! LIBRARY 
 JNIVWSITY Of I 
 CALIFORNIA/ 
 
Largf^iOaprr Glutton 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF 
 
 THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON 
 VOLUME I 
 
Author s Autograph Copy 
 No. // 
 
 -J/W^aj (A/ e^Uj-cr+lKi 
 
t?J 
 
Cheerful Yesterdays 
 
 BY 
 
 Thomas Wentworth Higginson 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 at Ct)e fctocrstof 
 
 M D C C C C 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 TWO HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED 
 NUMBER 
 
PS 
 
 v, I 
 MAIW 
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 MARY THACHER HIGGINSON 
 
 WHOSE SUNNY INFLUENCE ADDS APPROPRIATENESS TO THB 
 
 TITLE, ADOPTED AT HER SUGGESTION, OF THIS BOOK 
 
 OF REMINISCENCES 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Ftbruary u, 1898 
 
 348 
 
NOTE 
 
 The chapters of this book have appeared at 
 short intervals in the " Atlantic Monthly " and 
 are here reprinted with careful revision and with 
 a few additions. Some of the latter are taken 
 from a sketch of the author s mother, published 
 originally in the "Ladies Home Journal." 
 These are here included by permission of the 
 proprietors of that periodical. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD I 
 
 II. A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 38 
 
 III. THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS .... 69 
 XV. THE REARING OF A REFORMER IOO 
 
 V. THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 132 
 
 VI. THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE .... 167 
 
 VII. KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 196 
 
 VIII. CIVIL WAR 235 
 
 IX. LITERARY LONDON TWENTY YEARS AGO . .27! 
 
 X. LITERARY PARIS TWENTY YEARS AGO . . 298 
 
 XI. ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE . . . 326 
 
 EPILOGUE 3^ 2 
 
 INDEX 3^5 
 
CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 
 
 IN introducing the imaginary Chronicles of 
 P. P., Clerk of this Parish, the poet Pope re 
 marks that any such book might well be in 
 scribed, " On the Importance of a Man to 
 Himself." Yet perhaps the first obstacle to be 
 encountered by any autobiographer is the sud 
 den sense of his own extreme unimportance. 
 Does each ant in an ant-hill yearn to bequeath 
 to the universe his personal reminiscences ? 
 When, at the dead of night, I hear my neigh 
 bors at the Harvard Observatory roll away 
 their lofty shutters, in preparation for their 
 accustomed tryst with the stars, it seems as 
 if one might well be content to keep silence 
 in the presence of the Pleiades. Yet, after all, 
 the telescope need only be reversed to make 
 the universe appear little, and the observer 
 large ; so that we may as well begin at the one 
 end as at the other. 
 
2 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 " Man is one world, and hath 
 Another to attend him." 
 
 Probably, if the truth were known, nothing in 
 the universe is really insignificant, not even 
 ourselves. 
 
 When I think of the vast changes which 
 every man of my time has seen, of the men 
 and women whom I have known, those who 
 created American literature and who freed 
 millions of slaves, men and women whom, 
 as the worldly-wise Lord Houghton once wrote 
 me, " Europe has learned to honor, and would 
 do well to imitate," then I feel that, whether 
 I will or no, something worth chronicling may 
 be included in the proposed chapters. For the 
 rest, the autobiographer has the least reason 
 of all writers to concern himself about the 
 portrayal of his own personality. He is sure 
 to reveal it, particularly if he tries to hide 
 it. Confucius asked, " How can a man be 
 concealed ? " Of all methods, certainly not by 
 writing his reminiscences. He can escape un 
 observed, or else mislead observers, only by 
 holding his tongue ; let him open his lips, and 
 we have him as he is. 
 
 All the scenes and atmosphere of one s 
 native village if one is fortunate enough to 
 have been born in such a locality lie around 
 the memory like the horizon line, unreachable, 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 3 
 
 impassable. Even a so-called cosmopolitan man 
 has never seemed to me a very happy being, 
 and a cosmopolitan child is above all things to 
 be pitied. To be identified in early memories 
 with some limited and therefore characteristic 
 region, that is happiness. No child is old 
 enough to be a citizen of the world. What 
 denationalized Americans hasten to stamp as 
 provincial is for children, at least, a saving 
 grace. You do not call a nest provincial. All 
 this is particularly true of those marked out by 
 temperament for a literary career. The pre 
 destined painter or musician needs an early 
 contact with the treasures and traditions of an 
 older world, but literature needs for its material 
 only men, nature, and books ; and of these, the 
 first two are everywhere, and the last are easily 
 transportable, since you can pile the few su 
 preme authors of the world in a little corner of 
 the smallest log cabin. The Cambridge of my 
 boyhood two or three thousand people 
 afforded me, it now seems, all that human heart 
 could ask for its elementary training. Those 
 who doubt it might, perchance, have been the 
 gainers if they had shared it. "He despises 
 me," said Ben Jonson, "because I live in an 
 alley. Tell him his soul lives in an alley." 
 
 I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 
 December 22, 1823, in a house built by my 
 
4 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 father at the head of what was then called 
 Professors Row, and is now Kirkland Street, 
 the street down which the provincial troops 
 marched to the battle of Bunker Hill, after halt 
 ing for prayer at the " gambrel-roofed house " 
 where Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was born. 
 My father s house now occupied by Mrs. 
 F. L. Batchelder was begun in i8i, when 
 the land was bought from Harvard College, 
 whose official he had just become. Already 
 the Scientific School and the Hemenway Gym 
 nasium crowd upon it, and the university will 
 doubtless, one of these days, engulf it once 
 more. My father came of a line of Puritan 
 clergymen, officials, militia officers, and latterly 
 East India merchants, all dating back to the 
 Rev. Francis Higginson, who landed at Salem 
 in 1629, in charge of the first large party for 
 the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and who made 
 that historic farewell recorded by Cotton Ma 
 ther, as his native shores faded away : " We 
 will not say, as the Separatists said, Farewell, 
 Rome ! Farewell, Babylon ! But we will say, 
 Farewell, dear England ! Farewell, the Chris 
 tian church in England, and all the Christian 
 friends there ! " 
 
 My father had been, like his father before 
 him, also named Stephen Higginson, and a 
 member of the Continental Congress in 1783, 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 5 
 
 - among the leading merchants of Boston, 
 until Jefferson s embargo brought a great 
 change in his fortunes. He had been unsur 
 passed in those generous philanthropies which 
 have given Boston merchants a permanent repu 
 tation ; he was, indeed, frequently mentioned 
 as his cousin, John Lowell, wrote of him 
 as the Howard or the Man of Ross of his 
 day. I still possess a fine oil painting of this 
 last hero of Pope s lay, a picture sent anony 
 mously to the house, during my father s life, 
 with the inscription that it was for a man who 
 "so eminently Copys the Fair Original." 
 Through inquiries very lately made at Ross in 
 England, I found with surprise that no picture 
 of the original "Man of Ross" remained in 
 the village ; and I was led to suspect that this 
 might be one of the two portraits which were 
 once there, but have disappeared. Mine is 
 certainly not that engraved in the " European 
 Magazine" for 1786, but a far more attractive 
 representation. My father retained warm 
 friends in his adversity, who bought for him 
 the land where the Cambridge house stood, 
 and secured for him the position of steward of 
 the college, the post now rechristened " bur 
 sar," and one in which he did, as Dr. A. P. 
 Peabody tells us, most of the duties of trea 
 surer. In that capacity he planted, as I have 
 
6 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 always been told, a large part of the trees In 
 the college yard, nobody in Cambridge ever 
 says " campus," and had also the wisdom to 
 hang a lamp over each entrance to the yard, 
 although these lamps were soon extinguished 
 by the economical college. He was ardently 
 interested in the early Unitarian division, then 
 pending, in the Congregational body; organ 
 ized the Harvard Divinity School, not then, 
 as now, undenominational ; and seems to have 
 been for some years a sort of lay bishop among 
 the Unitarian parishes, distributing young min 
 isters to vacant churches without fear or favor. 
 He liked to read theology, but was in no 
 respect a scholar; indeed, Dr. Peabody says 
 that, on receiving for the institution its first 
 supply of Hebrew Bibles, my father went to 
 the president, Dr. Kirkland, with some indig 
 nation, saying that the books must all be re 
 turned, since the careless printer had put all 
 the title-pages at the wrong end. In his adver 
 sity as in his wealth, he was a man of bound 
 less and somewhat impetuous kindness, and 
 espoused with such ardor the cause of Miss 
 Hannah Adams, the historian, against her rival 
 in that profession, the Rev. Dr. Morse, that he 
 was betrayed into a share in one or two vehe 
 ment pamphlets, and very nearly into a law 
 suit. 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 7 
 
 He died when I was nine years old, and my 
 main training came consequently from my mo 
 ther and my aunt Miss Anne G. Storrow, then 
 known to all the Cambridge world as " Aunt 
 Nancy," who was to my mother like a second 
 self in the rearing of her children. My mo 
 ther s early life was like a chapter in a romance. 
 Captain Thomas Storrow, an English officer, 
 being detained a prisoner at Portsmouth, N. H., 
 early in the Revolution, fell in love with a 
 maiden, who adventurously married him at the 
 age of seventeen, in 1777, and sailed with him 
 to England. These were my mother s parents. 
 The marriage had all the requisite elements of 
 romance youth, inexperience, two warring 
 nations, and two deeply dissatisfied families. 
 The bride, Anne Appleton, represented two of 
 the best families in the then somewhat aristo 
 cratic province of New Hampshire, the Apple- 
 tons and the Wentworths ; the latter, in par 
 ticular, holding their heads so high that they 
 were declared by a wicked Portsmouth wit to 
 speak habitually of Queen Elizabeth as " Cousin 
 Betsy Tudor." This was the nest in which my 
 grandmother had been reared. She had lived 
 from childhood in the house of her grandfather, 
 Judge Wentworth ; her great-grandfather was 
 the first of the three royal governors of that 
 name, and the two others were her near kins- 
 
8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 men. She might, indeed, have sat for the 
 heroine of Whittier s ballad, "Amy Went- 
 worth ; " but it was a soldier, not a sailor, whom 
 she married ; and when she went to England 
 fortunately under the proper escort of a kins 
 woman she was apparently received, both by 
 her husband s relatives and her own, with all 
 the warmth that might have been expected 
 that is, with none at all. Yet she had sweet 
 and winning qualities which finally triumphed 
 over all obstacles ; and her married life, though 
 full of vicissitudes, was, on the whole, happy. 
 They dwelt in England, in Jamaica, in St. 
 Andrews, in Campobello, then in Jamaica again, 
 Captain Storrow having in the meantime re 
 signed his commission, and having died at sea 
 on his passage to Boston, in 1795. My mother, 
 Louisa Storrow, had been born, meanwhile, at 
 St. Andrews, in 1786. 
 
 Among my mother s most vivid childish re 
 collections was that of being led, a weeping 
 child of nine, at the stately funeral of her father, 
 who was buried in Boston with military and 
 Masonic honors. After his death his young 
 widow opened a private school in Hingham, 
 Massachusetts, and through the influence of 
 kind friends in Boston, had boarding pupils 
 from that city, only twenty miles away, thus 
 laying for my mother the foundation of some 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 9 
 
 life-long friendships. This school has been 
 praised by Mr. Barnard, the historian of early 
 American education, as one of the best of the 
 dawning experiments toward the education of 
 girls. Mrs. Storrow, however, died within a 
 year and a half, and her little family were left 
 orphans among strangers or very recent friends. 
 Their chief benefactor was my father, into 
 whose family my mother was adopted, assist 
 ing in the care of his invalid wife and two little 
 girls. Nothing could at the time have been 
 less foreseen than the ultimate outcome of this 
 arrangement. My mother was betrothed at 
 fifteen or sixteen to a young man Edward 
 Cabot who was lost at sea ; a year or two 
 later her benefactress, my father s first wife, 
 died, and my mother remained in the house 
 hold as an adopted daughter, ultimately becom 
 ing, at the early age of nineteen, my father s 
 second wife. 
 
 My father was sixteen years older than my 
 mother, and into all his various interests she 
 was at once thrown as the young Lady Bounti 
 ful of the household. She also had the care of 
 two stepchildren, who all their lives thought of 
 her as their mother. My father lived in the 
 then fashionable region of Mt. Vernon Street, 
 in all the habits of affluence ; his hospitality 
 was inconveniently unbounded, and the young 
 
io CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 wife found herself presiding at large dinner 
 parties and at the sumptuous evening enter 
 tainments, then more in vogue than now. It 
 was the recorded verdict of the Hon. George 
 Cabot, the social monarch of that day in Bos 
 ton, that "no one received company better 
 than Mrs. Higginson," and those who knew 
 the unfailing grace and sweetness of her later 
 manner can well believe it. She had at this 
 time in their freshness certain points of physi 
 cal beauty which she retained unusually unim 
 paired until her latest years a noble forehead, 
 clear blue-gray eyes, a rose-tinted complexion, 
 soft brown hair, a pliant figure, with slender 
 hands and feet. 
 
