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The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of Autographs, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Title: A Book of Autographs
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
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<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<h4>
THE DOLIVER ROMANCE AND OTHER PIECES<br />
</h4>
<h4>
TALES AND SKETCHES<br />
</h4>
<h3>
By Nathaniel Hawthorne<br />
</h3>
<p>
<br />
</p>
<h2>
A BOOK OF AUTOGRAPHS<br />
</h2>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<p>
We have before us a volume of autograph letters, chiefly of soldiers and
statesmen of the Revolution, and addressed to a good and brave man,
General Palmer, who himself drew his sword in the cause. They are
profitable reading in a quiet afternoon, and in a mood withdrawn from too
intimate relation with the present time; so that we can glide backward
some three quarters of a century, and surround ourselves with the ominous
sublimity of circumstances that then frowned upon the writers. To give
them their full effect, we should imagine that these letters have this
moment been brought to town by the splashed and way-worn postrider, or
perhaps by an orderly dragoon, who has ridden in a perilous hurry to
deliver his despatches. They are magic scrolls, if read in the right
spirit. The roll of the drum and the fanfare of the trumpet is latent in
some of them; and in others, an echo of the oratory that resounded in the
old halls of the Continental Congress, at Philadelphia; or the words may
come to us as with the living utterance of one of those illustrious men,
speaking face to face, in friendly communion. Strange, that the mere
identity of paper and ink should be so powerful. The same thoughts might
look cold and ineffectual, in a printed book. Human nature craves a
certain materialism and clings pertinaciously to what is tangible, as if
that were of more importance than the spirit accidentally involved in it.
And, in truth, the original manuscript has always something which print
itself must inevitably lose. An erasure, even a blot, a casual
irregularity of hand, and all such little imperfections of mechanical
execution, bring us close to the writer, and perhaps convey some of those
subtle intimations for which language has no shape.
</p>
<p>
There are several letters from John Adams, written in a small, hasty,
ungraceful hand, but earnest, and with no unnecessary flourish. The
earliest is dated at Philadelphia, September 26, 1774, about twenty days
after the first opening of the Continental Congress. We look at this old
yellow document, scribbled on half a sheet of foolscap, and ask of it many
questions for which words have no response. We would fain know what were
their mutual impressions, when all those venerable faces, that have since
been traced on steel, or chiselled out, of marble, and thus made familiar
to posterity, first met one another's gaze! Did one spirit harmonize them,
in spite of the dissimilitude of manners between the North and the South,
which were now for the first time brought into political relations? Could
the Virginian descendant of the Cavaliers, and the New-Englander with his
hereditary Puritanism,—the aristocratic Southern planter, and the
self-made man from Massachusetts or Connecticut,—at once feel that
they were countrymen and brothers? What did John Adams think of Jefferson?—and
Samuel Adams of Patrick Henry? Did not North and South combine in their
deference for the sage Franklin, so long the defender of the colonies in
England, and whose scientific renown was already world-wide? And was there
yet any whispered prophecy, any vague conjecture, circulating among the
delegates, as to the destiny which might be in reserve for one stately
man, who sat, for the most part, silent among them?—what station he
was to assume in the world's history?—and how many statues would
repeat his form and countenance, and successively crumble beneath his
immortality?
</p>
<p>
The letter before us does not answer these inquiries. Its main feature is
the strong expression of the uncertainty and awe that pervaded even the
firm hearts of the Old Congress, while anticipating the struggle which was
to ensue. "The commencement of hostilities," it says, "is exceedingly
dreaded here. It is thought that an attack upon the troops, even should it
prove successful, would certainly involve the whole continent in a war. It
is generally thought that the Ministry would rejoice at a rupture in
Boston, because it would furnish an excuse to the people at home" [this
was the last time, we suspect, that John Adams spoke of England thus
affectionately], "and unite them in an opinion of the necessity of pushing
hostilities against us."
</p>
<p>
His next letter bears on the superscription, "Favored by General
Washington." The date is June 20, 1775, three days after the battle of
Bunker Hill, the news of which could not yet have arrived at Philadelphia.
