and curious -learning, who has greatly diverted both himself -and his friends by a way peculiar to himself of giving -it out upon any and all occasions, item by item, -as if it were all homogeneous and of a piece, and -by his odd skill in making unexpected application -of it to out-of-the-way, unpromising subjects, as if -there were in his view of things mental no such disintegrating -element as incongruity. Such a circle -would esteem it strange were Burton not beloved -of the world. And so of those, if any there be, -who have known men of simple, calm, transparent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span> -natures, untouched by storm or perplexity, whose -talk was full of such serious, placid reflection as -seemed to mirror their own reverent hearts,—talk -often prosy, but more often touchingly beautiful, -because of its nearness to nature and the solemn -truth of life. There may be those, also, who have -felt the thrill of personal contact with some stormy -peasant nature full of strenuous, unsparing speech -concerning men and affairs. These have known -why a Wordsworth or a Carlyle must be read by -all generations of those who love words of first-hand -inspiration. In short, in every case of literary -immortality originative personality is present. -Not origination simply,—that may be mere invention, -which in literature has nothing immortal about -it; but origination which takes its stamp and character -from the originator, which is his spirit given -to the world, which is himself outspoken.</p> - -<p>Individuality does not consist in the use of the -very personal pronoun, <em>I</em>: it consists in tone, in -method, in attitude, in point of view; it consists in -saying things in such a way that you will yourself -be recognized as a force in saying them. Do we -not at once know Lamb when he speaks? And -even more formal Addison, does not his speech bewray -and endear him to us? His personal charm -is less distinct, much less fascinating, than that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span> -which goes with what Lamb speaks, but a charm he -has sufficient for immortality. In Steele the matter -is more impersonal, more mortal. Some of Dr. -Johnson’s essays, you feel, might have been written -by a dictionary. It is impersonal matter that is -dead matter. Are you asked who fathered a certain -brilliant, poignant bit of political analysis? -You say, Why, only Bagehot could have written -that. Does a wittily turned verse make you hesitate -between laughter at its hit and grave thought -because of its deeper, covert meaning? Do you -not know that only Lowell could do that? Do -you catch a strain of pure Elizabethan music and -doubt whether to attribute it to Shakespeare or to -another? Do you not <em>know</em> the authors who still -live?</p> - -<p>Now, the noteworthy thing about such individuality -is that it will not develop under every star, or -in one place just as well as in another; there is an -atmosphere which kills it, and there is an atmosphere -which fosters it. The atmosphere which -kills it is the atmosphere of sophistication, where -cleverness and fashion and knowingness thrive: -cleverness, which is froth, not strong drink; fashion, -which is a thing assumed, not a thing of -nature; and knowingness, which is naught.</p> - -<p>Of course there are born, now and again, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span> -tokens of some rare mood of Nature, men of so -intense and individual a cast that circumstance and -surroundings affect them little more than friction -affects an express train. They command their own -development without even the consciousness that to -command costs strength. These cannot be sophisticated; -for sophistication is subordination to the -ways of your world. But these are the very greatest -and the very rarest; and it is not the greatest -and the rarest alone who shape the world and its -thought. That is done also by the great and the -merely extraordinary. There is a rank and file in -literature, even in the literature of immortality, and -these must go much to school to the people about -them.</p> - -<p>It is by the number and charm of the individualities -which it contains that the literature of any -country gains distinction. We turn anywhither to -know men. The best way to foster literature, if it -may be fostered, is to cultivate the author himself,—a -plant of such delicate and precarious growth -that special soils are needed to produce it in its full -perfection. The conditions which foster individuality -are those which foster simplicity, thought and -action which are direct, naturalness, spontaneity. -What are these conditions?</p> - -<p>In the first place, a certain helpful ignorance.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span> -It is best for the author to be born away from literary -centres, or to be excluded from their ruling -set if he be born in them. It is best that he start -out with his thinking, not knowing how much has -been thought and said about everything. A certain -amount of ignorance will insure his sincerity, will -increase his boldness and shelter his genuineness, -which is his hope of power. Not ignorance of life, -but life may be learned in any neighborhood;—not -ignorance of the greater laws which govern -human affairs, but they may be learned without a -library of historians and commentators, by imaginative -sense, by seeing better than by reading;—not -ignorance of the infinitudes of human circumstance, -but these may be perceived without the intervention -of universities;—not ignorance of one’s self and -of one’s neighbor; but innocence of the sophistications -of learning, its research without love, its knowledge -without inspiration, its method without grace; -freedom from its shame at trying to know many -things as well as from its pride of trying to know -but one thing; ignorance of that faith in small confounding -facts which is contempt for large reassuring -principles.</p> - -<p>Our present problem is not how to clarify our -reasonings and perfect our analyses, but how to -reënrich and reënergize our literature. That literature<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span> -is suffering, not from ignorance, but from -sophistication and self-consciousness; and it is suffering -hardly less from excess of logical method. -Ratiocination does not keep us pure, render us -earnest, or make us individual and specific forces -in the world. Those inestimable results are accomplished -by whatever implants principle and -conviction, whatever quickens with inspiration, -fills with purpose and courage, gives outlook, and -makes character. Reasoned thinking does indeed -clear the mind’s atmospheres and lay open to its -view fields of action; but it is loving and believing, -sometimes hating and distrusting, often -prejudice and passion, always the many things -which we call the one thing, character, which -create and shape our acting. Life quite overtowers -logic. Thinking and erudition alone will not equip -for the great tasks and triumphs of life and literature: -the persuading of other men’s purposes, the -entrance into other men’s minds to possess them -forever. Culture broadens and sweetens literature, -but native sentiment and unmarred individuality -create it. Not all of mental power lies in the processes -of thinking. There is power also in passion, -in personality, in simple, native, uncritical conviction, -in unschooled feeling. The power of -science, of system, is executive, not stimulative. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span> -do not find that I derive inspiration, but only information, -from the learned historians and analysts -of liberty; but from the sonneteers, the poets, who, -speak its spirit and its exalted purpose,—who, -recking nothing of the historical method, obey only -the high method of their own hearts,—what may -a man not gain of courage and confidence in the -right way of politics?</p> - -<p>It is your direct, unhesitating, intent, headlong -man, who has his sources in the mountains, who -digs deep channels for himself in the soil of his -times and expands into the mighty river, to become -a landmark forever; and not your “broad” man, -sprung from the schools, who spreads his shallow, -extended waters over the wide surfaces of learning, -to leave rich deposits, it may be, for other men’s -crops to grow in, but to be himself dried up by a -few score summer noons. The man thrown early -upon his own resources, and already become a conqueror -of success before being thrown with the -literary talkers; the man grown to giant’s stature -in some rural library, and become exercised there -in a giant’s prerogatives before ever he has been -laughingly told, to his heart’s confusion, of scores -of other giants dead and forgotten long ago; the -man grounded in hope and settled in conviction -ere he has discovered how many hopes time has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span> -seen buried, how many convictions cruelly given -the lie direct by fate; the man who has carried -his youth into middle age before going into the -chill atmosphere of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">blasé</i> sentiment; the quiet, -stern man who has cultivated literature on a little -oatmeal before thrusting himself upon the great -world as a prophet and seer; the man who pronounces -new eloquence in the rich dialect in which -he was bred; the man come up to the capital -from the provinces,—these are the men who people -the world’s mind with new creations, and give -to the sophisticated learned of the next generation -new names to conjure with.</p> - -<p>If you have a candid and well-informed friend -among city lawyers, ask him where the best masters -of his profession are bred,—in the city or in -the country. He will reply without hesitation, -“In the country.” You will hardly need to have -him state the reason. The country lawyer has -been obliged to study all parts of the law alike, and -he has known no reason why he should not do so. -He has not had the chance to make himself a -specialist in any one branch of the law, as is the -fashion among city practitioners, and he has not -coveted the opportunity to do it. There would not -have been enough special cases to occupy or remunerate -him if he had coveted it. He has dared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span> -attempt the task of knowing the whole law, and -yet without any sense of daring, but as a matter of -course. In his own little town, in the midst of his -own small library of authorities, it has not seemed -to him an impossible task to explore all the topics -that engage his profession; the guiding principles, -at any rate, of all branches of the great subject -were open to him in a few books. And so it often -happens that when he has found his sea legs on -the sequestered inlets at home, and ventures, as -he sometimes will, upon the great, troublous, and -much-frequented waters of city practice in search -of more work and larger fees, the country lawyer -will once and again confound his city-bred brethren -by discovering to them the fact that the law is a -many-sided thing of principles, and not altogether -a one-sided thing of technical rule and arbitrary -precedent.</p> - -<p>It would seem to be necessary that the author -who is to stand as a distinct and imperative individual -among the company of those who express -the world’s thought should come to a hard crystallization -before subjecting himself to the tense strain -of cities, the corrosive acids of critical circles. -The ability to see for one’s self is attainable, not -by mixing with crowds and ascertaining how they -look at things, but by a certain aloofness and self-containment.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span> -The solitariness of some genius is -not accidental; it is characteristic and essential. -To the constructive imagination there are some immortal -feats which are possible only in seclusion. -The man must heed first and most of all the suggestions -of his own spirit; and the world can be -seen from windows overlooking the street better -than from the street itself.</p> - -<p>Literature grows rich, various, full-voiced largely -through the re-discovery of truth, by thinking re-thought, -by stories re-told, by songs re-sung. The -song of human experience grows richer and richer -in its harmonies, and must grow until the full accord -and melody are come. If too soon subjected -to the tense strain of the city, a man cannot expand; -he is beaten out of his natural shape by the -incessant impact and press of men and affairs. It -will often turn out that the unsophisticated man -will display not only more force, but more literary -skill even, than the trained <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">littérateur</i>. For one -thing, he will probably have enjoyed a fresher contact -with old literature. He reads not for the sake -of a critical acquaintance with this or that author, -with no thought of going through all his writings -and “working him up,” but as he would ride a -spirited horse, for love of the life and motion of it.</p> - -<p>A general impression seems to have gained currency<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span> -that the last of the bullying, omniscient -critics was buried in the grave of Francis Jeffrey; -and it is becoming important to correct the misapprehension. -There never was a time when there -was more superior knowledge, more specialist -omniscience, among reviewers than there is to-day; -not pretended superior knowledge, but real. Jeffrey’s -was very real of its kind. For those who -write books, one of the special, inestimable advantages -of lacking a too intimate knowledge of the -“world of letters” consists in not knowing all that -is known by those who review books, in ignorance -of the fashions among those who construct canons -of taste. The modern critic is a leader of fashion. -He carries with him the air of a literary worldliness. -If your book be a novel, your reviewer will -know all previous plots, all former, all possible, -motives and situations. You cannot write anything -absolutely new for him, and why should you -desire to do again what has been done already? -If it be a poem, the reviewer’s head already rings -with the whole gamut of the world’s metrical music; -he can recognize any simile, recall all turns of -phrase, match every sentiment; why seek to please -him anew with old things? If it concern itself -with the philosophy of politics, he can and will set -himself to test it by the whole history of its kind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span> -from Plato down to Benjamin Kidd. How can it -but spoil your sincerity to know that your critic -will know everything? Will you not be tempted -of the devil to anticipate his judgment or his pretensions -by pretending to know as much as he?</p> - -<p>The literature of creation naturally falls into two -kinds: that which interprets nature or human action, -and that which interprets self. Both of these -may have the flavor of immortality, but neither -unless it be free from self-consciousness. No man, -therefore, can create after the best manner in either -of these kinds who is an <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">habitué</i> of the circles -made so delightful by those interesting men, the -modern <em>literati</em>, sophisticated in all the fashions, -ready in all the catches of the knowing literary -world which centres in the city and the university. -He cannot always be simple and straightforward. -He cannot be always and without pretension himself, -bound by no other man’s canons of taste in -speech or conduct. In the judgment of such circles -there is but one thing for you to do if you -would gain distinction: you must “beat the record;” -you must do certain definite literary feats -better than they have yet been done. You are -pitted against the literary “field.” You are hastened -into the paralysis of comparing yourself with -others, and thus away from the health of unhesitating<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span> -self-expression and directness of first-hand -vision.</p> - -<p>It would be not a little profitable if we could -make correct analysis of the proper relations of -learning—learning of the critical, accurate sort—to -origination, of learning’s place in literature. -Although learning is never the real parent of literature, -but only sometimes its foster-father, and although -the native promptings of soul and sense are -its best and freshest sources, there is always the -danger that learning will claim, in every court of -taste which pretends to jurisdiction, exclusive and -preëminent rights as the guardian and preceptor -of authors. An effort is constantly being made to -create and maintain standards of literary worldliness, -if I may coin such a phrase. The thorough -man of the world affects to despise natural feeling; -does at any rate actually despise all displays of -it. He has an eye always on his world’s best manners, -whether native or imported, and is at continual -pains to be master of the conventions of society; -he will mortify the natural man as much as need -be in order to be in good form. What learned -criticism essays to do is to create a similar literary -worldliness, to establish fashions and conventions in -letters.</p> - -<p>I have an odd friend in one of the northern counties<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span> -of Georgia,—a county set off by itself among -the mountains, but early found out by refined people -in search of summer refuge from the unhealthful -air of the southern coast. He belongs to an excellent -family of no little culture, but he was surprised -in the midst of his early schooling by the -coming on of the war; and education given pause -in such wise seldom begins again in the schools. -He was left, therefore, to “finish” his mind as -best he might in the companionship of the books in -his uncle’s library. These books were of the old -sober sort: histories, volumes of travels, treatises -on laws and constitutions, theologies, philosophies -more fanciful than the romances encased in neighbor -volumes on another shelf. But they were books -which were used to being taken down and read; -they had been daily companions to the rest of the -family, and they became familiar companions to my -friend’s boyhood. He went to them day after day, -because theirs was the only society offered him in -the lonely days when uncle and brothers were at -the war, and the women were busy about the tasks -of the home. How literally did he make those -delightful old volumes his familiars, his cronies! -He never dreamed the while, however, that he was -becoming learned; it never seemed to occur to him -that everybody else did not read just as he did, in just<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span> -such a library. He found out afterwards, of course, -that he had kept much more of such company than -had the men with whom he loved to chat at the -post-office or around the fire in the village shops, -the habitual resorts of all who were socially inclined; -but he attributed that to lack of time on -their part, or to accident, and has gone on thinking -until now that all the books that come within his -reach are the natural intimates of man. And so -you shall hear him, in his daily familiar talk with -his neighbors, draw upon his singular stores of wise, -quaint learning with the quiet colloquial assurance, -“They tell me,” as if books contained current -rumor; and quote the poets with the easy unaffectedness -with which others cite a common maxim of -the street! He has been heard to refer to Dr. -Arnold of Rugby as “that school teacher over there -in England.”</p> - -<p>Surely one may treasure the image of this -simple, genuine man of learning as the image of a -sort of masterpiece of Nature in her own type of -erudition, a perfect sample of the kind of learning -that might beget the very highest sort of literature; -the literature, namely, of authentic individuality. It -is only under one of two conditions that learning -will not dull the edge of individuality: first, if one -never suspect that it is creditable and a matter of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span> -pride to be learned, and so never become learned -for the sake of becoming so; or, second, if it never -suggest to one that investigation is better than -reflection. Learned investigation leads to many -good things, but one of these is not great literature, -because learned investigation commands, as -the first condition of its success, the repression of -individuality.</p> - -<p>His mind is a great comfort to every man who -has one; but a heart is not often to be so conveniently -possessed. Hearts frequently give trouble; -they are straightforward and impulsive, and can -seldom be induced to be prudent. They must be -schooled before they will become insensible; they -must be coached before they can be made to care -first and most for themselves: and in all cases the -mind must be their schoolmaster and coach. They -are irregular forces; but the mind may be trained -to observe all points of circumstance and all motives -of occasion.</p> - -<p>No doubt it is considerations of this nature that -must be taken to explain the fact that our universities -are erected entirely for the service of the -tractable mind, while the heart’s only education -must be gotten from association with its neighbor -heart, and in the ordinary courses of the world. -Life is its only university. Mind is monarch,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span> -whose laws claim supremacy in those lands which -boast the movements of civilization, and it must -command all the instrumentalities of education. -At least such is the theory of the constitution of -the modern world. It is to be suspected that, as a -matter of fact, mind is one of those modern monarchs -who reign, but do not govern. That old House of -Commons, that popular chamber in which the passions, -the prejudices, the inborn, unthinking affections -long ago repudiated by mind, have their full -representation, controls much the greater part of -the actual conduct of affairs. To come out of the -figure, reasoned thought is, though perhaps the presiding, -not yet the regnant force in the world. In -life and in literature it is subordinate. The future -may belong to it; but the present and past do not. -Faith and virtue do not wear its livery; friendship, -loyalty, patriotism, do not derive their motives from -it. It does not furnish the material for those masses -of habit, of unquestioned tradition, and of treasured -belief which are the ballast of every steady ship of -state, enabling it to spread its sails safely to the -breezes of progress, and even to stand before the -storms of revolution. And this is a fact which -has its reflection in literature. There is a literature -of reasoned thought; but by far the greater -part of those writings which we reckon worthy of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span> -that great name is the product, not of reasoned -thought, but of the imagination and of the spiritual -vision of those who see,—writings winged, not -with knowledge, but with sympathy, with sentiment, -with heartiness. Even the literature of reasoned -thought gets its life, not from its logic, but from -the spirit, the insight, and the inspiration which -are the vehicle of its logic. Thought presides, but -sentiment has the executive powers; the motive -functions belong to feeling.</p> - -<p>“Many people give many theories of literary -composition,” says the most natural and stimulating -of English critics, “and Dr. Blair, whom we -will read, is sometimes said to have exhausted the -subject; but, unless he has proved the contrary, -we believe that the knack in style is to write like a -human being. Some think they must be wise, -some elaborate, some concise; Tacitus wrote like a -pair of stays; some startle us, as Thomas Carlyle, -or a comet, inscribing with his tail. But legibility -is given to those who neglect these notions, and are -willing to be themselves, to write their own thoughts -in their own words, in the simplest words, in the -words wherein they were thought.... Books are -for various purposes,—tracts to teach, almanacs to -sell, poetry to make pastry; but this is the rarest sort -of a book,—a book to read. As Dr. Johnson<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span> -said, ‘Sir, a good book is one you can hold in your -hand, and take to the fire.’ Now there are extremely -few books which can, with any propriety, -be so treated. When a great author, as Grote or -Gibbon, has devoted a whole life of horrid industry -to the composition of a large history, one feels one -ought not to touch it with a mere hand,—it is not -respectful. The idea of slavery hovers over the -Decline and Fall. Fancy a stiffly dressed gentleman, -in a stiff chair, slowly writing that stiff compilation -in a stiff hand; it is enough to stiffen you for life.”</p> - -<p>It is devoutly to be wished that we might learn to -prepare the best soils for mind, the best associations -and companionships, the least possible sophistication. -We are busy enough nowadays finding -out the best ways of fertilizing and stimulating -mind; but that is not quite the same thing as discovering -the best soils for it, and the best atmospheres. -Our culture is, by erroneous preference, -of the reasoning faculty, as if that were all of us. -Is it not the instinctive discontent of readers seeking -stimulating contact with authors that has given -us the present almost passionately spoken dissent -from the standards set themselves by the realists in -fiction, dissatisfaction with mere recording or observation? -And is not realism working out upon -itself the revenge its enemies would fain compass?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span> -Must not all April Hopes exclude from their number -the hope of immortality?</p> - -<p>The rule for every man is, not to depend on the -education which other men prepare for him,—not -even to consent to it; but to strive to see things as -they are, and to be himself as he is. Defeat lies -in self-surrender.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_50" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">ON AN AUTHOR’S CHOICE OF COMPANY.</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Once</span> and again, it would seem, a man is born into -the world belated. Strayed out of a past age, he -comes among us like an alien, lives removed and -singular, and dies a stranger. There was a touch -of this strangeness in Charles Lamb. Much as he -was loved and befriended, he was not much understood; -for he drew aloof in his studies, affected -a “self-pleasing quaintness” in his style, took no -pains to hit the taste of his day, wandered at sweet -liberty in an age which could scarcely have bred -such another. “Hang the age!” he cried. “I -will write for antiquity.” And he did. He wrote -as if it were still Shakespeare’s day; made the -authors of that spacious time his constant companions -and study; and deliberately became himself -“the last of the Elizabethans.” When a new book -came out, he said, he always read an old one.</p> - -<p>The case ought, surely, to put us occasionally -upon reflecting. May an author not, in some degree, -by choosing his literary company, choose also -his literary character, and so, when he comes to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span> -write, write himself back to his masters? May he -not, by examining his own tastes and yielding himself -obedient to his natural affinities, join what congenial -group of writers he will? The question can -be argued very strongly in the affirmative, and -that not alone because of Charles Lamb’s case. It -might be said that Lamb was antique only in the -forms of his speech; that he managed very cleverly -to hit the taste of his age in the substance of -what he wrote, for all the phraseology had so strong -a flavor of quaintness and was not at all in the -mode of the day. It would not be easy to prove -that; but it really does not matter. In his tastes, -certainly, Lamb was an old author, not a new one; -a “modern antique,” as Hood called him. He -wrote for his own age, of course, because there was -no other age at hand to write for, and the age he -liked best was past and gone; but he wrote what -he fancied the great generations gone by would -have liked, and what, as it has turned out in the -generosity of fortune, subsequent ages have warmly -loved and reverently canonized him for writing; as -if there were a casual taste that belongs to a day and -generation, and also a permanent taste which is -without date, and he had hit the latter.</p> - -<p>Great authors are not often men of fashion. -Fashion is always a harness and restraint, whether<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span> -it be fashion in dress or fashion in vice or fashion -in literary art; and a man who is bound by it is -caught and formed in a fleeting mode. The great -writers are always innovators; for they are always -frank, natural, and downright, and frankness and -naturalness always disturb, when they do not wholly -break down, the fixed and complacent order of -fashion. No genuine man can be deliberately in -the fashion, indeed, in what he says, if he have any -movement of thought or individuality in him. He -remembers what Aristotle says, or if he does not, -his own pride and manliness fill him with the -thought instead. The very same action that is -noble if done for the satisfaction of one’s own sense -of right or purpose of self-development, said the -Stagirite, may, if done to satisfy others, become -menial and slavish. “It is the object of any action -or study that is all-important,” and if the author’s -chief object be to please he is condemned already. -The true spirit of authorship is a spirit of liberty -which scorns the slave’s trick of imitation. It is a -masterful spirit of conquest within the sphere of -ideas and of artistic form,—an impulse of empire -and origination.</p> - -<p>Of course a man may choose, if he will, to be -less than a free author. He may become a reporter; -for there is such a thing as reporting for books as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span> -well as reporting for newspapers, and there have -been reporters so amazingly clever that their very -aptness and wit constitute them a sort of immortals. -You have proof of this in Horace Walpole, -at whose hands gossip and compliment receive a -sort of apotheosis. Such men hold the secret of -a kind of alchemy by which things trivial and temporary -may be transmuted into literature. But -they are only inspired reporters, after all; and -while a man was wishing, he might wish to be more, -and climb to better company.</p> - -<p>Every man must, of course, whether he will or -not, feel the spirit of the age in which he lives and -thinks and does his work; and the mere contact -will direct and form him more or less. But to wish -to serve the spirit of the age at any sacrifice of individual -naturalness or conviction, however small, -is to harbor the germ of a destroying disease. -Every man who writes ought to write for immortality, -even though he be of the multitude that die -at their graves; and the standards of immortality -are of no single age. There are many qualities -and causes that give permanency to a book, but -universal vogue during the author’s lifetime is not -one of them. Many authors now immortal have -enjoyed the applause of their own generations; -many authors now universally admired will, let us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span> -hope, pass on to an easy immortality. The praise -of your own day is no absolute disqualification; -but it may be if it be given for qualities which -your friends are the first to admire, for ’tis likely -they will also be the last. There is a greater -thing than the spirit of the age, and that is the -spirit of the ages. It is present in your own day; -it is even dominant then, with a sort of accumulated -power and mastery. If you can strike it, -you will strike, as it were, into the upper air of -your own time, where the forces are which run -from age to age. Lower down, where you breathe, -is the more inconstant air of opinion, inhaled, exhaled, -from day to day,—the variant currents, the -forces that will carry you, not forward, but hither -and thither.</p> - -<p>We write nowadays a great deal with our eyes -circumspectly upon the tastes of our neighbors, but -very little with our attention bent upon our own -natural, self-speaking thoughts and the very truth -of the matter whereof we are discoursing. Now -and again, it is true, we are startled to find how -the age relishes still an old-fashioned romance, if -written with a new-fashioned vigor and directness; -how quaint and simple and lovely things, as well -as what is altogether modern and analytic and -painful, bring our most judicious friends crowding,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span> -purses in hand, to the book-stalls; and for a while -we are puzzled to see worn-out styles and past -modes revived. But we do not let these things -seriously disturb our study of prevailing fashions. -These books of adventure are not at all, we assure -ourselves, in the true spirit of the age, with its -realistic knowledge of what men really do think -and purpose, and the taste for them must be only -for the moment or in jest. We need not let our -surprise at occasional flurries and variations in the -literary market cloud or discredit our analysis of -the real taste of the day, or suffer ourselves to be -betrayed into writing romances, however much we -might rejoice to be delivered from the drudgery of -sociological study, and made free to go afield with -our imaginations upon a joyous search for hidden -treasure or knightly adventure.</p> - -<p>And yet it is quite likely, after all, that the -present age is transient. Past ages have been. It -is probable that the objects and interests now so -near us, looming dominant in all the foreground -of our day, will sometime be shifted and lose their -place in the perspective. That has happened with -the near objects and exaggerated interests of other -days, so violently sometimes as to submerge and -thrust out of sight whole libraries of books. It -will not do to reckon upon the persistence of new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span> -things. ’Twere best to give them time to make -trial of the seasons. The old things of art and -taste and thought are the permanent things. We -know that they are because they have lasted long -enough to grow old; and we deem it safe to assess -the spirit of the age by the same test. No age -adds a great deal to what it received from the age -that went before it; no time gets an air all its -own. The same atmosphere holds from age to age; -it is only the little movements of the air that are -new. In the intervals when the trades do not -blow, fleeting cross-winds venture abroad, the which -if a man wait for he may lose his voyage.</p> - -<p>No man who has anything to say need stop and -bethink himself whom he may please or displease -in the saying of it. He has but one day to write -in, and that is his own. He need not fear that he -will too much ignore it. He will address the men -he knows when he writes, whether he be conscious -of it or not; he may dismiss all fear on that score -and use his liberty to the utmost. There are some -things that can have no antiquity and must ever be -without date, and genuineness and spirit are of -their number. A man who has these must ever -be “timely,” and at the same time fit to last, if he -can get his qualities into what he writes. He may -freely read, too, what he will that is congenial, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span> -form himself by companionships that are chosen -simply because they are to his taste; that is, if he -be genuine and in very truth a man of independent -spirit. Lamb would have written “for antiquity” -with a vengeance had his taste for the quaint -writers of an elder day been an affectation, or -the authors he liked men themselves affected and -ephemeral. No age this side antiquity would ever -have vouchsafed him a glance or a thought. But -it was not an affectation, and the men he preferred -were as genuine and as spirited as he was. -He was simply obeying an affinity and taking -cheer after his own kind. A man born into the -real patriciate of letters may take his pleasure in -what company he will without taint or loss of -caste; may go confidently abroad in the free -world of books and choose his comradeships without -fear of offense.