 She had, in all, ten children of her own, of 
 whom I was the youngest. But before my 
 birth the whole scene had suddenly changed. 
 My father s whole fortune went when Jeffer 
 son s embargo came; his numerous vessels were 
 captured or valueless. He retired into the 
 country, living on a beautiful sheep-farm in 
 Bolton, Massachusetts, placed at his disposal 
 by a more fortunate friend, Mr. S. V. S. Wilder. 
 There lies before me my mother s diary at this 
 farm, which begins thus : " On Saturday, the 
 8th April, 1815, we left our home, endeared to 
 us by a long and happy residence and by the 
 society of many dear and kind friends, to make 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 11 
 
 trial of new scenes, new cares, and new duties ; 
 but though by this change we make some sac 
 rifices and have some painful regrets, we are 
 still experiencing the same goodness and mercy 
 which have hitherto crowned our lives with 
 happiness." "I always awake," she adds, 
 " calm and serene. My children occupy my 
 mind and my heart, and fill it with affection and 
 gratitude. They are healthy, innocent, and 
 happy, and I enjoy every moment of their 
 lives. Books are my recreation, and, next to 
 my children, my greatest source of pleasure. 
 I read Stewart s Philosophical Essays and 
 the Faerie Queene of Spenser, usually in 
 the evening, which is charmingly undisturbed. 
 This exemption from visitors is delightful to 
 me ; it gives me time to think and to read, and 
 I only hope that I shall improve all my advan 
 tages." She was at this time in her thirtieth 
 year, and in this sweet spirit laid down the ut 
 most that the little New England capital could 
 then afford of luxury and fashion. 
 
 Another change came soon, when she and 
 her flock were transferred, rather against her 
 will, to Cambridge, and placed in an official 
 position. My father s connection with the col 
 lege, and the popular qualities of my mother 
 and aunt, brought many guests to our house, 
 including the most cultivated men in Boston as 
 
12 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 well as Cambridge. My earliest documentary 
 evidence of existence on this planet is a note to 
 my father, in Edward Everett s exquisite hand 
 writing, inquiring after the health of the "babe," 
 and saying that Mrs. Everett was putting up 
 some tamarinds to accompany the note. The 
 precise object of the tamarinds I have never 
 clearly understood, but it is pleasant to think 
 that I was, at the age of seven months, assisted 
 toward maturity by this benefaction from a 
 man so eminent. Professor Andrews Norton 
 and George Ticknor habitually gave their own 
 writings ; and I remember Dr. J. G. Palfrey s 
 bringing to the house a new book, Hawthorne s 
 "Twice-Told Tales," and reading aloud "A Rill 
 from the Town Pump." Once, and once only, 
 Washington Irving came there, while visiting 
 a nephew who had married my cousin. Mar 
 garet Fuller, a plain, precocious, overgrown girl, 
 but already credited with unusual talents, used 
 to visit my elder sister, and would sometimes 
 sit on a footstool at my mother s feet, gazing 
 up at her in admiration. A younger sister of 
 Professor Longfellow was a frequent guest, and 
 the young poet himself came, in the dawning 
 of his yet undeveloped fame. My nurse was 
 a certain Rowena Pratt, wife of Dexter Pratt, 
 the " Village Blacksmith " of Longfellow ; and 
 it is my impression that she was married from 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 13 
 
 our house. It is amusing to remember that 
 Professor Longfellow once asked me, many 
 years after, what his hero s name was. My 
 special playmate, Charles Parsons, was a 
 nephew of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who 
 was in those years studying in Europe ; and 
 in the elder Dr. Holmes s house Charles Par 
 sons and I often " tumbled about in a library," 
 indeed, in the very same library where the 
 Autocrat had himself performed the process he 
 recommended. Under these circumstances it 
 seems very natural that a child thus moulded 
 should have drifted into a literary career. 
 
 The period here described was one when 
 children were taught to read very early, and 
 this in all parts of our country. The celebrated 
 General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, in South 
 Carolina, was reported by his mother in 1745 
 as " beginning to spell before he is two years 
 old ; " but he himself said, later, of this preco 
 cious teaching that it was "sad stuff," and 
 that " by haste to make him a clever fellow he 
 had very nearly become a stupid one." My 
 mother made a memorandum in regard to my 
 elder sister, " She knows all her letters at 
 three," and of me that at four I had already 
 "read a good many books." I still preserve 
 a penciled note from a little playmate, the 
 daughter of a professor, saying, "I am glad 
 
I 4 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 you are six years old. I shall be four in 
 March." My own daughter could not have 
 written that note when she was seven, and yet 
 she learned to read and write at that age almost 
 without conscious effort. I cannot see that my 
 contemporaries either gained or lost anything 
 by this precocious instruction ; and perhaps, in 
 the total development of a child s mind, the 
 actual reading of books plays a much smaller 
 part than we imagine. Probably the thing of 
 most importance, even with books, as an expe 
 rienced Boston teacher once said, is to have 
 been " exposed to them," to have unconsciously 
 received their flavor, as a pan of milk takes the 
 flavor of surrounding viands. To have lain on 
 the hearth-rug and heard one s mother read 
 aloud is a liberal education. When I remem 
 ber that my mother actually read to us in the 
 evenings every one of the Waverley Novels, 
 even down to "Castle Dangerous," I cannot 
 but regard with pity the children of to-day who 
 have no such privilege. 
 
 My father, in his days of affluence, had 
 bought a great many books in London, and 
 had them bound under his own eye in the solid 
 fashion of that day. Many of them were sold 
 in his adversity, yet nearly a thousand volumes 
 remained, chiefly of English literature and his 
 tory of the eighteenth century ; and most of 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 15 
 
 these I read. There was a fine set of Dr. 
 Johnson s works in a dozen volumes, with an 
 early edition of Boswell ; all of Hoole s Tasso 
 and Ariosto ; a charming little edition of the 
 British essayists, with pretty woodcuts ; Be 
 wick s Birds and Quadrupeds ; Raynal s Indies ; 
 the Anti-Jacobin ; Plutarch s Lives ; Dobson s 
 Life of Petrarch ; Marshall s and Bancroft s 
 Lives of Washington ; Miss Burney s and Miss 
 Edgeworth s works ; and " Sir Charles Grandi- 
 son." There were many volumes of sermons, 
 which my mother was fond of reading, she 
 was, I think, the last person who habitually read 
 them, but which I naturally avoided. There 
 were a good many pretty little Italian books, 
 belonging to one of my elder sisters, and a stray 
 volume of Goethe which had been used by 
 another. In out-of-the-way closets I collected 
 the disused classical textbooks of my elder 
 brothers, and made a little library to be pre 
 served against that magic period when I too 
 should be a "collegian." To these were to be 
 added many delightful volumes of the later Eng 
 lish poets, Collins, Goldsmith, Byron, Camp 
 bell, and others, given at different times to my 
 aunt by George Ticknor. In some of them 
 as in Byron s "Giaour" he had copied 
 additional stanzas, more lately published ; this 
 was very fascinating, for it seemed like poetry 
 
16 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 in the making. Later, the successive volumes of 
 Jared Sparks s historical biographies Wash 
 ington, Franklin, Morris, Ledyard, and the 
 " Library of American Biography " were all 
 the gift of their kindly author, who had often 
 brought whole parcels of Washington s and 
 Franklin s letters for my mother and aunt to 
 look over. A set of Scott s novels was given 
 to my elder brother by his life-long crony, John 
 Holmes. Besides all this, the family belonged 
 to a book club, the first, I believe, of the 
 now innumerable book clubs : of this my eld 
 est brother was secretary, and I was permitted 
 to keep, with pride and delight, the account of 
 the books as they came and went. Add to 
 this my mother s love of reading aloud, and it 
 will be seen that there was more danger, for 
 a child thus reared, of excess than of scarcity. 
 Yet as a matter of fact I never had books 
 enough, nor have I ever had to this day. 
 
 Seeing the uniform respect with which my 
 mother and aunt and elder sisters were treated 
 by the most cultivated men around us, I cannot 
 remember to have grown up with the slight 
 est feeling that there was any distinction of sex 
 in intellect. Why women did not go to college 
 was a point which did not suggest itself; but 
 one of my sisters studied German with Pro 
 fessor Charles Follen, while another took les- 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 17 
 
 sons in Latin and Italian from Professor Bachi 
 and in geometry from Professor Benjamin 
 Peirce. I forget where this especial sister 
 studied English, but she wrote for me all the 
 passages that were found worth applauding in 
 my commencement oration. Yet it is a curious 
 fact that I owe indirectly to a single remark 
 made by my mother all the opening of my eyes 
 to the intellectual disadvantages of her sex. 
 There came to Cambridge a very accomplished 
 stranger, Mrs. Rufus King, of Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 afterward Mrs. Peter, who established her 
 self there about 1837, directing the college 
 training of a younger brother, two sons, and 
 two nephews. No woman in Cambridge was 
 so highly educated ; and once, as she was 
 making some criticisms at our house upon the 
 inequalities between the sexes, my mother ex 
 claimed in her ardent way, "But only think, 
 Mrs. King, what an education you have ob 
 tained." "Yes," was the reply, "but how did 
 I obtain it ? " Then followed a tale almost as 
 pathetic as that told in Mrs. Somerville s auto 
 biography, of her own early struggles for know 
 ledge. I cannot now recall what she said, but 
 it sank into my heart, at the age of fifteen or 
 thereabouts ; and if I have ever done one thing 
 to secure to women better justice in any direc 
 tion, the first impulse came from that fortunate 
 question and reply. 
 
i8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 More important, however, than all this, to 
 my enjoyment, at least, was the musical atmo 
 sphere that pervaded the house. My young 
 est sister was an excellent pianist, one of 
 the first in this region to play Beethoven. 
 Among the many students who came to the 
 house there were three who played the flute 
 well, and they practiced trios with her accompa 
 niment. One of them was John Dwight, after 
 wards editor of the "Journal of Music," and 
 long the leading musical critic of Boston ; an 
 other was Christopher Pearse Cranch, poet and 
 artist ; and the third was William Habersham 
 from Savannah, who had a silver flute, of which 
 I remember John Dwight s saying, when it first 
 made its appearance, " It has a silver sound." 
 When I read in later years the experiences of 
 the music-loving boy in " Charles Auchester," 
 it brought back vividly the happiness with 
 which, when sent to bed at eight o clock, I used 
 to leave the door of my little bedroom ajar, in 
 order that I might go to sleep to music. 
 
 Greater still were the joy and triumph when 
 Miss Helen Davis, who was the musical queen 
 of our Cambridge world, came and filled the 
 house with her magnificent voice, singing in the 
 dramatic style then in vogue the highly senti 
 mental songs that rent my childish heart with a 
 touch of romance that happily has never faded 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 19 
 
 away: "The Breaking Waves Dashed High," 
 "The Outward Bound," "Love Not," "Fairy 
 Bells," " The Evening Gun," and dozens of 
 others, the slightest strain of which brings back 
 to me, after sixty years, every thrill of her voice, 
 every movement of her fine head. Strange 
 power of music, strange gift to be bestowed on 
 one who, when once away from the piano, was 
 simply a hearty, good-natured woman, without a 
 trace of inspiration! She was the sister of Lieu 
 tenant (afterwards Admiral) Davis, and his fine 
 naval achievements at Port Royal and Memphis 
 seemed only to put into " squadron-strophes " 
 the magnificent triumphs of her song. I still 
 recall the enchantment with which I heard, one 
 moonlit summer night, the fine old glee "To 
 Greece we give our Shining Blades," sung as 
 a serenade under my sister s window, by a quar 
 tette consisting of Miss Davis and her brother, 
 of Miss Harriet Mills, who afterwards became 
 his wife, and of William Story. I had never 
 before heard the song, and it made me feel, in 
 Keats s phrase, as if 1^ were going to a tour 
 nament. 
 