But the war, so much dreaded, had begun, on the quiet banks of Concord
River; an army of twenty thousand men was beleaguering Boston; and here
was Washington journeying northward to take the command. It seems to place
us in a nearer relation with the hero, to find him performing the little
courtesy of leaving a letter between friend and friend, and to hold in our
hands the very document intrusted to such a messenger. John Adams says
simply, "We send you Generals Washington and Lee for your comfort"; but
adds nothing in regard to the character of the Commander-in-Chief. This
letter displays much of the writer's ardent temperament; if he had been
anywhere but in the hall of Congress, it would have been in the
intrenchment before Boston.
</p>
<p>
"I hope," he writes, "a good account will be given of Gage, Haldiman,
Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe, before winter. Such a wretch as Howe, with a
statue in honor of his family in Westminster Abbey, erected by the
Massachusetts, to come over with the design to cut the throats of the
Massachusetts people, is too much. I most sincerely, coolly, and devoutly
wish that a lucky ball or bayonet may make a signal example of him, in
warning to all such unprincipled, unsentimental miscreants for the
future!"
</p>
<p>
He goes on in a strain that smacks somewhat of aristocratic feeling: "Our
camp will be an illustrious school of military virtue, and will be
resorted to and frequented, as such, by gentlemen in great numbers from
the other colonies." The term "gentleman" has seldom been used in this
sense subsequently to the Revolution. Another letter introduces us to two
of these gentlemen, Messrs. Acquilla Hall and Josias Carvill, volunteers,
who are recommended as "of the first families in Maryland, and possessing
independent fortunes."
</p>
<p>
After the British had been driven out of Boston, Adams cries out,
"Fortify, fortify; and never let them get in again!" It is agreeable
enough to perceive the filial affection with which John Adams, and the
other delegates from the North, regard New England, and especially the
good old capital of the Puritans. Their love of country was hardly yet so
diluted as to extend over the whole thirteen colonies, which were rather
looked upon as allies than as composing one nation. In truth, the
patriotism of a citizen of the United States is a sentiment by itself of a
peculiar nature, and requiring a lifetime, or at least the custom of many
years, to naturalize it among the other possessions of the heart.
</p>
<p>
The collection is enriched by a letter dated "Cambridge, August 26, 1775"
from Washington himself. He wrote it in that house,—now so venerable
with his memory,—in that very room, where his bust now stands upon a
poet's table; from this sheet of paper passed the hand that held the
leading-staff! Nothing can be more perfectly in keeping with all other
manifestations of Washington than the whole visible aspect and embodiment
of this letter. The manuscript is as clear as daylight; the punctuation
exact, to a comma. There is a calm accuracy throughout, which seems the
production of a species of intelligence that cannot err, and which, if we
may so speak, would affect us with a more human warmth, if we could
conceive it capable of some slight human error. The chirography is
characterized by a plain and easy grace, which, in the signature, is
somewhat elaborated, and becomes a type of the personal manner of a
gentleman of the old school, but without detriment to the truth and
clearness that distinguish the rest of the manuscript. The lines are as
straight and equidistant as if ruled; and from beginning to end, there is
no physical symptom—as how should there be?—of a varying mood,
of jets of emotion, or any of those fluctuating feelings that pass from
the hearts into the fingers of common men. The paper itself (like most of
those Revolutionary letters, which are written on fabrics fit to endure
the burden of ponderous and earnest thought) is stout, and of excellent
quality, and bears the water-mark of Britannia, surmounted by the Crown.
The subject of the letter is a statement of reasons for not taking
possession of Point Alderton; a position commanding the entrance of Boston
Harbor. After explaining the difficulties of the case, arising from his
want of men and munitions for the adequate defence of the lines which he
already occupies, Washington proceeds: "To you, sir, who are a well-wisher
to the cause, and can reason upon the effects of such conduct, I may open
myself with freedom, because no improper disclosures will be made of our
situation. But I cannot expose my weakness to the enemy (though I believe
they are pretty well informed of everything that passes), by telling this
and that man, who are daily pointing out this, and that, and t' other
place, of all the motives that govern my actions; notwithstanding I know
what will be the consequence of not doing it,—namely, that I shall
be accused of inattention to the public service, and perhaps of want of
spirit to prosecute it. But this shall have no effect upon my conduct. I
will steadily (as far as my judgment will assist me) pursue such measures
as I think conducive to the interest of the cause, and rest satisfied
under any obloquy that shall be thrown, conscious of having discharged my
duty to the best of my abilities."