</p> - -<p>More than that, there is no other way in which -he can form himself, if he would have his power -transcend a single age. He belittles himself who -takes from the world no more than he can get -from the speech of his own generation. The only -advantage of books over speech is that they may -hold from generation to generation, and reach, not -a small group merely, but a multitude of men; -and a man who writes without being a man of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span> -letters is curtailed of his heritage. It is in this -world of old and new that he must form himself if -he would in the end belong to it and increase its -bulk of treasure. If he has conned the new theories -of society, but knows nothing of Burke; the -new notions about fiction, and has not read his -Scott and his Richardson; the new criminology, -and wots nothing of the old human nature; the new -religions, and has never felt the power and sanctity -of the old, it is much the same as if he had -read Ibsen and Maeterlinck, and had never opened -Shakespeare. How is he to know wholesome air -from foul, good company from bad, visions from -nightmares? He has framed himself for the great -art and handicraft of letters only when he has -taken all the human parts of literature as if they -were without date, and schooled himself in a catholic -sanity of taste and judgment.</p> - -<p>Then he may very safely choose what company -his own work shall be done in,—in what manner, -and under what masters. He cannot choose amiss -for himself or for his generation if he choose like a -man, without light whim or weak affectation; not -like one who chooses a costume, but like one who -chooses a character. What is it, let him ask himself, -that renders a bit of writing a “piece of -literature”? It is reality. A “wood-note wild,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span> -sung unpremeditated and out of the heart; a description -written as if with an undimmed and -seeing eye upon the very object described; an -exposition that lays bare the very soul of the -matter; a motive truly revealed; anger that is -righteous and justly spoken; mirth that has its -sources pure; phrases to find the heart of a thing, -and a heart seen in things for the phrases to find; -an unaffected meaning set out in language that is -its own,—such are the realities of literature. -Nothing else is of the kin. Phrases used for their -own sake; borrowed meanings which the borrower -does not truly care for; an affected manner; an -acquired style; a hollow reason; words that are -not fit; things which do not live when spoken,—these -are its falsities, which die in the handling.</p> - -<p>The very top breed of what is unreal is begotten -by imitation. Imitators succeed sometimes, -and flourish, even while a breath may last; but -“imitate and be damned” is the inexorable -threat and prophecy of fate with regard to the -permanent fortunes of literature. That has been -notorious this long time past. It is more worth -noting, lest some should not have observed it, that -there are other and subtler ways of producing -what is unreal. There are the mixed kinds of -writing, for example. Argument is real if it come<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span> -vital from the mind; narrative is real if the thing -told have life and the narrator unaffectedly see it -while he speaks; but to narrate and argue in the -same breath is naught. Take, for instance, the -familiar example of the early history of Rome. -Make up your mind what was the truth of the -matter, and then, out of the facts as you have disentangled -them, construct a firmly touched narrative, -and the thing you create is real, has the confidence -and consistency of life. But mix the narrative -with critical comment upon other writers and their -variant versions of the tale, show by a nice elaboration -of argument the whole conjectural basis of -the story, set your reader the double task of doubting -and accepting, rejecting and constructing, and -at once you have touched the whole matter with -unreality. The narrative by itself might have had -an objective validity; the argument by itself an -intellectual firmness, sagacity, vigor, that would -have sufficed to make and keep it potent; but -together they confound each other, destroy each -other’s atmosphere, make a double miscarriage. -The story is rendered unlikely, and the argument -obscure. This is the taint which has touched all -our recent historical writing. The critical discussion -and assessment of the sources of information, -which used to be a thing for the private mind of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span> -the writer, now so encroach upon the open text -that the story, for the sake of which we would believe -the whole thing was undertaken, is oftentimes -fain to sink away into the foot-notes. The -process has ceased to be either pure exegesis or -straightforward narrative, and history has ceased -to be literature.</p> - -<p>Nor is this our only sort of mixed writing. -Our novels have become sociological studies, our -poems vehicles of criticism, our sermons political -manifestos. We have confounded all processes in -a common use, and do not know what we would be -at. We can find no better use for Pegasus than -to carry our vulgar burdens, no higher key for -song than questionings and complainings. Fancy -pulls in harness with intellectual doubt; enthusiasm -walks apologetically alongside science. We -try to make our very dreams engines of social reform. -It is a parlous state of things for literature, -and it is high time authors should take heed what -company they keep. The trouble is, they all want -to be “in society,” overwhelmed with invitations -from the publishers, well known and talked about -at the clubs, named every day in the newspapers, -photographed for the news-stalls; and it is so hard -to distinguish between fashion and form, costume -and substance, convention and truth, the things<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span> -that show well and the things that last well; so -hard to draw away from the writers that are new -and talked about and note those who are old and -walk apart, to distinguish the tones which are -merely loud from the tones that are genuine, to -get far enough away from the press and the hubbub -to see and judge the movements of the crowd!</p> - -<p>Some will do it. Choice spirits will arise and -make conquest of us, not “in society,” but with -what will seem a sort of outlawry. The great -growths of literature spring up in the open, where -the air is free and they can be a law unto themselves. -The law of life, here as elsewhere, is the -law of nourishment: with what was the earth -laden, and the atmosphere? Literatures are renewed, -as they are originated, by uncontrived impulses -of nature, as if the sap moved unbidden in -the mind. Once conceive the matter so, and -Lamb’s quaint saying assumes a sort of gentle -majesty. A man should “write for antiquity” as -a tree grows into the ancient air,—this old air -that has moved upon the face of the world ever -since the day of creation, which has set the law of -life to all things, which has nurtured the forests -and won the flowers to their perfection, which has -fed men’s lungs with life, sped their craft upon the -seas, borne abroad their songs and their cries,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span> -blown their forges to flame, and buoyed up whatever -they have contrived. ’Tis a common medium, -though a various life; and the figure may serve -the author for instruction.</p> - -<p>The breeding of authors is no doubt a very -occult thing, and no man can set the rules of it; -but at least the sort of “ampler ether” in which -they are best brought to maturity is known. Writers -have liked to speak of the Republic of Letters, -as if to mark their freedom and equality; but -there is a better phrase, namely, the Community -of Letters; for that means intercourse and comradeship -and a life in common. Some take up -their abode in it as if they had made no search for -a place to dwell in, but had come into the freedom -of it by blood and birthright. Others buy the -freedom with a great price, and seek out all the -sights and privileges of the place with an eager -thoroughness and curiosity. Still others win their -way into it with a certain grace and aptitude, next -best to the ease and dignity of being born to the -right. But for all it is a bonny place to be. Its -comradeships are a liberal education. Some, indeed, -even there, live apart; but most run always -in the market-place to know what all the rest have -said. Some keep special company, while others -keep none at all. But all feel the atmosphere and -life of the place in their several degrees.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span></p> - -<p>No doubt there are national groups, and Shakespeare -is king among the English, as Homer is -among the Greeks, and sober Dante among his -gay countrymen. But their thoughts all have in -common, though speech divide them; and sovereignty -does not exclude comradeship or embarrass -freedom. No doubt there is many a willful, ungoverned -fellow endured there without question, -and many a churlish cynic, because he possesses -that patent of genuineness or of a wit which -strikes for the heart of things, which, without -further test, secures citizenship in that free company. -What a gift of tongues is there, and of -prophecy! What strains of good talk, what counsel -of good judgment, what cheer of good tales, -what sanctity of silent thought! The sight-seers -who pass through from day to day, the press of -voluble men at the gates, the affectation of citizenship -by mere sojourners, the folly of those who -bring new styles or affect old ones, the procession -of the generations, disturb the calm of that serene -community not a whit. They will entertain a -man a whole decade, if he happen to stay so long, -though they know all the while he can have no -permanent place among them.</p> - -<p>’T would be a vast gain to have the laws of that -community better known than they are. Even the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span> -first principles of its constitution are singularly -unfamiliar. It is not a community of writers, but -a community of letters. One gets admission, not -because he writes,—write he never so cleverly, like -a gentleman and a man of wit,—but because he is -literate, a true initiate into the secret craft and -mystery of letters. What that secret is a man -may know, even though he cannot practice or appropriate -it. If a man can see the permanent element -in things,—the true sources of laughter, the -real fountains of tears, the motives that strike -along the main lines of conduct, the acts which display -the veritable characters of men, the trifles that -are significant, the details that make the mass,—if -he know these things, and can also choose words -with a like knowledge of their power to illuminate -and reveal, give color to the eye and passion to the -thought, the secret is his, and an entrance to that -immortal communion.</p> - -<p>It may be that some learn the mystery of that -insight without tutors; but most must put themselves -under governors and earn their initiation. -While a man lives, at any rate, he can keep the -company of the masters whose words contain the -mystery and open it to those who can see, almost -with every accent; and in such company it may at -last be revealed to him,—so plainly that he may,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span> -if he will, still linger in such comradeship when he -is dead.</p> - -<p>It would seem that there are two tests which -admit to that company, and that they are conclusive. -The one is, Are you individual? the other, -Are you conversable? “I beg pardon,” said a -grave wag, coming face to face with a small person -of most consequential air, and putting glass to -eye in calm scrutiny—“I beg pardon; but are you -anybody in particular?” Such is very much the -form of initiation into the permanent communion -of the realm of letters. Tell them, No, but that -you have done much better—you have caught the -tone of a great age, studied taste, divined opportunity, -courted and won a vast public, been most -timely and most famous; and you shall be pained -to find them laughing in your face. Tell them you -are earnest, sincere, consecrate to a cause, an -apostle and reformer, and they will still ask you, -“But are you anybody in particular?” They will -mean, “Were you your own man in what you -thought, and not a puppet? Did you speak with -an individual note and distinction that marked you -able to think as well as to speak,—to be yourself -in thoughts and in words also?” “Very well, -then; you are welcome enough.”</p> - -<p>“That is, if you be also conversable.” It is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span> -plain enough what they mean by that, too. They -mean, if you have spoken in such speech and spirit -as can be understood from age to age, and not in -the pet terms and separate spirit of a single day -and generation. Can the old authors understand -you, that you would associate with them? Will -men be able to take your meaning in the differing -days to come? Or is it perishable matter of the -day that you deal in—little controversies that -carry no lasting principle at their heart; experimental -theories of life and science, put forth for -their novelty and with no test of their worth; pictures -in which fashion looms very large, but human -nature shows very small; things that please everybody, -but instruct no one; mere fancies that are -an end in themselves? Be you never so clever an -artist in words and in ideas, if they be not the -words that wear and mean the same thing, and -that a thing intelligible, from age to age, the ideas -that shall hold valid and luminous in whatever day -or company, you may clamor at the gate till your -lungs fail and get never an answer.</p> - -<p>For that to what you seek admission is a veritable -“community.” In it you must be able to be, -and to remain, conversable. How are you to test -your preparation meanwhile, unless you look to -your comradeships now while yet it is time to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span> -learn? Frequent the company in which you may -learn the speech and the manner which are fit to -last. Take to heart the admirable example you -shall see set you there of using speech and manner -to speak your real thought and be genuinely and -simply yourself.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_69" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">A LITERARY POLITICIAN.</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">“Literary</span> politician” is not a label much in -vogue, and may need first of all a justification, lest -even the man of whom I am about to speak should -decline it from his very urn. I do not mean a -politician who affects literature; who seems to appreciate -the solemn moral purpose of Wordsworth’s -Happy Warrior, and yet is opposed to ballot reform. -Neither do I mean a literary man who -affects politics; who earns his victories through -the publishers, and his defeats at the hands of the -men who control the primaries. I mean the man -who has the genius to see deep into affairs, and the -discretion to keep out of them,—the man to whom, -by reason of knowledge and imagination and sympathetic -insight, governments and policies are as -open books, but who, instead of trying to put haphazard -characters of his own into those books, -wisely prefers to read their pages aloud to others. -A man this who knows polities, and yet does not -handle policies.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span></p> - -<p>There is, no doubt, a very widespread skepticism -as to the existence of such a man. Many people -would ask you to prove him as well as define him; -and that, as they assume, upon a very obvious -principle. It is a rule of universal acceptance in -theatrical circles that no one can write a good play -who has no practical acquaintance with the stage. -A knowledge of greenroom possibilities and of -stage machinery, it is held, must go before all successful -attempts to put either passion or humor -into action on the boards, if pit and gallery are to -get a sense of reality from the performance. No -wonder that Sheridan’s plays were effective, for -Sheridan was both author and actor; but abundant -wonder that simple Goldsmith succeeded with -his exquisite “She Stoops to Conquer,”—unless -we are to suppose that an Irishman of the last century, -like the Irishman of this, had some sixth -sense which enabled him to understand other people’s -business better than his own; for poor Goldsmith -could not act (even off the stage), and his -only connection with the theatre seems to have been -his acquaintance with Garrick. Lytton, we know, -had Macready constantly at his elbow, to give and -enforce suggestions calculated to render plays playable. -And in our own day, the authors of what -we indulgently call “dramatic literature” find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span> -themselves constantly obliged to turn tragedies into -comedies, comedies into farces, to satisfy the managers; -for managers know the stage, and pretend to -know all possible audiences also. The writer for -the stage must be playwright first, author second.</p> - -<p>Similar principles of criticism are not a little -affected by those who play the parts, great and small, -on the stage of politics. There is on that stage, -too, it is said, a complex machinery of action and -scene-shifting, a greenroom tradition and practice -as to costume and make-up, as to entry and exit, -necessities of concession to footlights and of appeal -to the pit, quite as rigorous and quite as proper for -study as are the concomitants of that other art -which we frankly call acting. This is an idea, -indeed, accepted in some quarters outside the political -playhouse as well as within it. Mr. Sydney -Colvin, for example, declares very rightly <span class="locked">that:—</span></p> - -<p>“Men of letters and of thought are habitually -too much given to declaiming at their ease against -the delinquencies of men of action and affairs. The -inevitable friction of practical politics,” he argues, -“generates heat enough already, and the office of -the thinker and critic should be to supply not heat, -but light. The difficulties which attend his own -unmolested task—the task of seeking after and -proclaiming salutary truths—should teach him to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span> -make allowance for the far more urgent difficulties -which beset the politician; the man obliged, amidst -the clash of interests and temptations, to practice -from hand to mouth, and at his peril, the most uncertain -and at the same time the most indispensable -of the experimental arts.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Colvin is himself of the class of men of letters -and of thought; he accordingly puts the case -against his class much more mildly than the practical -politician would desire to see it put. Practical -politicians are wont to regard closeted writers upon -politics with a certain condescension, dashed with -slight traces of uneasy concern. “Literary men -can say strong things of their age,” observes Mr. -Bagehot, “for no one expects that they will go out -and act on them. They are a kind of ticket-of-leave -lunatics, from whom no harm is for the moment -expected; who seem quiet, but on whose -vagaries a practical public must have its eye.” -I suppose that the really serious, practical man -in politics would see nothing of satirical humor in -such a description. He would have you note that, -although traced with a sharp point of wit, the picture -is nevertheless true. He can cite you a score -of instances illustrative of the danger of putting -faith in the political judgments of those who are -not politicians bred in the shrewd and moving -world of political management.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span></p> - -<p>The genuine practical politician, such as (even -our enemies being the witnesses) we must be acknowledged -to produce in great numbers and perfection -in this country, reserves his acidest contempt -for the literary man who assumes to utter -judgments touching public affairs and political institutions. -If he be a reading man, as will sometimes -happen, he is able to point you, in illustration -of what you are to expect in such cases, to the very -remarkable essays of the late Mr. Matthew Arnold -on parliamentary policy and the Irish question. If -he be not a reading man, as sometimes happens, he -is able to ask, much to your confusion, “What -does a fellow who lives inside a library know about -politics, anyhow?” You have to admit, if you are -candid, that most fellows who live in libraries know -little enough. You remember Macaulay, and -acknowledge that, although he made admirable -speeches in Parliament, held high political office, -and knew all the considerable public men of his -time, he did imagine the creation to have been made -in accordance with Whig notions; did hope to find -the judgments of Lord Somers some day answering -mankind as standards for all possible times and -circumstances. You recall Gibbon, and allow, to -your own thought at least, that, had he not remained -silent in his seat, a very few of his sentences would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span> -probably have sufficed to freeze the House of Commons -stiff. The ordinary literary man, even though -he be an eminent historian, is ill enough fitted to be -a mentor in affairs of government. For, it must -be admitted, things are for the most part very simple -in books, and in practical life very complex. -Not all the bindings of a library inclose the various -world of circumstance.</p> - -<p>But the practical politician should discriminate. -Let him find a man with an imagination -which, though it stands aloof, is yet quick to conceive -the very things in the thick of which the politician -struggles. To that man he should resort for -instruction. And that there is occasionally such -a man we have proof in Bagehot, the man who -first clearly distinguished the facts of the English -constitution from its theory.</p> - -<p>Walter Bagehot is a name known to not a few -of those who have a zest for the juiciest things of -literature, for the wit that illuminates and the -knowledge that refreshes. But his fame is still -singularly disproportioned to his charm; and one -feels once and again like publishing him, at least -to all spirits of his own kind. It would be a most -agreeable good fortune to introduce Bagehot to men -who have not read him! To ask your friend to -know Bagehot is like inviting him to seek pleasure.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span> -Occasionally, a man is born into the world whose -mission it evidently is to clarify the thought of -his generation, and to vivify it; to give it speed -where it is slow, vision where it is blind, balance -where it is out of poise, saving humor where it is -dry,—and such a man was Walter Bagehot. -When he wrote of history, he made it seem human -and probable; when he wrote of political economy, -he made it seem credible, entertaining,—nay, engaging -even; when he wrote criticism, he wrote -sense. You have in him a man who can jest to -your instruction, who will beguile you into being -informed beyond your wont and wise beyond your -birthright. Full of manly, straightforward meaning, -earnest to find the facts that guide and -strengthen conduct, a lover of good men and seers, -full of knowledge and a consuming desire for it, -he is yet genial withal, with the geniality of a man -of wit, and alive in every fibre of him, with a life -he can communicate to you. One is constrained to -agree, almost, with the verdict of a witty countryman -of his, who happily still lives to cheer us, that -when Bagehot died he “carried away into the next -world more originality of thought than is now to -be found in the three Estates of the Realm.”</p> - -<p>An epitome of Bagehot’s life can be given very -briefly. He was born in February, 1826, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span> -died in March, 1877,—the month in which one -would prefer to die. Between those two dates he had -much quaint experience as a boy, and much sober -business experience as a man. He wrote essays -on poets, prose writers, statesmen, whom he would, -with abundant insight, but without too much respect -of persons; also books on banking, on the -early development of society, and on English politics, -kindling a flame of interest with these dry -materials such as made men stare who had often described -the facts of society themselves, but who had -never dreamed of applying fire to them, as Bagehot -did, to make them give forth light and wholesome -heat. He set the minds of a few fortunate friends -aglow with the delights of the very wonderful tongue -which nature had given him through his mother. -And then he died, while his power was yet young. -Not a life of event or adventure, but a life of deep -interest, none the less, because a life in which those -two things of our modern life, commonly deemed -incompatible, business and literature, namely, were -combined without detriment to either; and from -which, more interesting still, politics gained a profound -expounder in one who was no politician and -no party man, but, as he himself said, “between -sizes in politics.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Bagehot was born in the centre of Somersetshire,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span> -that southwestern county of old England -whose coast towns look across Bristol Channel to -the highlands of Wales: a county of small farms, -and pastures that keep their promise of fatness to -many generous milkers; a county broken into abrupt -hills, and sodden moors hardly kept from the -inroads of the sea, as well as rural valleys open to -the sun; a county visited by mists from the sea, -and bathed in a fine soft atmosphere all its own; -visited also by people of fashion, for it contains -Bath; visited now also by those who have read -Lorna Doone, for within it lies part of that Exmoor -Forest in which stalwart John Ridd lived -and wrought his mighty deeds of strength and -love: a land which the Celts kept for long against -both Saxon and Roman, but which Christianity -easily conquered, building Wells Cathedral and -the monastery at Glastonbury. Nowhere else, in -days of travel, could Bagehot find a land of so -great delight save in the northwest corner of Spain, -where a golden light lay upon everything, where -the sea shone with a rare, soft lustre, and where -there was a like varied coast-line to that he knew -and loved at home. He called it “a sort of better -Devonshire:” and Devonshire is Somersetshire,—only -more so! The atmospheric effects of his -county certainly entered the boy Bagehot, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span> -colored the nature of the man. He had its -glow, its variety, its richness, and its imaginative -depth.</p> - -<p>But better than a fair county is a good parentage, -and that, too, Bagehot had; just the parentage -one would wish to have who desired to be a force -in the world’s thought. His father, Thomas Watson -Bagehot, was for thirty years managing director -and vice-president of Stuckey’s Banking Company, -one of the oldest and best of those sturdy joint-stock -companies which have for so many years stood -stoutly up alongside the Bank of England as -managers of the vast English fortune. But he -was something more than a banker. He was a man -of mind, of strong liberal convictions in politics, -and of an abundant knowledge of English history -wherewith to back up his opinions. He was one -of the men who think, and who think in straight -lines; who see, and see things. His mother -was a Miss Stuckey, a niece of the founder of -the banking company. But it was not her connection -with bankers that made her an invaluable -mother. She had, besides beauty, a most lively -and stimulating wit; such a mind as we most desire -to see in a woman,—a mind that stirs without -irritating you, that rouses but does not belabor, -amuses and yet subtly instructs. She could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span> -preside over the young life of her son in such a way -as at once to awaken his curiosity and set him in -the way of satisfying it. She was brilliant company -for a boy, and rewarding for a man. She -had suggestive people, besides, among her kinsmen, -into whose companionship she could bring her son. -Bagehot had that for which no university can ever -offer an equivalent,—the constant and intelligent -sympathy of both his parents in his studies, and -their companionship in his tastes. To his father’s -strength his mother added vivacity. He would -have been wise, perhaps, without her; but he would -not have been wise so delightfully.</p> - -<p>Bagehot got his schooling in Bristol, his university -training in London. In Bristol lived Dr. -Prichard, his mother’s brother-in-law, and author -of a notable book on the Physical History of Men. -From him Bagehot unquestionably got his bent towards -the study of race origins and development. -In London, Cobden and Bright were carrying on -an important part of their great agitation for the -repeal of the corn laws, and were making such -speeches as it stirred and bettered young men to -hear. Bagehot had gone to University Hall, London, -rather than to Oxford or Cambridge, because -his father was a Unitarian, and would not have his -son submit to the religious tests then required at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span> -the great universities. But there can be no doubt -that there was more to be had at University Hall -in that day than at either Oxford or Cambridge. -Oxford and Cambridge were still dragging the very -heavy chains of a hindering tradition; the faculty -of University Hall contained many thorough and -some eminent scholars; what was more, University -Hall was in London, and London itself was a -quickening and inspiring teacher for a lad in love -with both books and affairs, as Bagehot was. He -could ask penetrating questions of his professors, -and he could also ask questions of London, seek -out her secrets of history, and so experience to the -full the charm of her abounding life. In after -years, though he loved Somersetshire and clung to -it with a strong home-keeping affection, he could -never stay away from London for more than six -weeks at a time. Eventually he made it his place -of permanent residence.</p> - -<p>His university career over, Bagehot did what so -many thousands of young graduates before him -had done,—he studied for the bar; and then, -having prepared himself to practice law, followed -another large body of young men in deciding to -abandon it. He joined his father in his business -as ship-owner and banker in Somersetshire, and -in due time took his place among the directors of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span> -Stuckey’s Company. For the rest of his life, this -man, whom the world knows as a man of letters, -was first of all a man of business. In his later -years, however, he identified himself with what may -be called the literary side of business by becoming -editor of that great financial authority, the -“London Economist.” He had, so to say, married -into this position. His wife was the daughter of -the Rt. Hon. James Wilson, who was the mind -and manager, as well as the founder of the “Economist.” -Wilson’s death seemed to leave the great -financial weekly by natural succession to Bagehot; -and certainly natural selection never made a better -choice. It was under Bagehot that the “Economist” -became a sort of financial providence for -business men on both sides of the Atlantic. Its -sagacious prescience constituted Bagehot himself a -sort of supplementary chancellor of the exchequer, -the chancellors of both parties resorting to him -with equal confidence and solicitude. His constant -contact with London, and with the leaders of politics -and opinion there, of course materially assisted -him also to those penetrating judgments touching -the structure and working of English institutions -which have made his volume on the English -Constitution and his essays on Bolingbroke and -Brougham and Peel, on Mr. Gladstone and Sir<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span> -George Cornewall Lewis, the admiration and despair -of all who read them.</p> - -<p>Those who know Bagehot only as the writer of -some of the most delightful and suggestive literary -criticisms in the language wonder that he should -have been an authority on practical politics; those -who used to regard the “London Economist” as -omniscient, and who knew him only as the editor -of it, marvel that he dabbled in literary criticism, -and incline to ask themselves, when they learn of -his vagaries in that direction, whether he can have -been so safe a guide as they deemed him, after all; -those who know him through his political writings -alone venture upon the perusal of his miscellaneous -essays with not a little surprise and misgiving that -their master should wander so far afield. And yet -the whole Bagehot is the only Bagehot. Each -part of the man is incomplete, not only, but a trifle -incomprehensible, also, without the other parts. -What delights us most in his literary essays is -their broad practical sagacity, so uniquely married -as it is with pure taste and the style of a rapid -artist in words. What makes his financial and -political writings whole and sound is the scope of -his mind outside finance and politics, the validity -of his observation all around the circle of thought -and affairs. He was the better critic for being a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span> -competent man of business and a trusted financial -authority. He was the more sure-footed in his -political judgments because of his play of mind in -other and supplementary spheres of human activity.</p> - -<p>The very appearance of the man was a sort of -outer index to the singular variety of capacity that -has made him so notable a figure in the literary -annals of England. A mass of black, wavy hair; -a dark eye, with depths full of slumberous, playful -fire; a ruddy skin that bespoke active blood, quick -in its rounds; the lithe figure of an excellent horseman; -a nostril full, delicate, quivering, like that of -a blooded racer,—such were the fitting outward -marks of a man in whom life and thought and -fancy abounded; the aspect of a man of unflagging -vivacity, of wholesome, hearty humor, of a ready -intellectual sympathy, of wide and penetrative observation. -It is no narrow, logical shrewdness or -cold penetration that looks forth at you through -that face, even if a bit of mockery does lurk in the -privatest corner of the eye. Among the qualities -which he seeks out for special praise in Shakespeare -is a broad tolerance and sympathy for illogical -and common minds. It seems to him an evidence -of size in Shakespeare that he was not vexed -with smallness, but was patient, nay, sympathetic -even, in his portrayal of it. “If every one were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span> -logical and literary,” he exclaims, “how would there -be scavengers, or watchmen, or caulkers, or coopers? -A patient sympathy, a kindly fellow-feeling for the -narrow intelligence necessarily induced by narrow -circumstances,—a narrowness which, in some degrees, -seems to be inevitable, and is perhaps more -serviceable than most things to the wise conduct of -life,—this, though quick and half-bred minds may -despise it, seems to be a necessary constituent in -the composition of manifold genius. ‘How shall -the world be served?’ asks the host in Chaucer. -We must have cart-horses as well as race-horses, -draymen as well as poets. It is no bad thing, after -all, to be a slow man and to have one idea a year. -You don’t make a figure, perhaps, in argumentative -society, which requires a quicker species of thought, -but is that the worse?”</p> - -<p>One of the things which strike us most in Bagehot -himself is his capacity to understand inferior -minds; and there can be no better test of sound -genius. He stood in the midst of affairs, and knew -the dull duty and humdrum fidelity which make up -the equipment of the ordinary mind for business, -for the business which keeps the world steady in -its grooves and makes it fit for habitation. He -perceived quite calmly, though with an odd, sober -amusement, that the world is under the dominion,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span> -in most things, of the average man, and the average -man he knows. He is, he explains, with his -characteristic covert humor, “a cool, common person, -with a considerate air, with figures in his -mind, with his own business to attend to, with a -set of ordinary opinions arising from and suited to -ordinary life. He can’t bear novelty or originalities. -He says, ‘Sir, I never heard such a thing -before in my life;’ and he thinks this a <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">reductio -ad absurdum</i>. You may see his taste by the reading -of which he approves. Is there a more splendid -monument of talent and industry than the -‘Times’? No wonder that the average man—that -any one—believes in it.... But did you ever -see anything there you had never seen before?... -Where are the deep theories, and the wise axioms, -and the everlasting sentiments which the writers of -the most influential publication in the world have -been the first to communicate to an ignorant species? -Such writers are far too shrewd.... The -purchaser desires an article which he can appreciate -at sight, which he can lay down and say, ‘An -excellent article, very excellent; exactly my own -sentiments.’ Original theories give trouble; besides, -a grave man on the Coal Exchange does -not desire to be an apostle of novelties among the -contemporaneous dealers in fuel; he wants to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span> -provided with remarks he can make on the topics -of the day which will not be known not to be his, -that are not too profound, which he can fancy the -paper only reminded him of. And just in the -same way,”—thus he proceeds with the sagacious -moral,—“precisely as the most popular political -paper is not that which is abstractedly the best or -most instructive, but that which most exactly takes -up the minds of men where it finds them, catches -the floating sentiment of society, puts it in such a -form as society can fancy would convince another -society which did not believe, so the most influential -of constitutional statesmen is the one who most -felicitously expresses the creed of the moment, who -administers it, who embodies it in laws and institutions, -who gives it the highest life it is capable -of, who induces the average man to think, ‘I could -not have done it any better if I had had time myself.’”</p> - -<p>See how his knowledge of politics proceeds out -of his knowledge of men. “You may talk of the -tyranny of Nero and Tiberius,” he exclaims, “but -the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door -neighbor. What law is so cruel as the law of doing -what he does? What yoke is so galling as the -necessity of being like him? What espionage of -despotism comes to your door so effectually as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span> -eye of the man who lives at your door? Public -opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts -obedience to itself; it requires us to think other -men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow -other men’s habits. Of course, if we do not, -no formal ban issues, no corporeal pain, the coarse -penalty of a barbarous society, is inflicted on the -offender, but we are called ‘eccentric;’ there is a -gentle murmur of ‘most unfortunate ideas,’ ‘singular -young man,’ ‘well intentioned, I dare say, but -unsafe, sir, quite unsafe.’ The prudent, of course, -conform.”</p> - -<p>There is, no doubt, a touch of mockery in all -this, but there is unquestionable insight in it, too, -and a sane knowledge also of the fact that dull, -common judgments are, after all, the cement of -society. It is Bagehot who says somewhere that it -is only dull nations, like the Romans and the -English, who can become or remain for any length -of time self-governing nations, because it is only -among them that duty is done through lack of -knowledge sufficient or imagination enough to suggest -anything else to do: only among them that -the stability of slow habit can be had.</p> - -<p>It would be superficial criticism to put forward -Bagehot’s political opinions as themselves the proof -of his extraordinary power as a student and analyst<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span> -of institutions. His life, his broad range of study, -his quick versatility, his shrewd appreciation of -common men, his excursions through all the fields -that men traverse in their thought of one another -and in their contact with the world’s business,—these -are the soil out of which his political judgments -spring, from which they get their sap and -bloom. In order to know institutions, you must -know men; you must be able to imagine histories, -to appreciate characters radically unlike your own, -to see into the heart of society and assess its -notions, great and small. Your average critic, it -must be acknowledged, would be the worst possible -commentator on affairs. He has all the movements -of intelligence without any of its reality. But a -man who sees authors with a Chaucerian insight -into them as men, who knows literature as a realm -of vital thought conceived by real men, of actual -motive felt by concrete persons, this is a man whose -opinions you may confidently ask, if not on current -politics, at any rate on all that concerns the permanent -relations of men in society.</p> - -<p>It is for such reasons that one must first make -known the most masterly of the critics of English -political institutions as a man of catholic tastes and -attainments, shrewdly observant of many kinds of -men and affairs. Know him once in this way, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span> -his mastery in political thought is explained. If I -were to make choice, therefore, of extracts from -his works with a view to recommend him as a -politician, I should choose those passages which -show him a man of infinite capacity to see and understand -men of all kinds, past and present. By -showing in his case the equipment of a mind open -on all sides to the life and thought of society, and -penetrative of human secrets of many sorts, I -should authenticate his credentials as a writer upon -politics, which is nothing else than the public and -organic life of society.</p> - -<p>Examples may be taken almost at random. -There is the passage on Sydney Smith, in the essay -on the First Edinburgh Reviewers. We have all -laughed with that great-hearted clerical wit; but -it is questionable whether we have all appreciated -him as a man who wrote and wrought wisdom. -Indeed, Sydney Smith may be made a very delicate -test of sound judgment, the which to apply to -friends of whom you are suspicious. There was -a man beneath those excellent witticisms, a big, -wholesome, thinking man; but none save men of -like wholesome natures can see and value his manhood -and his mind at their real worth.</p> - -<p>“Sydney Smith was an after-dinner writer. -His words have a flow, a vigor, an expression,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span> -which is not given to hungry mortals.... There -is little trace of labor in his composition; it is -poured forth like an unceasing torrent, rejoicing -daily to run its course. And what courage there -is in it! There is as much variety of pluck in -writing across a sheet as in riding across a country. -Cautious men ... go tremulously, like a timid -rider; they turn hither and thither; they do not -go straight across a subject, like a masterly mind. -A few sentences are enough for a master of sentences. -The writing of Sydney Smith is suited to -the broader kind of important questions. For anything -requiring fine nicety of speculation, long elaborateness -of deduction, evanescent sharpness of -distinction, neither his style nor his mind was fit. -He had no patience for long argument, no acuteness -for delicate precision, no fangs for recondite -research. Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors -and grinders. Sydney Smith was a molar. -He did not run a long, sharp argument into the -interior of a question; he did not, in the common -phrase, go deeply into it; but he kept it steadily -under the contract of a strong, capable, jawlike -understanding,—pressing its surface, effacing its -intricacies, grinding it down. Yet this is done -without toil. The play of the molar is instinctive -and placid; he could not help it; it would seem -that he had an enjoyment in it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span></p> - -<p>One reads this with a feeling that Bagehot both -knows and likes Sydney Smith, and heartily appreciates -him as an engine of Whig thought; and -with the conviction that Bagehot himself, knowing -thus and enjoying Smith’s freehand method of -writing, could have done the like himself,—could -himself have made English ring to all the old Whig -tunes, like an anvil under the hammer. And yet -you have only to turn back a page in the same -essay to find quite another Bagehot,—a Bagehot -such as Sydney Smith could not have been. He -is speaking of that other militant Edinburgh reviewer, -Lord Jeffrey, and is recalling, as every one -recalls, Jeffrey’s review of Wordsworth’s “Excursion.” -The first words of that review, as everybody -remembers, were, “This will never do;” and -there followed upon those words, though not a -little praise of the poetical beauties of the poem, a -thoroughly meant condemnation of the school of -poets of which Wordsworth was the greatest representative. -Very celebrated in the world of literature -is the leading case of Jeffrey <i>v.</i> Wordsworth. -It is in summing up this case that Bagehot gives -us a very different taste of his <span class="locked">quality:—</span></p> - -<p>“The world has given judgment. Both Mr. -Wordsworth and Lord Jeffrey have received their -reward. The one had his own generation, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span> -laughter of men, the applause of drawing-rooms, -the concurrence of the crowd; the other a succeeding -age, the fond enthusiasm of secret students, the -lonely rapture of lonely minds. And each has received -according to his kind. If all cultivated men -speak differently because of the existence of Wordsworth -and Coleridge; if not a thoughtful English -book has appeared for forty years without some -trace for good or evil of their influence; if sermon-writers -subsist upon their thoughts; if ‘sacred -poets’ thrive by translating their weaker portions -into the speech of women; if, when all this is over, -some sufficient part of their writing will ever be -found fitting food for wild musing and solitary meditation, -surely this is because they possessed the -inner nature,—‘an intense and glowing mind,’ -‘the vision and the faculty divine.’ But if, perchance, -in their weaker moments, the great authors -of the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ did ever imagine that the -world was to pause because of their verses, that -‘Peter Bell’ would be popular in drawing-rooms, -that ‘Christabel’ would be perused in the city, that -people of fashion would make a handbook of ‘The -Excursion,’ it was well for them to be told at -once that this was not so. Nature ingeniously -prepared a shrill artificial voice, which spoke in -season and out of season, enough and more than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span> -enough, what will ever be the idea of the cities of -the plain concerning those who live alone among the -mountains, of the frivolous concerning the grave, of -the gregarious concerning the recluse, of those who -laugh concerning those who laugh not, of the common -concerning the uncommon, of those who lend -on usury concerning those who lend not; the notion -of the world of those whom it will not reckon -among the righteous,—it said, ‘This won’t do!’ -And so in all time will the lovers of polished Liberalism -speak concerning the intense and lonely -prophet.”</p> - -<p>This is no longer the Bagehot who could “write -across a sheet” with Sydney Smith. It is now -a Bagehot whose heart is turned away from the -cudgeling Whigs to see such things as are hidden -from the bearers of cudgels, and revealed only to -those who can await in the sanctuary of a quiet -mind the coming of the vision.</p> - -<p>Single specimens of such a man’s writing do not -suffice, of course, even as specimens. They need -their context to show their appositeness, the full -body of the writing from which they are taken to -show the mass and system of the thought. Even -separated pieces of his matter prepare us, nevertheless, -for finding in Bagehot keener, juster estimates -of difficult historical and political characters<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span> -than it is given the merely exact historian, with -his head full of facts and his heart purged of all -imagination, to speak. There is his estimate of -the cavalier, for example: “A cavalier is always -young. The buoyant life arises before us, rich in -hope, strong in vigor, irregular in action: men -young and ardent, ‘framed in the prodigality of -nature;’ open to every enjoyment, alive to every -passion, eager, impulsive; brave without discipline, -noble without principle; prizing luxury, despising -danger; capable of high sentiment, but in each -of whom the</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent6">‘addiction was to courses vain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And never noted in him any study,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Any retirement, any sequestration</div> - <div class="verse indent0">From open haunts and popularity.’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">The political sentiment is part of the character; -the essence of Toryism is enjoyment.... The way -to keep up old customs is to enjoy old customs; -the way to be satisfied with the present state of -things is to enjoy the present state of things. Over -the cavalier mind this world passes with a thrill of -delight; there is an exultation in a daily event, -zest in the ‘regular thing,’ joy at an old feast.”</p> - -<p>Is it not most natural that the writer of a passage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span> -like that should have been a consummate -critic of politics, seeing institutions through men, -the only natural way? It was as necessary that -he should be able to enjoy Sydney Smith and recognize -the seer in Wordsworth as that he should -be able to conceive the cavalier life and point of -view; and in each perception there is the same -power. He is as little at fault in understanding -men of his own day. What would you wish better -than his celebrated character of a “constitutional -statesman,” for example? “A constitutional -statesman is a man of common opinions and uncommon -abilities.” Peel is his example. “His -opinions resembled the daily accumulating insensible -deposits of a rich alluvial soil. The great -stream of time flows on with all things on its surface; -and slowly, grain by grain, a mould of wise -experience is unconsciously left on the still, extended -intellect.... The stealthy accumulating -words of Peel seem like the quiet leavings of some -outward tendency, which brought these, but might -as well have brought others. There is no peculiar -stamp, either, on the ideas. They might have -been any one’s ideas. They belong to the general -diffused stock of observations which are to be -found in the civilized world.... He insensibly -takes in and imbibes the ideas of those around him.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span> -If he were left in a vacuum, he would have no -ideas.”</p> - -<p>What strikes one most, perhaps, in all these -passages, is the realizing imagination which illuminates -them. And it is an imagination with a -practical character all its own. It is not a creating, -but a conceiving imagination; not the imagination -of the fancy, but the imagination of the understanding. -Conceiving imaginations, however, are -of two kinds. For the one kind the understanding -serves as a lamp of guidance; upon the other the -understanding acts as an electric excitant, a keen -irritant. Bagehot’s was evidently of the first kind; -Carlyle’s, conspicuously of the second. There is -something in common between the minds of these -two men as they conceive society. Both have a -capital grip upon the actual; both can conceive -without confusion the complex phenomena of society; -both send humorous glances of searching insight -into the hearts of men. But it is the difference -between them that most arrests our attention. -Bagehot has the scientific imagination, Carlyle the -passionate. Bagehot is the embodiment of witty -common sense; all the movements of his mind -illustrate that vivacious sanity which he has himself -called “animated moderation.” Carlyle, on the -other hand, conceives men and their motives too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span> -often with a hot intolerance; there is heat in his -imagination,—a heat that sometimes scorches and -consumes. Life is for him dramatic, full of fierce, -imperative forces. Even when the world rings -with laughter, it is laughter which, in his ears, is -succeeded by an echo of mockery; laughter which -is but a defiance of tears. The actual which you -touch in Bagehot is the practical, operative actual -of a world of workshops and parliaments,—a -world of which workshops and parliaments are the -natural and desirable products. Carlyle flouts at -modern legislative assemblies as “talking shops,” -and yearns for action such as is commanded by -masters of action; preaches the doctrine of work -and silence in some thirty volumes octavo. Bagehot -points out that prompt, crude action is the -instinct and practice of the savage; that talk, the -deliberation of assemblies, the slow concert of -masses of men, is the cultivated fruit of civilization, -nourishing to all the powers of right action -in a society which is not simple and primitive, but -advanced and complex. He is no more imposed -upon by parliamentary debates than Carlyle is. -He knows that they are stupid, and, so far as wise -utterance goes, in large part futile, too. But he is -not irritated, as Carlyle is, for, to say the fact, he -sees more than Carlyle sees. He sees the force<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span> -and value of the stupidity. He is wise, along with -Burke, in regarding prejudice as the cement of -society. He knows that slow thought is the ballast -of a self-governing state. Stanch, knitted timbers -are as necessary to the ship as sails. Unless the -hull is conservative in holding stubbornly together -in the face of every argument of sea weather, -there’ll be lives and fortunes lost. Bagehot can -laugh at unreasoning bias. It brings a merry -twinkle into his eye to undertake the good sport -of dissecting stolid stupidity. But he would not -for the world abolish bias and stupidity. He would -much rather have society hold together; much -rather see it grow than undertake to reconstruct it. -“You remember my joke against you about the -moon,” writes Sydney Smith to Jeffrey; “d—n -the solar system—bad light—planets too distant—pestered -with comets—feeble contrivance; -could make a better with great ease.” There was -nothing of this in Bagehot. He was inclined to be -quite tolerant of the solar system. He understood -that society was more quickly bettered by sympathy -than by antagonism.</p> - -<p>Bagehot’s limitations, though they do not obtrude -themselves upon your attention as his excellencies -do, are in truth as sharp-cut and clear -as his thought itself. It would not be just the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span> -truth to say that his power is that of critical analysis -only, for he can and does construct thought -concerning antique and obscure systems of political -life and social action. But it is true that he does -not construct for the future. You receive stimulation -from him and a certain feeling of elation. -There is a fresh air stirring in all his utterances -that is unspeakably refreshing. You open your -mind to the fine influence, and feel younger for having -been in such an atmosphere. It is an atmosphere -clarified and bracing almost beyond example elsewhere. -But you know what you lack in Bagehot if -you have read Burke. You miss the deep eloquence -which awakens purpose. You are not in contact -with systems of thought or with principles that -dictate action, but only with a perfect explanation.</p> - -<p>You would go to Burke, not to Bagehot, for -inspiration in the infinite tasks of self-government; -though you would, if you were wise, go to Bagehot -rather than to Burke if you wished to realize just -what were the practical daily conditions under -which those tasks were to be worked out.</p> - -<p>Moreover, there is a deeper lack in Bagehot. -He has no sympathy with the voiceless body of the -people, with the “mass of unknown men.” He -conceives the work of government to be a work -which is possible only to the instructed few. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span> -would have the mass served, and served with devotion, -but he would trouble to see them attempt -to serve themselves. He has not the stout fibre -and the unquestioning faith in the right and capacity -of inorganic majorities which make the democrat. -He has none of the heroic boldness necessary -for faith in wholesale political aptitude and capacity. -He takes democracy in detail in his thought, and -to take it in detail makes it look very awkward -indeed.</p> - -<p>And yet surely it would not occur to the veriest -democrat that ever vociferated the “sovereignty of -the people” to take umbrage at anything Bagehot -might chance to say in dissection of democracy. -What he says is seldom provokingly true. There -is something in it all that is better than a “saving -clause,” and that is a saving humor. Humor ever -keeps the whole of his matter sound; it is an excellent -salt that keeps sweet the sharpest of his sayings. -Indeed, Bagehot’s wit is so prominent among -his gifts that I am tempted here to enter a general -plea for wit as fit company for high thoughts and -weighty subjects. Wit does not make a subject -light; it simply beats it into shape to be handled -readily. For my part, I make free acknowledgment -that no man seems to me master of his subject -who cannot take liberties with it; who cannot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span> -slap his propositions on the back and be hail-fellow -well met with them. Suspect a man of shallowness -who always takes himself and all that he thinks -seriously. For light on a dark subject commend -me to a ray of wit. Most of your solemn explanations -are mere farthing candles in the great expanse -of a difficult question. Wit is not, I admit, -a steady light, but ah! its flashes give you sudden -glimpses of unsuspected things such as you will -never see without it. It is the summer lightning, -which will bring more to your startled eye in an -instant, out of the hiding of the night, than you -will ever be at the pains to observe in the full blaze -of noon.</p> - -<p>Wit is movement, is play of mind; and the -mind cannot get play without a sufficient playground. -Without movement outside the world of -books, it is impossible a man should see aught but -the very neatly arranged phenomena of that world. -But it is possible for a man’s thought to be instructed -by the world of affairs without the man -himself becoming a part of it. Indeed, it is exceedingly -hard for one who is in and of it to hold -the world of affairs off at arm’s length and observe -it. He has no vantage-ground. He had better for -a while seek the distance of books, and get his perspective. -The literary politician, let it be distinctly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span> -said, is a very fine, a very superior species of the -man thoughtful. He reads books as he would listen -to men talk. He stands apart, and looks on, -with humorous, sympathetic smile, at the play of -policies. He will tell you for the asking what the -players are thinking about. He divines at once -how the parts are cast. He knows beforehand -what each act is to discover. He might readily -guess what the dialogue is to contain. Were you -short of scene-shifters, he could serve you admirably -in an emergency. And he is a better critic of -the play than the players.</p> - -<p>Had I command of the culture of men, I should -wish to raise up for the instruction and stimulation -of my nation more than one sane, sagacious, penetrative -critic of men and affairs like Walter Bagehot. -But that, of course. The proper thesis to -draw from his singular genius is this: It is not the -constitutional lawyer, nor the student of the mere -machinery and legal structure of institutions, nor -the politician, a mere handler of that machinery, -who is competent to understand and expound government; -but the man who finds the materials for -his thought far and wide, in everything that reveals -character and circumstance and motive. It is -necessary to stand with the poets as well as with -lawgivers; with the fathers of the race as well as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span> -with your neighbor of to-day; with those who toil -and are sick at heart as well as with those who -prosper and laugh and take their pleasure; with -the merchant and the manufacturer as well as with -the closeted student; with the schoolmaster and -with those whose only school is life; with the -orator and with the men who have wrought always -in silence; in the midst of thought and also in the -midst of affairs, if you would really comprehend -those great wholes of history and of character -which are the vital substance of politics.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_104" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">THE INTERPRETER OF ENGLISH LIBERTY.</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">In</span> the middle of the last century two Irish -adventurers crossed over into England in search of -their fortunes. Rare fellows they were, bringing -treasure with them; but finding it somehow hard -to get upon the market: traders with a curious -cargo, offering edification in exchange for a living, -and concealing the best of English under a rich -brogue. They were Edmund Burke and Oliver -Goldsmith.</p> - -<p>They did not cross over together: ’twas no joint -venture. They had been fellow students at Trinity -College, Dublin; but they had not, so far as we -can learn, known each other there. Each went -his own way till they became comrades in the reign -of Samuel Johnson at the Turk’s Head Tavern. -Burke stepped very boldly forth into the exposed -paths of public life; Goldsmith plunged into the -secret ways about Grub Street. The one gave us -essays upon public questions incomparable for their -reach of view and their splendid power of expression;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span> -the other gave us writings so exquisite for -their delicacy, purity, and finish as to incline us to -love him almost as much as those who knew him -loved him. We could not easily have forgiven -Ireland if she had <em>not</em> given us these men. The -one had grave faults of temper; the other was a -reckless, roystering fellow, with a most irrepressible -Irish disposition; but how much less we should have -known without Burke, how much less we should -have enjoyed without Goldsmith! They have conquered -places for themselves in English literature -from which we neither can nor would dislodge -them. For their sakes alone we can afford to forgive -Ireland all the trouble she has caused us.</p> - -<p>There is no man anywhere to be found in the -annals of Parliament who seems more thoroughly -to belong to England than does Edmund Burke, -indubitable Irishman though he was. His words, -now that they have cast off their brogue, ring out -the authentic voice of the best political thought of -the English race. “If any man ask me,” he cries, -“what a free government is, I answer, that, for any -practical purpose, it is what the people think so,—and -that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, -and competent judges of the matter.” “Abstract -liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be -found. Liberty adheres in some sensible object;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span> -and every nation has formed to itself some favorite -point, which by way of eminence becomes the criterion -of their happiness.” These sentences, taken -from his writings on American affairs, might serve -as a sort of motto of the practical spirit of our race -in affairs of government. Look further, and you -shall see how his imagination presently illuminates -and suffuses his maxims of practical sagacity with -a fine blaze of insight, a keen glow of feeling, in -which you recognize that other masterful quality of -the race, its intense and elevated conviction. “My -hold on the colonies,” he declares, “is in the close -affection which grows from common names, from -kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal -protection. These are the ties which, though light -as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the -colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights -associated with your government,—they will cling -and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will -be of power to tear them from their allegiance. -But let it once be understood that your government -may be one thing and their privileges another, that -these two things may exist without any mutual -relation,—and the cement is gone, the cohesion is -loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. -So long as you have the wisdom to keep -the sovereign power of this country as the sanctuary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span> -of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our -common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons -of England worship freedom, they will turn their -faces towards you.” “We cannot, I fear,” he says -proudly of the colonies, “we cannot falsify the -pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade them -that they are not sprung from a nation in whose -veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language -in which they would hear you tell them this -tale would detect the imposition; your speech -would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest -person on earth to argue another Englishman into -slavery.” Does not your blood stir at these passages? -And is it not because, besides loving what -is nobly written, you feel that every word strikes -towards the heart of the things that have made -your blood what it has proved to be in the history -of our race?</p> - -<p>These passages, it should be remembered, are -taken from a speech in Parliament and from a -letter written by Burke to his constituents in -Bristol. He had no thought to make them permanent -sentences of political philosophy. They were -meant only to serve an immediate purpose in the -advancement of contemporaneous policy. They -were framed for the circumstances of the time. -They speak out spontaneously amidst matter of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span> -moment: and they could be matched everywhere -throughout his pamphlets and public utterances. -No other similar productions that I know of have -this singular, and as it were inevitable, quality of -permanency. They have emerged from the mass -of political writings put forth in their time with -their freshness untouched, their significance unobscured, -their splendid vigor unabated. It is this -that we marvel at, that they should remain modern -and timely, purged of every element and seed of -decay. The man who could do this must needs -arrest our attention and challenge our inquiry. -We wish to account for him as we should wish to -penetrate the secrets of the human spirit and know -the springs of genius.</p> - -<p>Of the public life of Burke we know all that we -could wish. He became so prominent a figure in -the great affairs of his day that even the casual -observer cannot fail to discern the main facts of -his career; while the close student can follow him -year by year through every step of his service. -But his private life was withdrawn from general -scrutiny in an unusual degree. He manifested -always a marked reserve about his individual and -domestic affairs, deliberately, it would seem, shielding -them from impertinent inquiry. He loved the -privacy of life in a great city, where one may escape<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span> -notice in the crowd and enjoy a grateful “freedom -from remark and petty censure.” “Though I -have the honor to represent Bristol,” he said to -Boswell, “I should not like to live there; I should -be obliged to be <em>so much upon my good behavior</em>. -In London a man may live in splendid society at -one time, and in frugal retirement at another, -without animadversion. There, and there alone, a -man’s house is truly his <em>castle</em>, in which he can -be in perfect safety from intrusion whenever he -pleases. I never shall forget how well this was -expressed to me one day by Mr. Meynell: ‘The -chief advantage of London,’ he said, ‘is, that a -man is always <em>so near his burrow</em>.’” Burke took -to his burrow often enough to pique our curiosity -sorely. This singular, high-minded adventurer had -some queer companions, we know: questionable -fellows, whose life he shared, perhaps with a certain -Bohemian relish, without sharing their morals or -their works. It seems as incongruous that such -wisdom and public spirit as breathe through his -writings should have come to his thought in such -company as that an exquisite idyll like Goldsmith’s -“Vicar of Wakefield” should have been conceived -and written in squalid garrets. But neither Burke -nor Goldsmith had been born into such comradeships -or such surroundings. Doubtless, as sometimes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span> -happens, their minds kept their first freshness, -taking no taint from the world that touched them -on every hand in their manhood, after their minds -had been formed. Goldsmith, as everybody knows, -remained an innocent all his life, a naïf and pettish -boy amidst sophisticated men; and Burke too, notwithstanding -his dignity and commanding intellectual -habit, shows sometimes a touch of the same -simplicity, a like habit of unguarded self-revelation. -’Twas their form, no doubt, of that impulsive and -ingenuous quality which we observe in all Irishmen, -and which we often mistake for simplicity. ’Twas -a flavor of their native soil. It was also something -more and better than that, however. Not every -Irishman displays such hospitality for direct and -simple images of truth as these men showed, for -that is characteristic only of the open and unsophisticated -mind,—the mind that has kept pure -and open eyes. Not that Burke always sees the -truth; he is even deeply prejudiced often, and -there are some things that he cannot see. But the -passion that dominates him when he is wrong, as -when he is right, is a natural passion, born with -him, not acquired from a disingenuous world that -mistakes interest for justice. His nature tells in -everything. It is stock of his character which he -contributes to the subjects his mind handles. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span> -is trading always with the original treasure he -brought over with him at the first. He has never -impaired his genuineness, or damaged his principles.</p> - -<p>Just where Burke got his generous constitution -and predisposition to enlightened ways of thinking -it is not easy to see. Certainly Richard Burke, -his brother, the only other member of the family -whose character we discern distinctly, had a quite -opposite bent. The father was a steady Dublin -attorney, a Protestant, and a man, so far as we -know, of solid but not brilliant parts. The mother -had been a Miss Nagle, of a Roman Catholic -family, which had multiplied exceedingly in County -Cork. Of the home and its life we know singularly -little. We are told that many children were -born to the good attorney, but we hear of only four -of them that grew to maturity, Garret, Edmund, -Richard, and a sister best known to Edmund’s biographers -as Mrs. French. Edmund, the second -son, was born on the twelfth of January, 1729, in -the second year of the reign of George II., Robert -Walpole being chief minister of the Crown. How -he fared or what sort of lad he was for the first -twelve years of his life we have no idea. We only -know that in the year 1741, being then twelve -years old, he was sent with his brothers Garret and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span> -Richard to the school of one Abraham Shackleton, -a most capable and exemplary Quaker, at Ballytore, -County Kildare, to get, in some two years’ time, -what he himself always accounted the best part of -his education. The character of the good master -at Ballytore told upon the sensitive boy, who all -his life through had an eye for such elevation and -calm force of quiet rectitude as are to be seen in -the best Quakers; and with Richard Shackleton, -the master’s son, he formed a friendship from which -no vicissitude of his subsequent career ever loosened -his heart a whit. All his life long the ardent, -imaginative statesman, deeply stirred as he was by -the momentous agitation of affairs,—swept away -as he was from other friends,—retained his love -for the grave, retired, almost austere, but generous -and constant man who had been his favorite -schoolfellow. It is but another evidence of his unfailing -regard for whatever was steady, genuine, -and open to the day in character and conduct.