 I went to a woman s school till I was eight, 
 being then placed for five years, between the 
 ages of eight and thirteen, in the large private 
 school of William Wells, an institution which 
 was then regarded as being with the possible 
 
20 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 exception of the Boston Latin School the 
 best place in which to fit for Harvard Col 
 lege, and which was therefore much sought by 
 the best Boston families. Mr. Wells was an 
 Englishman of the old stamp, erect, vigorous, 
 manly, who abhorred a mean or cowardly boy 
 as he did a false quantity. The school was a 
 survival of a type which still lingers, I fancy, in 
 the British provinces, honest and genuine, 
 mainly physical in its discipline, and somewhat 
 brutal as to its boyish life and ways. Being a 
 day-scholar only, I escaped something of the 
 coarseness and actual demoralization which ex 
 isted there ; and thanks to an elder brother, 
 the strongest boy in the school, I went free of 
 the frequent pommeling visited by the larger 
 boys on the smaller. I will not go so far as 
 my schoolmate, the late Charles C. Perkins, 
 who used simply to say of it, when questioned 
 by his young sons, "My dears, it was hell;" 
 but even as a day-scholar I recall some aspects 
 of it with hearty dislike, and am glad that it 
 was my happy lot to have come no nearer. 
 The evil was, however, tempered by a great 
 deal of wholesome athletic activity, which Mr. 
 Wells encouraged : there was perpetual playing 
 of ball and of fascinating running games ; and 
 we were very likely to have an extra half -holi 
 day when skating or coasting was good. 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 21 
 
 There was no real cruelty in the discipline of 
 the school, though I have sometimes seen 
 this attributed to it, as in Adams s " Life of 
 Richard Dana," but Mr. Wells carried always 
 a rattan in his hand, and it descended frequently 
 on back and arm. Being very fond of study and 
 learning easily, I usually escaped the rod ; but 
 I can see now that its very presence was some 
 what degrading to boyish nature. Mr. Wells 
 taught us absolutely nothing but Latin and 
 Greek, yet these he inculcated most faithfully, 
 and I have heretofore described, in an essay 
 " On an Old Latin Text Book," the joy I took 
 in them. I well remember that on first being 
 promoted to translating English into Greek, I 
 wrote on and on, purely for pleasure, doing the 
 exercises for days in advance. I should add 
 that he taught us to write from copies set by 
 himself in a clear and beautiful handwriting, 
 and that we were supposed to learn something 
 of history by simply reading aloud in class from 
 Russell s " Modern Europe ; " this being, after 
 all, not so bad a way. It must not be forgotten 
 that he bestowed a positive boon upon ic\by 
 producing a Latin grammar of his own, so bi^ef 
 and simple that when I was afterwards callcl 
 upon to administer to pupils the terrible manual 
 of Andrews and Stoddard, it seemed to me, as 
 indeed it has always since seemed, a burden 
 
22 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 too intolerable to be borne. French was taught 
 by his eldest daughter, an excellent woman, 
 though she sometimes had a way of tapping 
 little boys on the head with her thimble ; and 
 mathematics we received from a succession of 
 Harvard students, thimbleless. For a time, 
 one fair girl, Mary Story William Story s sis 
 ter, and afterwards Mrs. George Ticknor Curtis 
 glided in to her desk in the corner, that* 
 she might recite Virgil with the older class. 
 
 But in general the ill effect of a purely mas 
 culine world was very manifest in the school, 
 and my lifelong preference for co-education 
 was largely based upon what I saw there. I 
 could not help noticing and indeed observed 
 the same thing in another boarding-school, 
 where I taught at a later day the greater re 
 finement, and I may say civilization, of the day- 
 scholars, who played with their sisters at home, 
 as compared with those little exiles who had no 
 such natural companionship. I must not for 
 get one almost romantic aspect of the school 
 in the occasional advent of Spanish boys, usually 
 fre Porto Rico, who were as good as dime 
 navels to us, with their dark skins and sonorous 
 .rlames, Victoriano Rosello, Magin Rigual, Pe 
 dro Mangual. They swore superb Spanish oaths, 
 which we naturally borrowed ; and they once 
 or twice drew knives upon one another, with 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 23 
 
 an air which the " Pirates Own Book " offered 
 nothing to surpass. Nor must I forget that 
 there were also in the school certain traditions, 
 superstitions, even mechanical contrivances, 
 which were not known in the world outside. 
 There were mechanisms of pulleys for keeping 
 the desk-lid raised ; the boys made for them 
 selves little two-wheeled trucks to ride upon, 
 and every seat in the school was perforated 
 with two small holes for needles, to be worked 
 by a pulley, for the sudden impaling of a fel 
 low student, or even of the mathematical usher. 
 Enormous myths existed as to what had been 
 done, in the way of rebellion, by the pupils of a 
 previous generation ; and the initials of older 
 students still remained carved in vast confusion 
 on the end of the woodshed, like the wall which 
 commemorates Canning and Byron at Harrow. 
 Above all, a literature circulated under the 
 desks, to be read surreptitiously, such books 
 as those to which Emerson records his grati 
 tude at the Latin School ; fortunately nothing 
 pernicious, yet much that was exciting, includ 
 ing little dingy volumes of "Baron TrencV 
 and " Rinaldo Rinaldini," and " The Three 
 Spaniards," and "The Devil on Two Sticks." 
 Can these be now found at any bookstore, I 
 wonder, or have the boys of the present gen 
 eration ever heard of them ? 
 
24 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 But the most important portion of a boy s 
 life is perhaps his outdoor training, since to live 
 out of doors is to be forever in some respects 
 a boy. " Who could be before me, though the 
 palace of the Caesars crackt and split with em 
 perors, while I, sitting in silence on a cliff of 
 Rhodes, watcht the sun as he swang his golden 
 censer athwart the heavens ? " Landor s hero 
 was not happier than my playmate, Charles 
 Parsons, and myself, as we lay under Lowell s 
 willows "at the causey s end," after a day at 
 Mount Auburn, then Sweet Auburn still, 
 to sort out our butterflies in summer or divide 
 our walnuts in autumn, while we chanted uproar 
 iously the " Hunter s Chorus : " 
 
 " We roam through the forest and over the mountain ; 
 No joy of the court or banquet like this." 
 
 We always made a pause after the word " court," 
 and supposed ourselves to be hurling defiance 
 at monarchies. 
 
 Every boy of active tastes and mine were 
 eminently such must become the one thing 
 or the other, either a sportsman or a naturalist ; 
 and I have never regretted that it was my lot to 
 become the latter. My fellow townsman, Dr. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, describes himself as 
 wandering along our native stream " with reek 
 ing sandal and superfluous gun." My sandals 
 suffered, also, but I went with butterfly-net and 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 25 
 
 tin botanical box. Perhaps these preoccupied 
 me before I yearned after field-sports, or per 
 haps there was no real yearning. I can remem 
 ber that as a child I sometimes accompanied an 
 elder brother or cousin to pick up the birds he 
 shot, though he rarely seemed to shoot any ; 
 but there occurred an event which, slight as it 
 was, damped all longing to emulate him. Com 
 ing down what is now Divinity Avenue with an 
 older boy, George Ware, who rejoiced in a bow 
 and arrow, we stopped under the mulberry-tree 
 which still stands at the entrance of the street, 
 and he aimed at a beautiful crested cedar-bird 
 which was feeding on the mulberries. By some 
 extraordinary chance he hit it, and down came 
 the pretty creature, fluttering and struggling 
 in the air, with the cruel arrow through its 
 breast. I do not know whether the actual 
 sportsman suffered pangs of remorse, but I 
 know that I did, and feel them yet. After 
 wards I read with full sympathy Bettine Bren- 
 tano s thoughts about the dead bird: "God 
 gives him wings, and I shoot him down; that 
 chimes not in tune." I later learned from Tho- 
 reau to study birds through an opera-glass. 
 
 It may appear strange that with this feeling 
 about birds I seemed to have no such vivid 
 feeling about fishes or insects. Perhaps it was 
 because they are so much farther from the 
 
26 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 human, and touch the imagination less. I 
 could then fish all day by the seashore and could 
 collect insects without hesitation, always be 
 ing self-limited in the latter case to two speci 
 mens of each species. Since the Civil War, how 
 ever, I find that I can do neither of these things 
 without compunction, and was pleased to hear 
 from that eminent officer and thoroughly manly 
 man, General Francis A. Walker, that the war 
 had a similar effect on him. "Dulce bellum 
 inexpertis." It has been a source of happiness 
 for life to have acquired such early personal 
 acquaintance with the numberless little people 
 of the woods and mountains. Every spring 
 they come out to meet me, each a familiar 
 friend, unchanged in a world where all else 
 changes ; and several times in a year I dream 
 by night of some realm gorgeous with gayly 
 tinted beetles and lustrous butterflies. Wild 
 flowers, also, have been a lasting delight, though 
 these are a little less fascinating than insects, 
 as belonging to a duller life. Yet I associate 
 with each ravaged tract in my native town the 
 place where vanished flowers once grew, the 
 cardinal flowers and gentians in the meadows, 
 the gay rhexia by the woodside, and the tall 
 hibiscus by the river. 
 
 Being large and tolerably strong, I loved all 
 kinds of athletic exercises, and learned to swim 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 27 
 
 in the river near where Professor Horsford s 
 active imagination has established the " Lief s 
 booths " of the Norse legends. There have 
 been few moments in life which ever gave a 
 sense of conquest and achievement so delicious 
 as when I first clearly made my way through 
 water beyond my depth, from one sedgy bank 
 to another. Skating was learned on Craigie s 
 Pond, now drained, and was afterwards prac 
 ticed on the beautiful black ice of Fresh Pond. 
 We played baseball and football, and a modified 
 cricket, and on Saturdays made our way to the 
 tenpin alleys at Fresh Pond or Porter s Tavern. 
 My father had an old white pony which pa 
 tiently ambled under me, and I was occasionally 
 allowed to borrow Dr. Webster s donkey, the 
 only donkey I had ever seen. Sometimes we 
 were taken to Nahant for a day by the seaside, 
 and watched there the swallows actually building 
 their nests in Swallows Cave, whence they have 
 long since vanished. Perhaps we drove down 
 over the interminable beach, but we oftener 
 went in the steamboat ; and my very earliest 
 definite recollection is that of being afraid to 
 go down into the cabin for dinner because a 
 black waiter the first I ever saw had just 
 gone down, and I was afraid. Considering how 
 deeply I was to cast in my lot with the black 
 race in later years, it seems curious that the 
 
28 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 acquaintance should have begun with this un 
 substantial and misplaced alarm. Probably the 
 fact was fixed firmly in memory by the result 
 ing hunger. 
 
 It was a great advantage for outdoor training 
 that my school was a mile off, and I paced the 
 distance to and fro, twice a day, through what 
 was then a rural region interspersed with a 
 few large houses of historical associations. The 
 great colonial residences on Tory Row, of which 
 Craigie House was only one, always impressed 
 the imagination. Sometimes I had companions, 
 my elder brother for a time, and his class 
 mates, Lowell and Story. I remember tread 
 ing along close behind them once, as they dis 
 cussed Spenser s "Faerie Queene," which they 
 had been reading, and which led us younger 
 boys to christen a favorite play-place "the 
 Bower of Blisse." Story was then a conspicu 
 ously handsome boy, with a rather high-bred 
 look, and overflowing with fun and frolic, as 
 indeed he was during his whole life. Lowell 
 was at that time of much more ordinary ap 
 pearance, short and freckled, and a secondary 
 figure beside Story ; yet in later life, with his 
 fine eyes and Apollo -like brow, he became 
 much the more noticeable of the two, as he 
 was certainly far superior in genius. 
 
 Oftener I went alone. Sometimes I made 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 29 
 
 up stories as I went, usually magnifying little 
 incidents or observations of my own into some 
 prolonged tale with a fine name, having an im 
 aginary hero. For a long time his name was 
 D Arlon, from the person of that name in 
 Taylor s "Philip van Artevelde," which my 
 mother was reading to us. In these imagin 
 ings all the small wrongs and failures of my 
 life were retrieved. D Arlon went through 
 the same incidents with myself, but uniformly 
 succeeded where I had failed, and came out of 
 the crisis with the unerring certainty of one of 
 Stanley Weyman s heroes. One of my chief 
 playmates, Thornton Ware, a handsome boy 
 with curly black hair, the admiration of all 
 little girls, might easily distance me in their 
 regard, but had no chance whatever against 
 the imaginary D Arlon. At other times I had 
 no material for a story, but watched the robins, 
 the bluebirds, and above all the insects, acquir 
 ing an eagle eye for a far-off moth or beetle on 
 fence or wall. I remember that at the corner 
 where Craigie Street now turns off from Brattle 
 Street, there was a clump of milkweed, where 
 every day there was some new variety of spot 
 ted ladybird (coccinella or chrysomeld) ; and I 
 remember pondering, as I compared them, with 
 pre-Danvinian wonder, whether they were all 
 created from the beginning as separate species, 
 
30 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 or were somehow developed from one another. 
 On other days I played a game of football a 
 mile long, trying to kick before me some par 
 ticular stone or horse-chestnut for the whole 
 distance from the school door to my own 
 gate; sometimes betting heavily with myself, 
 and perhaps losing manfully, like Dick Swiv- 
 eller at his solitary cribbage. Then in winter 
 there was always the hope of " punging," get 
 ting a ride on the runners of a sleigh, or hitch 
 ing my sled behind some vehicle ; and in spring 
 that of riding with the driver of an empty 
 ice-cart or walking beside a full one, and watch 
 ing the fine horses that then, in endless pro 
 cession, drew heavy wagons bearing the winter 
 harvest of Fresh Pond to be shipped to distant 
 lands. 
 