</p>
<p>
The above passage, like every other passage that could be quoted from his
pen, is characteristic of Washington, and entirely in keeping with the
calm elevation of his soul. Yet how imperfect a glimpse do we obtain of
him, through the medium of this, or any of his letters! We imagine him
writing calmly, with a hand that never falters; his majestic face neither
darkens nor gleams with any momentary ebullition of feeling, or
irregularity of thought; and thus flows forth an expression precisely to
the extent of his purpose, no more, no less. Thus much we may conceive.
But still we have not grasped the man; we have caught no glimpse of his
interior; we have not detected his personality. It is the same with all
the recorded traits of his daily life. The collection of them, by
different observers, seems sufficiently abundant, and strictly harmonizes
with itself, yet never brings us into intimate relationship with the hero,
nor makes us feel the warmth and the human throb of his heart. What can be
the reason? Is it, that his great nature was adapted to stand in relation
to his country, as man stands towards man, but could not individualize
itself in brotherhood to an individual?
</p>
<p>
There are two from Franklin, the earliest dated, "London, August 8, 1767,"
and addressed to "Mrs. Franklin, at Philadelphia." He was then in England,
as agent for the colonies in their resistance to the oppressive policy of
Mr. Grenville's administration. The letter, however, makes no reference to
political or other business. It contains only ten or twelve lines,
beginning, "My dear child," and conveying an impression of long and
venerable matrimony which has lost all its romance, but retained a
familiar and quiet tenderness. He speaks of making a little excursion into
the country for his health; mentions a larger letter, despatched by
another vessel; alludes with homely affability to "Mrs. Stevenson,"
"Sally," and "our dear Polly"; desires to be remembered to "all inquiring
friends"; and signs himself, "Your ever loving husband." In this conjugal
epistle, brief and unimportant as it is, there are the elements that
summon up the past, and enable us to create anew the man, his connections
and circumstances. We can see the sage in his London lodgings,—with
his wig cast aside, and replaced by a velvet cap,—penning this very
letter; and then can step across the Atlantic, and behold its reception by
the elderly, but still comely Madam Franklin, who breaks the seal and
begins to read, first remembering to put on her spectacles. The seal, by
the way, is a pompous one of armorial bearings, rather symbolical of the
dignity of the Colonial Agent, and Postmaster General of America, than of
the humble origin of the Newburyport printer. The writing is in the free,
quick style of a man with great practice of the pen, and is particularly
agreeable to the reader.
</p>
<p>
Another letter from the same famous hand is addressed to General Palmer,
and dated, "Passy, October 27, 1779." By an indorsement on the outside it
appears to have been transmitted to the United States through the medium
of Lafayette. Franklin was now the ambassador of his country at the Court
of Versailles, enjoying an immense celebrity, caressed by the French
ladies, and idolized alike by the fashionable and the learned, who saw
something sublime and philosophic even in his blue yarn stockings. Still,
as before, he writes with the homeliness and simplicity that cause a human
face to look forth from the old, yellow sheet of paper, and in words that
make our ears re-echo, as with the sound of his long-extinct utterance.
Yet this brief epistle, like the former, has so little of tangible matter
that we are ashamed to copy it.
</p>
<p>
Next, we come to the fragment of a letter by Samuel Adams; an autograph
more utterly devoid of ornament or flourish than any other in the
collection. It would not have been characteristic, had his pen traced so
much as a hair-line in tribute to grace, beauty, or the elaborateness of
manner; for this earnest-hearted man had been produced out of the past
elements of his native land, a real Puritan, with the religion of his
forefathers, and likewise with their principles of government, taking the
aspect of Revolutionary politics. At heart, Samuel Adams was never so much
a citizen of the United States, as he was a New-Englander, and a son of
the old Bay Province. The following passage has much of the man in it: "I
heartily congratulate you," he writes from Philadelphia, after the British
have left Boston, "upon the sudden and important change in our affairs, in
the removal of the barbarians from the capital. We owe our grateful
acknowledgments to Him who is, as he is frequently styled in Sacred Writ,
'The Lord of Hosts.' We have not yet been informed with certainty what
course the enemy have steered. I hope we shall be on our guard against
future attempts. Will not care be taken to fortify the harbor, and thereby
prevent the entrance of ships-of-war hereafter?"