</p> - -<p>At fourteen he left Ballytore and was entered at -Trinity College, Dublin. Those were days when -youths went to college tender, before they had become -too tough to take impressions readily. But -Burke, even at that callow age, cannot be said to -have been teachable. He learned a vast deal, indeed, -but he did not learn much of it from his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span> -nominal masters at Trinity. Apparently Master -Shackleton, at Ballytore, had enabled him to find -his own mind. His four years at college were -years of wide and eager reading, but not years of -systematic and disciplinary study. With singular, -if not exemplary, self-confidence, he took his -education into his own hands. He got at the -heart of books through their spirit, it would seem, -rather than through their grammar. He sought -them out for what they could yield him in thought, -rather than for what they could yield him in the -way of exact scholarship. That this boy should -have had such an appetite for the world’s literature, -old and new, need not surprise us. Other lads before -and since have found big libraries all too small -for them. What should arrest our attention is, -the law of mind disclosed in the habits of such lads: -the quick and various curiosity of original minds, -and particularly of imaginative minds. They long -for matter to expand themselves upon: they will -climb any dizzy height from which an exciting -prospect is promised: it is their joy by some means -to see the world of men and affairs. Burke set -out as a boy to see the world that is contained in -books; and in his journeyings he met a man after -his own heart in Cicero, the copious orator and -versatile man of affairs,—the only man at all like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span> -Burke for richness, expansiveness, and variety of -mind in all the ancient world. Cicero he conned -as his master and model. And then, having had -his fill for the time of discursive study and having -completed also his four years of routine, he was -graduated, taking his degree in the spring of 1748.</p> - -<p>His father had entered him as a student at the -Middle Temple in 1747, meaning that he should -seek the prizes of his profession in England rather -than in the little world at home; but he did not take -up his residence in London until 1750, by which -time he had attained his majority. What he did -with the intervening two years, his biographers do -not at all know, and it is idle to speculate, being -confident, as we must, that he quite certainly did -whatever he pleased. He did the same when he -went up to London to live his terms at the Temple. -“The law,” he declared to Parliament more than -twenty years afterwards, “is, in my opinion, one -of the first and noblest of human sciences,—a -science which does more to quicken and invigorate -the understanding than all other kinds of learning -put together; but it is not apt, except in persons -very happily born, to open and to liberalize the -mind exactly in the same proportion;” and, although -himself a person “very happily born” in -respect of all natural powers, he felt that the life<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span> -of a lawyer would inevitably confine his roving -mind within intolerably narrow limits. He learned -the law, as he learned everything else, with an eye -to discovering its points of contact with affairs, -its intimate connections with the structure and -functions of human society; and, studying it thus, -he made his way to so many of its secrets, won so -firm a mastery of its central principles, as always -to command the respect and even the admiration -of lawyers. But the good attorney in Dublin -was sorely disappointed. This was not what he -had wanted. The son in whom he had centred -his hopes preferred the life of the town to systematic -study in his chambers; wrote for the papers -instead of devoting himself to the special profession -he had been sent to master. “Of his leisure -time,” said the “Annual Register” just after his -death, “of his leisure time much was spent in the -company of Mrs. Woffington, a celebrated actress, -whose conversation was not less sought by men of -wit and genius than by men of pleasure.”</p> - -<p>We know very little about the life of Burke for -the ten years, 1750–60, his first ten years in England,—except -that he did <em>not</em> diligently apply -himself to his nominal business, the study of the -law; and between the years 1752 and 1757 his -biographers can show hardly one authentic trace of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span> -his real life. They know neither his whereabouts -nor his employments. Only one scrap of his correspondence -remains from those years to give us any -hint of the time. Even Richard Shackleton, his -invariable confidant and bosom friend, hears never -a word from him during that period, and is told -afterwards only that his correspondent has been -“sometimes in London, sometimes in remote parts -of the country, sometimes in France,” and will -“shortly, please God, be in America.” He disappears -a poor law student, under suspicion of his -father for systematic neglect of duty; when he reappears -he is married to the daughter of a worthy -physician and is author of two philosophical works -which are attracting a great deal of attention. We -have reason to believe that, in the mean time, he -did as much writing as they would take for the -booksellers; we know that he frequented the London -theatres and several of the innumerable debating -clubs with which nether London abounded, -whetting his faculties, it is said, upon those of a certain -redoubtable baker. He haunted the galleries -and lobbies of the House of Commons. His health -showed signs of breaking, and Dr. Nugent took him -from his lodgings in the Temple to his own house -and allowed him to fall in love with his daughter. -Partly for the sake of his health, perhaps, but more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span> -particularly, no doubt, for the sake of satisfying an -eager mind and a restless habit, he wandered off to -“remote parts of the country” and to France, -with one William Burke for company, a man either -related to him or not related to him, he did not -himself know which. In 1755, a long-suffering -patience at length exhausted, his father shut the -home treasury against him; and then,—’twas the -next year,—he published two philosophical works -and married Miss Nugent.</p> - -<p>One might say, no doubt, that this is an intelligible -enough account of a young fellow’s life between -twenty and thirty: and that we can fill in -the particulars for ourselves. We have known -other young Irishmen of restless and volatile natures, -and need make no mystery of this one. -Goldsmith, too, disappeared, we remember, in that -same decade, making show of studying medicine in -Edinburgh, but not really studying it, and then -wandering off to the Continent, and going it afoot -in light-hearted, happy-go-lucky fashion through -the haunts both of the gay Latin races and the -sad Teutonic, greatly to the delectation, no doubt, -of the natives,—for all the world loves an innocent -Irishman, with his heart upon his sleeve. -’Twould all be very plain indeed if we found in -Burke that light-hearted vein. But we do not.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span> -The fellow is sober and strenuous from the first, -studying the things he was not sent to study -with even too intent application, to the damage of -his health, and looking through the pleasures of -the town to the heart of the nation’s affairs. He -was a grave youth, evidently, gratifying his mind -rather than his senses in the pleasures he sought; -and when he emerges from obscurity it is first to -give us a touch of his quality in the matter of intellectual -amusement, and then to turn at once to -the serious business of the discussion of affairs to -which the rest of his life was to be devoted.</p> - -<p>The two books which he gave the world in 1756 -were “A Vindication of Natural Society,” a satirical -piece in the manner of Bolingbroke, and “A Philosophical -Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of -the Sublime and Beautiful,” which he had begun -when he was nineteen and had since reconsidered -and revised. Bolingbroke, not finding revealed religion -to his taste, had written a “Vindication of -Natural Religion” which his vigorous and elevated -style and skillful dialectic had done much to -make plausible. Burke put forth his “Vindication -of Natural Society” as a posthumous work of -the late noble lord, and so skillfully veiled the -satirical character of the imitation as wholly to -deceive some very grave critics, who thought they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span> -could discern Bolingbroke’s flavor upon the tasting. -For the style, too, they took to be unmistakably -Bolingbroke’s own. It had all his grandeur and -air of distinction: it had his vocabulary and formal -outline of phrase. The imitation was perfect. -And yet if you will scrutinize it, the style is -not Bolingbroke’s, except in a trick or two, but -Burke’s. It seems Bolingbroke’s rather because -it is cold and without Burke’s usual moral fervor -than because it is rich and majestic and various. -There is no great formal difference between -Burke’s style and Bolingbroke’s: but there -is a great moral and intellectual difference. When -Burke is not in earnest there is perhaps no important -difference at all. And in the “Vindication -of Natural Society” Burke is not in earnest. The -book is not, indeed, a parody, and its satirical -quality is much too covert to make it a successful -satire. Much that Burke urges against civil -society he could urge in good faith, and his mind -works soberly upon it. It is only the main thesis -that he does not seriously mean. The rest he might -have meant as Bolingbroke would have meant it.</p> - -<p>The essay on The Sublime and Beautiful, though -much admired by so great a master as Lessing, has -not worn very well as philosophy. It is full, however, -of acute and interesting observations, and is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span> -adorned in parts with touches of rich color put on -with the authentic strokes of a master. We preserve -it, perhaps, only because Burke wrote it; -and yet when we read it we feel inclined to pronounce -it worth keeping for its own sake.</p> - -<p>Both these essays were apprentice work. Burke -was trying his hand. They make us the more -curious about the conditions of what must have -been a notable apprenticeship. Young Burke -must have gone to school to the world in a way -worth knowing. But we cannot know, and that’s -the end on ’t. Probably even William Burke, -Edmund’s companion, could give us no very satisfactory -account of the matter. The explanation -lay in what he thought and not in what he did as -he knocked about the world.</p> - -<p>The company Burke kept was as singular as his -talents, though scarcely so eminent. <em>We</em> speak of -“Burke,” but the London of his day spoke of “the -Burkes,” meaning William, who may or may not -have been Edmund’s kinsman, Edmund himself, -and Richard, Edmund’s younger brother, who had -followed him to London to become, to say truth, an -adventurer emphatically not of the elevated sort. -Edmund was destined to become the leader of England’s -thought in more than one great matter of -policy, and has remained a master among all who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span> -think profoundly upon public affairs; but William -was for long the leader and master of “the Burkes.” -He was English born; had been in Westminster -School; and had probably just come out from -Christ Church, Oxford, when he became the companion -of Edmund’s wanderings. He was a man -of intellect and literary power enough to be deemed -the possible author of the “Letters of Junius;” he -was born moreover with an eye for the ways of -the world, and could push his own fortunes with an -unhesitating hand. It was he who first got public -office, and it was he who formed the influential -connections which got Edmund into Parliament. -He himself entered the House at the same time, -and remained there, a useful party member, for -some eight years. He made those from whom he -sought favors dislike him for his audacity in demanding -the utmost, and more than the utmost, that he -could possibly hope to get; but he seems to have -made those whom he served love him with a very -earnest attachment. He was self-seeking; but he -was capable of generosity, to the point of self-sacrifice -even, when he wished to help his friend. He -early formed a partnership with Richard Burke in -immense stock-jobbing speculations in the securities -of the East India Company; but he also formed a -literary partnership with Edmund in the preparation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span> -of a sketch of the European settlements in -America, and made himself respected as a strong -party writer in various pamphlets on questions of -the day. He could unite the two brothers by speculating -with the one and thinking with the other.</p> - -<p>Such were “the Burkes.” Edmund’s home was -always the home also of the other two, whenever -they wished to make it so; the strongest personal -affection, avowed always by Edmund with his characteristic -generous warmth, bound the three men -together; their purses they had in common. Edmund -was not expected, apparently, to take part -in the speculations which held William and Richard -together; something held him aloof to which -they consented,—some natural separateness of -mind and character which they evidently accepted -and respected. There can hardly be said to have -been any aloofness of <em>disposition</em> on Edmund’s -part. There is something in an Irishman,—even -in an Irishman who holds himself to the strictest -code of upright conduct,—which forbids his acting -as moral censor upon others. He can love a -man none the less for generous and manly qualities -because that man does what he himself would not -do. Burke, moreover, had an easy standard all -his life about accepting money favors. He seems -to have felt somehow that his intense and whole-hearted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span> -devotion to his friends justified gifts and -forgiven loans of money from them. He shared -the prosperity of his kinsmen without compunction, -using what he got most liberally for the assistance -of others; and when their fortunes came to a sudden -ruin, he helped them with what he had. We -ought long ago to have learned that the purest motives -and the most elevated standards of conduct -may go along with a singular laxness of moral detail -in some men; and that such characters will -often constrain us to love them to the point of justifying -everything that they ever did. Edmund -Burke’s close union with William and Richard -does not present the least obstacle to our admiration -for the noble qualities of mind and heart -which he so conspicuously possessed, or make us -for a moment doubt the thorough disinterestedness -of his great career.</p> - -<p>Burke’s marriage was a very happy one. Mrs. -Burke’s thoroughly sweet temperament acted as a -very grateful and potent charm to soothe her husband’s -mind when shaken by the agitations of public -affairs; her quiet capacity for domestic management -relieved him of many small cares which might -have added to his burdens. Her affection satisfied -his ardent nature. He speaks of her in his will as -“my entirely beloved and incomparable wife,” and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span> -every glimpse we get of their home life confirms the -estimate. After his marriage the most serious part -of his intellectual life begins; the commanding passion -of his mind is disclosed. He turns away from -philosophical amusements to public affairs. In -1757 appeared “An Account of the European Settlements -in America,” which William Burke had -doubtless written, but which Edmund had almost -certainly radically revised; and Edmund himself -published the first part of “An Abridgment of the -History of England” which he never completed. In -1758, he proposed to Dodsley, the publisher, a yearly -volume, to be known as the “Annual Register,” -which should chronicle and discuss the affairs of -England and the Continent. It was the period of -the Seven Years’ War, which meant for England a -sharp and glorious contest with France for the possession -of America. Burke was willing to write -the annals of the critical year 1758 for a hundred -pounds; and so, in 1759, the first volume of the -“Annual Register” appeared; and the plan then -so wisely conceived has yielded its annual volume -to the present day. Burke never acknowledged his -connection with this great work,—he never publicly -recognized anything he had done upon contract -for the publishers,—but it is quite certain that for -very many years his was the presiding and planning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span> -mind in the production of the “Register.” For -the first few years of its life he probably wrote the -whole of the record of events with his own hand. -It was a more useful apprenticeship than that in -philosophy. It gave him an intimate acquaintance -with affairs which must have served as a direct -preparation for the great contributions he was destined -to make to the mind and policy of the Whig -party.</p> - -<p>But this, even in addition to other hack work -for the booksellers, did not keep Burke out of pecuniary -straits. He sought, but failed to get, an -appointment as consul at Madrid, using the interest -of Dr. Markham, William’s master at Westminster -School; and then he engaged himself as a sort of -private secretary or literary attendant to William -Gerard Hamilton, whom he served, apparently to -the almost entire exclusion of all other employments, -for some four years, going with him for a -season to Ireland, where Hamilton for a time held -the appointment of Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. -Hamilton is described by one of Burke’s -friends as “a sullen, vain, proud, selfish, cankered-hearted, -envious reptile,” and Mr. Morley says that -there is “not a word too many nor too strong in -the description.” At any rate, Burke’s proud -spirit presently revolted from further service, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span> -he threw up a pension of three hundred pounds -which Hamilton had obtained for him rather than -retain any connection with the man, or remain -under any sort of obligation to him. In the mean -time, however, his relations with Hamilton had put -him in the way of meeting many public men of -weight and influence, and he had gotten his first -direct introduction to the world of affairs.</p> - -<p>It was 1764 when he shook himself free from -this connection. 1764 is a year to be marked in -English literary annals. It was in the spring of -that year that that most celebrated of literary clubs -was formed at the Turk’s Head Tavern, Gerrard -Street, Soho, by notable good company: Dr. Johnson, -Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Goldsmith, -Sheridan, Gibbon, Dr. Barnard, Beauclerk, Langton,—we -know them all; for has not Boswell -given us the freedom of the Club and made us delighted -participants in its conversations and diversions? -Into this company Burke was taken at -once. His writings had immediately attracted the -attention of such men as these, and had promptly -procured him an introduction into literary society. -His powers told nowhere more brilliantly than in -conversation. “It is when you come close to a -man in conversation,” said Dr. Johnson, “that you -discover what his real abilities are. To make a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span> -speech in an assembly is a sort of knack. Now -I honor Thurlow; Thurlow is a fine fellow, he -fairly puts his mind to yours.” There can be no -disputing the dictum of the greatest master of conversation: -and the admirer of Burke must be willing -to accept it, at any rate for the nonce, for -Johnson admitted that Burke invariably put him -on his mettle. “That fellow,” he exclaimed, “calls -forth all my powers!” “Burke’s talk,” he said, -“is the ebullition of his mind; he does not talk -from a desire of distinction, but because his mind -is full; he is never humdrum, never unwilling to -talk, nor in haste to leave off.” The redoubtable -doctor loved a worthy antagonist in the great game -of conversation, and he always gave Burke his ungrudging -admiration. When he lay dying, Burke -visited his bedside, and, finding Johnson very -weak, anxiously expressed the hope that his presence -cost him no inconvenience. “I must be in a -wretched state indeed,” cried the great-hearted old -man, “when your company would not be a delight -to me.” It was short work for Burke to get the -admiration of the company at the Turk’s Head. -But he did much more than that: he won their devoted -affection. Goldsmith said that Burke wound -his way into a subject like a serpent; but he made -his way straight into the hearts of his friends.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span> -His powers are all of a piece: his heart is inextricably -mixed up with his mind: his opinions are -immediately transmuted into convictions: he does -not talk for distinction, because he does not use his -mind for the mere intellectual pleasure of it, but -because he also deeply feels what he thinks. He -speaks without calculation, almost impulsively.</p> - -<p>That is the reason why we can be so sure of the -essential purity of his nature from the character of -his writings. They are not purely intellectual productions: -there is no page of abstract reasoning -to be found in Burke. His mind works upon concrete -objects, and he speaks always with a certain -passion, as if his affections were involved. He is -irritated by opposition, because opposition in the -field of affairs, in which his mind operates, touches -some interest that is dear to him. Noble generalizations, -it is true, everywhere broaden his matter: -there is no more philosophical writer in English -in the field of politics than Burke. But look, and -you shall see that his generalizations are never derived -from abstract premises. The reasoning is -upon familiar matter of to-day. He is simply taking -questions of the moment to the light, holding -them up to be seen where great principles of conduct -may shine upon them from the general experience -of the race. He is not constructing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span> -systems of thought, but simply stripping thought -of its accidental features. He is even deeply impatient -of abstractions in political reasoning, so -passionately is he devoted to what is practicable, -and fit for wise men to do. To know such a man -is to experience all the warmer forces of the mind, -to feel the generous and cheering heat of character; -and all noble natures will love such a man, because -of kinship of quality. All noble natures that came -close to Burke did love him and cherish their -knowledge of him. They loaned him money without -stint, and then forgave him the loans, as if it -were a privilege to help him, and no way unnatural -that he should never return what he received, finding -his spirit made for fraternal, not for commercial -relations.</p> - -<p>It is pleasing, as it is also a little touching, to -see how his companions thus freely accorded to -Burke the immunities and prerogatives of a prince -amongst them. No one failed to perceive how -large and imperial he was, alike in natural gifts -and in the wonderful range of his varied acquirements. -Sir James Mackintosh, though he very -earnestly combated some of Burke’s views, intensely -admired his greatness. He declared that -Gibbon “might have been taken from a corner of -Burke’s mind without ever being missed.” “A wit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span> -said, of Gibbon’s ‘Autobiography’ that he did not -know the difference between himself and the Roman -Empire. He has narrated his ‘progressions from -London to Buriton and from Buriton to London’ -in the same monotonous, majestic periods that he -recorded the fall of states and empires.” And -we certainly feel a sense of incongruity: the two -subjects, we perceive, are hardly commensurable. -Perhaps in Burke’s case we should have felt differently,—we -<em>do</em> feel differently. In that extraordinary -“Letter to a Noble Lord,” in which he defends -his pension so proudly against the animadversions -of the Duke of Bedford, how magnificently he speaks -of his services to the country; how proud and majestic -a piece of autobiography it is! How insignificant -does the ancient house of Bedford seem, -with all its long generations, as compared with this -single and now lonely man, without distinguished -ancestry or hope of posterity! He speaks grandly -about himself, as about everything; and yet I see -no disparity between the subject and the manner!</p> - -<p>Outside the small circle of those who knew and -loved him, his generation did not wholly perceive -this. There seemed a touch of pretension in this -proud tone taken by a man who had never held -high office or exercised great power. He had made -great speeches, indeed, no one denied that; he had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span> -written great party pamphlets,—that everybody -knew; his had been the intellectual force within -the group of Whigs that followed Lord Rockingham,—that, -too, the world in general perceived -and acknowledged; and when he died, England -knew the man who had gone to be a great man. -But, for all that, his tone must, in his generation, -have seemed disproportioned to the part he had -played. His great authority is over us rather than -over the men of his own day.</p> - -<p>Burke had the thoughts of a great statesman, -and uttered them with unapproachable nobility; -but he never wielded the power of a great statesman. -He was kept always in the background in -active politics, in minor posts, and employed upon -subordinate functions. This would be a singular -circumstance, if there were any novelty in it; but -the practice of keeping men of insignificant birth -out of the great offices was a practice which had -“broadened down from precedent to precedent” -until it had become too strong for even Burke to -breast or stem. Perhaps, too, there were faults of -temper which rendered Burke unfit to exercise -authority in directing the details, and determining -the practical measures, of public policy:—but we -shall look into that presently.</p> - -<p>In July, 1765, the Marquis of Rockingham<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span> -became prime minister of England, and Burke -became his private secretary. He owed his introduction -to Lord Rockingham, as usual, to the good -offices of William Burke, who seems to have found -means of knowing everybody it was to the interest -of “the Burkes” to know. A more fortunate connection -could hardly have been made. Lord Rockingham, -though not a man of original powers, was -a man of the greatest simplicity and nobleness of -character, and, like most upright men, knew how -to trust other men. He gave Burke immediate -proof of his manly qualities. The scheming old -Duke of Newcastle, who ought to have been a -connoisseur in low men, mistook Burke for one. -Shocked that this obscurely born and unknown fellow -should be accorded confidential relations by -Lord Rockingham, he hurried to his lordship with -an assortment of hastily selected slanders against -Burke. His real name, he reported, was O’Bourke; -he was an Irish adventurer without character, and -a rank Papist to boot; it would ruin the administration -to have such a man connected with the -First Lord of the Treasury. Rockingham, with -great good sense and frankness, took the whole -matter at once to Burke; was entirely satisfied by -Burke’s denials; and admitted him immediately -to intimate relations of warm personal friendship<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span> -which only death broke off. William Burke obtained -for himself an Undersecretaryship of State -and arranged with Lord Verney, at that time his -partner in East India speculations, that two of his -lordship’s parliamentary boroughs should be put -at his and Edmund’s disposal. Edmund Burke, -accordingly, entered Parliament for the borough -of Wendover on the 14th of January, 1766, at -the age of thirty-seven, and in the first vigor of -his powers.</p> - -<p>“Now we who know Burke,” announced Dr. -Johnson, “know that he will be one of the first -men in the country.” Burke promptly fulfilled -the prediction. He made a speech before he had -been in the House two weeks; a speech that made -him at once a marked man. His health was now -firmly established; he had a commanding physique; -his figure was tall and muscular, and his bearing -full of a dignity which had a touch almost of haughtiness -in it. Although his action was angular and -awkward, his extraordinary richness and fluency of -utterance drew the attention away from what he -was doing to what he was saying. His voice was -harsh, and did not harmonize with the melodious -measures in which his words poured forth; but it -was of unusual compass, and carried in it a sense -of confidence and power. His utterance was too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span> -rapid, his thought bore him too impulsively forward, -but the pregnant matter he spoke “filled the -town with wonder.” The House was excited by -new sensations. Members were astonished to recognize -a broad philosophy of politics running -through this ardent man’s speeches. They felt the -refreshment of the wide outlook he gave them, and -were conscious of catching glimpses of excellent -matter for reflection at every turn of his hurrying -thought. They wearied of it, indeed, after a while: -the pace was too hard for most of his hearers, and -they finally gave over following him when the -novelty and first excitement of the exercise had -worn off. He too easily lost sight of his audience -in his search for principles, and they resented his -neglect of them, his indifference to their tastes. -They felt his lofty style of reasoning as a sort of -rebuke, and deemed his discursive wisdom out of -place amidst their own thoughts of imperative personal -and party interest. He had, before very -long, to accustom himself, therefore, to speak to an -empty House and subsequent generations. His -opponents never, indeed, managed to feel quite -easy under his attacks: his arrows sought out their -weak places to the quick, and they winced even -when they coughed or seemed indifferent; but they -comforted themselves with the thought that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span> -orator was also tedious and irritating to his own -friends, teasing them too with keen rebukes and -vexatious admonitions. The high and wise sort of -speaking must always cause uneasiness in a political -assembly. The more equal and balanced it is, the -more must both parties be threatened with reproof.</p> - -<p>I would not be understood as saying that Burke’s -speeches were impartial. They were not. He had -preferences which amounted to prejudices. He -was always an intense party man. But then he -was a party man with a difference. He believed -that the interests of England were bound up with -the fortunes of the Rockingham Wings; but he -did not separate the interests of his party and the -interests of his country. He cherished party connections -because he conceived them to be absolutely -necessary for effective public service. “Where -men are not acquainted with each other’s principles,” -he said, “nor experienced in each other’s -talents, nor at all practiced in their mutual habitudes -or dispositions by joint efforts in business; -no personal confidence, no friendship, no common -interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently -impossible that they can act a public part with -uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, -the most inconsiderable man, by adding to -the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span> -out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable -to the public.” “When bad men combine, -the good must associate.” “It is not enough in a -situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man -means well to his country; it is not enough that in -his single person he never did an evil act, but -always voted according to his conscience, and even -harangued against every design which he apprehended -to be prejudicial to the interests of his -country.... Duty demands and requires, that -what is right should not only be made known, but -made prevalent; that what is evil should not only -be detected, but defeated. When the public man -omits to put himself in a situation of doing his -duty with effect, it is an omission that frustrates -the purposes of his trust almost as much as if he -had formally betrayed it.” Burke believed the -Rockingham Whigs to be a combination of good -men, and he felt that he ought to sacrifice something -to keep himself in their connection. He -regarded them as men who “believed private honor -to be the foundation of public trust; that friendship -was no mean step towards patriotism; that he -who, in the common intercourse of life, showed he -regarded somebody besides himself, when he came -to act in a public situation, might probably consult -some other interest than his own.” He admitted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span> -that such confederacies had often “a narrow, bigoted, -and prescriptive spirit;” “but, where duty -renders a critical situation a necessary one,” he -said, “it is our business to keep free from the evils -attendant upon it; and not to fly from the situation -itself. If a fortress is seated in an unwholesome -air, an officer of the garrison is obliged to be -attentive to his health, but he must not desert his -station.” “A party,” he declared, “is a body of -men united for promoting by their joint endeavors -the national interest upon some particular principle -in which they are all agreed.” “Men thinking -freely, will,” he very well knew, “in particular instances, -think differently. But still as the greater -part of the measures which arise in the course of -public business are related to, or dependent on, -some great, <em>leading, general principles in government</em>, -a man must be peculiarly unfortunate in the -choice of his political company, if he does not agree -with them at least nine times in ten. If he does -not concur in these general principles upon which -the party is founded, and which necessarily draw -on a concurrence in their application, he ought -from the beginning to have chosen some other, -more conformable to his opinions. When the -question is in its nature doubtful, or not very -material, the modesty which becomes an individual,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span> -and that partiality which becomes a well-chosen -friendship, will frequently bring on an acquiescence -in the general sentiment. Thus the disagreement -will naturally be rare; it will be only enough to -indulge freedom, without violating concord, or disturbing -arrangement.”</p> - -<p>Certainly there were no party prizes for Burke. -During much the greater part of his career the -party to which he adhered was in opposition; and -even when in office it had only small favors for -him. Even his best friends advised against his -appointment to any of the great offices of state, -deeming him too intemperate and unpractical. -And yet the intensity of his devotion to his party -never abated a jot. Assuredly there was never a -less selfish allegiance. His devotion was for the -principles of his party, as he conceived and constructed -them. It was a moral and intellectual -devotion. He had embarked all his spirit’s fortunes -in the enterprise. Faults he unquestionably -had, which seemed very grave. He was passionate -sometimes beyond all bounds: he seriously frightened -cautious and practical men by his haste and -vehemence in pressing his views for acceptance. -He was capable of falling, upon occasion, into a -very frenzy of excitement in the midst of debate, -when he would often shock moderate men by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span> -ungoverned license of his language. But his friends -were as much to blame for these outbreaks as he -was. They cut him to the quick by the way in -which they criticised and misunderstood him. His -heart was maddened by the pain of their neglect -of his just claims to their confidence. They seemed -often to use him without trusting him, and their -slights were intolerable to his proud spirit. Practically, -and upon a narrow scale of expediency, -they may have been right: perhaps he was <em>not</em> circumspect -enough to be made a responsible head of -administration. Unquestionably, too, they loved -him and meant him no unkindness. But it was -none the less tragical to treat such a man in such -a fashion. They may possibly have temporarily -served their country by denying to Burke full public -acknowledgment of his great services; but they -cruelly wounded a great spirit, and they hardly -served mankind.</p> - -<p>They did Burke an injustice, moreover. They -greatly underrated his practical powers. In such -offices as he was permitted to hold he showed in -actual administration the same extraordinary mastery -of masses of detail which was the foundation -of his unapproachable mastery of general principles -in his thinking. His thought was always immersed -in matter, and concrete detail did not confuse him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span> -when he touched it any more than it did when he -meditated upon it. Immediate contact with affairs -always steadied his judgment. He was habitually -temperate in the conduct of business. It was only -in speech and when debating matters that stirred -the depths of his nature that he gave way to uncalculating -fervor. He was intemperate in his emotions, -but seldom in his actions. He could, and -did, write calm state papers in the very midst and -heat of parliamentary affairs that subjected him to -the fiercest excitements. He was eminently capable -of counsel as well as of invective.