 My most immediate playmate was the next- 
 door neighbor, already mentioned, who in later 
 life was a medical professor in Brown Univer 
 sity. He was a prim, grave little boy, and was 
 called " old-fashioned ; " he was very preco 
 cious, and though only three months older than 
 myself was a year before me in college, graduat 
 ing at just seventeen, each of us being the 
 youngest in our respective classes. There was 
 between our houses only the field now occupied 
 by the Hemenway Gymnasium and the Scien 
 tific School; and while we were not school- 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 31 
 
 mates, we were almost constantly together out 
 of school hours. Many an hour we spent por 
 ing over the pictures in the large old Rees Cy 
 clopaedia ; afterwards, when weary, piling up the 
 big volumes for fortifications, to be mutually 
 assailed by cannonading apples from a perpetual 
 barrel in the closet. Meanwhile, the kindly 
 old grandfather, working away at his sermons 
 or his " American Annals," never seemed dis 
 turbed by our romping ; and I remember viv 
 idly one winter evening, when he went to the 
 window, and, scratching with his knife-blade 
 through the thick frost, shaped the outlines of 
 rough brambles below, and made a constella 
 tion of stars above, with the added motto, " Per 
 aspera ad astra," then explaining to us its 
 meaning, that through difficulties we must seek 
 the stars. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that we did not 
 have, sixty years ago in New England, associa 
 tions already historic. At home we had vari 
 ous family portraits of ancestors in tie-wigs or 
 powdered hair. We knew the very treasures 
 which Dr. Holmes describes as gathered in his 
 attic, and never were tired of exploring old 
 cupboards and hunting up traditions. We de 
 lighted to pore over the old flat tombstones in 
 the Old Cambridge cemetery, stones with long 
 Latin inscriptions, on which even the language 
 
32 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 is dead, celebrating virtues ending in issimus 
 and errimus. The most impressive of all was 
 the Vassall monument, raised on pillars above 
 the rest, and bearing no words, only the carved 
 goblet and sun (Vas - sol), the monument 
 beneath which lie, according to tradition, the 
 bodies of two slaves : 
 
 " At her feet and at her head 
 Lies a slave to attend the dead, 
 But their dust is white as hers." 
 
 This poem was not yet written, but Holmes s 
 verses on this churchyard were familiar on our 
 lips, and we sighed with him over his sister s 
 grave, and over the stone where the French 
 exile from Honfleur was buried and his epitaph 
 was carved in French. Moreover, the "ever- 
 roaming girls " whom Holmes exhorted to bend 
 over the wall and " sweep the simple lines " 
 with the floating curls then fashionable, these 
 were our own neighbors and sweethearts, and it 
 all seemed in the last degree poetic and charm 
 ing. More suggestive than all these were the 
 eloquent fissures in the flat stones where the 
 leaden coats of arms had been pried out to be 
 melted into bullets for the Continental army. 
 And it all so linked us with the past that when, 
 years after, I stood outside the Temple Church 
 in London, and, looking casually down, saw be 
 neath my feet the name of Oliver Goldsmith, 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 33 
 
 it really gave no more sense of a dignified his 
 toric past than those stones at my birthplace. 
 Nor did it actually carry me back so far in 
 time. 
 
 In the same way, our walks, when not di 
 rected toward certain localities for rare flow 
 ers or birds or insects, as to Mount Auburn 
 sands, now included in the cemetery of that 
 name, or the extensive jungle north of Fresh 
 Pond, where the herons of Longfellow s poem 
 had their nests, were more or less guided 
 by historic objects. There was the pictur 
 esque old Revolutionary Powder Mill in what 
 is now Somerville, or the remains of redoubts 
 on Winter Hill, where we used to lie along 
 the grassy slopes and repel many British on 
 slaughts. Often we went to the fascinating 
 wharves of Boston, then twice as long as now, 
 and full of sea-smells and crossed yards and 
 earringed sailors. A neighbor s boy had the 
 distinction of being bad enough to be actually 
 sent to sea for a dubious reformation ; and 
 though, when he came back, I was forbidden 
 to play with him, on the ground that he not 
 only swore, but carried an alleged pistol, yet it 
 was something to live on the same street with 
 one so marked out from the list of common 
 boys, and to watch him from afar exhibiting to 
 youths of laxer training what seemed to be the 
 
34 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 weapon. I may here add that the only other 
 child with whom I was forbidden to play be 
 came in later life an eminent clergyman. 
 
 Once we undertook to go as far as Bunker 
 Hill, and were ignominiously turned back by 
 a party of Charlestown boys, " Charlestown 
 pigs," as they were then usually and affec 
 tionately called, who charged us with being 
 "Port chucks" (that is, from Cambridgeport) 
 or " Pointers " (that is, from Lechmere Point, 
 or East Cambridge), and ended with the mild 
 torture of taking away our canes. Or we 
 would visit the ruins of the Ursuline Convent, 
 whose flames I had seen from our front door in 
 Cambridge, standing by my mother s side ; all 
 that I had read of persecutions not implanting 
 so lasting a love of liberty as that one spectacle. 
 I stood by her also the day after, when she 
 went out to take the gauge of public opinion 
 in consultation with the family butcher, Mr. 
 Houghton ; and I saw her checkmated by his 
 leisurely retort, "Wai, I dunno, Mis Higgin- 
 son ; I guess them biships are pretty dissipated 
 characters." The interest was enhanced by 
 the fact that a youthful Cambridge neighbor, 
 Maria Fay, was a pupil in the school at the 
 time, and was held up by the terrified precep 
 tress to say to the rioters, "My father is a 
 judge, and if you don t go away he will put you 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 35 
 
 all in j ail" The effect of the threat may have 
 been somewhat impaired by the fact that her 
 parent was but a peaceful judge of probate, and 
 could only have wreaked his vengeance on their 
 last wills and testaments. At any rate, there 
 stood the blackened walls for many years, until 
 the bricks were used in building the inside 
 walls of the cathedral towers in Boston ; and 
 there was no other trace of the affray, except 
 the inscription " Hell to the Pope," scrawled 
 in charcoal on a bit of lingering plaster. We 
 gazed at it with awe, as if it were a memorial 
 of Bloody Mary with a difference. 
 
 Greatly to my bliss, I escaped almost abso 
 lutely all those rigors of the old New England 
 theology which have darkened the lives of so 
 many. I never heard of the Five Points of 
 Calvinism until maturity ; never was converted, 
 never experienced religion. We were expected 
 to read the New Testament, but there was 
 nothing enforced about the Old, and we were 
 as fortunate as a little girl I have since known, 
 who was sure that there could be no such place 
 as hell, because their minister had never men 
 tioned it. Even Sunday brought no actual 
 terrors. I have the sweetest image of my 
 mother sitting ready dressed for church, before 
 my sisters had descended, and usually bearing 
 a flower in her hand. In winter we commonly 
 
36 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 drove to the parish church in an open sleigh, 
 and once had an epoch-making capsize into a 
 snowdrift. As I was seized by the legs and 
 drawn forth, I felt like the hero of one of the 
 Waverley novels, and as if I had been in Rob 
 Roy s cave. No doubt we observed the Sab 
 bath after a mild fashion, for I once played a 
 surreptitious game of ball with my brother 
 behind the barn on that day, and it could not 
 have made me so very happy had it not been, 
 as Emerson says, " drugged with the relish of 
 fear and pain." Yet I now recall with pleasure 
 that while my mother disapproved of all but 
 sacred music on Sunday, she ruled that all good 
 music was sacred ; and that she let us play on 
 Sunday evening a refreshing game of cards, 
 geographical cards, from which we learned 
 that the capital of Dahomey was Abomey. 
 Compared with the fate of many contempo 
 raries, what soothing and harmless chains were 
 these ! 
 
 In all these early recollections there has been 
 small mention of the other sex, and yet that 
 sweet entity was to me, and in fact to all of 
 us boys, a matter of most momentous import 
 ance. We were all, it now seems to me, a set of 
 desperate little lovers, with formidable rivalries, 
 suspicions, and jealousies ; and we had names 
 of our own devising for each juvenile maiden, 
 
A CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD 37 
 
 by which she could be mentioned without peril 
 of discovery. One of the older boys, being of 
 a peculiarly inventive turn, got up a long and 
 imaginary wooing of a black-eyed damsel who 
 went to school in Cambridge. He showed us 
 letters and poems, and communicated all the 
 ups and downs of varying emotion. They were 
 finally separated, amid mutual despair, and I do 
 not suppose that she had ever known him by 
 sight. We had our share of dancing-schools, 
 always in private houses, taught sometimes by 
 the elder Papanti, and sometimes by a most 
 graceful woman, Miss Margaret Davis, sister of 
 the songstress I have described. We had May 
 day parties, usually at Mount Auburn, and 
 showed in the chilly May mornings that heroic 
 courage which Lowell plaintively attributes to 
 children on these occasions. But all this sport 
 ing with Amaryllis soon became secondary for 
 us, being Cambridge boys, to the great realm 
 of academical life, to which no girls might then 
 aspire. That vast mysterious region lies always 
 before the boy who is bred in a college town, 
 alluring, exciting, threatening, as the sea lies 
 before the sailor s son. One by one he sees 
 his elder playmates glide away upon it, until at 
 last his turn comes ; and before I was fourteen 
 I myself was launched. 
 
II 
 
 A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 
 
 I COME back to Cambridge every autumn, 
 when the leaves are falling from the trees, and 
 the old university, like the weird witch-hazel 
 in the groves, puts out fresh blossoms at the 
 season when all else grows sere. It is a never 
 failing delight to behold the hundreds of new 
 comers who then throng our streets : boys with 
 smooth and unworn faces, full of the zest of 
 their own being, taking the whole world as 
 having been made for them, which indeed it 
 was ; willing to do any needful kindness to 
 an elder human being, as in rescuing him from 
 carriage-wheels or picking him out of the mud, 
 but otherwise as wholesomely indifferent to his 
 very existence as if he were a lamp-post or a 
 horseless vehicle. If he be wise, he joyfully ac 
 cepts the situation, and takes in it something of 
 the pride which a father feels when his young 
 est son overtops him by a head. Instead of 
 grudging to the new-comers this empire of the 
 immediate future, I feel always impelled to wel 
 come them to it ; in behalf of the human race, 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 39 
 
 I rejoice to see its vigor so lustily maintained ; 
 the visible self-confidence is well founded, and 
 has the facts on its side. The future is theirs 
 to command, not ours ; it belongs to them even 
 more than they think it does, and this is un 
 doubtedly saying a good deal. 
 
 This ready self-subordination to these kings 
 of to-morrow may come, in my own case, from 
 the fact that I am, more than any one else 
 now living in Cambridge, except perhaps John 
 Holmes and Professor Norton, a child of the 
 college; and the latter is my junior, and was 
 once in my eyes one of these very boys. All 
 three of us were, so to speak, born in the col 
 lege, bred to it, and interested from earliest 
 recollection in its men. Never having been 
 or having wished to be one of its officials, I 
 look upon its annual harvest of youthful life 
 with all the more dispassionate interest. Liv 
 ing in a college town is, after all, very much 
 like dwelling just outside of a remarkably large 
 glass beehive, where one can watch all day 
 long the busy little people inside; can see 
 them going incessantly to and fro at their 
 honey-making, pausing occasionally to salute 
 or sting one another and all without the 
 slightest peril to the beholder. Life becomes 
 rich in this safe and curious contemplation, and 
 this is a pursuit which every boy in a college 
 
40 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 town begins very early. It was thus that 
 Charles Parsons and I, from the time we were 
 allowed to go alone in the street, studied the 
 little academical world on whose edge we dwelt. 
 
 At ten years of age, it is certain, we could 
 repeat the list of every undergraduate class 
 alphabetically, and prided ourselves on knowing 
 every student by sight. This was not so in 
 credible as it would now seem, for the classes 
 rarely had more than fifty each, the whole 
 college counting little more than half as many 
 as a single class now numbers. All these 
 young fellows we not merely knew by sight, but 
 studied individually, their nicknames, their 
 games, their individual haunts ; we watched 
 them at football or cricket ; had our favorites 
 and our aversions ; waited anxiously for the 
 time when, once or twice a year, the professor 
 of chemistry gave many of them " exhilarat 
 ing gas," as it was called, on the triangle then 
 known as the Delta, and they gesticulated, 
 made speeches, or recited poetry, as uncon 
 scious of their self - revelation as an autobi- 
 ographer. 
 