</p>
<p>
From Hancock, we have only the envelope of a document "on public service,"
directed to "The Hon. the Assembly, or Council of Safety of New
Hampshire," and with the autograph affixed, that, stands out so
prominently in the Declaration of Independence. As seen in the engraving
of that instrument, the signature looks precisely what we should expect
and desire in the handwriting of a princely merchant, whose penmanship had
been practised in the ledger which he is represented as holding, in
Copley's brilliant picture, but to whom his native ability, and the
circumstances and customs of his country, had given a place among its
rulers. But, on the coarse and dingy paper before us, the effect is very
much inferior; the direction, all except the signature, is a scrawl, large
and heavy, but not forcible; and even the name itself, while almost
identical in its strokes with that of the Declaration, has a strangely
different and more vulgar aspect. Perhaps it is all right, and typical of
the truth. If we may trust tradition, and unpublished letters, and a few
witnesses in print, there was quite as much difference between the actual
man, and his historical aspect, as between the manuscript signature and
the engraved one. One of his associates, both in political life and
permanent renown, is said to have characterized him as a "man without a
head or heart." We, of an after generation, should hardly be entitled, on
whatever evidence, to assume such ungracious liberty with a name that has
occupied a lofty position until it, has grown almost sacred, and which is
associated with memories more sacred than itself, and has thus become a
valuable reality to our countrymen, by the aged reverence that clusters
round about it. Nevertheless, it may be no impiety to regard Hancock not
precisely as a real personage, but as a majestic figure, useful and
necessary in its way, but producing its effect far more by an ornamental
outside than by any intrinsic force or virtue. The page of all history
would be half unpeopled if all such characters were banished from it.
</p>
<p>
From General Warren we have a letter dated January 14, 1775, only a few
months before he attested the sincerity of his patriotism, in his own
blood, on Bunker Hill. His handwriting has many ungraceful flourishes. All
the small d's spout upward in parabolic curves, and descend at a
considerable distance. His pen seems to have had nothing but hair-lines in
it; and the whole letter, though perfectly legible, has a look of thin and
unpleasant irregularity. The subject is a plan for securing to the
colonial party the services of Colonel Gridley the engineer, by an appeal
to his private interests. Though writing to General Palmer, an intimate
friend, Warren signs himself, most ceremoniously, "Your obedient servant."
Indeed, these stately formulas in winding up a letter were scarcely laid
aside, whatever might be the familiarity of intercourse: husband and wife
were occasionally, on paper at least, the "obedient servants" of one
another; and not improbably, among well-bred people, there was a
corresponding ceremonial of bows and courtesies, even in the deepest
interior of domestic life. With all the reality that filled men's hearts,
and which has stamped its impress on so many of these letters, it was a
far more formal age than the present.
</p>
<p>
It may be remarked, that Warren was almost the only man eminently
distinguished in the intellectual phase of the Revolution, previous to the
breaking out of the war, who actually uplifted his arm to do battle. The
legislative patriots were a distinct class from the patriots of the camp,
and never laid aside the gown for the sword. It was very different in the
great civil war of England, where the leading minds of the age, when
argument had done its office, or left it undone, put on their steel
breastplates and appeared as leaders in the field. Educated young men,
members of the old colonial families,—gentlemen, as John Adams terms
them,—seem not to have sought employment in the Revolutionary army,
in such numbers as night have been expected. Respectable as the officers
generally were, and great as were the abilities sometimes elicited, the
intellect and cultivation of the country was inadequately represented in
them, as a body.
</p>
<p>
Turning another page, we find the frank of a letter from Henry Laurens,
President of Congress,—him whose destiny it was, like so many
noblemen of old, to pass beneath the Traitor's Gate of the Tower of
London,—him whose chivalrous son sacrificed as brilliant a future as
any young American could have looked forward to, in an obscure skirmish.
Likewise, we have the address of a letter to Messrs. Leroy and Bayard, in
the handwriting of Jefferson; too slender a material to serve as a
talisman for summoning up the writer; a most unsatisfactory fragment,
affecting us like a glimpse of the retreating form of the sage of
Monticello, turning the distant corner of a street. There is a scrap from
Robert Morris, the financier; a letter or two from Judge Jay; and one from
General Lincoln, written, apparently, on the gallop, but without any of
those characteristic sparks that sometimes fly out in a hurry, when all
the leisure in the world would fail to elicit them. Lincoln was the type
of a New England soldier; a man of fair abilities, not especially of a
warlike cast, without much chivalry, but faithful and bold, and carrying a
kind of decency and restraint into the wild and ruthless business of arms.