</p> - -<p>He served his party in no servile fashion, for all -he adhered to it with such devotion. He sacrificed -his intellectual independence as little as his personality -in taking intimate part in its counsels. He -gave it principles, indeed, quite as often as he -accepted principles from it. In the final efforts of -his life, when he engaged every faculty of his mind -in the contest that he waged with such magnificent -wrath against the French revolutionary spirit, he -gave tone to all English thought, and direction to -many of the graver issues of international policy. -Rejected oftentimes by his party, he has at length -been accepted by the world.</p> - -<p>His habitual identification with opposition rather -than with the government gave him a certain advantage.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span> -It relaxed party discipline and indulged -his independence. It gave leave, too, to the better -efforts of his genius: for in opposition it is principles -that tell, and Burke was first and last a master -of principles. Government is a matter of practical -detail, as well as of general measures; but the -criticism of government very naturally becomes a -matter of the application of general principles, as -standards rather than as practical means of policy.</p> - -<p>Four questions absorbed the energies of Burke’s -life and must always be associated with his fame. -These were, the American war for independence; -administrative reform in the English home government; -reform in the government of India; and the -profound political agitations which attended the -French Revolution. Other questions he studied, -deeply pondered, and greatly illuminated, but upon -these four he expended the full strength of his -magnificent powers. There is in his treatment of -these subjects a singular consistency, a very admirable -simplicity of standard. It has been said, and -it is true, that Burke had no system of political -philosophy. He was afraid of abstract system in -political thought, for he perceived that questions -of government are moral questions, and that questions -of morals cannot always be squared with the -rules of logic, but run through as many ranges of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span> -variety as the circumstances of life itself. “Man -acts from adequate motives relative to his interest,” -he said, “and not on metaphysical speculations. -Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, cautions -us, and with great weight and propriety, against -this species of delusive geometrical accuracy in -moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all -sophistry.” And yet Burke unquestionably had a -very definite and determinable system of thought, -which was none the less a system for being based -upon concrete, and not upon abstract premises. -It is said by some writers (even by so eminent a -writer as Buckle) that in his later years Burke’s -mind lost its balance and that he reasoned as if he -were insane; and the proof assigned is, that he, a -man who loved liberty, violently condemned, not -the terrors only,—that of course,—but the very -principles of the French Revolution. But to reason -thus is to convict one’s self of an utter lack of comprehension -of Burke’s mind and motives: as a very -brief examination of his course upon the four great -questions I have mentioned will show.</p> - -<p>From first to last Burke’s thought is conservative. -Let his attitude with regard to America -serve as an example. He took his stand, as everybody -knows, with the colonies, against the mother -country; but his object was not revolutionary.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span> -He did not deny the legal right of England to tax -the colonies (<em>we</em> no longer deny it ourselves), but -he wished to preserve the empire, and he saw that -to insist upon the right of taxation would be irrevocably -to break up the empire, when dealing with -such a people as the Americans. He pointed out -the strong and increasing numbers of the colonists, -their high spirit in enterprise, their jealous love of -liberty, and the indulgence England had hitherto -accorded them in the matter of self-government, -permitting them in effect to become an independent -people in respect of all their internal affairs; -and he declared the result matter for just pride. -“Whilst we follow them among the tumbling -mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into -the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson’s Bay and -Davis’s Straits,” he exclaimed, in a famous passage -of his incomparable speech on Conciliation with -America, “whilst we are looking for them beneath -the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced -into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are -at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen -serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which -seemed too remote and romantic an object for the -grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting -place in the progress of their victorious industry. -Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span> -them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. -We know that whilst some of them draw the line -and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, -others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic -game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what -is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not -witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of -Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous -and firm sagacity of English enterprise, -ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy -industry to the extent to which it has been pushed -by this recent people,—a people who are still, as -it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened -into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate -these things,—when I know that the colonies in -general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, -and that they are not squeezed into this happy -form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious -government, but that, through a wise and salutary -neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to -take her own way to perfection,—when I reflect -upon these effects, when I see how profitable they -have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, -and all the presumption in the wisdom of human -contrivances melt and die away within me,—my -rigor relents,—I pardon something to the spirit -of liberty.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span></p> - -<p>“I think it necessary,” he insisted, “to consider -distinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances -of the object we have before us: because, -after all our struggle, whether we will or not, we -must govern America according to that nature and -those circumstances, and not according to our own -imaginations, not according to abstract ideas of -right, by no means according to mere general -theories of government, the resort to which appears -to me, in our present situation, no better than -arrant trifling.” To attempt to force such a people -would be a course of idle folly. Force, he declared, -would not only be an odious “but a feeble instrument, -for preserving a people so numerous, so -active, so growing, so spirited as this, in a profitable -and subordinate connection with” England.</p> - -<p>“First, Sir,” he cried, “permit me to observe, -that the use of force alone is but <em>temporary</em>. It -may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove -the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is -not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.</p> - -<p>“My next objection is its <em>uncertainty</em>. Terror -is not always the effect of force, and an armament -is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are -without resource: for, conciliation failing, force -remains; but, force failing, no further hope of -reconciliation is left. Power and authority are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span> -sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never -be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated -violence.</p> - -<p>“A further objection to force is, that you <em>impair -the object</em> by your very endeavors to preserve it. -The thing you fought for is not the thing you -recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed -in the contest. Nothing less will content -me than <em>whole America</em>. I do not choose to consume -its strength along with our own; for in all -parts it is the British strength I consume.... -Let me add, that I do not choose wholly to break -the American spirit; because it is the spirit that -has made the country.</p> - -<p>“Lastly, we have no sort of <em>experience</em> in favor -of force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies. -Their growth and their utility has been owing to -methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence -has been said to be pursued to a fault. It -may be so; but we know, if feeling is evidence, -that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt -to mend it, and our sin far more salutary than our -penitence.”</p> - -<p>“Obedience is what makes government,” “freedom, -and not servitude, is the cure of anarchy,” -and you cannot insist upon one rule of obedience -for Englishmen in America while you jealously<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span> -maintain another for Englishmen in England. -“For, in order to prove that the Americans have -no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring -to subvert the maxims which preserve -the whole spirit of our own. To prove that the -Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to -depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we -never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them -in debate, without attacking some of those principles, -or deriding some of those feelings, for which -our ancestors have shed their blood.” “The question -with me is, not whether you have a right to -render your people miserable, but whether it is not -your interest to make them happy. It is not what -a lawyer tells me I <em>may</em> do, but what humanity, -reason, and justice tell me I <em>ought</em> to do.... -Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute -necessity of keeping up the concord of this empire -by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity of operations, -that, if I were sure that the colonists had, at -their leaving this country, sealed a regular compact -of servitude, that they had solemnly abjured -all the rights of citizens, that they had made a vow -to renounce all ideas of liberty for them and their -posterity to all generations, yet I should hold myself -obliged to conform to the temper I found universally -prevalent in my own day, and to govern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span> -two million of men, impatient of servitude, on the -principles of freedom. I am not determining a -point of law; I am restoring tranquillity: and the -general character and situation of a people must -determine what sort of government is fitted for -them. That point nothing else can or ought to -determine.” “All government, indeed every human -benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every -prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. -We balance inconveniences; we give and take; -we remit some rights, that we may enjoy others; -and we choose rather to be happy citizens than -subtle disputants.” “Magnanimity in politics is -not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire -and little minds go ill together.”</p> - -<p>Here you have the whole spirit of the man, and -in part a view of his eminently practical system of -thought. The view is completed when you advance -with him to other subjects of policy. He pressed -with all his energy for radical reforms in administration, -but he earnestly opposed every change that -might touch the structure of the constitution itself. -He sought to secure the integrity of Parliament, -not by changing the system of representation, but -by cutting out all roots of corruption. He pressed -forward with the most ardent in all plans of just -reform, but he held back with the most conservative<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span> -from all propositions of radical change. “To -innovate is not to reform,” he declared, and there -is “a marked distinction between change and reformation. -The former alters the substance of the -objects themselves, and gets rid of all their essential -good as well as of all the accidental evil annexed -to them. Change is novelty; and whether it is to -operate any one of the effects of reformation at all, -or whether it may not contradict the very principle -upon which reformation is desired, cannot certainly -be known beforehand. Reform is not a -change in the substance or in the primary modification -of the object, but a direct application of a -remedy to the grievance complained of. So far as -that is removed, all is sure. It stops there; and -if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, -at the very worst, is but where it was.” This -is the governing motive of his immense labors to -accomplish radical economical reform in the administration -of the government. He was not seeking -economy merely; to husband the resources of -the country was no more than a means to an end, -and that end was, to preserve the constitution in its -purity. He believed that Parliament was not truly -representative of the people because so many place-men -found seats in it, and because so many members -who might have been independent were bought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span> -by the too abundant favors of the Court. Cleanse -Parliament of this corruption, and it would be restored -to something like its pristine excellence as -an instrument of liberty.</p> - -<p>He dreaded to see the franchise extended and -the House of Commons radically made over in its -constitution. It had never been intended to be -merely the people’s House. It had been intended -to hold all the elements of the state that were not -to be found in the House of Lords or the Court. -He conceived it to be the essential object of the -constitution to establish a balanced and just intercourse -between the several forces of an ancient -society, and it was well that that balance should be -preserved even in the House of Commons, rather -than give perilous sweep to a single set of interests. -“These opposed and conflicting interests,” he said -to his French correspondent, “which you considered -as so great a blemish in your old and in our present -Constitution, interpose a salutary check to all -precipitate resolutions. They render deliberation -a matter, not of choice, but of necessity; they -make all change a subject of <em>compromise</em>, which -naturally begets moderation; they produce <em>temperaments</em>, -preventing the sore evil of harsh, crude, -unqualified reformations, and rendering all the -headlong exertions of arbitrary power, in the few<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span> -or in the many, forever impracticable. Through -that diversity of members and interests, general -liberty had as many securities as there are separate -views in the several orders; whilst by pressing -down the whole by the weight of a real monarchy, -the separate parts would have been prevented from -warping and starting from their allotted places.” -“<em>We</em> wish,” he said, “to derive all we possess <em>as -an inheritance from our forefathers</em>. Upon that -body and stock of experience we have taken care -not to inoculate any scion alien to the nature of the -original plant.” “This idea of a liberal descent -inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, -which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably -adhering to and disgracing those who are -the first acquirers of any distinction. By this -means our liberty becomes a noble freedom. It -carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a -pedigree and illustrating ancestors. It has its -bearings and its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery -of portraits, its monumental inscriptions, its -records, evidences, and titles. We procure reverence -to our civil institutions on the principle upon -which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: -on account of their age, and on account of those -from whom they are descended.”</p> - -<p>“When the useful parts of an old establishment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span> -are kept, and what is superadded is to be fitted to -what is retained, a vigorous mind, steady, persevering -attention, various powers of comparison -and combination, and the resources of an understanding -fruitful in expedients are to be exercised; -they are to be exercised in a continued conflict -with the combined force of opposite vices, with the -obstinacy that rejects all improvement, and the -levity that is fatigued and disgusted with everything -of which it is in possession.... Political -arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to -be only wrought by social means. There mind -must conspire with mind. Time is required to -produce that union of minds which alone can produce -all the good we aim at. Our patience will -achieve more than our force. If I might venture -to appeal to what is so much out of fashion in -Paris,—I mean to experience,—I should tell you -that in my course I have known, and, according to -my measure, have coöperated with great men; and -I have never yet seen any plan which has not been -mended by the observations of those who were -much inferior in understanding to the person who -took the lead in the business. By a slow, but well -sustained progress, the effect of each step is -watched; the good or ill success of the first gives -light to us in the second; and so, from light to light,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span> -we are conducted with safety, through the whole -series.... We are enabled to unite into a consistent -whole the various anomalies and contending -principles that are found in the minds and affairs -of men. From hence arises, not an excellence in -simplicity, but one far superior, an excellence in -composition. Where the great interests of mankind -are concerned through a long succession of -generations, that succession ought to be admitted -into some share in the counsels which are so deeply -to affect them.”</p> - -<p>It is not possible to escape deep conviction of -the wisdom of these reflections. They penetrate to -the heart of all practicable methods of reform. -Burke was doubtless too timid, and in practical -judgment often mistaken. Measures which in -reality would operate only as salutary and needed -reformations he feared because of the element of -change that was in them. He erred when he supposed -that progress can in all its stages be made -without changes which seem to go even to the substance. -But, right or wrong, his philosophy did -not come to him of a sudden and only at the end -of his life, when he found France desolated and -England threatened with madness for love of revolutionary -principles of change. It is the key to -his thought everywhere, and through all his life.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span></p> - -<p>It is the key (which many of his critics have -never found) to his position with regard to the -revolution in France. He was roused to that -fierce energy of opposition in which so many have -thought that they detected madness, not so much -because of his deep disgust to see brutal and -ignorant men madly despoil an ancient and honorable -monarchy, as because he saw the spirit of -these men cross the Channel and find lodgment -in England, even among statesmen like Fox, who -had been his own close friends and companions in -thought and policy; not so much because he loved -France as because he feared for England. For -England he had Shakespeare’s love:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indentq">“That fortress built by nature for herself</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><em>Against infection and the hand of war</em>;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That happy breed of men, that little world,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That precious stone set in the silver sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which serves it in the office of a wall,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or as a moat defensive to a house,</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><em>Against the envy of less happier lands</em>;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That blessed plot, that earth, that realm, that England.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">’T was to keep out infection and to preserve such -precious stores of manly tradition as had made that -little world “the envy of less happier lands” that -Burke sounded so effectually that extraordinary -alarm against the revolutionary spirit that was -racking France from throne to cottage. Let us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span> -admit, if you will, that with reference to France -herself he was mistaken. Let us say that when he -admired the institutions which she was then sweeping -away he was yielding to sentiment, and imagining -France as perfect as the beauty of the sweet -queen he had seen in her radiant youth. Let us -concede that he did not understand the condition -of France, and therefore did not see how inevitable -that terrible revolution was: that in this case, too, -the wages of sin was death. He was not defending -France, if you look to the bottom of it; he -was defending England:—and the things he -hated are truly hateful. He hated the French revolutionary -philosophy and deemed it unfit for -free men. And that philosophy is in fact radically -evil and corrupting. No state can ever be -conducted on its principles. For it holds that -government is a matter of contract and deliberate -arrangement, whereas in fact it is an institute of -habit, bound together by innumerable threads of -association, scarcely one of which has been deliberately -placed. It holds that the object of government -is liberty, whereas the true object of government -is justice; not the advantage of one class, even -though that class constitute the majority, but right -equity in the adjustment of the interests of all -classes. It assumes that government can be made<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span> -over at will, but assumes it without the slightest -historical foundation. For governments have -never been successfully and permanently changed -except by slow modification operating from generation -to generation. It contradicted every principle -that had been so laboriously brought to light in -the slow stages of the growth of liberty in the only -land in which liberty had then grown to great proportions. -The history of England is a continuous -thesis against revolution; and Burke would have -been no true Englishman, had he not roused himself, -even fanatically, if there were need, to keep -such puerile doctrine out.</p> - -<p>If you think his fierceness was madness, look -how he conducted the trial against Warren Hastings -during those same years: with what patience, -with what steadiness in business, with what temper, -with what sane and balanced attention to detail, -with what statesmanlike purpose! Note, likewise, -that his thesis is the same in the one undertaking -as in the other. He was applying the same principles -to the case of France and to the case of India -that he had applied to the case of the colonies. -He meant to save the empire, not by changing its -constitution, as was the method in France, and so -shaking every foundation in order to dislodge an -abuse, but by administering it uprightly and in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span> -liberal spirit. He was persuaded “that government -was a practical thing, made for the happiness -of mankind, and not to furnish out a spectacle of -uniformity to gratify the schemes of visionary politicians. -Our business,” he said, “was to rule, not -to wrangle; and it would be a poor compensation -that we had triumphed in a dispute, whilst we had -lost an empire.” The monarchy must be saved -and the constitution vindicated by keeping the -empire pure in all parts, even in the remotest -provinces. Hastings must be crushed in order -that the world might know that no English governor -could afford to be unjust. Good government, -like all virtue, he deemed to be a practical -habit of conduct, and not a matter of constitutional -structure. It is a great ideal, a thoroughly English -ideal; and it constitutes the leading thought of all -Burke’s career.</p> - -<p>In short, as I began by saying, this man, an -Irishman, speaks the best English thought upon the -essential questions of politics. He is thoroughly, -characteristically, and to the bottom English in all -his flunking. He is more liberal than Englishmen -in his treatment of Irish questions, of course; for -he understands them, as no Englishman of his -generation did. But for all that he remains the -chief spokesman for England in the utterance of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span> -the fundamental ideals which have governed the -action of Englishmen in politics. “All the ancient, -honest, juridical principles and institutions of England,” -such was his idea, “are so many clogs to -check and retard the headlong course of violence -and oppression. They were invented for this one -good purpose, that what was not <em>just</em> should not be -<em>convenient</em>.” This is fundamental English doctrine. -English liberty has consisted in making it unpleasant -for those who were unjust, and thus getting -them in the habit of being just for the sake of a -<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">modus vivendi</i>. Burke is the apostle of the great -English gospel of Expediency.</p> - -<p>The politics of English-speaking peoples has -never been speculative; it has always been profoundly -practical and utilitarian. Speculative politics -treats men and situations as they are supposed -to be; practical politics treats them (upon no general -plan, but in detail) as they are found to be at -the moment of actual contact. With reference to -America Burke argues: No matter what your legal -right in the case, it is not <em>expedient</em> to treat -America as you propose: a numerous and spirited -people like the colonists will not submit; and your -experiment will cost you your colonies. In the -case of administrative reform, again, it is the -higher sort of expediency he urges: If you wish<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span> -to keep your government from revolution, keep it -from corruption, and by making it pure render it -permanent. To the French he says, It is not <em>expedient</em> -to destroy thus recklessly these ancient parts -of your constitution. How will you replace them? -How will you conduct affairs at all after you shall -have deprived yourselves of all balance and of all -old counsel? It is both better and easier to reform -than to tear down and reconstruct.</p> - -<p>This is unquestionably the message of Englishmen -to the world, and Burke utters it with incomparable -eloquence. A man of sensitive imagination -and elevated moral sense, of a wide knowledge and -capacity for affairs, he stood in the midst of the -English nation speaking its moral judgments upon -affairs, its character in political action, its purposes -of freedom, equity, wide and equal progress. It is -the immortal charm of his speech and manner that -gives permanence to his works. Though his life -was devoted to affairs with a constant and unalterable -passion, the radical features of Burke’s mind -were literary. He was a man of books, without -being under the dominance of what others had -written. He got knowledge out of books and the -abundance of matter his mind craved to work its -constructive and imaginative effects upon. It is -singular how devoid of all direct references to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span> -books his writings are. The materials of his -thought never reappear in the same form in which -he obtained them. They have been smelted and -recoined. They have come under the drill and -inspiration of a great constructive mind, have -caught life and taken structure from it. Burke is -not literary because he takes from books, but because -he makes books, transmuting what he writes -upon into literature. It is this inevitable literary -quality, this sure mastery of style, that mark the -man, as much as his thought itself. He is a master -in the use of the great style. Every sentence, too, -is steeped in the colors of an extraordinary imagination. -The movement takes your breath and -quickens your pulses. The glow and power of the -matter rejuvenate your faculties.</p> - -<p>And yet the thought, too, is quite as imperishable -as its incomparable vehicle.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indentq">“The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The voice most echoed by consenting men;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The soul which answered best to all well said</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By others, and which most requital made;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Returning all her music with his own;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In whom, with nature, study claimed a part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And yet who to himself owed all his art.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_161" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER.</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">“Give</span> us the facts, and nothing but the facts,” -is the sharp injunction of our age to its historians. -Upon the face of it, an eminently reasonable requirement. -To tell the truth simply, openly, without -reservation, is the unimpeachable first principle -of all right dealing; and historians have no license -to be quit of it. Unquestionably they must tell us -the truth, or else get themselves enrolled among a -very undesirable class of persons, not often frankly -named in polite society. But the thing is by no -means so easy as it looks. The truth of history is -a very complex and very occult matter. It consists -of things which are invisible as well as of things -which are visible. It is full of secret motives, and -of a chance interplay of trivial and yet determining -circumstances; it is shot through with transient -passions, and broken athwart here and there by -what seem cruel accidents; it cannot all be reduced -to statistics or newspaper items or official recorded -statements. And so it turns out, when the actual -test of experiment is made, that the historian must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span> -have something more than a good conscience, must -be something more than a good man. He must -have an eye to see the truth; and nothing but a -very catholic imagination will serve to illuminate -his matter for him: nothing less than keen and -steady insight will make even illumination yield -him the truth of what he looks upon. Even when -he has seen the truth, only half his work is done, -and that not the more difficult half. He must -then make others see it just as he does: only when -he has done that has he told the truth. What an -art of penetrative phrase and just selection must -he have to take others into the light in which he -stands! Their dullness, their ignorance, their prepossessions, -are to be overcome and driven in, like -a routed troop, upon the truth. The thing is infinitely -difficult. The skill and strategy of it cannot -be taught. And so historians take another way, -which is easier: they tell part of the truth,—the -part most to their taste, or most suitable to their -talents,—and obtain readers to their liking among -those of similar tastes and talents to their own.</p> - -<p>We have our individual preferences in history, -as in every other sort of literature. And there are -histories to every taste: histories full of the piquant -details of personal biography, histories that blaze -with the splendors of courts and resound with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span> -drum and trumpet, and histories that run upon the -humbler but greater levels of the life of the people; -colorless histories, so passionless and so lacking in -distinctive mark or motive that they might have -been set up out of a dictionary without the intervention -of an author, and partisan histories, so -warped and violent in every judgment that no -reader not of the historian’s own party can stomach -them; histories of economic development, and histories -that speak only of politics; those that tell -nothing but what it is pleasant and interesting to -know, and those that tell nothing at all that one -cares to remember. One must be of a new and -unheard of taste not to be suited among them all.</p> - -<p>The trouble is, after all, that men do not invariably -find the truth to their taste, and will often -deny it when they hear it; and the historian has to -do much more than keep his own eyes clear: he -has also to catch and hold the eye of his reader. -’Tis a nice art, as much intellectual as moral. -How shall he take the palate of his reader at unawares, -and get the unpalatable facts down his -throat along with the palatable? Is there no way -in which all the truth may be made to hold together -in a narrative so strongly knit and so harmoniously -colored that no reader will have either the wish or -the skill to tear its patterns asunder, and men will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span> -take it all, unmarred and as it stands, rather than -miss the zest of it?</p> - -<p>It is evident the thing cannot be done by the -“dispassionate” annalist. The old chroniclers, -whom we relish, were not dispassionate. We love -some of them for their sweet quaintness, some for -their childlike credulity, some for their delicious -inconsequentiality. But our modern chroniclers -are not so. They are, above all things else, knowing, -thoroughly informed, subtly sophisticated. -They would not for the world contribute any spice -of their own to the narrative; and they are much -too watchful, circumspect, and dutiful in their care -to keep their method pure and untouched by any -thought of theirs to let us catch so much as a -glimpse of the chronicler underneath the chronicle. -Their purpose is to give simply the facts, eschewing -art, and substituting a sort of monumental index -and table of the world’s events.</p> - -<p>The trouble is that men refuse to be made any -wiser by such means. Though they will readily -enough let their eyes linger upon a monument of -art, they will heedlessly pass by a mere monument -of industry. It suggests nothing to them. The -materials may be suitable enough, but the handling -of them leaves them dead and commonplace. An -interesting circumstance thus comes to light. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span> -is nothing less than this, that the facts do not of -themselves constitute the truth. The truth is abstract, -not concrete. It is the just idea, the right -revelation of what things mean. It is evoked only -by such arrangements and orderings of facts as -suggest interpretations. The chronological arrangement -of events, for example, may or may not be -the arrangement which most surely brings the -truth of the narrative to light; and the best arrangement -is always that which displays, not the -facts themselves, but the subtle and else invisible -forces that lurk in the events and in the minds of -men,—forces for which events serve only as lasting -and dramatic words of utterance. Take an instance. -How are you to enable men to know the truth -with regard to a period of revolution? Will you -give them simply a calm statement of recorded -events, simply a quiet, unaccentuated narrative of -what actually happened, written in a monotone, -and verified by quotations from authentic documents -of the time? You may save yourself the -trouble. As well make a pencil sketch in outline -of a raging conflagration; write upon one portion -of it “flame,” upon another “smoke;” here “town -hall, where the fire started,” and there “spot where -fireman was killed.” It is a chart, not a picture. -Even if you made a veritable picture of it, you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span> -could give only part of the truth so long as you -confined yourself to black and white. Where -would be all the wild and terrible colors of the -scene: the red and tawny flame; the masses of -smoke, carrying the dull glare of the fire to the -very skies, like a great signal banner thrown to the -winds; the hot and frightened faces of the crowd; -the crimsoned gables down the street, with the -faint light of a lamp here and there gleaming -white from some hastily opened casement? Without -the colors your picture is not true. No inventory -of items will even represent the truth: the -fuller and more minute you make your inventory, -the more will the truth be obscured. The little -details will take up as much space in the statement -as the great totals into which they are summed up; -and, the proportions being false, the whole is false. -Truth, fortunately, takes its own revenge. No one -is deceived. The reader of the chronicle lays it -aside. It lacks verisimilitude. He cannot realize -how any of the things spoken of can have happened. -He goes elsewhere to find, if he may, a -real picture of the time, and perhaps finds one that -is wholly fictitious. No wonder the grave and -monk-like chronicler sighs. He of course wrote to -be read, and not merely for the manual exercise of -it; and when he sees readers turn away his heart<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span> -misgives him for his fellow-men. Is it as it always -was, that they do not wish to know the truth? -Alas! good eremite, men do not seek the truth as -they should; but do you know what the truth is? -It is a thing ideal, displayed by the just proportion -of events, revealed in form and color, dumb till -facts be set in syllables, articulated into words, put -together into sentences, swung with proper tone -and cadence. It is not revolutions only that have -color. Nothing in human life is without it. In a -monochrome you can depict nothing but a single -incident; in a monotone you cannot often carry -truth beyond a single sentence. Only by art in all -its variety can you depict as it is the various face -of life.</p> - -<p>Yes; but what sort of art? There is here a -wide field of choice. Shall we go back to the art -of which Macaulay was so great a master? We -could do worse. It must be a great art that can -make men lay aside the novel and take up the history, -to find there, in very fact, the movement and -drama of life. What Macaulay does well he does -incomparably. Who else can mass the details as -he does, and yet not mar or obscure, but only -heighten, the effect of the picture as a whole? -Who else can bring so amazing a profusion of -knowledge within the strait limits of a simple plan,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span> -nowhere encumbered, everywhere free and obvious -in its movement? How sure the strokes, and how -bold and vivid the result! Yet when we have laid -the book aside, when the charm and the excitement -of the telling narrative have worn off, when we -have lost step with the swinging gait at which the -style goes, when the details have faded from our -recollection, and we sit removed and thoughtful, -with only the greater outlines of the story sharp -upon our minds, a deep misgiving and dissatisfaction -take possession of us. We are no longer -young, and we are chagrined that we should have -been so pleased and taken with the glitter and -color and mere life of the picture. Let boys be -cajoled by rhetoric, we cry; men must look deeper. -What of the judgment of this facile and eloquent -man? Can we agree with him, when he is not -talking and the charm is gone? What shall we -say of his assessment of men and measures? Is -he just? Is he himself in possession of the whole -truth? Does he open the matter to us as it was? -Does he not, rather, ride us like an advocate, and -make himself master of our judgments?</p> - -<p>Then it is that we become aware that there were -two Macaulays: Macaulay the artist, with an exquisite -gift for telling a story, filling his pages with -little vignettes it is impossible to forget, fixing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span> -these with an inimitable art upon the surface of -a narrative that did not need the ornament they -gave it, so strong and large and adequate was it; -and Macaulay the Whig, subtly turning narrative -into argument, and making history the vindication -of a party. The mighty narrative is a great engine -of proof. It is not told for its own sake. It is -evidence summed up in order to justify a judgment. -We detect the tone of the advocate, and -though if we are just we must deem him honest, -we cannot deem him safe. The great story-teller -is discredited; and, willingly or unwillingly, we -reject the guide who takes it upon himself to determine -for us what we shall see. That, we feel -sure, cannot be true which makes of so complex a -history so simple a thesis for the judgment. There -is art here; but it is the art of special pleading, -misleading even to the pleader.</p> - -<p>If not Macaulay, what master shall we follow? -Shall our historian not have his convictions, and -enforce them? Shall he not be our guide, and -speak, if he can, to our spirits as well as to our -understandings? Readers are a poor jury. They -need enlightenment as well as information; the -matter must be interpreted to them as well as related. -There are moral facts as well as material, -and the one sort must be as plainly told as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span> -other. Of what service is it that the historian -should have insight if we are not to know how the -matter stands in his view? If he refrain from -judgment, he may deceive us as much as he -would were his judgment wrong; for we must -have enlightenment,—that is his function. We -would not set him up merely to tell us tales, but -also to display to us characters, to open to us the -moral and intent of the matter. Were the men -sincere? Was the policy righteous? We have but -just now seen that the “facts” lie deeper than the -mere visible things that took place, that they involve -the moral and motive of the play. Shall -not these, too, be brought to light?</p> - -<p>Unquestionably every sentence of true history -must hold a judgment in solution. All cannot be -told. If it were possible to tell all, it would take -as long to write history as to enact it, and we should -have to postpone the reading of it to the leisure -of the next world. A few facts must be selected -for the narrative, the great majority left unnoted. -But the selection—for what purpose it is to be -made? For the purpose of conveying <em>an impression</em> -of the truth. Where shall you find a more radical -process of judgment? The “essential” facts taken, -the “unessential” left out! Why, you may make -the picture what you will, and in any case it must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span> -be the express image of the historian’s fundamental -judgments. It is his purpose, or should be, to give -a true impression of his theme as a whole,—to -show it, not lying upon his page in an open and -dispersed analysis, but set close in intimate synthesis, -every line, every stroke, every bulk even, -omitted which does not enter of very necessity into -a single and unified image of the truth.</p> - -<p>It is in this that the writing of history differs, -and differs very radically, from the statement of -the results of original research. The writing of -history must be based upon original research and -authentic record, but it can no more be directly -constructed by the piecing together of bits of -original research than by the mere reprinting together -of state documents. Individual research -furnishes us, as it were, with the private documents -and intimate records without which the public -archives are incomplete and unintelligible. But -by themselves these are wholly out of perspective. -It is the consolation of those who produce them to -make them so. They would lose heart were they -forbidden to regard all facts as of equal importance. -It is facts they are after, and only facts,—facts -for their own sake, and without regard to their -several importance. These are their ore,—very -precious ore,—which they are concerned to get<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span> -out, not to refine. They have no direct concern -with what may afterwards be done at the mint or -in the goldsmith’s shop. They will even boast that -they care not for the beauty of the ore, and are -indifferent how, or in what shape, it may become -an article of commerce. Much of it is thrown -away in the nice processes of manufacture, and you -shall not distinguish the product of the several -mines in the coin, or the cup, or the salver.</p> - -<p>The historian must, indeed, himself be an investigator. -He must know good ore from bad; must -distinguish fineness, quality, genuineness; must stop -to get out of the records for himself what he lacks -for the perfection of his work. But for all that, -he must know and stand ready to do every part of -his task like a master workman, recognizing and -testing every bit of stuff he uses. Standing sure, -a man of science as well as an artist, he must take -and use all of his equipment for the sake of his -art,—not to display his materials, but to subordinate -and transform them in his effort to make, by -every touch and cunning of hand and tool, the perfect -image of what he sees, the very truth of his -seer’s vision of the world. The true historian -works always for the whole impression, the truth -with unmarred proportions, unexaggerated parts, -undistorted visage. He has no favorite parts of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span> -the story which he boasts are bits of his own, but -loves only the whole of it, the full and unspoiled -image of the day of which he writes, the crowded -and yet consistent details which carry, without obtrusion -of themselves, the large features of the -time. Any exaggeration of the parts makes all -the picture false, and the work is to do over. -“Test every bit of material,” runs the artist’s rule, -“and then forget the material;” forget its origin -and the dross from which it has been freed, and -think only and always of the great thing you -would make of it, the pattern and form in which -you would lose and merge it. That is its only -high use.</p> - -<p>’Tis a pity to see how even the greatest minds -will often lack the broad and catholic vision with -which the just historian must look upon men and -affairs. There is Carlyle, with his shrewd and seeing -eye, his unmatched capacity to assess strong -men and set the scenery for tragedy or intrigue, his -breathless ardor for great events, his amazing flashes -of insight, and his unlooked-for steady light of occasional -narrative. The whole matter of what he -writes is too dramatic. Surely history was not all -enacted so hotly, or with so passionate a rush of -men upon the stage. Its quiet scenes must have -been longer, not mere pauses and interludes while<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span> -the tragic parts were being made up. There is not -often ordinary sunlight upon the page. The lights -burn now wan, now lurid. Men are seen disquieted -and turbulent, and may be heard in husky cries or -rude, untimely jests. We do not recognize our -own world, but seem to see another such as ours -might become if peopled by like uneasy Titans. -Incomparable to tell of days of storm and revolution, -speaking like an oracle and familiar of destiny -and fate, searching the hearts of statesmen -and conquerors with an easy insight in every day of -action, this peasant seer cannot give us the note of -piping times of peace, or catch the tone of slow -industry; watches ships come and go at the docks, -hears freight-vans thunder along the iron highways -of the modern world, and loaded trucks lumber -heavily through the crowded city streets, with a -hot disdain of commerce, prices current, the haggling -of the market, the smug ease of material -comfort bred in a trading age. There is here no -broad and catholic vision, no wise tolerance, no -various power to know, to sympathize, to interpret. -The great seeing imagination of the man lacks that -pure radiance in which things are seen steadily and -seen whole.</p> - -<p>It is not easy, to say truth, to find actual examples -when you are constructing the ideal historian,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span> -the man with the vision and the faculty divine -to see affairs justly and tell of them completely. -If you are not satisfied with this passionate and -intolerant seer of Chelsea, whom will you choose? -Shall it be Gibbon, whom all praise, but so few -read? He, at any rate, is passionless, it would -appear. But who could write epochal history -with passion? All hot humors of the mind must, -assuredly, cool when spread at large upon so vast -a surface. One must feel like a sort of minor -providence in traversing that great tract of world -history, and catch in spite of one’s self the gait and -manner of a god. This stately procession of generations -moves on remote from the ordinary levels of -our human sympathy. ’Tis a wide view of nations -and peoples and dynasties, and a world shaken by -the travail of new births. There is here no scale -by which to measure the historian of the sort we -must look to see handle the ordinary matter of -national history. The “Decline and Fall” stands -impersonal, like a monument. We shall reverence -it, but we shall not imitate it.</p> - -<p>If we look away from Gibbon, exclude Carlyle, -and question Macaulay; if we put the investigators -on one side as not yet historians, and the deliberately -picturesque and entertaining <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">raconteurs</i> as -not yet investigators, we naturally turn, I suppose,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span> -to such a man as John Richard Green, at once the -patient scholar,—who shall adequately say how -nobly patient?—and the rare artist, working so -like a master in the difficult stuffs of a long national -history. The very life of the man is as beautiful -as the moving sentences he wrote with so subtle -a music in the cadence. We know whence the -fine moral elevation of tone came that sounds -through all the text of his great narrative. True, -not everybody is satisfied with our <em>doctor angelicus</em>. -Some doubt he is too ornate. Others are troubled -that he should sometimes be inaccurate. Some are -willing to use his history as a manual; while others -cannot deem him satisfactory for didactic uses, -hesitate how they shall characterize him, and quit -the matter vaguely with saying that what he wrote -is “at any rate literature.” Can there be something -lacking in Green, too, notwithstanding he -was impartial, and looked with purged and open -eyes upon the whole unbroken life of his people,—notwithstanding -he saw the truth and had the art -and mastery to make others see it as he did, in all -its breadth and multiplicity?</p> - -<p>Perhaps even this great master of narrative -lacks variety—as who does not? His method, -whatever the topic, is ever the same. His sentences, -his paragraphs, his chapters are pitched<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span> -one and all in the same key. It is a very fine and -moving key. Many an elevated strain and rich -harmony commend it alike to the ear and to the -imagination. It is employed with an easy mastery, -and is made to serve to admiration a wide range -of themes. But it is always the same key, and -some themes it will not serve. An infinite variety -plays through all history. Every scene has its -own air and singularity. Incidents cannot all be -rightly set in the narrative if all be set alike. As -the scene shifts, the tone of the narrative must -change: the narrator’s choice of incident and his -choice of words; the speed and method of his sentence; -his own thought, even, and point of view. -Surely his battle pages must resound with the -tramp of armies and the fearful din and rush of -war. In peace he must catch by turns the hum of -industry, the bustle of the street, the calm of the -country-side, the tone of parliamentary debate, the -fancy, the ardor, the argument of poets and seers -and quiet students. Snatches of song run along -with sober purpose and strenuous endeavor through -every nation’s story. Coarse men and refined, -mobs and ordered assemblies, science and mad impulse, -storm and calm, are all alike ingredients of -the various life. It is not all epic. There is rough -comedy and brutal violence. The drama can scarce<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span> -be given any strict, unbroken harmony of incident, -any close logical sequence of act or nice unity of -scene. To pitch it all in one key, therefore, is to -mistake the significance of the infinite play of -varied circumstance that makes up the yearly -movement of a people’s life.</p> - -<p>It would be less than just to say that Green’s -pages do not reveal the variety of English life the -centuries through. It is his glory, indeed, as all -the world knows, to have broadened and diversified -the whole scale of English history. Nowhere else -within the compass of a single book can one find -so many sides of the great English story displayed -with so deep and just an appreciation of them all, -or of the part of each in making up the whole. -Green is the one man among English historians -who has restored the great fabric of the nation’s -history where its architecture was obscure, and its -details were likely to be lost or forgotten. Once -more, because of him, the vast Gothic structure -stands complete, its majesty and firm grace enhanced -at every point by the fine tracery of its -restored details.</p> - -<p>Where so much is done, it is no doubt unreasonable -to ask for more. But the very architectural -symmetry of this great book imposes a limitation -upon it. It is full of a certain sort of variety; but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span> -it is only the variety of a great plan’s detail, not -the variety of English life. The noble structure -obeys its own laws rather than the laws of a people’s -fortunes. It is a monument conceived and -reared by a consummate artist, and it wears upon -its every line some part of the image it was meant -to bear, of a great, complex, aspiring national existence. -But, though it symbolizes, it does not contain -that life. It has none of the irregularity of -the actual experiences of men and communities. -It explains, but it does not contain, their variety. -The history of every nation has certainly a plan -which the historian must see and reproduce; but -he must reconstruct the people’s life, not merely -expound it. The scope of his method must be as -great as the variety of his subject; it must change -with each change of mood, respond to each varying -impulse in the great process of events. No rigor -of a stately style must be suffered to exclude the -lively touches of humor or the rude sallies of -strength that mark it everywhere. The plan of -the telling must answer to the plan of the fact,—must -be as elastic as the topics are mobile. The -matter should rule the plan, not the plan the matter.</p> - -<p>The ideal is infinitely difficult, if, indeed, it be -possible to any man not Shakespearean; but the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span> -difficulty of attaining it is often unnecessarily enhanced. -Ordinarily the historian’s preparation for -his task is such as to make it unlikely he will -perform it naturally. He goes first, with infinite -and admirable labor, through all the labyrinth of -document and detail that lies up and down his -subject; collects masses of matter great and small, -for substance, verification, illustration; piles his -notes volumes high; reads far and wide upon the -tracks of his matter, and makes page upon page -of references; and then, thoroughly stuffed and -sophisticated, turns back and begins his narrative. -’Tis impossible then that he should begin naturally. -He sees the end from the beginning, and all the intermediate -way from beginning to end; he has made -up his mind about too many things; uses his details -with a too free and familiar mastery, not like one -who tells a story so much as like one who dissects a -cadaver. Having swept his details together beforehand, -like so much scientific material, he discourses -upon them like a demonstrator,—thinks too little -in subjection to them. They no longer make a -fresh impression upon him. They are his tools, -not his objects of vision.</p> - -<p>It is not by such a process that a narrative is -made vital and true. It does not do to lose the -point of view of the first listener to the tale, or to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span> -rearrange the matter too much out of the order of -nature. You must instruct your reader as the -events themselves would have instructed him, had -he been able to note them as they passed. The -historian must not lose his own fresh view of the -scene as it passed and changed more and more -from year to year and from age to age. He must -keep with the generation of which he writes, not -be too quick to be wiser than they were or look -back upon them in his narrative with head over -shoulder. He must write of them always in the -atmosphere they themselves breathed, not hastening -to judge them, but striving only to realize them at -every turn of the story, to make their thoughts -his own, and call their lives back again, rebuilding -the very stage upon which they played their parts. -Bring the end of your story to mind while you set -about telling its beginning, and it seems to have -no parts: beginning, middle, end, are all as one,—are -merely like parts of a pattern which you see as -a single thing stamped upon the stuff under your -hand.</p> - -<p>Try the method with the history of our own land -and people. How will you begin? Will you start -with a modern map and a careful topographical -description of the continent? And then, having -made your nineteenth-century framework for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span> -narrative, will you ask your reader to turn back -and see the seventeenth century, and those lonely -ships coming in at the capes of the Chesapeake? -He will never see them so long as you compel him -to stand here at the end of the nineteenth century -and look at them as if through a long retrospect. -The attention both of the narrator and of the -reader, if history is to be seen aright, must look -forward, not backward. It must see with a contemporaneous -eye. Let the historian, if he be -wise, know no more of the history as he writes -than might have been known in the age and day -of which he is writing. A trifle too much knowledge -will undo him. It will break the spell for -his imagination. It will spoil the magic by which -he may raise again the image of days that are -gone. He must of course know the large lines of -his story; it must lie as a whole in his mind. His -very art demands that, in order that he may know -and keep its proportions. But the details, the -passing incidents of day and year, must come fresh -into his mind, unreasoned upon as yet, untouched -by theory, with their first look upon them. It is -here that original documents and fresh research -will serve him. He must look far and wide upon -every detail of the time, see it at first hand, and -paint as he looks; selecting, as the artist must, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span> -selecting while the vision is fresh, and not from -old sketches laid away in his notes,—selecting -from the life itself.</p> - -<p>Let him remember that his task is radically -different from the task of the investigator. The -investigator must display his materials, but the -historian must convey his impressions. He must -stand in the presence of life, and reproduce it in -his narrative; must recover a past age; make dead -generations live again and breathe their own air; -show them native and at home upon his page. To -do this, his own impressions must be as fresh as -those of an unlearned reader, his own curiosity as -keen and young at every stage. It may easily be -so as his reading thickens, and the atmosphere of -the age comes stealthily into his thought, if only -he take care to push forward the actual writing of -his narrative at an equal pace with his reading, -painting thus always direct from the image itself. -His knowledge of the great outlines and bulks of -the picture will be his sufficient guide and restraint -the while, will give proportion to the individual -strokes of his work. But it will not check his zest, -or sophisticate his fresh recovery of the life that is -in the crowding colors of the canvas.</p> - -<p>A nineteenth-century plan laid like a standard -and measure upon a seventeenth-century narrative<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span> -will infallibly twist it and make it false. Lay a -modern map before the first settlers at Jamestown -and Plymouth, and then bid them discover and -occupy the continent. With how superior a nineteenth-century -wonder and pity will you see them -grope, and stumble, and falter! How like children -they will seem to you, and how simple their age, -and ignorant! As stalwart men as you they were -in fact; mayhap wiser and braver too; as fit to -occupy a continent as you are to draw it upon -paper. If you would know them, go back to their -age; breed yourself a pioneer and woodsman; look -to find the South Sea up the nearest northwest -branch of the spreading river at your feet; discover -and occupy the wilderness with them; dream what -may be beyond the near hills, and long all day to -see a sail upon the silent sea; go back to them and -see them in their habit as they lived.</p> - -<p>The picturesque writers of history have all along -been right in theory: they have been wrong only -in practice. It is a picture of the past we want—its -express image and feature; but we want the -true picture and not simply the theatrical matter,—the -manner of Rembrandt rather than of Rubens. -All life may be pictured, but not all of life is picturesque. -No great, no true historian would put -false or adventitious colors into his narrative, or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span> -let a glamour rest where in fact it never was. -The writers who select an incident merely because -it is striking or dramatic are shallow fellows. -They see only with the eye’s retina, not with that -deep vision whose images lie where thought and -reason sit. The real drama of life is disclosed -only with the whole picture; and that only the -deep and fervid student will see, whose mind goes -daily fresh to the details, whose narrative runs -always in the authentic colors of nature, whose art -it is to see, and to paint what he sees.</p> - -<p>It is thus and only thus we shall have the truth -of the matter: by art,—by the most difficult of all -arts; by fresh study and first-hand vision; at the -mouths of men who stand in the midst of old letters -and dusty documents and neglected records, -not like antiquarians, but like those who see a distant -country and a far-away people before their -very eyes, as real, as full of life and hope and incident, -as the day in which they themselves live. Let -us have done with humbug and come to plain -speech. The historian needs an imagination quite -as much as he needs scholarship, and consummate -literary art as much as candor and common honesty. -Histories are written in order that the bulk of men -may read and realize; and it is as bad to bungle -the telling of the story as to lie, as fatal to lack a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span> -vocabulary as to lack knowledge. In no case can -you do more than convey an impression, so various -and complex is the matter. If you convey a false -impression, what difference does it make how you -convey it? In the whole process there is a nice -adjustment of means to ends which only the artist -can manage. There is an art of lying;—there is -equally an art,—an infinitely more difficult art,—of -telling the truth.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_187" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">A CALENDAR OF GREAT AMERICANS.</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Before</span> a calendar of great Americans can be -made out, a valid canon of Americanism must first -be established. Not every great man born and -bred in America was a great “American.” Some -of the notable men born among us were simply -great Englishmen; others had in all the habits of -their thought and life the strong flavor of a peculiar -region, and were great New Englanders or -great Southerners; others, masters in the fields of -science or of pure thought, showed nothing either -distinctively national or characteristically provincial, -and were simply great men; while a few displayed -odd cross-strains of blood or breeding. The great -Englishmen bred in America, like Hamilton and -Madison; the great provincials, like John Adams -and Calhoun; the authors of such thought as might -have been native to any clime, like Asa Gray and -Emerson; and the men of mixed breed, like Jefferson -and Benton,—must be excluded from our -present list. We must pick out men who have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span> -created or exemplified a distinctively American -standard and type of greatness.</p> - -<p>To make such a selection is not to create an artificial -standard of greatness, or to claim that greatness -is in any case hallowed or exalted merely -because it is American. It is simply to recognize -a peculiar stamp of character, a special make-up of -mind and faculties, as the specific product of our -national life, not displacing or eclipsing talents of -a different kind, but supplementing them, and so -adding to the world’s variety. There is an American -type of man, and those who have exhibited this -type with a certain unmistakable distinction and -perfection have been great “Americans.” It has -required the utmost variety of character and energy -to establish a great nation, with a polity at once -free and firm, upon this continent, and no sound -type of manliness could have been dispensed with -in the effort. We could no more have done without -our great Englishmen, to keep the past steadily -in mind and make every change conservative -of principle, than we could have done without -the men whose whole impulse was forward, whose -whole genius was for origination, natural masters -of the art of subduing a wilderness.</p> - -<p>Certainly one of the greatest figures in our history -is the figure of Alexander Hamilton. American<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span> -historians, though compelled always to admire -him, often in spite of themselves, have been inclined, -like the mass of men in his own day, to look -at him askance. They hint, when they do not -plainly say, that he was not “American.” He rejected, -if he did not despise, democratic principles; -advocated a government as strong, almost, as a -monarchy; and defended the government which -was actually set up, like the skilled advocate he -was, only because it was the strongest that could -be had under the circumstances. He believed in -authority, and he had no faith in the aggregate -wisdom of masses of men. He had, it is true, that -deep and passionate love of liberty, and that steadfast -purpose in the maintenance of it, that mark -the best Englishmen everywhere; but his ideas of -government stuck fast in the old-world politics, and -his statesmanship was of Europe rather than of -America. And yet the genius and the steadfast -spirit of this man were absolutely indispensable to -us. No one less masterful, no one less resolute -than he to drill the minority, if necessary, to have -their way against the majority, could have done the -great work of organization by which he established -the national credit, and with the national credit the -national government itself. A pliant, popular, -optimistic man would have failed utterly in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span> -task. A great radical mind in his place would -have brought disaster upon us: only a great conservative -genius could have succeeded. It is safe -to say that, without men of Hamilton’s cast of -mind, building the past into the future with a deep -passion for order and old wisdom, our national life -would have miscarried at the very first. This tried -English talent for conservation gave to our fibre at -the very outset the stiffness of maturity.</p> - -<p>James Madison, too, we may be said to have inherited. -His invaluable gifts of counsel were of -the sort so happily imparted to us with our English -blood at the first planting of the States which -formed the Union. A grave and prudent man, -and yet brave withal when new counsel was to be -taken, he stands at the beginning of our national -history, even in his young manhood, as he faced -and led the constitutional convention, a type of -the slow and thoughtful English genius for affairs. -He held old and tested convictions of the uses of -liberty; he was competently read in the history -of government; processes of revolution were in his -thought no more than processes of adaptation: exigencies -were to be met by modification, not by -experiment. His reasonable spirit runs through all -the proceedings of the great convention that gave -us the Constitution, and that noble instrument<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span> -seems the product of character like his. For all it -is so American in its content, it is in its method a -thoroughly English production, so full is it of old -principles, so conservative of experience, so carefully -compounded of compromises, of concessions -made and accepted. Such men are of a stock so -fine as to need no titles to make it noble, and yet -so old and so distinguished as actually to bear the -chief titles of English liberty. Madison came of -the long line of English constitutional statesmen.</p> - -<p>There is a type of genius which closely approaches -this in character, but which is, nevertheless, -distinctively American. It is to be seen in -John Marshall and in Daniel Webster. In these -men a new set of ideas find expression, ideas which -all the world has received as American. Webster -was not an English but an American constitutional -statesman. For the English statesman constitutional -issues are issues of policy rather than issues -of law. He constantly handles questions of change: -his constitution is always a-making. He must at -every turn construct, and he is deemed conservative -if only his rule be consistency and continuity with -the past. He will search diligently for precedent, -but he is content if the precedent contain only a -germ of the policy he proposes. His standards are -set him, not by law, but by opinion: his constitution<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span> -is an ideal of cautious and orderly change. -Its fixed element is the conception of political -liberty: a conception which, though steeped in -history, must ever be added to and altered by -social change. The American constitutional statesman, -on the contrary, constructs policies like a -lawyer. The standard with which he must square -his conduct is set him by a document upon whose -definite sentences the whole structure of the government -directly rests. That document, moreover, -is the concrete embodiment of a peculiar theory of -government. That theory is, that definitive laws, -selected by a power outside the government, are -the structural iron of the entire fabric of politics, -and that nothing which cannot be constructed -upon this stiff framework is a safe or legitimate -part of policy. Law is, in his conception, creative -of states, and they live only by such permissions -as they can extract from it. The functions of the -judge and the functions of the man of affairs have, -therefore, been very closely related in our history, -and John Marshall, scarcely less than Daniel -Webster, was a constitutional statesman. With -all Madison’s conservative temper and wide-eyed -prudence in counsel, the subject-matter of thought -for both of these men was not English liberty or -the experience of men everywhere in self-government,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span> -but the meaning stored up in the explicit -sentences of a written fundamental law. They -taught men the new—the American—art of -extracting life out of the letter, not of statutes -merely (that art was not new), but of statute-built -institutions and documented governments: the art -of saturating politics with law without grossly discoloring -law with politics. Other nations have -had written constitutions, but no other nation has -ever filled a written constitution with this singularly -compounded content, of a sound legal conscience -and a strong national purpose. It would have -been easy to deal with our Constitution like subtle -dialecticians; but Webster and Marshall did much -more and much better than that. They viewed -the fundamental law as a great organic product, a -vehicle of life as well as a charter of authority; in -disclosing its life they did not damage its tissue; -and in thus expanding the law without impairing -its structure or authority they made great contributions -alike to statesmanship and to jurisprudence. -Our notable literature of decision and commentary -in the field of constitutional law is America’s -distinctive gift to the history and the science of -law. John Marshall wrought out much of its substance; -Webster diffused its great body of principles -throughout national policy, mediating between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span> -the law and affairs. The figures of the two men -must hold the eye of the world as the figures of -two great national representatives, as the figures -of two great Americans.