 Sometimes in summer evenings for the 
 college term then lasted until the middle of 
 July we would amuse ourselves by selecting 
 in the street some single student, and trailing 
 him from place to place, like the Indians of 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 41 
 
 whom we had read in Cooper s novels ; follow 
 ing wherever he went, watching, waiting, often 
 losing and then finding him again, and perhaps 
 delaying our own early bedtime that we might 
 see him through some prolonged evening call, 
 though he was all unconscious of our watch 
 ful care. I can still breathe the aroma of the 
 lilac-bushes among which we ensconced our 
 selves, and can catch a glimpse of the maiden 
 who possibly appeared at the door to bid him 
 a demure good -night. On other days there 
 was the Harvard Washington Corps, or college 
 military company, to be watched at its drill on 
 the common, or on its proud march to the sub 
 urban tavern where it dined, Porter s, at what 
 is now North Cambridge, and on its some 
 times devious return. O ecstasy of childish 
 love for costume and rhythm and glory ! In 
 later life I have ridden at the head of a thou 
 sand marching men, and felt no such sense of 
 exaltation above the low earth as when I first 
 saw my favorite elder brother, in the prescribed 
 white trousers and black coat, with epaulets 
 and befrogged sleeves, parading as second lieu 
 tenant before one of the swaying platoons of 
 the " College Company." 
 
 With all this precocious interest in the 
 students, it is needless to say that I awaited 
 with absorbing eagerness the time when I 
 
42 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 should enter that great little world into which 
 my immediate playmate had preceded me ; and 
 that it was a blissful moment when I at last 
 found myself, one autumn morning, admitted 
 on examination, without conditions, and stand 
 ing on the steps of University Hall, looking 
 about with a new sense of ownership on the 
 trees my father had planted. I was not yet 
 fourteen, and was the youngest in my class ; 
 but never since in life have I had such a vivid 
 sense of a career, an opportunity, a battle to 
 be won. This is what gilds the memory of 
 college life : that we dwelt there like Goethe s 
 fairy Melusina or the heroine of O Brien s "Dia 
 mond Lens," in a real but miniature world, a 
 microcosm of the visible universe. It seems to 
 me that I never have encountered a type of 
 character in the greater world which was not 
 represented more or less among my classmates, 
 or dealt with any thought or principle which 
 was not discussed in elementary form in our 
 evening walks up Brattle Street. 
 
 Harvard College was then a comparatively 
 small affair, as was the village in which it 
 existed ; but both had their day of glory, which 
 was Commencement Day, now a merely aca 
 demic ceremonial, but then a public festival for 
 eastern Massachusetts. It has been so well 
 described by both Lowell and John Holmes 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 43 
 
 that I will not dwell upon it in detail. The 
 streets were filled with people, arriving from 
 far and near ; there were booths, fairs, horse 
 races, encampments of alleged gamblers in out 
 lying groves. Perhaps the most striking single 
 illustrations of the day s importance lay in the 
 fact that the banks in Boston were closed on 
 that day, and that Boston gentlemen, even if not 
 graduates of the college, often came to Cam 
 bridge for a day or two, at that time, taking 
 rooms and receiving their friends. My grand 
 father, Stephen Higginson, used to come over 
 from Brookline, take quarters in this way at 
 Porter s tavern (the Boylston Street Porter), 
 and keep open house, with probable punch 
 bowl. The practice had ceased before the 
 period of my recollection, but my cousin, the 
 Rev. William Henry Channing, has vividly de 
 scribed the way in which my grandfather must 
 have set out on these expeditions. 1 
 
 l " Owing doubtless to the fact that, following the univer 
 sal fashion of gentlemen of his position in that period, he 
 wore his gray hair powdered, he was to me the type of all 
 that was most ancient and venerable. His imposing figure, 
 air, and manner filled me with ever new admiration, as, 
 clothed in entire black, with his snowy locks and queue, and 
 his ruffled wristbands and shirt bosom, white cravat above, 
 and tightly buttoned gaiters or buckled shoes below, with 
 broad brimmed hat and gold-headed cane, he descended the 
 doorsteps to enter his carriage. This carriage, one of the 
 large, brightly ornamented, highly polished style then in 
 
44 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 For the rest of the year Cambridge relapsed 
 into a kind of privacy, except that three days 
 of " Exhibition " a sort of minor Commence 
 ment, with public exercises were distributed 
 through the terms, and brought together many 
 strangers. At ordinary times the external status 
 of the college was more like that of some coun 
 try academy than that of an embryo university. 
 There were but seven buildings inside the col 
 lege yard, and but one outside. There are now 
 about 3000 students, of various grades and de 
 partments, registered in Cambridge; in 1837, 
 when I entered college, there were but 305 
 such students ; and in 1841, when I graduated, 
 but 366. In like manner, Cambridge is now 
 a city of some 85,000 inhabitants, whereas in 
 1840 it had but 8409, distributed among three 
 villages, of which Old Cambridge, grouped 
 round the college buildings, had less than half. 
 
 vogue, with a lofty cushioned box-seat for the coachman and 
 platform behind for the footman, had been built in England, 
 whence my grandfather had lately returned, and was, I pre 
 sume, of very much the same pattern as thousands which are 
 seen every day in all European and American cities. But 
 it affected my imagination then as a princely equipage. So, 
 as all boys are wont to fancy, my grandfather appeared to 
 me the peer of the noblest. And still more stately and ele 
 gant was he to my imagination when attired in full costume 
 to receive his guests at dinner or evening parties in his own 
 house." Memoir of William Henry Channing, by O. B. 
 Frothingham, p. Q. 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 45 
 
 Yet, after all, these figures make little differ 
 ence to the boy ; a crowd is a crowd, whether 
 it be counted by hundreds or thousands, since 
 you see at the most only those immediately 
 pressing round you. For us, I repeat, the col 
 lege was a world ; whether larger or smaller on 
 the outskirts was of secondary importance. 
 
 It is mistakenly assumed by clergymen and 
 editors that this little community, in its village 
 days, was necessarily more virtuous, or at least 
 more decorous, than now. The fact is all the 
 other way ; for the early drinking habits of soci 
 ety still flourished, and the modern temperance 
 agitation was but beginning. When Allston, 
 the painter, kept the records of the Hasty 
 Pudding Club, in rhyme, he thus described 
 the close of the annual dinner of that frugal 
 body : 
 
 " And each one to evince his spunk 
 Vied with his neighbor to get drunk ; 
 Nor tedious was the mighty strife 
 With these true-blooded blades of life, 
 For less than hours two had gone 
 When roaring mad was every one." 
 
 Allston left college in 1800, forty years before 
 my day ; yet it was in my own time that the 
 Rev. Dr. John Pierce recorded in his Diary 
 that he had seen men intoxicated at < B K 
 dinners this society being composed only of 
 the best scholars in each class who were 
 
46 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 never seen in this condition at any other time. 
 We boys used to watch the Harvard Washing 
 ton Corps on its return from the dinner at 
 Porter s, quite secure that some of our acquaint 
 ances would stagger out of the ranks and find 
 lodgment in the gutter. The regular Class 
 Day celebration was for the seniors to gather 
 under Liberty Tree and serve out buckets of 
 punch to all comers. Robbing hen-roosts was 
 common enough, and youths of good standing in 
 my own class would organize marauding expedi 
 tions, with large baskets, to bring back pears 
 and melons from the market gardens in what 
 is now Belmont. These thefts hurt no one s 
 reputation at that day, whereas now to be 
 suspected of them would dethrone the most 
 popular man : he would be voted a " cad " or a 
 " mucker ; " he would be dropped from his 
 clubs. As for the drinking habit, I have no 
 statistics to offer, but an intoxicated student is 
 the rarest possible sight in the streets of Cam 
 bridge. This may not involve a clear gain in 
 morality, but the improvement in gentlemanli- 
 ness is enormous. 
 
 The college of that period has been some 
 times described as drawing its members from 
 a smaller geographical range than at present. 
 This was of course true in a general way, yet 
 in one respect the precise contrary was the 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 47 
 
 case. In that ante-bellum period, the Southern 
 students were a noticeable element in the col 
 lege, and a very conspicuous one in the Law 
 School, being drawn thereto by the great repu 
 tation of Judge Story ; and as these youths 
 were all reared under the influence of slavery, 
 they contributed a far more distinctive element 
 in Cambridge society than anything now to 
 be seen there. The difference between the 
 richest student from New York or California 
 and the very poorest and most abstemious boy 
 from some New England farm is not nearly so 
 marked as that which then distinguished the 
 demeanor of the average Southern from the 
 average New England student. As a rule, 
 the Southerners were clearly the favorites in 
 Cambridge society : they usually had charming 
 manners, social aptitudes, imperious ways, abun 
 dant leisure, and plenty of money ; they were 
 graceful dancers, often musical, and sometimes 
 well taught. On the other hand, they were 
 often indolent, profligate, and quarrelsome ; and 
 they were almost wholly responsible for the 
 "town and gown" quarrels, now extinct, but 
 then not infrequent. Contributing sometimes 
 the most brilliant young men to the Law School, 
 they furnished also a number who, having been 
 brought up on remote plantations and much 
 indulged, had remained grossly ignorant. I 
 
48 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 remember one in particular who was supposed 
 to have entered the Law School, but who 
 proved to be taking private lessons in some 
 thing from Charles Devens, afterwards judge 
 and major-general. A mystery hung about 
 the matter till it was found that the youth, 
 who was as showy as any of his companions in 
 dress and bearing, was simply learning to read 
 and write. 
 
 Let us now turn back to the condition of 
 intellectual affairs. The entrance examination 
 of those days was by no means the boys play 
 that is sometimes asserted. It represented, no 
 doubt, a year less of work than the present ex 
 amination ; yet it included some points not now 
 made obligatory, as for instance the render 
 ing of English into Greek and Latin. We 
 were also called upon to translate at sight 
 from authors not previously read, although this 
 provision did not appear in the catalogues, 
 and is usually cited as of more recent origin. 
 Once fairly inside, my class was lucky enough 
 to encounter a very exceptional period, the 
 time, namely, when a temporary foray into the 
 elective system took place, anticipating in a 
 small way the very desirable results which have 
 followed from its later application; although 
 that first experiment was, unluckily, discon 
 tinued in a few years under a more conserva- 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 49 
 
 live president. Meanwhile, the class of 1841 
 was one of the very few which enjoyed its 
 benefits. Under the guidance of George Tick- 
 nor, the method had long been applied to the 
 modern languages ; but we were informed one 
 day, to our delight, that it was to be extended 
 also to mathematics, with a prospect of further 
 expansion. As a matter of fact, the word 
 "elective " did not appear on the college cata 
 logues until 1841-42, but for two years previous 
 this special announcement about mathematics 
 had been given in a footnote. The spirit of a 
 new freedom began at once to make itself felt 
 in other departments; the Latin and Greek 
 professors, for instance, beginning to give lec 
 tures, though in an irregular way, in addition 
 to their usual duty of extracting from us what 
 small knowledge we possessed. The reason 
 why the experiment was made with mathe 
 matics was understood to be that Professor 
 Peirce had grown weary of driving boys through 
 the differential calculus by force, and Profes 
 sor Channing had declared that all taste for 
 mathematics was a matter of special inspira 
 tion. For myself, I eagerly took this study as 
 an elective, with about ten classmates ; nor had 
 I any reason to repent the choice. 
 
 Professor Benjamin Peirce, our mathematical 
 teacher, was then put, by general opinion, at the 
 
50 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 head of American mathematicians, a place 
 which, I believe, he still retains by tradition. In 
 his later years, and after the abandonment of the 
 temporary elective method, he may have be 
 come discouraged or apathetic, but when I knew 
 him he was in his prime, and he was to me of 
 all teachers the most inspiring and delightful. 
 He was then a very handsome man, with the 
 most eager and ardent manner, alternating with 
 deep absorption, and he gave beyond all others 
 the effect of original and creative genius. We 
 studied, by an added stroke of good luck, his 
 " Curves and Functions," which was just pass 
 ing through the press, and the successive parts 
 of which were bound up for our use. This in 
 creased the charm ; it seemed like mathematics 
 in the process of construction. I was already 
 old enough to appreciate the wonderful compact 
 ness and close reasoning of these volumes, and 
 to enter with eager zest into filling the inter 
 mediate gaps afforded by the long steps often 
 taken from one equation to another. Dr. Bow- 
 ditch, the translator of Laplace s " M ecanique 
 Celeste," used to say that whenever he came to 
 one of Laplace s "Whence it plainly appears," 
 he was in for an hour or two of toil in order to 
 make this exceeding plainness visible. It was 
 often so with Peirce s books, but this enhanced 
 the pleasure of the chase. He himself took 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 51 
 
 part in it : a thought would sometimes flash 
 into his mind, and he would begin to work it 
 out on the blackboard before our eyes ; for 
 getting our very existence, he would labor 
 away with the chalk, writing out with light 
 ning rapidity a series of equations, smaller 
 and smaller, chasing his scientific prey down 
 into the utmost right-hand corner of the black 
 board, and finally turning to us with a sigh 
 when the pursuit was ended. Again was the 
 science of mathematics being created before 
 our very eyes ; it was like being present at the 
 first discoveries of some old Greek or Arabian 
 geometrician. Peirce had also the delightful 
 quality of being especially interested in all of 
 this his first voluntary class, and indeed of 
 greatly overrating their merits. When I left 
 college, he gave me an indorsement which took 
 my breath away, and had me placed, at eigh 
 teen, on the examining committee in his de 
 partment. Years after, when in a fair way to 
 pass some time in jail after an anti-slavery riot, 
 I met him, and said that I had reserved that 
 period of imprisonment for reviewing mathe 
 matics and reading Laplace. His fine eyes 
 kindled, and he replied, " In that case, I sin 
 cerely hope that you may go there." He was 
 then vehemently opposed to the abolitionists, 
 and it seemed a double blessing to gag one of 
 
52 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 them and at the same time create a mathema 
 tician. The indictment was, unluckily, quashed, 
 so that both his hopes were disappointed. 
 