</p>
<p>
From good old Baron Steuben, we find, not a manuscript essay on the method
of arranging a battle, but a commercial draft, in a small, neat hand, as
plain as print, elegant without flourish, except a very complicated one on
the signature. On the whole, the specimen is sufficiently characteristic,
as well of the Baron's soldier-like and German simplicity, as of the
polish of the Great Frederick's aide-de-camp, a man of courts and of the
world. How singular and picturesque an effect is produced, in the array of
our Revolutionary army, by the intermingling of these titled personages
from the Continent of Europe, with feudal associations clinging about
them,—Steuben, De Kalb, Pulaski, Lafayette!—the German
veteran, who had written from one famous battle-field to another for
thirty years; and the young French noble, who had come hither, though yet
unconscious of his high office, to light the torch that should set fire to
the antiquated trumpery of his native institutions. Among these
autographs, there is one from Lafayette, written long after our
Revolution, but while that of his own country was in full progress. The
note is merely as follows: "Enclosed you will find, my dear Sir, two
tickets for the sittings of this day. One part of the debate will be on
the Honors of the Pantheon, agreeably to what has been decreed by the
Constitutional Assembly."
</p>
<p>
It is a pleasant and comfortable thought, that we have no such classic
folly as is here indicated, to lay to the charge of our Revolutionary
fathers. Both in their acts, and in the drapery of those acts, they were
true to their several and simple selves, and thus left nothing behind them
for a fastidious taste to sneer at. But it must be considered that our
Revolution did not, like that of France, go so deep as to disturb the
common-sense of the country.
</p>
<p>
General Schuyler writes a letter, under date of February 22, 1780,
relating not to military affairs, from which the prejudices of his
countrymen had almost disconnected him, but to the Salt Springs of
Onondaga. The expression is peculiarly direct, and the hand that of a man
of business, free and flowing. The uncertainty, the vague, hearsay
evidence respecting these springs, then gushing into dim daylight beneath
the shadow of a remote wilderness, is such as might now be quoted in
reference to the quality of the water that supplies the fountains of the
Nile. The following sentence shows us an Indian woman and her son,
practising their simple process in the manufacture of salt, at a fire of
wind-strewn boughs, the flame of which gleams duskily through the arches
of the forest: "From a variety of information, I find the smallest
quantity made by a squaw, with the assistance of one boy, with a kettle of
about ten gallons' capacity, is half a bushel per day; the greatest with
the same kettle, about two bushels." It is particularly interesting to
find out anything as to the embryo, yet stationary arts of life among the
red people, their manufactures, their agriculture, their domestic labors.
It is partly the lack of this knowledge—the possession of which
would establish a ground of sympathy on the part of civilized men—that
makes the Indian race so shadow-like and unreal to our conception.
</p>
<p>
We could not select a greater contrast to the upright and unselfish
patriot whom we have just spoken of, than the traitor Arnold, from whom
there is a brief note, dated, "Crown Point, January 19, 1775," addressed
to an officer under his command. The three lines of which it consists can
prove bad spelling, erroneous grammar, and misplaced and superfluous
punctuation; but, with all this complication of iniquity, the ruffian
General contrives to express his meaning as briefly and clearly as if the
rules of correct composition had been ever so scrupulously observed. This
autograph, impressed with the foulest name in our history, has somewhat of
the interest that would attach to a document on which a fiend-devoted
wretch had signed away his salvation. But there was not substance enough
in the man—a mere cross between the bull-dog and the fox—to
justify much feeling of any sort about him personally. The interest, such
as it is, attaches but little to the man, and far more to the
circumstances amid which he acted, rendering the villainy almost sublime,
which, exercised in petty affairs, would only have been vulgar.