</p> - -<p>The representative national greatness and function -of these men appear more clearly still when -they are contrasted with men like John Adams -and John C. Calhoun, whose greatness was not -national. John Adams represented one element of -our national character, and represented it nobly, -with a singular force and greatness. He was an -eminent Puritan statesman, and the Puritan ingredient -has colored all our national life. We have -got strength and persistency and some part of our -steady moral purpose from it. But in the quick -growth and exuberant expansion of the nation it -has been only one element among many. The -Puritan blood has mixed with many another strain. -The stiff Puritan character has been mellowed by -many a transfusion of gentler and more hopeful -elements. So soon as the Adams fashion of man -became more narrow, intense, acidulous, intractable, -according to the tendencies of its nature, in the -person of John Quincy Adams, it lost the sympathy, -lost even the tolerance, of the country, and -the national choice took its reckless leap from a -Puritan President to Andrew Jackson, a man cast<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span> -in the rough original pattern of American life at -the heart of the continent. John Adams had not -himself been a very acceptable President. He had -none of the national optimism, and could not understand -those who did have it. He had none of -the characteristic adaptability of the delocalized -American, and was just a bit ridiculous in his stiffness -at the Court of St. James, for all he was so -honorable and so imposing. His type,—be it said -without disrespect,—was provincial. Unmistakably -a great man, his greatness was of the commonwealth, -not of the empire.</p> - -<p>Calhoun, too, was a great provincial. Although -a giant, he had no heart to use his great strength -for national purposes. In his youth, it is true, he -did catch some of the generous ardor for national -enterprise which filled the air in his day; and all -his life through, with a truly pathetic earnestness, -he retained his affection for his first ideal. But -when the rights and interests of his section were -made to appear incompatible with a liberal and -boldly constructive interpretation of the Constitution, -he fell out of national counsels and devoted -all the strength of his extraordinary mind to holding -the nation’s thought and power back within -the strait limits of a literal construction of the law. -In powers of reasoning his mind deserves to rank<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span> -with Webster’s and Marshall’s: he handled questions -of law like a master, as they did. He had, -moreover, a keen insight into the essential principles -and character of liberty. His thought moved -eloquently along some of the oldest and safest lines -of English thought in the field of government. -He made substantive contributions to the permanent -philosophy of politics. His reasoning has -been discredited, not so much because it was not -theoretically sound within its limits, as because its -practical outcome was a negation which embarrassed -the whole movement of national affairs. -He would have held the nation still, in an old -equipoise, at one time normal enough, but impossible -to maintain. Webster and Marshall gave leave -to the energy of change inherent in all the national -life, making law a rule, but not an interdict; -a living guide, but not a blind and rigid discipline. -Calhoun sought to fix law as a barrier across the -path of policy, commanding the life of the nation -to stand still. The strength displayed in the effort, -the intellectual power and address, abundantly entitle -him to be called great; but his purpose was -not national. It regarded only a section of the -country, and marked him,—again be it said with -all respect,—a great provincial.</p> - -<p>Jefferson was not a thorough American because<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span> -of the strain of French philosophy that permeated -and weakened all his thought. Benton was altogether -American so far as the natural strain of his -blood was concerned, but he had encumbered his -natural parts and inclinations with a mass of undigested -and shapeless learning. Bred in the West, -where everything was new, he had filled his head -with the thought of books (evidently very poor -books) which exhibited the ideals of communities -in which everything was old. He thought of the -Roman Senate when he sat in the Senate of the -United States. He paraded classical figures whenever -he spoke, upon a stage where both their -costume and their action seemed grotesque. A -pedantic frontiersman, he was a living and a -pompous antinomy. Meant by nature to be an -American, he spoiled the plan by applying a most -unsuitable gloss of shallow and irrelevant learning. -Jefferson was of course an almost immeasurably -greater man than Benton, but he was un-American -in somewhat the same way. He brought a foreign -product of thought to a market where no natural -or wholesome demand for it could exist. There -were not two incompatible parts in him, as in Benton’s -case: he was a philosophical radical by nature -as well as by acquirement; his reading and his -temperament went suitably together. The man is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span> -homogeneous throughout. The American shows in -him very plainly, too, notwithstanding the strong -and inherent dash of what was foreign in his -make-up. He was a natural leader and manager -of men, not because he was imperative or masterful, -but because of a native shrewdness, tact, and -sagacity, an inborn art and aptness for combination, -such as no Frenchman ever displayed in the management -of common men. Jefferson had just a -touch of rusticity about him, besides; and it was -not pretense on his part or merely a love of power -that made him democratic. His indiscriminate -hospitality, his almost passionate love for the simple -equality of country life, his steady devotion to -what he deemed to be the cause of the people, all -mark him a genuine democrat, a nature native to -America. It is his speculative philosophy that is -exotic, and that runs like a false and artificial note -through all his thought. It was un-American in -being abstract, sentimental, rationalistic, rather -than practical. That he held it sincerely need not -be doubted; but the more sincerely he accepted it -so much the more thoroughly was he un-American. -His writings lack hard and practical sense. Liberty, -among us, is not a sentiment, but a product -of experience; its derivation is not rationalistic, -but practical. It is a hard-headed spirit of independence,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span> -not the conclusion of a syllogism. The -very aërated quality of Jefferson’s principles gives -them an air of insincerity, which attaches to them -rather because they do not suit the climate of the -country and the practical aspect of affairs than because -they do not suit the character of Jefferson’s -mind and the atmosphere of abstract philosophy. -It is because both they and the philosophical -system of which they form a part do seem suitable -to his mind and character, that we must pronounce -him, though a great man, not a great American.</p> - -<p>It is by the frank consideration of such concrete -cases that we may construct, both negatively and -affirmatively, our canons of Americanism. The -American spirit is something more than the old, -the immemorial Saxon spirit of liberty from which -it sprung. It has been bred by the conditions -attending the great task which we have all the -century been carrying forward: the task, at once -material and ideal, of subduing a wilderness and -covering all the wide stretches of a vast continent -with a single free and stable polity. It is, accordingly, -above all things, a hopeful and confident -spirit. It is progressive, optimistically progressive, -and ambitious of objects of national scope and -advantage. It is unpedantic, unprovincial, unspeculative, -unfastidious; regardful of law, but as using<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span> -it, not as being used by it or dominated by any -formalism whatever; in a sense unrefined, because -full of rude force; but prompted by large and generous -motives, and often as tolerant as it is resolute. -No one man, unless it be Lincoln, has ever -proved big or various enough to embody this active -and full-hearted spirit in all its qualities; and the -men who have been too narrow or too speculative -or too pedantic to represent it have, nevertheless, -added to the strong and stirring variety of our -national life, making it fuller and richer in motive -and energy; but its several aspects are none the -less noteworthy as they separately appear in different -men.</p> - -<p>One of the first men to exhibit this American -spirit with an unmistakable touch of greatness and -distinction was Benjamin Franklin. It was characteristic -of America that this self-made man should -become a philosopher, a founder of philosophical -societies, an authoritative man of science; that his -philosophy of life should be so homely and so practical -in its maxims, and uttered with so shrewd a -wit; that one region should be his birthplace and -another his home; that he should favor effective -political union among the colonies from the first, -and should play a sage and active part in the -establishment of national independence and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span> -planning of a national organization; and that he -should represent his countrymen in diplomacy -abroad. They could have had no spokesman who -represented more sides of their character. Franklin -was a sort of multiple American. He was versatile -without lacking solidity; he was a practical statesman -without ceasing to be a sagacious philosopher. -He came of the people, and was democratic; but -he had raised himself out of the general mass of -unnamed men, and so stood for the democratic law, -not of equality, but of self-selection in endeavor. -One can feel sure that Franklin would have succeeded -in any part of the national life that it might -have fallen to his lot to take part in. He will -stand the final and characteristic test of Americanism: -he would unquestionably have made a successful -frontiersman, capable at once of wielding the -axe and of administering justice from the fallen -trunk.</p> - -<p>Washington hardly seems an American, as most -of his biographers depict him. He is too colorless, -too cold, too prudent. He seems more like a wise -and dispassionate Mr. Alworthy, advising a nation -as he would a parish, than like a man building -states and marshaling a nation in a wilderness. -But the real Washington was as thoroughly an -American as Jackson or Lincoln. What we take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span> -for lack of passion in him was but the reserve and -self-mastery natural to a man of his class and -breeding in Virginia. He was no parlor politician, -either. He had seen the frontier, and far beyond -it where the French forts lay. He knew the rough -life of the country as few other men could. His -thoughts did not live at Mount Vernon. He knew -difficulty as intimately and faced it always with as -quiet a mastery as William the Silent. This calm, -straightforward, high-spirited man, making charts -of the western country, noting the natural land -and water routes into the heart of the continent, -marking how the French power lay, conceiving the -policy which should dispossess it, and the engineering -achievements which should make the utmost -resources of the land our own; counseling Braddock -how to enter the forest, but not deserting him -because he would not take advice; planning step -by step, by patient correspondence with influential -men everywhere, the meetings, conferences, common -resolves which were finally to bring the great -constitutional convention together; planning, too, -always for the country as well as for Virginia; and -presiding at last over the establishment and organization -of the government of the Union: he certainly—the -most suitable instrument of the national life -at every moment of crisis—is a great American.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span> -Those noble words which he uttered amidst the -first doubtings of the constitutional convention -might serve as a motto for the best efforts of liberty -wherever free men strive: “Let us raise a -standard to which the wise and honest can repair; -the event is in the hand of God.”</p> - -<p>In Henry Clay we have an American of a most -authentic pattern. There was no man of his -generation who represented more of America than -he did. The singular, almost irresistible attraction -he had for men of every class and every temperament -came, not from the arts of the politician, but -from the instant sympathy established between him -and every fellow-countryman of his. He does not -seem to have exercised the same fascination upon -foreigners. They felt toward him as some New -Englanders did: he seemed to them plausible -merely, too indiscriminately open and cordial to be -sincere,—a bit of a charlatan. No man who really -takes the trouble to understand Henry Clay, or -who has quick enough parts to sympathize with -him, can deem him false. It is the odd combination -of two different elements in him that makes -him seem irregular and inconstant. His nature -was of the West, blown through with quick winds -of ardor and aggression, a bit reckless and defiant; -but his art was of the East, ready with soft and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span> -placating phrases, reminiscent of old and reverenced -ideals, thoughtful of compromise and accommodation. -He had all the address of the trained and -sophisticated politician, bred in an old and sensitive -society; but his purposes ran free of cautious restraints, -and his real ideals were those of the somewhat -bumptious Americanism which was pushing -the frontier forward in the West, which believed -itself capable of doing anything it might put its -hand to, despised conventional restraints, and -followed a vague but resplendent “manifest destiny” -with lusty hurrahs. His purposes were sincere, -even if often crude and uninstructed; it was -only because the subtle arts of politics seemed inconsistent -with the direct dash and bold spirit of -the man that they sat upon him like an insincerity. -He thoroughly, and by mere unconscious sympathy, -represented the double America of his day, -made up of a West which hurried and gave bold -strokes, and of an East which held back, fearing -the pace, thoughtful and mindful of the instructive -past. The one part had to be served without -offending the other: and that was Clay’s mediatorial -function.</p> - -<p>Andrew Jackson was altogether of the West. -Of his sincerity nobody has ever had any real -doubt; and his Americanism is now at any rate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span> -equally unimpeachable. He was like Clay with -the social imagination of the orator and the art -and sophistication of the Eastern politician left out. -He came into our national politics like a cyclone -from off the Western prairies. Americans of the -present day perceptibly shudder at the very recollection -of Jackson. He seems to them a great -Vandal, playing fast and loose alike with institutions -and with tested and established policy, debauching -politics like a modern spoilsman. But -whether we would accept him as a type of ourselves -or not, the men of his own day accepted him with -enthusiasm. He did not need to be explained to -them. They crowded to his standard like men -free at last, after long and tedious restraint, to -make their own choice, follow their own man. -There can be no mistaking the spontaneity of the -thoroughgoing support he received. His was the -new type of energy and self-confidence bred by -life outside the States that had been colonies. It -was a terrible energy, threatening sheer destruction -to many a carefully wrought arrangement handed -on to us from the past; it was a perilous self-confidence, -founded in sheer strength rather than in -wisdom. The government did not pass through -the throes of that signal awakening of the new -national spirit without serious rack and damage.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span> -But it was no disease. It was only an incautious, -abounding, madcap strength which proved so dangerous -in its readiness for every rash endeavor. It -was necessary that the West should be let into the -play: it was even necessary that she should assert -her right to the leading rôle. It was done without -good taste, but that does not condemn it. We -have no doubt refined and schooled the hoyden -influences of that crude time, and they are vastly -safer now than then, when they first came bounding -in; but they mightily stirred and enriched our -blood from the first. Now that we have thoroughly -suffered this Jackson change and it is over, we are -ready to recognize it as quite as radically American -as anything in all our history.</p> - -<p>Lincoln, nevertheless, rather than Jackson, was -the supreme American of our history. In Clay, -East and West were mixed without being fused or -harmonized: he seems like two men. In Jackson -there was not even a mixture; he was all of a piece, -and altogether unacceptable to some parts of the -country,—a frontier statesman. But in Lincoln -the elements were combined and harmonized. The -most singular thing about the wonderful career of -the man is the way in which he steadily grew into -a national stature. He began an amorphous, unlicked -cub, bred in the rudest of human lairs;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span> -but, as he grew, everything formed, informed, -transformed him. The process was slow but unbroken. -He was not fit to be President until he -actually became President. He was fit then -because, learning everything as he went, he had -found out how much there was to learn, and had -still an infinite capacity for learning. The quiet -voices of sentiment and murmurs of resolution -that went whispering through the land, his ear -always caught, when others could hear nothing but -their own words. He never ceased to be a common -man: that was his source of strength. But he -was a common man with genius, a genius for things -American, for insight into the common thought, -for mastery of the fundamental things of politics -that inhere in human nature and cast hardly more -than their shadows on constitutions; for the practical -niceties of affairs; for judging men and assessing -arguments. Jackson had no social imagination: -no unfamiliar community made any impression on -him. His whole fibre stiffened young, and nothing -afterward could modify or even deeply affect it. -But Lincoln was always a-making; he would have -died unfinished if the terrible storms of the war -had not stung him to learn in those four years -what no other twenty could have taught him. -And, as he stands there in his complete manhood,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span> -at the most perilous helm in Christendom, what a -marvelous composite figure he is! The whole -country is summed up in him: the rude Western -strength, tempered with shrewdness and a broad -and humane wit; the Eastern conservatism, regardful -of law and devoted to fixed standards of duty. -He even understood the South, as no other Northern -man of his generation did. He respected, because -he comprehended, though he could not hold, its -view of the Constitution; he appreciated the inexorable -compulsions of its past in respect of -slavery; he would have secured it once more, and -speedily if possible, in its right to self-government, -when the fight was fought out. To the Eastern -politicians he seemed like an accident; but to history -he must seem like a providence.</p> - -<p>Grant was Lincoln’s suitable instrument, a great -American general, the appropriate product of West -Point. A Western man, he had no thought of -commonwealths politically separate, and was instinctively -for the Union; a man of the common -people, he deemed himself always an instrument, -never a master, and did his work, though ruthlessly, -without malice; a sturdy, hard-willed, taciturn -man, a sort of Lincoln the Silent in thought -and spirit. He does not appeal to the imagination -very deeply; there is a sort of common greatness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span> -about him, great gifts combined singularly with a -great mediocrity; but such peculiarities seem to -make him all the more American,—national in -spirit, thoroughgoing in method, masterful in -purpose.</p> - -<p>And yet it is no contradiction to say that Robert -E. Lee also was a great American. He fought on -the opposite side, but he fought in the same spirit, -and for a principle which is in a sense scarcely less -American than the principle of Union. He represented -the idea of the inherent—the essential—separateness -of self-government. This was not -the principle of secession: that principle involved -the separate right of the several self-governing -units of the federal system to judge of national -questions independently, and as a check upon the -federal government,—to adjudge the very objects -of the Union. Lee did not believe in secession, -but he did believe in the local rootage of all government. -This is at the bottom, no doubt, an -English idea; but it has had a characteristic American -development. It is the reverse side of the -shield which bears upon its obverse the devices of -the Union, a side too much overlooked and obscured -since the war. It conceives the individual -State a community united by the most intimate -associations, the first home and foster-mother of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span> -every man born into the citizenship of the nation. -Lee considered himself a member of one of these -great families; he could not conceive of the nation -apart from the State: above all, he could not live -in the nation divorced from his neighbors. His -own community should decide his political destiny -and duty.</p> - -<p>This was also the spirit of Patrick Henry and of -Sam Houston,—men much alike in the cardinal -principle of their natures. Patrick Henry resisted -the formation of the Union only because he feared -to disturb the local rootage of self-government, to disperse -power so widely that neighbors could not control -it. It was not a disloyal or a separatist spirit, -but only a jealous spirit of liberty. Sam Houston, -too, deemed the character a community should give -itself so great a matter that the community, once -made, ought itself to judge of the national associations -most conducive to its liberty and progress. -Without liberty of this intensive character there -could have been no vital national liberty; and Sam -Houston, Patrick Henry, and Robert E. Lee are -none the less great Americans because they represented -only one cardinal principle of the national -life. Self-government has its intrinsic antinomies -as well as its harmonies.</p> - -<p>Among men of letters Lowell is doubtless most<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span> -typically American, though Curtis must find an -eligible place in the list. Lowell was self-conscious, -though the truest greatness is not; he was -a trifle too “smart,” besides, and there is no -“smartness” in great literature. But both the -self-consciousness and the smartness must be admitted -to be American; and Lowell was so versatile, -so urbane, of so large a spirit, and so admirable -in the scope of his sympathies, that he must certainly -go on the calendar.</p> - -<p>There need be no fear that we shall be obliged to -stop with Lowell in literature, or with any of the -men who have been named in the field of achievement. -We shall not in the future have to take -one type of Americanism at a time. The frontier -is gone: it has reached the Pacific. The country -grows rapidly homogeneous. With the same pace -it grows various, and multiform in all its life. -The man of the simple or local type cannot any -longer deal in the great manner with any national -problem. The great men of our future must be of -the composite type of greatness: sound-hearted, -hopeful, confident of the validity of liberty, tenacious -of the deeper principles of American institutions, -but with the old rashness schooled and -sobered, and instinct tempered by instruction. -They must be wise with an adult, not with an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span> -adolescent wisdom. Some day we shall be of one -mind, our ideals fixed, our purposes harmonized, -our nationality complete and consentaneous: then -will come our great literature and our greatest -men.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_213" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">THE COURSE OF AMERICAN HISTORY.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor smaller">1</a></span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="fnanchor">1</a> An address delivered before the New Jersey Historical Society.</p> - -</div> - -<p>In the field of history, learning should be deemed -to stand among the people and in the midst of life. -Its function there is not one of pride merely: to -make complaisant record of deeds honorably done -and plans nobly executed in the past. It has also a -function of guidance: to build high places whereon -to plant the clear and flaming lights of experience, -that they may shine alike upon the roads already -traveled and upon the paths not yet attempted. -The historian is also a sort of prophet. Our -memories direct us. They give us knowledge of -our character, alike in its strength and in its weakness: -and it is so we get our standards for endeavor,—our -warnings and our gleams of hope. It is -thus we learn what manner of nation we are of, -and divine what manner of people we should be.</p> - -<p>And this is not in national records merely. -Local history is the ultimate substance of national -history. There could be no epics were pastorals<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span> -not also true,—no patriotism, were there no homes, -no neighbors, no quiet round of civic duty; and I, -for my part, do not wonder that scholarly men -have been found not a few who, though they might -have shone upon a larger field, where all eyes -would have seen them win their fame, yet chose -to pore all their lives long upon the blurred and -scattered records of a country-side, where there was -nothing but an old church or an ancient village. -The history of a nation is only the history of its -villages written large. I only marvel that these -local historians have not seen more in the stories -they have sought to tell. Surely here, in these old -hamlets that antedate the cities, in these little -communities that stand apart and yet give their -young life to the nation, is to be found the very -authentic stuff of romance for the mere looking. -There is love and courtship and eager life and -high devotion up and down all the lines of every -genealogy. What strength, too, and bold endeavor -in the cutting down of forests to make the clearings; -what breath of hope and discovery in scaling -for the first time the nearest mountains; what -longings ended or begun upon the coming in of -ships into the harbor; what pride of earth in the -rivalries of the village; what thoughts of heaven -in the quiet of the rural church! What forces of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span> -slow and steadfast endeavor there were in the -building of a great city upon the foundations of a -hamlet: and how the plot broadens and thickens -and grows dramatic as communities widen into -states! Here, surely, sunk deep in the very fibre -of the stuff, are the colors of the great story of -men,—the lively touches of reality and the striking -images of life.</p> - -<p>It must be admitted, I know, that local history -can be made deadly dull in the telling. The men -who reconstruct it seem usually to build with kiln-dried -stuff,—as if with a purpose it should last. -But that is not the fault of the subject. National -history may be written almost as ill, if due pains -be taken to dry it out. It is a trifle more difficult: -because merely to speak of national affairs is to -give hint of great forces and of movements blown -upon by all the airs of the wide continent. The -mere largeness of the scale lends to the narrative -a certain dignity and spirit. But some men will -manage to be dull though they should speak of -creation. In writing of local history the thing -is fatally easy. For there is some neighborhood -history that lacks any large significance, which is -without horizon or outlook. There are details in -the history of every community which it concerns -no man to know again when once they are past<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span> -and decently buried in the records: and these are -the very details, no doubt, which it is easiest to -find upon a casual search. It is easier to make -out a list of county clerks than to extract the social -history of the county from the records they have -kept,—though it is not so important: and it is -easier to make a catalogue of anything than to say -what of life and purpose the catalogue stands for. -This is called collecting facts “for the sake of the -facts themselves;” but if I wished to do aught for -the sake of the facts themselves I think I should -serve them better by giving their true biographies -than by merely displaying their faces.</p> - -<p>The right and vital sort of local history is the -sort which may be written with lifted eyes,—the -sort which has an horizon and an outlook upon -the world. Sometimes it may happen, indeed, -that the annals of a neighborhood disclose some -singular adventure which had its beginning and its -ending there: some unwonted bit of fortune which -stands unique and lonely amidst the myriad transactions -of the world of affairs, and deserves to be -told singly and for its own sake. But usually the -significance of local history is, that it is part of a -greater whole. A spot of local history is like an -inn upon a highway: it is a stage upon a far -journey: it is a place the national history has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span> -passed through. There mankind has stopped and -lodged by the way. Local history is thus less than -national history only as the part is less than the -whole. The whole could not dispense with the -part, would not exist without it, could not be -understood unless the part also were understood. -Local history is subordinate to national only in the -sense in which each leaf of a book is subordinate -to the volume itself. Upon no single page will the -whole theme of the book be found; but each page -holds a part of the theme. Even were the history -of each locality exactly like the history of every -other (which it cannot be), it would deserve to be -written,—if only to corroborate the history of the -rest, and verify it as an authentic part of the -record of the race and nation. The common elements -of a nation’s life are the great elements of -its life, the warp and woof of the fabric. They -cannot be too much or too substantially verified and -explicated. It is so that history is made solid -and fit for use and wear.</p> - -<p>Our national history, of course, has its own great -and spreading pattern, which can be seen in its -full form and completeness only when the stuff of -our national life is laid before us in broad surfaces -and upon an ample scale. But the detail of the -pattern, the individual threads of the great fabric,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span> -are to be found only in local history. There is all -the intricate weaving, all the delicate shading, all -the nice refinement of the pattern,—gold thread -mixed with fustian, fine thread laid upon coarse, -shade combined with shade. Assuredly it is this -that gives to local history its life and importance. -The idea, moreover, furnishes a nice criterion of -interest. The life of some localities is, obviously, -more completely and intimately a part of the -national pattern than the life of other localities, -which are more separate and, as it were, put upon -the border of the fabric. To come at once and -very candidly to examples, the local history of the -Middle States,—New York, New Jersey, and -Pennsylvania,—is much more structurally a part -of the characteristic life of the nation as a whole -than is the history of the New England communities -or of the several States and regions of the South. -I know that such a heresy will sound very rank in -the ears of some: for I am speaking against accepted -doctrine. But acceptance, be it never so -general, does not make a doctrine true.</p> - -<p>Our national history has been written for the -most part by New England men. All honor to -them! Their scholarship and their characters alike -have given them an honorable enrollment amongst -the great names of our literary history; and no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span> -just man would say aught to detract, were it never -so little, from their well-earned fame. They have -written our history, nevertheless, from but a single -point of view. From where they sit, the whole of -the great development looks like an Expansion of -New England. Other elements but play along the -sides of the great process by which the Puritan has -worked out the development of nation and polity. -It is he who has gone out and possessed the land: -the man of destiny, the type and impersonation of -a chosen people. To the Southern writer, too, the -story looks much the same, if it be but followed to -its culmination,—to its final storm and stress and -tragedy in the great war. It is the history of the -Suppression of the South. Spite of all her splendid -contributions to the steadfast accomplishment -of the great task of building the nation; spite of -the long leadership of her statesmen in the national -counsels; spite of her joint achievements in the -conquest and occupation of the West, the South -was at last turned upon on every hand, rebuked, -proscribed, defeated. The history of the United -States, we have learned, was, from the settlement -at Jamestown to the surrender at Appomattox, a -long-drawn contest for mastery between New England -and the South,—and the end of the contest -we know. All along the parallels of latitude ran<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span> -the rivalry, in those heroical days of toil and adventure -during which population crossed the continent, -like an army advancing its encampments. -Up and down the great river of the continent, too, -and beyond, up the slow incline of the vast steppes -that lift themselves toward the crowning towers of -the Rockies,—beyond that, again, in the gold-fields -and upon the green plains of California, the -race for ascendency struggled on,—till at length -there was a final coming face to face, and the masterful -folk who had come from the loins of New -England won their consummate victory.</p> - -<p>It is a very dramatic form for the story. One -almost wishes it were true. How fine a unity it -would give our epic! But perhaps, after all, the -real truth is more interesting. The life of the -nation cannot be reduced to these so simple terms. -These two great forces, of the North and of the -South, unquestionably existed,—were unquestionably -projected in their operation out upon the -great plane of the continent, there to combine or -repel, as circumstances might determine. But the -people that went out from the North were not an -unmixed people; they came from the great Middle -States as well as from New England. Their -transplantation into the West was no more a -reproduction of New England or New York or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span> -Pennsylvania or New Jersey than Massachusetts -was a reproduction of old England, or New Netherland -a reproduction of Holland. The Southern -people, too, whom they met by the western rivers -and upon the open prairies, were transformed, as -they themselves were, by the rough fortunes of the -frontier. A mixture of peoples, a modification of -mind and habit, a new round of experiment and -adjustment amidst the novel life of the baked and -unfilled plain, and the far valleys with the virgin -forests still thick upon them: a new temper, a new -spirit of adventure, a new impatience of restraint, -a new license of life,—these are the characteristic -notes and measures of the time when the nation -spread itself at large upon the continent, and was -transformed from a group of colonies into a family -of States.