 Next to Peirce s teaching came, without 
 question, both in stimulus and in attractions, 
 the English course of Professor Edward Tyr- 
 rel Channing. Professor Wendell has lately 
 spoken of the present standard of training in 
 English composition at Harvard as if it were 
 quite a new thing ; but with some opportunity 
 of observing it, I have never had reason to 
 think it any new departure as compared with 
 that given by Professor Channing down to 
 1841 at least. The evidence would seem to be 
 that between that period and 1846, when Pro 
 fessor Child graduated, Professor Channing had 
 in some way lost his hold upon his pupils as 
 his years advanced ; so that when Professor 
 Child succeeded to the chair, in 1851, it was 
 with a profound distrust in the whole affair, 
 insomuch that the very department of rhetoric 
 and oratory came near being wiped out of exist 
 ence, and was saved by the indignant protest of 
 the late Charles Francis Adams. 
 
 Certain it is that this department was, in my 
 time, by far the most potent influence in de 
 termining college rank, and therefore in stim 
 ulating ambition. We wrote themes every 
 fortnight and forensics once a month ; and as 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 53 
 
 these were marked on a scale of 48, and or 
 dinary recitations on a scale of 8, the impor 
 tance of this influence may be seen. Never 
 in my life have I had to meet such exacting 
 criticism on anything written as came from 
 Professor Channing, and never have I had any 
 praise so encouraging as his. My marks were 
 often second in the class, sometimes equaling 
 O day of glory ! those of my classmate, 
 Francis Edward Parker, who was easily first ; 
 and to have a passage read to the class for 
 praise, even anonymously, was beyond all other 
 laurels, though the satisfaction might be marred 
 occasionally by the knowledge that my elder 
 sister had greatly helped in that particular sen 
 tence. When it is considered that Channing s 
 method reared most of the well-known writers 
 whom New England was then producing, 
 that it was he who trained Emerson, C. F. 
 Adams, Hedge, A. P. Peabody, Felton, Hillard, 
 Winthrop, Holmes, Sumner, Motley, Phillips, 
 Bowen, Lovering, Torrey, Dana, Lowell, Tho- 
 reau, Hale, Thomas Hill, Child, Fitzedward 
 Hall, Lane, and Norton, it will be seen that 
 the classic portion of our literature came largely 
 into existence under him. He fulfilled the 
 aspiration attributed to Increase Mather when 
 he wished to become president of Harvard Col 
 lege : to mould not merely the teaching, but 
 
54 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 the teachers, non lapides dolare, sed archi- 
 tectos. 
 
 The controlling influence of a college is 
 determined, of course, by its officers, and I 
 have never felt that we had anything in respect 
 of which we could complain. The experience 
 lately described by an elder contemporary of 
 discovering that he personally knew more than 
 at least the tutors of his time was one which 
 never troubled me. Two of the four tutors, 
 Bowen and Lovering, were men eminent as 
 scholars from youth to old age ; the third, 
 Jones Very, was a man of genius ; and the 
 fourth, Charles Mason, now Judge Mason, of 
 Fitchburg, certainly knew incomparably more 
 of Latin than I did. Of the older professors, 
 Felton was a cultivated Greek scholar, and 
 Beck brought to Latin the thoroughness of his 
 German drill. I need not say what it was to 
 read French with Longfellow; and it is plea 
 sant to remember that once during one of 
 those preposterous little rebellions which then 
 occurred every two or three years, and which 
 have wholly disappeared under a freer disci 
 pline when the students were gathered in 
 the college yard, and had refused to listen 
 to several professors, there was a hush when 
 Longfellow appeared, and my classmate, John 
 Revere, cried out, "We will hear Professor 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 55 
 
 Longfellow, for he always treats us like gentle 
 men." Longfellow was the first, I think, to 
 introduce the prefix " Mr." in addressing stu 
 dents, a thing now almost universal 
 
 For our other modern-language teachers, we 
 had Pietro Bachi, a picturesque Italian refugee ; 
 in German, Bernard Roelker, since well known 
 as a lawyer in New York ; and we had that 
 delightful old Francis Sales, whom Lowell has 
 commemorated, as our teacher of Spanish. In 
 him we had a man who might have stepped 
 bodily out of the Gil Bias and Don Quixote 
 he taught. We never knew whether he was 
 French or Spanish. He was then about sixty- 
 five, and his robust head and shoulders, his 
 pigtail and powdered hair, with his quaint ac 
 cent, made him seem the survival of some pic 
 turesque and remote age. He was, moreover, 
 extremely indulgent, gave the highest marks 
 for recitations, and was in all respects a favor 
 ite. A classmate who sat next me, George Hay, 
 took delight in inflicting upon the innocent 
 old man the most incredible or old-fashioned 
 English oaths as equivalent to the quaint Span 
 ish expletives ; and when he gravely introduced 
 " Odds fish " or "Gogzounds," Mr. Sales would 
 look bewildered for a moment, and then roll 
 out his stentorian " Ha ! ha ! ha ! By Jorge ! " 
 in a way to add still further to the list of unex- 
 
56 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 pected phrases, and to make the dusty room in 
 Massachusetts Hall jubilant for that day. 
 
 President Quincy was popular among us, but 
 lost direct weight in our minds through his 
 failure of memory and the necessity of con 
 stantly telling him who we were. Dr. Walker 
 we admired because of his wise and sententious 
 preaching, and his reputation, not unjustified, 
 of peculiar penetration into character. Jared 
 Sparks lectured on history, under great disad 
 vantages ; and I have always been gratified 
 that it was from him a man accounted unim 
 aginative that for the first time the thought 
 was suggested to us of the need of imagina 
 tion to an historian, not for the purpose of 
 invention, but for re-creating a given period 
 and shaping it in the representation. Dr. Har 
 ris, the librarian and naturalist, was always 
 a delightful teacher and friend, and I espe 
 cially enjoyed attendance on his private class in 
 entomology, in the evening, for which we got 
 no college credits. Sometimes we took walks 
 with him, or brought him new plants or but 
 terflies. I was secretary of the college Nat 
 ural History Society for a time, and in looking 
 back on the various reports written by me for 
 its meetings, it is interesting to see that this 
 wholly voluntary work had a freshness and 
 vigor beyond what I can now trace in any of 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 57 
 
 the " themes " of which Professor Channing 
 thought so well. There is no greater mark of 
 progress in the university than the expansion 
 of its electivcs to include the natural sciences. 
 My own omnivorousness in study was so great 
 that I did not suffer very much from our re 
 stricted curriculum ; but there were young men 
 in my time who would have graduated in these 
 later days with highest honors in some depart 
 ment of physics or biology, but who were then 
 at the very foot of the class, and lost for life 
 the advantage of early training in the studies 
 they loved. Akin to this modern gain and 
 equally unquestionable is the advantage now 
 enjoyed in the way of original research. Every 
 year young men of my acquaintance come to 
 me for consultation about some thesis they are 
 preparing in history or literature, and they little 
 know the envy with which they inspire their 
 adviser ; that they should be spared from the 
 old routine to investigate anything for them 
 selves seems such a happiness. 
 
 There is not the slightest doubt in my mind, 
 as an extra-collegiate observer, of the vast im 
 provement made by the elective system ; and I 
 should like to see it extended yet more widely, 
 so as to annul absolutely all distinction in grade 
 between "academic " and "scientific " courses. 
 The day of universal scholarship, when Plutarch 
 
58 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 or Bacon could go the round of knowledge and 
 label every item, is as extinct as the saurian 
 epoch. The world is simply too large. The 
 most enthusiastic scholar must forego ten times 
 as many paths as he can pursue, and must re 
 sign himself to be a specialist. It is inevitable, 
 but it has obvious disadvantages. The last of 
 the old-fashioned Cambridge scholars of whom 
 one could ask a miscellaneous question, with 
 prospect of answer, died with the late Professor 
 Torrey. I now know that I can make no in 
 quiry so difficult but there is probably some 
 man in Cambridge who can answer it ; yet it 
 may take a week of investigation to ascertain 
 just who that man is. On the other hand, 
 the things which these wise men do not know 
 are constantly surprising, at least to a survivor 
 of the less specializing period. I have had a 
 professor of political economy stop me in the 
 street to ask who Charles Brockden Brown 
 was ; and when I suggested to a senior student 
 who was seeking a lecturer for some society 
 that he might ask John Fiske, he replied that 
 he had never heard his name. Now, I knew 
 all about Charles Brockden Brown before I was 
 twelve years old, from Sparks s "American Bio 
 graphy," and it was not easy to see how any one 
 could read the newspapers, even three or four 
 years ago, and not be familiar with the name of 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 59 
 
 John Fiske. Yet this specialization extends, 
 in truth, to all classes of the community. A 
 Boston lawyer, the other day, told a friend 
 of mine that, in his opinion, the Harvard pro 
 fessors were less eminent than formerly. My 
 friend replied with truth that the only differ 
 ence was that they were less likely to be all- 
 round men, known to everybody ; but that the 
 teachers of to-day were more likely to be emi 
 nent in some particular department, in which 
 they usually knew far more than their prede 
 cessors. " There is, for instance," he said, 
 " Professor Farlow, who has an international 
 reputation as an authority in cryptogamic bot 
 any." " I never even heard of him," said the 
 lawyer, " nor of cryptogamic botany, either." 
 
 The same change is apparent in the vary 
 ing standards of athletic exercise. To those 
 who loved, as I did, the old-time football, 
 the very thud of the ball, the scent of bruised 
 grass, the mighty rush of a hundred men, the 
 swift and cool defense, there is something 
 insufficient in the presence of a whole univer 
 sity sitting and shivering in the chill wind 
 around an arena where a few picked gladiators 
 push and wrestle ; while those who know every 
 point of the new contest feel a natural con 
 tempt for the crudities of the old. So those 
 who now regard with surprise, or even lift with 
 
60 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 irreverence, the heavy three-cornered bats and 
 large balls of the game we called cricket the 
 very implements used by my own class are 
 deposited at the Hemenway Gymnasium do 
 not know that their comments are like those of 
 Saladin on the heavy sword of King Richard, 
 which ponderous weapon, after all, did good 
 service in its day. The joy of athletic exercises 
 is a part of the youth to which they belong, 
 and does not depend upon the advance of sci 
 ence ; nor is the admiration of their heroes a 
 matter of to-day only. I never saw the late 
 Charles Franklin Shimmin, of Boston, up to 
 his dying day, that I did not recall the thrill 
 of admiration for his unequaled "rushes" on 
 the football field ; and when we casually met, 
 we always talked about them. Of the two best 
 bowlers in my class, the one, Charles Sedg- 
 wick, was at the head of the class in scholar 
 ship, and the other, Eben William Rollins, was 
 far down in the rank list, but they were equally 
 our heroes at the cricketing hour. The change 
 chiefly perceptible to me to-day is that whereas 
 we were proud of Sedgwick s scholarship as 
 well as of his bowling, it is likely that, in the 
 present intense absorption in what may be 
 called vicarious athletics, any amount of intel 
 lectual eminence would count but as the dust 
 on the fly-wheel. In this respect we go a little 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 61 
 
 further just now, I fancy, than our English 
 kinsfolk. It is a rare thing in our American 
 Cambridge to hear of any student as being 
 admired for his scholarship ; but when I was 
 taken, twenty years ago, to see the intercolle 
 giate races at the older Cambridge, my friends 
 were as careful to point out the men who were 
 "great swells" in chemistry or in Greek as to 
 call my attention to " the celebrated stroke, 
 Goldie." 
 