</p>
<p>
We turn another leaf, and find a memorial of Hamilton. It is but a letter
of introduction, addressed to Governor Jay in favor of Mr. Davies, of
Kentucky; but it gives an impression of high breeding and courtesy, as
little to be mistaken as if we could see the writer's manner and hear his
cultivated accents, while personally making one gentleman known to
another. There is likewise a rare vigor of expression and pregnancy of
meaning, such as only a man of habitual energy of thought could have
conveyed into so commonplace a thing as an introductory letter. This
autograph is a graceful one, with an easy and picturesque flourish beneath
the signature, symbolical of a courteous bow at the conclusion of the
social ceremony so admirably performed. Hamilton might well be the leader
and idol of the Federalists; for he was pre-eminent in all the high
qualities that characterized the great men of that party, and which should
make even a Democrat feel proud that his country had produced such a noble
old band of aristocrats; and he shared all the distrust of the people,
which so inevitably and so righteously brought about their ruin. With his
autograph we associate that of another Federalist, his friend in life; a
man far narrower than Hamilton, but endowed with a native vigor, that
caused many partisans to grapple to him for support; upright, sternly
inflexible, and of a simplicity of manner that might have befitted the
sturdiest republican among us. In our boyhood we used to see a thin,
severe figure of an ancient mail, timeworn, but apparently indestructible,
moving with a step of vigorous decay along the street, and knew him as
"Old Tim Pickering."
</p>
<p>
Side by side, too, with the autograph of Hamilton, we would place one from
the hand that shed his blood. It is a few lines of Aaron Burr, written in
1823; when all his ambitious schemes, whatever they once were, had been so
long shattered that even the fragments had crumbled away, leaving him to
exert his withered energies on petty law cases, to one of which the
present note refers. The hand is a little tremulous with age, yet small
and fastidiously elegant, as became a man who was in the habit of writing
billet-doux on scented note-paper, as well as documents of war and state.
This is to us a deeply interesting autograph. Remembering what has been
said of the power of Burr's personal influence, his art to tempt men, his
might to subdue them, and the fascination that enabled him, though cold at
heart, to win the love of woman, we gaze at this production of his pen as
into his own inscrutable eyes, seeking for the mystery of his nature. How
singular that a character imperfect, ruined, blasted, as this man's was,
excites a stronger interest than if it had reached the highest earthly
perfection of which its original elements would admit! It is by the
diabolical part of Burr's character that he produces his effect on the
imagination. Had he been a better man, we doubt, after all, whether the
present age would not already have suffered him to wax dusty, and fade out
of sight, among the mere respectable mediocrities of his own epoch. But,
certainly, he was a strange, wild offshoot to have sprung from the united
stock of those two singular Christians, President Burr of Princeton
College, and Jonathan Edwards!
</p>
<p>
Omitting many, we have come almost to the end of these memorials of
historical men. We observe one other autograph of a distinguished soldier
of the Revolution, Henry Knox, but written in 1791, when he was Secretary
of War. In its physical aspect, it is well worthy to be a soldier's
letter. The hand is large, round, and legible at a glance; the lines far
apart, and accurately equidistant; and the whole affair looks not unlike a
company of regular troops in marching order. The signature has a
point-like firmness and simplicity. It is a curious observation, sustained
by these autographs, though we know not how generally correct, that
Southern gentlemen are more addicted to a flourish of the pen beneath
their names, than those of the North.
</p>
<p>
And now we come to the men of a later generation, whose active life
reaches almost within the verge of present affairs; people of dignity, no
doubt, but whose characters have not acquired, either from time or
circumstances, the interest that can make their autographs valuable to any
but the collector. Those whom we have hitherto noticed were the men of an
heroic age. They are departed, and now so utterly departed, as not even to
touch upon the passing generation through the medium of persons still in
life, who can claim to have known them familiarly. Their letters,
therefore, come to us like material things out of the hands of mighty
shadows, long historical, and traditionary, and fit companions for the
sages and warriors of a thousand years ago. In spite of the proverb, it is
not in a single day, or in a very few years, that a man can be reckoned
"as dead as Julius Caesar." We feel little interest in scraps from the
pens of old gentlemen, ambassadors, governors, senators, heads of
departments, even presidents though they were, who lived lives of
praiseworthy respectability, and whose powdered heads and black
knee-breeches have but just vanished out of the drawing-room. Still less
do we value the blotted paper of those whose reputations are dusty, not
with oblivious time, but with present political turmoil and newspaper
vogue. Really great men, however, seem, as to their effect on the
imagination, to take their place amongst past worthies, even while walking
in the very sunshine that illuminates the autumnal day in which we write.