</p> - -<p>The passes of these eastern mountains were the -arteries of the nation’s life. The real breath of -our growth and manhood came into our nostrils -when first, like Governor Spotswood and that gallant -company of Virginian gentlemen that rode -with him in the far year 1716, the Knights of the -Order of the Golden Horseshoe, our pioneers stood -upon the ridges of the eastern hills and looked -down upon those reaches of the continent where -lay the untrodden paths of the westward migration.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span> -There, upon the courses of the distant rivers that -gleamed before them in the sun, down the farther -slopes of the hills beyond, out upon the broad fields -that lay upon the fertile banks of the “Father of -Waters,” up the long tilt of the continent to the -vast hills that looked out upon the Pacific—there -were the regions in which, joining with people -from every race and clime under the sun, they -were to make the great compounded nation whose -liberty and mighty works of peace were to cause -all the world to stand at gaze. Thither were to -come Frenchmen, Scandinavians, Celts, Dutch, -Slavs,—men of the Latin races and of the races -of the Orient, as well as men, a great host, of the -first stock of the settlements: English, Scots, Scots-Irish,—like -New England men, but touched with -the salt of humor, hard, and yet neighborly too. -For this great process of growth by grafting, of -modification no less than of expansion, the colonies,—the -original thirteen States,—were only preliminary -studies and first experiments. But the -experiments that most resembled the great methods -by which we peopled the continent from side to -side and knit a single polity across all its length -and breadth, were surely the experiments made -from the very first in the Middle States of our -Atlantic seaboard.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span></p> - -<p>Here from the first were mixture of population, -variety of element, combination of type, as if of -the nation itself in small. Here was never a -simple body, a people of but a single blood and -extraction, a polity and a practice brought straight -from one motherland. The life of these States was -from the beginning like the life of the country: -they have always shown the national pattern. In -New England and the South it was very different. -There some of the great elements of the national -life were long in preparation: but separately and -with an individual distinction; without mixture,—for -long almost without movement. That the elements -thus separately prepared were of the greatest -importance, and run everywhere like chief threads -of the pattern through all our subsequent life, who -can doubt? They give color and tone to every -part of the figure. The very fact that they are so -distinct and separately evident throughout, the -very emphasis of individuality they carry with -them, but proves their distinct origin. The other -elements of our life, various though they be, and -of the very fibre, giving toughness and consistency -to the fabric, are merged in its texture, united, -confused, almost indistinguishable, so thoroughly -are they mixed, intertwined, interwoven, like the -essential strands of the stuff itself: but these of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span> -the Puritan and the Southerner, though they run -everywhere with the rest and seem upon a superficial -view themselves the body of the cloth, in fact -modify rather than make it.</p> - -<p>What in fact has been the course of American -history? How is it to be distinguished from European -history? What features has it of its own, -which give it its distinctive plan and movement? -We have suffered, it is to be feared, a very serious -limitation of view until recent years by having all -our history written in the East. It has smacked -strongly of a local flavor. It has concerned itself -too exclusively with the origins and Old-World -derivations of our story. Our historians have -made their march from the sea with their heads -over shoulder, their gaze always backward upon the -landing-places and homes of the first settlers. In -spite of the steady immigration, with its persistent -tide of foreign blood, they have chosen to speak -often and to think always of our people as sprung -after all from a common stock, bearing a family -likeness in every branch, and following all the while -old, familiar, family ways. The view is the more -misleading because it is so large a part of the truth -without being all of it. The common British -stock did first make the country, and has always -set the pace. There were common institutions up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span> -and down the coast; and these had formed and -hardened for a persistent growth before the great -westward migration began which was to re-shape -and modify every element of our life. The national -government itself was set up and made strong by -success while yet we lingered for the most part -upon the eastern coast and feared a too distant -frontier.</p> - -<p>But, the beginnings once safely made, change -set in apace. Not only so: there had been slow -change from the first. We have no frontier now, -we are told,—except a broken fragment, it may -be, here and there in some barren corner of the -western lands, where some inhospitable mountain -still shoulders us out, or where men are still lacking -to break the baked surface of the plains and occupy -them in the very teeth of hostile nature. But at -first it was all frontier,—a mere strip of settlements -stretched precariously upon the sea-edge of -the wilds: an untouched continent in front of -them, and behind them an unfrequented sea that -almost never showed so much as the momentary -gleam of a sail. Every step in the slow process of -settlement was but a step of the same kind as the -first, an advance to a new frontier like the old. -For long we lacked, it is true, that new breed of -frontiersmen born in after years beyond the mountains.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span> -Those first frontiersmen had still a touch of -the timidity of the Old World in their blood: they -lacked the frontier heart. They were “Pilgrims” -in very fact,—exiled, not at home. Fine courage -they had: and a steadfastness in their bold design -which it does a faint-hearted age good to look back -upon. There was no thought of drawing back. -Steadily, almost calmly, they extended their seats. -They built homes, and deemed it certain their children -would live there after them. But they did not -love the rough, uneasy life for its own sake. How -long did they keep, if they could, within sight of -the sea! The wilderness was their refuge; but -how long before it became their joy and hope! -Here was their destiny cast; but their hearts lingered -and held back. It was only as generations -passed and the work widened about them that their -thought also changed, and a new thrill sped along -their blood. Their life had been new and strange -from their first landing in the wilderness. Their -houses, their food, their clothing, their neighborhood -dealings were all such as only the frontier -brings. Insensibly they were themselves changed. -The strange life became familiar; their adjustment -to it was at length unconscious and without effort; -they had no plans which were not inseparably a part -and a product of it. But, until they had turned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span> -their backs once for all upon the sea; until they -saw their western borders cleared of the French; -until the mountain passes had grown familiar, and -the lands beyond the central and constant theme -of their hope, the goal and dream of their young -men, they did not become an American people.</p> - -<p>When they did, the great determining movement -of our history began. The very visages of the -people changed. That alert movement of the eye, -that openness to every thought of enterprise or adventure, -that nomadic habit which knows no fixed -home and has plans ready to be carried any whither,—all -the marks of the authentic type of the -“American” as we know him came into our life. -The crack of the whip and the song of the teamster, -the heaving chorus of boatmen poling their -heavy rafts upon the rivers, the laughter of the -camp, the sound of bodies of men in the still forests, -became the characteristic notes in our air. A -roughened race, embrowned in the sun, hardened -in manner by a coarse life of change and danger, -loving the rude woods and the crack of the rifle, -living to begin something new every day, striking -with the broad and open hand, delicate in nothing -but the touch of the trigger, leaving cities in its -track as if by accident rather than design, settling -again to the steady ways of a fixed life only when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span> -it must: such was the American people whose -achievement it was to be to take possession of their -continent from end to end ere their national government -was a single century old. The picture is a -very singular one! Settled life and wild side by -side: civilization frayed at the edges,—taken forward -in rough and ready fashion, with a song and -a swagger,—not by statesmen, but by woodsmen -and drovers, with axes and whips and rifles in their -hands, clad in buckskin, like huntsmen.</p> - -<p>It has been said that we have here repeated -some of the first processes of history; that the -life and methods of our frontiersmen take us back -to the fortunes and hopes of the men who crossed -Europe when her forests, too, were still thick upon -her. But the difference is really very fundamental, -and much more worthy of remark than the likeness. -Those shadowy masses of men whom we see -moving upon the face of the earth in the far-away, -questionable days when states were forming: -even those stalwart figures we see so well as they -emerge from the deep forests of Germany, to displace -the Roman in all his western provinces and -set up the states we know and marvel upon at this -day, show us men working their new work at their -own level. They do not turn back a long cycle of -years from the old and settled states, the ordered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span> -cities, the tilled fields, and the elaborated governments -of an ancient civilization, to begin as it were -once more at the beginning. They carry alike -their homes and their states with them in the camp -and upon the ordered march of the host. They -are men of the forest, or else men hardened always -to take the sea in open boats. They live no more -roughly in the new lands than in the old. The -world has been frontier for them from the first. -They may go forward with their life in these new -seats from where they left off in the old. How -different the circumstances of our first settlement -and the building of new states on this side the -sea! Englishmen, bred in law and ordered government -ever since the Norman lawyers were followed -a long five hundred years ago across the narrow -seas by those masterful administrators of the strong -Plantagenet race, leave an ancient realm and come -into a wilderness where states have never been; -leave a land of art and letters, which saw but yesterday -“the spacious times of great Elizabeth,” -where Shakespeare still lives in the gracious leisure -of his closing days at Stratford, where cities teem -with trade and men go bravely dight in cloth of -gold, and turn back six centuries,—nay, a thousand -years and more,—to the first work of building -states in a wilderness! They bring the steadied<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span> -habits and sobered thoughts of an ancient realm -into the wild air of an untouched continent. The -weary stretches of a vast sea lie, like a full thousand -years of time, between them and the life in which -till now all their thought was bred. Here they -stand, as it were, with all their tools left behind, -centuries struck out of their reckoning, driven back -upon the long dormant instincts and forgotten craft -of their race, not used this long age. Look how -singular a thing: the work of a primitive race, the -thought of a civilized! Hence the strange, almost -grotesque groupings of thought and affairs in that -first day of our history. Subtle politicians speak -the phrases and practice the arts of intricate diplomacy -from council chambers placed within log huts -within a clearing. Men in ruffs and lace and -polished shoe-buckles thread the lonely glades of -primeval forests. The microscopical distinctions -of the schools, the thin notes of a metaphysical -theology are woven in and out through the labyrinths -of grave sermons that run hours long upon -the still air of the wilderness. Belief in dim refinements -of dogma is made the test for man or woman -who seeks admission to a company of pioneers. -When went there by an age since the great flood -when so singular a thing was seen as this: thousands -of civilized men suddenly rusticated and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span> -bade do the work of primitive peoples,—Europe -<em>frontiered</em>!</p> - -<p>Of course there was a deep change wrought, if -not in these men, at any rate in their children; -and every generation saw the change deepen. It -must seem to every thoughtful man a notable thing -how, while the change was wrought, the simplest -of things complex were revealed in the clear air of -the New World: how all accidentals seemed to -fall away from the structure of government, and -the simple first principles were laid bare that abide -always; how social distinctions were stripped off, -shown to be the mere cloaks and masks they were, -and every man brought once again to a clear realization -of his actual relations to his fellows! It -was as if trained and sophisticated men had been -rid of a sudden of their sophistication and of all -the theory of their life, and left with nothing but -their discipline of faculty, a schooled and sobered -instinct. And the fact that we kept always, for -close upon three hundred years, a like element in -our life, a frontier people always in our van, is, so -far, the central and determining fact of our national -history. “East” and “West,” an ever-changing -line, but an unvarying experience and a constant -leaven of change working always within the body -of our folk. Our political, our economic, our social<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span> -life has felt this potent influence from the wild -border all our history through. The “West” is -the great word of our history. The “Westerner” -has been the type and master of our American life. -Now at length, as I have said, we have lost our -frontier: our front lies almost unbroken along all -the great coast line of the western sea. The Westerner, -in some day soon to come, will pass out of -our life, as he so long ago passed out of the life of -the Old World. Then a new epoch will open for -us. Perhaps it has opened already. Slowly we -shall grow old, compact our people, study the delicate -adjustments of an intricate society, and ponder -the niceties, as we have hitherto pondered the bulks -and structural framework, of government. Have -we not, indeed, already come to these things? But -the past we know. We can “see it steady and -see it whole;” and its central movement and motive -are gross and obvious to the eye.</p> - -<p>Till the first century of the Constitution is -rounded out we stand all the while in the presence -of that stupendous westward movement which has -filled the continent: so vast, so various, at times -so tragical, so swept by passion. Through all the -long time there has been a line of rude settlements -along our front wherein the same tests of power -and of institutions were still being made that were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span> -made first upon the sloping banks of the rivers of -old Virginia and within the long sweep of the Bay -of Massachusetts. The new life of the West has -reacted all the while—who shall say how powerfully?—upon -the older life of the East; and yet -the East has moulded the West as if she sent forward -to it through every decade of the long process -the chosen impulses and suggestions of history. -The West has taken strength, thought, training, -selected aptitudes out of the old treasures of the -East,—as if out of a new Orient; while the East -has itself been kept fresh, vital, alert, originative -by the West, her blood quickened all the while, her -youth through every age renewed. Who can say in -a word, in a sentence, in a volume, what destinies -have been variously wrought, with what new examples -of growth and energy, while, upon this unexampled -scale, community has passed beyond community -across the vast reaches of this great continent!</p> - -<p>The great process is the more significant because -it has been distinctively a national process. Until -the Union was formed and we had consciously set -out upon a separate national career, we moved but -timidly across the nearer hills. Our most remote -settlements lay upon the rivers and in the open -glades of Tennessee and Kentucky. It was in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span> -years that immediately succeeded the war of 1812 -that the movement into the West began to be a -mighty migration. Till then our eyes had been -more often in the East than in the West. Not -only were foreign questions to be settled and our -standing among the nations to be made good, but -we still remained acutely conscious and deliberately -conservative of our Old-World connections. For -all we were so new a people and lived so simple and -separate a life, we had still the sobriety and the -circumspect fashions of action that belong to an old -society. We were, in government and manners, -but a disconnected part of the world beyond the -seas. Its thought and habit still set us our standards -of speech and action. And this, not because -of imitation, but because of actual and long abiding -political and social connection with the mother -country. Our statesmen,—strike but the names -of Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry from the list, -together with all like untutored spirits, who stood -for the new, unreverencing ardor of a young democracy,—our -statesmen were such men as might -have taken their places in the House of Commons -or in the Cabinet at home as naturally and with as -easy an adjustment to their place and task as in -the Continental Congress or in the immortal Constitutional -Convention. Think of the stately ways<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span> -and the grand air and the authoritative social -understandings of the generation that set the new -government afoot,—the generation of Washington -and John Adams. Think, too, of the conservative -tradition that guided all the early history of that -government: that early line of gentlemen Presidents: -that steady “cabinet succession to the Presidency” -which came at length to seem almost like -an oligarchy to the impatient men who were shut -out from it. The line ended, with a sort of chill, -in stiff John Quincy Adams, too cold a man to be -a people’s prince after the old order of Presidents; -and the year 1829, which saw Jackson come in, -saw the old order go out.</p> - -<p>The date is significant. Since the war of 1812, -undertaken as if to set us free to move westward, -seven States had been admitted to the Union: and -the whole number of States was advanced to -twenty-four. Eleven new States had come into -partnership with the old thirteen. The voice of -the West rang through all our counsels; and, in -Jackson, the new partners took possession of the -Government. It is worth while to remember how -men stood amazed at the change: how startled, -chagrined, dismayed the conservative States of the -East were at the revolution they saw effected, the -riot of change they saw set in; and no man who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span> -has once read the singular story can forget how -the eight years Jackson reigned saw the Government, -and politics themselves, transformed. For -long,—the story being written in the regions -where the shock and surprise of the change was -greatest,—the period of this momentous revolution -was spoken of amongst us as a period of -degeneration, the birth-time of a deep and permanent -demoralization in our politics. But we see it -differently now. Whether we have any taste or -stomach for that rough age or not, however much -we may wish that the old order might have stood, -the generation of Madison and Adams have been -prolonged, and the good tradition of the early days -handed on unbroken and unsullied, we now know -that what the nation underwent in that day of -change was not degeneration, great and perilous as -were the errors of the time, but regeneration. -The old order was changed, once and for all. A -new nation stepped, with a touch of swagger, upon -the stage,—a nation which had broken alike with -the traditions and with the wisely wrought experience -of the Old World, and which, with all the -haste and rashness of youth, was minded to work -out a separate policy and destiny of its own. It -was a day of hazards, but there was nothing sinister -at the heart of the new plan. It was a wasteful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span> -experiment, to fling out, without wise guides, upon -untried ways; but an abounding continent afforded -enough and to spare even for the wasteful. It was -sure to be so with a nation that came out of the -secluded vales of a virgin continent. It was the -bold frontier voice of the West sounding in affairs. -The timid shivered, but the robust waxed strong -and rejoiced, in the tonic air of the new day.</p> - -<p>It was then we swung out into the main paths -of our history. The new voices that called us were -first silvery, like the voice of Henry Clay, and -spoke old familiar words of eloquence. The first -spokesmen of the West even tried to con the classics, -and spoke incongruously in the phrases of -politics long dead and gone to dust, as Benton did. -But presently the tone changed, and it was the -truculent and masterful accents of the real frontiersman -that rang dominant above the rest, harsh, -impatient, and with an evident dash of temper. -The East slowly accustomed itself to the change; -caught the movement, though it grumbled and -even trembled at the pace; and managed most of -the time to keep in the running. But it was -always henceforth to be the West that set the -pace. There is no mistaking the questions that -have ruled our spirits as a nation during the present -century. The public land question, the tariff<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span> -question, and the question of slavery,—these dominate -from first to last. It was the West that -made each one of these the question that it was. -Without the free lands to which every man who -chose might go, there would not have been that -easy prosperity of life and that high standard of -abundance which seemed to render it necessary -that, if we were to have manufactures and a diversified -industry at all, we should foster new undertakings -by a system of protection which would -make the profits of the factory as certain and as -abundant as the profits of the farm. It was the -constant movement of the population, the constant -march of wagon trains into the West, that made it -so cardinal a matter of policy whether the great -national domain should <em>be</em> free land or not: and -that was the land question. It was the settlement -of the West that transformed slavery from an -accepted institution into passionate matter of controversy.</p> - -<p>Slavery within the States of the Union stood -sufficiently protected by every solemn sanction the -Constitution could afford. No man could touch it -there, think, or hope, or purpose what he might. -But where new States were to be made it was not -so. There at every step choice must be made: -slavery or no slavery?—a new choice for every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span> -new State: a fresh act of origination to go with -every fresh act of organization. Had there been -no Territories, there could have been no slavery -question, except by revolution and contempt of -fundamental law. But with a continent to be peopled, -the choice thrust itself insistently forward at -every step and upon every hand. This was the -slavery question: not what should be done to reverse -the past, but what should be done to redeem -the future. It was so men of that day saw it,—and -so also must historians see it. We must not -mistake the programme of the Anti-Slavery Society -for the platform of the Republican party, -or forget that the very war itself was begun ere -any purpose of abolition took shape amongst those -who were statesmen and in authority. It was a -question, not of freeing men, but of preserving a -Free Soil. Kansas showed us what the problem -was, not South Carolina: and it was the Supreme -Court, not the slave-owners, who formulated the -matter for our thought and purpose.</p> - -<p>And so, upon every hand and throughout every -national question, was the commerce between East -and West made up: that commerce and exchange -of ideas, inclinations, purposes, and principles which -has constituted the moving force of our life as a -nation. Men illustrate the operation of these singular<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span> -forces better than questions can: and no -man illustrates it better than Abraham Lincoln.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indentq">“Great captains with their guns and drums</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Disturb our judgment for the hour;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But at last silence comes:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Our children shall behold his fame,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sagacious, patient, dreading praise not blame,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">New birth of our new soil, the first American.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">It is a poet’s verdict; but it rings in the authentic -tone of the seer. It must be also the verdict of -history. He would be a rash man who should say -he understood Abraham Lincoln. No doubt natures -deep as his, and various almost to the point -of self-contradiction, can be sounded only by the -judgment of men of a like sort,—if any such there -be. But some things we all may see and judge -concerning him. You have in him the type and -flower of our growth. It is as if Nature had made -a typical American, and then had added with liberal -hand the royal quality of genius, to show us -what the type could be. Lincoln owed nothing to -his birth, everything to his growth: had no training -save what he gave himself; no nurture, but only a -wild and native strength. His life was his schooling, -and every day of it gave to his character a -new touch of development. His manhood not only,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span> -but his perception also, expanded with his life. -His eyes, as they looked more and more abroad, -beheld the national life, and comprehended it: and -the lad who had been so rough-cut a provincial -became, when grown to manhood, the one leader in -all the nation who held the whole people singly in -his heart:—held even the Southern people there, -and would have won them back. And so we have -in him what we must call the perfect development -of native strength, the rounding out and nationalization -of the provincial. Andrew Jackson was a -type, not of the nation, but of the West. For all -the tenderness there was in the stormy heart of -the masterful man, and staunch and simple loyalty -to all who loved him, he learned nothing in the -East; kept always the flavor of the rough school in -which he had been bred; was never more than a -frontier soldier and gentleman. Lincoln differed -from Jackson by all the length of his unmatched -capacity to learn. Jackson could understand only -men of his own kind; Lincoln could understand -men of all sorts and from every region of the land: -seemed himself, indeed, to be all men by turns, as -mood succeeded mood in his strange nature. He -never ceased to stand, in his bony angles, the -express image of the ungainly frontiersman. His -mind never lost the vein of coarseness that had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span> -marked him grossly when a youth. And yet how -he grew and strengthened in the real stuff of dignity -and greatness: how nobly he could bear himself -without the aid of grace! He kept always the -shrewd and seeing eye of the woodsman and the -hunter, and the flavor of wild life never left him: -and yet how easily his view widened to great -affairs; how surely he perceived the value and the -significance of whatever touched him and made -him neighbor to itself!</p> - -<p>Lincoln’s marvelous capacity to extend his comprehension -to the measure of what he had in hand -is the one distinguishing mark of the man: and to -study the development of that capacity in him is -little less than to study, where it is as it were perfectly -registered, the national life itself. This boy -lived his youth in Illinois when it was a frontier -State. The youth of the State was coincident with -his own: and man and State kept equal pace in -their striding advance to maturity. The frontier -population was an intensely political population. -It felt to the quick the throb of the nation’s life,—for -the nation’s life ran through it, going its -eager way to the westward. The West was not -separate from the East. Its communities were -every day receiving fresh members from the East, -and the fresh impulse of direct suggestion. Their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span> -blood flowed to them straight from the warmest -veins of the older communities. More than that, -elements which were separated in the East were -mingled in the West: which displayed to the eye -as it were a sort of epitome of the most active and -permanent forces of the national life. In such -communities as these Lincoln mixed daily from the -first with men of every sort and from every quarter -of the country. With them he discussed neighborhood -politics, the politics of the State, the politics -of the nation,—and his mind became traveled as -he talked. How plainly amongst such neighbors, -there in Illinois, must it have become evident that -national questions were centring more and more in -the West as the years went by: coming as it were -to meet them. Lincoln went twice down the -Mississippi, upon the slow rafts that carried wares -to its mouth, and saw with his own eyes, so used -to look directly and point-blank upon men and -affairs, characteristic regions of the South. He -worked his way slowly and sagaciously, with that -larger sort of sagacity which so marked him all his -life, into the active business of state politics; sat -twice in the state legislature, and then for a term -in Congress,—his sensitive and seeing mind open -all the while to every turn of fortune and every -touch of nature in the moving affairs he looked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span> -upon. All the while, too, he continued to canvass, -piece by piece, every item of politics, as of old, -with his neighbors, familiarly around the stove, or -upon the corners of the street, or more formally -upon the stump; and kept always in direct contact -with the ordinary views of ordinary men. Meanwhile -he read, as nobody else around him read, -and sought to gain a complete mastery over speech, -with the conscious purpose to prevail in its use; -derived zest from the curious study of mathematical -proof, and amusement as well as strength from -the practice of clean and naked statements of -truth. It was all irregularly done, but strenuously, -with the same instinct throughout, and with -a steady access of facility and power. There was -no sudden leap for this man, any more than for -other men, from crudeness to finished power, from -an understanding of the people of Illinois to an -understanding of the people of the United States. -And thus he came at last, with infinite pains and a -wonder of endurance, to his great national task -with a self-trained capacity which no man could -match, and made upon a scale as liberal as the life -of the people. You could not then set this athlete -a pace in learning or in perceiving that was too -hard for him. He knew the people and their life -as no other man did or could: and now stands in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span> -his place singular in all the annals of mankind, the -“brave, sagacious, foreseeing, patient man” of the -people, “new birth of our new soil, the first -American.”</p> - -<p>We have here a national man presiding over -sectional men. Lincoln understood the East better -than the East understood him or the people from -whom he sprung: and this is every way a very -noteworthy circumstance. For my part, I read a -lesson in the singular career of this great man. Is -it possible the East remains sectional while the -West broadens to a wider view?</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indentq">“Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs,”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">is an inspiring programme for the woodsman and -the pioneer; but how are you to be brown-handed -in a city office? What if you never see the upright -pines? How are you to have so big a purpose on -so small a part of the hemisphere? As it has -grown old, unquestionably, the East has grown -sectional. There is no suggestion of the prairie in -its city streets, or of the embrowned ranchman and -farmer in its well-dressed men. Its ports teem with -shipping from Europe and the Indies. Its newspapers -run upon the themes of an Old World. It -hears of the great plains of the continent as of foreign -parts, which it may never think to see except<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span> -from a car window. Its life is self-centred and -selfish. The West, save where special interests -centre (as in those pockets of silver where men’s -eyes catch as it were an eager gleam from the very -ore itself): the West is in less danger of sectionalization. -Who shall say in that wide country where -one region ends and another begins, or, in that free -and changing society, where one class ends and -another begins?</p> - -<p>This, surely, is the moral of our history. The -East has spent and been spent for the West: has -given forth her energy, her young men and her substance, -for the new regions that have been a-making -all the century through. But has she learned as -much as she has taught, or taken as much as she -has given? Look what it is that has now at last -taken place. The westward march has stopped, -upon the final slopes of the Pacific; and now the -plot thickens. Populations turn upon their old -paths; fill in the spaces they passed by neglected -in their first journey in search of a land of promise; -settle to a life such as the East knows as well as -the West,—nay, much better. With the change, -the pause, the settlement, our people draw into -closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other -and be known: and the time has come for the East -to learn in her turn; to broaden her understanding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span> -of political and economic conditions to the scale of -a hemisphere, as her own poet bade. Let us be -sure that we get the national temperament; send -our minds abroad upon the continent, become -neighbors to all the people that live upon it, and -lovers of them all, as Lincoln was.</p> - -<p>Read but your history aright, and you shall not -find the task too hard. Your own local history, -look but deep enough, tells the tale you must take -to heart. Here upon our own seaboard, as truly as -ever in the West, was once a national frontier, with -an elder East beyond the seas. Here, too, various -peoples combined, and elements separated elsewhere -effected a tolerant and wholesome mixture. Here, -too, the national stream flowed full and strong, bearing -a thousand things upon its currents. Let us -resume and keep the vision of that time; know -ourselves, our neighbors, our destiny, with lifted -and open eyes; see our history truly, in its great -proportions; be ourselves liberal as the great principles -we profess; and so be the people who might -have again the heroic adventures and do again the -heroic work of the past. ’Tis thus we shall renew -our youth and secure our age against decay.</p> - -<div class="chapter"><div class="transnote"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> - -<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected.</p> - -<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made -consistent when a predominant preference was found -in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.</p> -</div></div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MERE LITERATURE AND OTHER ESSAYS ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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