 The class to which I belonged the class of 
 1841 was compact and tolerably well united, 
 though small. It had perhaps more than the 
 usual share of class feeling, which probably 
 dated from the time when we had the rare 
 experience of defeating the sophomores at the 
 opening game of football There was an im 
 pression that the Faculty were rather afraid of 
 us, a view which would probably have much 
 astonished those worthy gentlemen had it ever 
 reached their ears. The strongest impression 
 which is conveyed by looking back on our num 
 ber collectively, after a half century s lapse, is 
 that of the utter impossibility of casting in 
 advance the horoscope of a whole set of young 
 men. The class numbered several who after 
 wards won distinction in different walks in life ; 
 and while the actual careers of some might 
 have been predicted, there were other lives 
 
62 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 which could not possibly have been anticipated 
 by any of us. It required no great foresight to 
 guess that Edward Clarke and Francis Minot 
 would be physicians, and even eminent ones ; 
 that Rufus Woodward, of Worcester, would also 
 be a physician, and a naturalist besides ; that 
 Thomas Church Haskell Smith, of Ohio, who 
 was universally known among us as " Captain 
 Smith," and was the natural leader of the 
 class, in case of civil war would become Major- 
 General Smith, and chief of staff in the Army 
 of the Potomac. Wickham Hoffman, of New 
 York, showed in college the same steadfast and 
 manly qualities which made him also prominent 
 during the war as a staff officer at New Orleans, 
 and afterwards as secretary of the American 
 legation during the siege of Paris. Other in 
 stances might be cited ; but, on the other hand, 
 our class produced three men, all well known 
 in later life, whose precise paths were such as 
 no one of the class could ever by any possibility 
 have guessed. Frank Parker, our first scholar, 
 might naturally, we should all have said, reach 
 the Supreme Bench in rapid strides ; our am 
 bition for him was unbounded ; but that he 
 should, instead of this, become the greatest 
 business lawyer in Boston, that he should have 
 charge of vast estates, that he should die rich, 
 that his pall-bearers should be bank presidents 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 63 
 
 and millionaires, this was something that no one 
 could have credited in advance. He had to be 
 very economical in college, as had most of us, 
 he could go without what he wanted, but 
 certainly I never surmised in him any peculiar 
 gift for the especially judicious investment of a 
 half dollar. It is a curious illustration of what 
 it is now the fashion to call "heredity" that 
 when this same remark was made to the late 
 Dr. A. P. Peabody, who had been Parker s pas 
 tor, he replied that it was perfectly true so far 
 as it went, but that any one who had known 
 Parker s father would have comprehended the 
 whole affair. The latter, he said, although a 
 clergyman, was the business adviser of half the 
 men in his parish. 
 
 In another instance, which was yet more re 
 markable, I know of no such explanation. Not 
 a classmate of Henry Fowle Durant s would 
 ever have dreamed of the two achievements 
 which have probably secured for his name a 
 longer remembrance than will be awarded to 
 any other member of the class ; no one would 
 have deemed it possible that he would make 
 a fortune by the practice of criminal law, and 
 then devote it to founding a woman s college. 
 He lived out of the college yard, was little 
 known in the class, was to all appearances in 
 dolent or without concentration one of the 
 
64 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 men whose favorite literature lies in old English 
 plays. His very name was not that by which 
 he afterwards became noted ; it being originally 
 Henry Welles Smith, and being changed subse 
 quently to gratify a relative who was also his 
 benefactor. 
 
 Stranger than even this transformation of 
 name and career was the third bit of the unex 
 pected. The only member of the class who 
 ever landed in the state s prison was precisely 
 and unequivocally the most dignified and re 
 spectable man we mustered, a man abso 
 lutely stainless as we knew him, whose whole 
 aspect and bearing carried irresistible weight, 
 and who was chosen by acclamation as the 
 treasurer of our class fund. In truth, it was 
 his face and manner that were his ruin ; he was 
 a lawyer and had charge of estates ; trustful 
 widows and orphans thronged round him and 
 believed in him up to the moment the prison 
 doors opened to receive him ; he could no 
 more resist such perilous confidence than 
 could Shakespeare s Autolycus, and might say 
 with him, " If I had a mind to be honest, I see 
 Fortune would not suffer me." 
 
 My only really intimate friend in the class 
 was Parker, already named, who, although two 
 years older than myself, and of more staidness 
 of temperament and maturity of character, had 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 65 
 
 great influence over me, and was wonderfully 
 patient with my often serious errors. I fre 
 quently spent nights at his room, and we had 
 few secrets from each other. All this was in 
 a certain way creditable to us both, though 
 more so to him, in proportion as he was the 
 superior, inasmuch as it was a period when 
 the ambition for college rank was intensely 
 strong, and we were running neck and neck 
 for the first place, through the time of our 
 greatest intimacy. He was the better writer, 
 reasoner, and classicist ; while I was fond of 
 mathematics, which he hated, and was more 
 successful than he in modern languages. Later, 
 I discovered that we had been extremely close 
 together in rank, most of the time, I sometimes 
 passing him ; and that he came out first by 
 only some thirty or forty marks among many 
 thousands. It was the only fitting conclu 
 sion ; and as we were greatly separated, in ma- 
 turer life, by his conservative and my radical 
 tendencies, I rejoice to record this tribute to 
 his memory. He had, even while in college, a 
 certain cynicism, which was later very much 
 developed, and rather marred his popularity ; 
 but his influence on us all was of the greatest 
 value, as it was afterwards in the whole com 
 munity where he lived. 
 
 I formed in college two other friendships, 
 
66 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 outside my own class, both with men who sub 
 sequently rendered real service to literature 
 and art. One was the late Charles Callahan 
 Perkins, who became the author of works on 
 the Tuscan and Italian sculptors, and was 
 practically the founder of the Normal Art 
 School in Boston, and of the whole system of 
 art instruction in the public schools of Mas 
 sachusetts. He was my room-mate during the 
 senior year, and a most attractive person ; hand 
 some, refined, manly, without brilliant gifts, 
 but with the most cultivated tastes and a 
 convenience quite rare among us a liberal 
 income. He was one of the few instances I 
 have known of a man s being really helped 
 and enlarged in his career by the possession of 
 wealth or what then passed for wealth in 
 youth. The other companion, who did more 
 for my literary tastes than all other friends, 
 was the late Levi Lincoln Thaxter, who in 
 after-life helped more than any one to make 
 Browning and Fitzgerald known in this coun 
 try, they being more widely read here in 
 each case, for a time, than in their own land. 
 This was the more remarkable as Thaxter 
 never saw either of them, although he corre 
 sponded with Browning, who also wrote the 
 inscription for his grave. Thaxter was about 
 my age, though he was, like Perkins, two years 
 
A CHILD OF THE COLLEGE 67 
 
 younger in college ; he was not a high scholar, 
 but he was an ardent student of literature, and 
 came much under the influence of his cousin, 
 Maria White, and of Lowell, her betrothed. 
 Thaxter first led me to Emerson and to Haz- 
 litt ; the latter being for both of us a tempo 
 rary and the former a lifelong source of influ 
 ence. We were both lovers of Longfellow, 
 also, and used to sit at the open window every 
 New Year s Eve and read aloud his " Midnight 
 Mass to the Dying Year." Thaxter was an en 
 thusiastic naturalist, which was another bond 
 of union, and he bequeathed this taste to his 
 youngest son, now an assistant professor of bot 
 any in Harvard University. To Thaxter I owe, 
 finally, the great privilege of borrowing from 
 Maria White the first thin volumes of Tenny 
 son s poems, which seemed to us, as was once 
 said of Keats, to " double the value of words ;" 
 and we both became, a few years later, sub 
 scribers to the original yellow-covered issue of 
 Browning s " Bells and Pomegranates." Thax- 
 ter s personal modesty and reticence, and the 
 later fame of his poet-wife, Celia, have obscured 
 him to the world ; but he was one of the most 
 loyal and high-minded of men. 
 
 At my graduation I was four months short 
 of eighteen, and my purpose was to teach for a 
 few years, and then to study law. This early 
 
68 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 maturity had, however, one obvious advantage : 
 that it would plainly give me more time to turn 
 round, to pursue general study, and, if need be, 
 to revise my choice of a pursuit. I ultimately 
 used the interval for just these purposes, and 
 was so far a gainer. In all other respects my 
 youthfulness was/ a great disadvantage, and I 
 have often dissuaded others from following my 
 example in entering college too young. If 
 they disregard the remonstrance, as is usually 
 the case, great patience and charity are due 
 them. The reason for this is that precocity 
 scarcely ever extends through all the faculties 
 at once, and those who are older than their 
 years in some respects are almost always 
 younger in others, this being nature s way of 
 restoring the balance. Even if intellect and 
 body are alike precocious, the judgment and 
 the moral sense may remain weak and imma 
 ture. Development in other respects, there 
 fore, creates false expectations and brings un 
 foreseen temptations of its own. This was, at 
 any rate, the result in my case, although it 
 took me several years to find it out. The 
 experience of those years demands, however, a 
 chapter by itself. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 
 
 " Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
 But to be young was very heaven." 
 
 WORDSWORTH, The Prelude, Book X I. 
 
 THE above was the high-sounding name 
 which was claimed for their own time by the 
 youths and maidens who, under the guidance 
 of Emerson, Parker, and others, took a share in 
 the seething epoch sometimes called vaguely 
 Transcendentalism. But as these chapters are 
 to be mainly autobiographic, it is well to state 
 with just what outfit I left college in 1841. I 
 had a rather shallow reading knowledge of six 
 languages, English, French, Spanish, Italian, 
 Latin, and Greek, and had been brought in 
 contact with some of the best books in each of 
 these tongues. I may here add that I picked 
 up at a later period German, Portuguese, and 
 Hebrew, with a little Swedish ; and that I 
 hope to live long enough to learn at least the 
 alphabet in Russian. Then I had acquired 
 enough of the higher mathematics to have a 
 pupil or two in that branch ; something of the 
 
70 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 forms of logic and of Locke s philosophy with 
 the criticisms of the French eclectics upon it ; a 
 smattering of history and political economy ; 
 some crude acquaintance with field natural 
 history ; some practice in writing and debating ; 
 a passion for poetry and imaginative literature ; 
 a voracious desire for all knowledge and all 
 action ; and an amount of self-confidence which 
 has now, after more than half a century, sadly 
 diminished. It will be seen that this was an 
 outfit more varied than graduates of the present 
 day are apt to possess, but that it was also 
 more superficial ; their knowledge of what they 
 know being often far more advanced as well 
 as more solidly grounded than was mine. No 
 matter ; I was a happy boy, ankle-deep in a yet 
 unfathomed sea. 
 
 I had two things in addition not set down 
 in the college curriculum, but of the utmost 
 influence on my future career. One of these 
 has always been to me somewhat inexplicable. 
 Cambridge was then a place of distinctly graded 
 society, more so, probably, than it is now. 
 Lowell has admirably described the superb 
 way in which old Royal Morse, the village con 
 stable and auctioneer, varied the courtesy of his 
 salutation according to the social position of 
 his acquaintance. I can remember no conver 
 sation around me looking toward the essential 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 71 
 
 equality of the human race, except as it was 
 found in the pleased curiosity with which my 
 elder brothers noted the fact that the Presi 
 dent s man-servant, who waited at table during 
 his dinner parties, became on the muster field 
 colonel of the militia regiment, and as such gave 
 orders to Major Quincy, there his subordinate, 
 but at other times his employer. In each pro 
 fessor s family there was apt to be a country 
 boy " living out," " doing chores " and attending 
 school ; these boys often rose to influence and 
 position in later life, and their children or de 
 scendants are now professors in the university 
 and leaders in Cambridge society. The "town 
 school " was distinctly a grade school ; I had 
 never entered it ; did not play much with the 
 "town boys," and was rather afraid of them. 
 Yet it must have been that there was left over 
 from the American Revolution something of 
 the popular feeling then inspired, for without 
 aid or guidance I was democratic in impulse ; 
 longed to know something of all sorts and con 
 ditions of men, and had a distinct feeling that I 
 should like to be, for a year or two, a mechanic 
 of some kind a carpenter or blacksmith 
 in order to place myself in sympathy with all. 
 The nearest I ever came to this was in making 
 some excursions with an elder brother who, as 
 engineer, was laying out the track of the Old 
 
72 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Colony Railroad, and who took me as "hind 
 chain man " at a dollar a day. I still recall 
 with delight the sense of honest industry, the 
 tramping through the woods, and the occasional 
 dinners at farmhouses. It was at one of these 
 festivities that, when my brother had eaten one 
 piece of mince pie but declined a second help 
 ing, our host remarked with hospitable dignity, 
 " Consult your feelings, sir, about the meat 
 pie." 
 