We look, not without curiosity, at the small, neat hand of Henry Clay,
who, as he remarks with his habitual deference to the wishes of the fair,
responds to a young lady's request for his seal; and we dwell longer over
the torn-off conclusion of a note from Mr. Calhoun, whose words are
strangely dashed off without letters, and whose name, were it less
illustrious, would be unrecognizable in his own autograph. But of all
hands that can still grasp a pen, we know not the one, belonging to a
soldier or a statesman, which could interest us more than the hand that
wrote the following:
</p>
<p>
"Sir, your note of the 6th inst. is received. I hasten to answer that
there was no man 'in the station of colonel, by the name of J. T. Smith,'
under my command, at the battle of New Orleans; and am, respectfully,
</p>
<p class="noindent">
"Yours, ANDREW JACKSON.<br /> "OCT. 19th, 1833."
</p>
<p>
<br />
</p>
<p>
The old general, we suspect, has been insnared by a pardonable little
stratagem on the part of the autograph collector. The battle of New
Orleans would hardly have been won, without better aid than this
problematical Colonel J. T. Smith.
</p>
<p>
Intermixed with and appended to these historical autographs, there are a
few literary ones. Timothy Dwight—the "old Timotheus" who sang the
Conquest of Cancan, instead of choosing a more popular subject, in the
British Conquest of Canada—is of eldest date. Colonel Trumbull,
whose hand, at various epochs of his life, was familiar with sword, pen,
and pencil, contributes two letters, which lack the picturesqueness of
execution that should distinguish the chirography of an artist. The value
of Trumbull's pictures is of the same nature with that of daguerreotypes,
depending not upon the ideal but the actual. The beautiful signature of
Washington Irving appears as the indorsement of a draft, dated in 1814,
when, if we may take this document as evidence, his individuality seems to
have been merged into the firm of "P. E. Irving & Co." Never was
anything less mercantile than this autograph, though as legible as the
writing of a bank-clerk. Without apparently aiming at artistic beauty, it
has all the Sketch Book in it. We find the signature and seal of Pierpont,
the latter stamped with the poet's almost living countenance. What a
pleasant device for a seal is one's own face, which he may thus multiply
at pleasure, and send letters to his friends,—the Head without, and
the Heart within! There are a few lines in the school-girl hand of
Margaret Davidson, at nine years old; and a scrap of a letter from
Washington Allston, a gentle and delicate autograph, in which we catch a
glimpse of thanks to his correspondent for the loan of a volume of poetry.
Nothing remains, save a letter from Noah Webster, whose early toils were
manifested in a spelling-book, and those of his later age in a ponderous
dictionary. Under date of February 10, 1843, he writes in a sturdy,
awkward hand, very fit for a lexicographer, an epistle of old man's
reminiscences, from which we extract the following anecdote of Washington,
presenting the patriot in a festive light:—
</p>
<p>
"When I was travelling to the South, in the year 1783, I called on General
Washington at Mount Vernon. At dinner, the last course of dishes was a
species of pancakes, which were handed round to each guest, accompanied
with a bowl of sugar and another of molasses for seasoning them, that each
guest might suit himself. When the dish came to me, I pushed by me the
bowl of molasses, observing to the gentlemen present, that I had enough of
that in my own country. The General burst out with a loud laugh, a thing
very unusual with him. 'Ah,' said he, 'there is nothing in that story
about your eating molasses in New England.' There was a gentleman from
Maryland at the table; and the General immediately told a story, stating
that, during the Revolution, a hogshead of molasses was stove in, in West
Chester, by the oversetting of a wagon; and a body of Maryland troops
being near, the soldiers ran hastily, and saved all they could by filling
their hats or caps with molasses."
</p>
<p>
There are said to be temperaments endowed with sympathies so exquisite,
that, by merely handling an autograph, they can detect the writer's
character with unerring accuracy, and read his inmost heart as easily as a
less-gifted eye would peruse the written page. Our faith in this power, be
it a spiritual one, or only a refinement of the physical nature, is not
unlimited, in spite of evidence. God has imparted to the human soul a
marvellous strength in guarding its secrets, and he keeps at least the
deepest and most inward record for his own perusal. But if there be such
sympathies as we have alluded to, in how many instances would History be
put to the blush by a volume of autograph letters, like this which we now
close!
</p>
<p>
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
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