 Another most important change was passing 
 in me at about this time ; the sudden develop 
 ment of social aptitudes hitherto dormant. As 
 an overgrown boy for I was six feet tall at 
 fourteen I had experienced all the agonies 
 of bashfulness in the society of the other sex, 
 though greatly attracted to it. I find it diffi 
 cult to convince my associates of later years 
 that I then habitually sat mute while others 
 chattered. A word or two of remonstrance 
 from my mother had in a single day corrected 
 this, during my senior year, so far as the fam 
 ily table was concerned ; and this emboldened 
 me to try the experiment on a wider field. I 
 said to myself, thinking of other young men 
 who made themselves quite agreeable, "These 
 youths are not your superiors, perhaps, in the 
 jecitation - room or on the playground, hardly 
 your equals; why not cope with them else- 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 73 
 
 where ? " Thus influenced, I conquered myself 
 in a single evening and lost my shyness for 
 ever. The process was unique, so far as I 
 know, and I have often recommended it to shy 
 young men. Being invited to a small party, I 
 considered beforehand what young ladies would 
 probably be there. With each one I had, of 
 course, something in common, kinship, or 
 neighborhood, or favorite pursuit. This would 
 do, I reasoned, for a starting-point ; so I put 
 down on a small sheet of paper what I would 
 say to each, if I happened to be near her. It 
 worked like a charm ; I found myself chatting 
 away, the whole evening, and heard the next 
 day that everybody was surprised at the trans 
 formation. I have to this day the little bit 
 of magic paper, on which I afterwards un 
 derscored, before sleeping, the points actually 
 used. 
 
 It set me free ; after this I went often to 
 tolerably large parties in Cambridge and Boston, 
 in the latter case under guidance of my brother 
 Waldo, who had now graduated from the Har 
 vard Washington Corps into the Boston Cadets, 
 and was an excellent social pilot. I saw the 
 really agreeable manners which then prevailed 
 in the little city, and cannot easily be convinced 
 that there are now in the field any youths at 
 once so manly and so elegant as were the two 
 
74 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 especial leaders among the beaux of that day, 
 John Lothrop Motley and his brother-in-law, 
 John Lewis Stackpole. It did not surprise me 
 to read in later days that the former was habit 
 ually addressed as " Milord," to a degree that 
 vexed him, by waiters in Continental hotels. 
 Such leaders were doubtless good social mod 
 els, as was also the case with my brother ; but 
 I had more continuous influences in the friend 
 ship of two fair girls, both of whom were frank, 
 truthful, and attractive. One of them Maria 
 Fay of convent fame, already mentioned was 
 a little older than myself, while the other, just 
 my own age, Mary Devens, was the younger 
 sister of Charles Devens, afterwards eminent in 
 war and peace. She died young, but I shall al 
 ways be grateful for the good she unconsciously 
 did me ; and I had with both the kind of cor 
 dial friendship, without a trace of love-making, 
 yet tinged with refined sentiment, which is 
 for every young man a most fortunate school. 
 They counseled and reprimanded and laughed 
 at me, when needful, in a way that I should not 
 have tolerated from boys at that time, nor yet 
 from my own sisters, wise and judicious though 
 these were. Added to all this was a fortunate 
 visit, during my last year in college, to some 
 cousins on a Virginia plantation, where my 
 uncle, Major Storrow, had married into the 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 75 
 
 Carter family, and where I experienced the hos 
 pitality and gracious ways of Southern life. 
 
 A potent influence was also preparing for me 
 in Cambridge in a peculiarly fascinating circle 
 of young people, more gifted, I cannot help 
 thinking, than any later coterie of the same 
 kind, which seemed to group itself round 
 James Lowell and Maria White, his betrothed, 
 who were known among the members as their 
 "King and Queen." They called themselves 
 "The Brothers and Sisters," being mainly 
 made up in that way : the Whites of Water- 
 town and their cousins the Thaxters ; the 
 Storys from Cambridge ; the Hales and the 
 Tuckermans from Boston ; the Kings from 
 Salem, and others. They had an immense and 
 hilarious intimacy, rarely, however, for some 
 reason, culminating in intermarriage ; they read 
 the same books, and had perpetual gatherings 
 and picnics, their main headquarters being the 
 large colonial house of the White family in 
 Watertown. My own point of contact with 
 them was remote, but real ; my mother had re 
 moved, when her family lessened, to a smaller 
 house built by my elder brother, and belonging 
 in these latter days to Radcliffe College. This 
 was next door to the Fay House of that insti 
 tution, then occupied by Judge Fay. And as 
 my friend Maria Fay was a cousin of some of 
 
76 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 the Brothers and Sisters, they made the house 
 an occasional rendezvous ; and as there were 
 attractive younger kindred whom I chanced to 
 know, I was able at least to look through the 
 door of this paradise of youth. 
 
 Lowell s first volume had just been pub 
 lished, and all its allusions were ground of ro 
 mance for us all ; indeed, he and his betrothed 
 were to me, as they seemed to be for those 
 of their circle, a modernized Petrarch and 
 Laura or even Dante and Beatrice; and I 
 watched them with unselfish reverence. Their 
 love-letters, about which they were extremely 
 frank, were passed from hand to hand, and 
 sometimes reached me through Thaxter. I 
 have some of Maria White s ballads in her own 
 handwriting ; and I still know by heart a letter 
 which she wrote to Thaxter, about the delay 
 in her marriage, " It is easy enough to be 
 married ; the newspaper corners show us that, 
 every day ; but to live and to be happy as sim 
 ple King and Queen, without the gifts of for 
 tune, this is a triumph that suits my nature 
 better." Probably all the atmosphere around 
 this pair of lovers had a touch of exaggeration, 
 a slight greenhouse aroma, but it brought a 
 pure and ennobling enthusiasm ; and whenever 
 I was fortunate enough to hear Maria White 
 sing or " say " ballads in moonlight evenings it 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 77 
 
 seemed as if I were in Boccaccio s Florentine 
 gardens. 
 
 If this circle of bright young people was not 
 strictly a part of the Transcendental Move 
 ment, it was yet born of "the Newness." 
 Lowell and Story, indeed, both wrote for " The 
 Dial," and Maria White had belonged to Mar 
 garet Fuller s classes. There was, moreover, 
 passing through the whole community a wave 
 of that desire for a freer and more ideal life 
 which made Story turn aside from his father s 
 profession to sculpture, and made Lowell for 
 sake law after his first client. It was the time 
 when Emerson wrote to Carlyle, " We are all 
 a little wild here with numberless projects of 
 social reform ; not a reading man but has a 
 draft of a new community in his waistcoat 
 pocket." I myself longed at times to cut free 
 from prescribed bondage, and not, in Lowell s 
 later phrase, to " pay so much of life for a liv 
 ing " as seemed to be expected. I longed anew, 
 under the influence of George Sand and of Mrs. 
 Child s " Letters from New York," to put myself 
 on more equal terms with that vast army of 
 hand-workers who were ignorant of much that 
 I knew, yet could do so much that I could not. 
 
 Under these combined motives I find that I 
 carefully made out, at one time, a project of 
 going into the cultivation of peaches, an in- 
 
78 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 dustry then prevalent in New England, but 
 now practically abandoned, thus securing 
 freedom from study and thought by moderate 
 labor of the hands. This was in 1843, two 
 years before Thoreau tried a similar project 
 with beans at Walden Pond ; and also before 
 the time when George and Burrill Curtis un 
 dertook to be farmers at Concord. A like 
 course was actually adopted and successfully 
 pursued through life by another Harvard man 
 a few years older than myself, the late Marston 
 Watson, of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Such 
 things were in the air, and even those who 
 were not swerved by " the Newness " from their 
 intended pursuits were often greatly modified 
 as to the way in which these were undertaken ; 
 as when the recognized leader of a certain class 
 of the Harvard Law School abandoned, from 
 conscientious scruples, the career of a practicing 
 lawyer, and spent his life as a conveyancer. 
 
 What turned me away from the study of the 
 law was not this moral scruple, but what was 
 doubtless an innate preference, strengthened 
 by the influence of one man and one or two 
 books. After leaving college I taught for six 
 months as usher in the boarding-school at Ja 
 maica Plain, kept by Mr. Stephen Minot Weld ; 
 and then, greatly to my satisfaction, became 
 private tutor to the three young sons of my 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 79 
 
 cousin, Stephen Higginson Perkins, a Boston 
 merchant, residing in a pretty cottage which 
 he had designed for himself in Brookline. In 
 him I encountered the most attractive man I 
 had yet met and the one who was most to 
 influence me. He was indeed a person of 
 unique qualities and great gifts ; he was in the 
 prime of life, handsome and refined, a widower, 
 whose modest household was superintended by 
 a maiden sister ; his training had been utterly 
 unlike my regular academical career; he had 
 been sent to Germany to school, under the 
 guidance of Edward Everett, then to the East 
 and West Indies as supercargo, then into busi 
 ness, but not very successfully as yet. This 
 pursuit he hated and disapproved ; all his tastes 
 were for art, in which he was at that time per 
 haps the best connoisseur in Boston, and he 
 had contrived by strict economy to own several 
 good paintings which he bequeathed later to the 
 Boston Art Museum, a Reynolds, a Van der 
 Velde, and a remarkable oil copy of the Sistine 
 Madonna by Moritz Retzsch. These were the 
 first fine paintings I had ever seen, except the 
 Copleys then in the Harvard College Library ; 
 and his society, with that he assembled round 
 him, was to me a wholly new experience. He 
 disapproved and distrusted all classical train 
 ing, and was indifferent to mathematics ; but he 
 
8o CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 had read largely in French and German liter 
 ature, and he introduced me to authors of per 
 manent interest, such as Heine and Paul Louis 
 Courier. He was also in a state of social revolt, 
 enhanced by a certain shyness and by deafness ; 
 full of theories, and ready to encourage all inde 
 pendent thinking. He was withal affectionate 
 and faithful. 
 
 I was to teach his boys four hours a day, 
 no more ; they were most interesting, though 
 not always easy to manage. I was young 
 enough to take a ready part in all their sports, 
 and we often had school in the woods adjoin 
 ing the house, perhaps sitting in large trees 
 and interrupting work occasionally to watch a 
 weasel gliding over a rock or a squirrel in the 
 boughs. I took the boys with me in my ram 
 bles and it was a happy time. Another sister 
 of Stephen Perkins s, a woman of great per 
 sonal attractions, kept house for her father, who 
 lived near by, Mr. Samuel G. Perkins, younger 
 brother of Colonel Thomas H. Perkins, then 
 the leading merchant of Boston. Mr. Samuel 
 Perkins had been at one time a partner of my 
 grandfather and had married his daughter, but 
 had retired, not very successful, and was one 
 of the leading horticulturists near Boston, the 
 then famous " Boston nectarine " being a fruit 
 of his introducing. His wife, Barbara Higgin- 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 81 
 
 son, my aunt, had been a belle in her youth, 
 but had ripened into an oddity, and lived in 
 Boston during the winter and in a tiny cot 
 tage at Nahant during the summer, for the 
 professed reason that the barberry blossoms in 
 the Brookline lanes made her sneeze. 
 
 The summer life around Boston was then an 
 affair so unlike anything now to be found in 
 the vicinity as to seem like something observed 
 in another country or period Socially speak 
 ing, it more resembled the plantation life of the 
 South or the ranch life of the West. Many of 
 the prosperous people lived in Boston all sum 
 mer, with occasional trips to Nahant or Sara 
 toga or Ballston, or for the more adventurous a 
 journey by stage among the White Mountains, 
 encountering rough roads and still rougher tav 
 erns. But there existed all around Boston, and 
 especially in Roxbury, Brookline, and Milton, 
 a series of large estates with ample houses, 
 all occupied by people connected in blood or 
 intimacy, who drove about and exchanged calls 
 in summer afternoons. Equipages were sim 
 ple ; people usually drove themselves ; there 
 were no liveries, but the hospitality was pro 
 fuse. My uncle Perkins was a poor man com 
 pared with his rich brother ; there was a theory 
 that his beautiful pears and nectarines were to 
 be a source of profit, but I fear that the bal- 
 
82 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 ance-sheet, if perchance there ever was any, 
 would have shown otherwise. No matter, he 
 had the frank outdoor hospitality of a retired 
 East India merchant, which he was ; every 
 afternoon, at a certain hour, sherry and madeira 
 were set out on the sideboard in the airy parlor, 
 with pears, peaches, grapes, nectarines, straw 
 berries and the richest cream, and we knew 
 that visitors would arrive. Cousins and friends 
 came, time-honored acquaintances of the head 
 of the house, eminent public men, Mr. Prescott 
 the historian, or Daniel Webster himself, re 
 ceived like a king. Never did I feel a greater 
 sense of an honor conferred than when that 
 regal black-browed man once selected me as 
 the honored messenger to bring more cream 
 for his chocolate. 
 
 There was sometimes, though rarely, a little 
 music ; and there were now and then simple 
 games on the lawn, battledore or grace- 
 hoops, but as yet croquet and tennis and 
 golf were not, and the resources were limited. 
 In winter, the same houses were the scene of 
 family parties with sleigh-riding and skating 
 and coasting ; but the summer life was simply 
 a series of outdoor receptions, from house to 
 house. It must be noted that Brookline was 
 then, as now, the garden suburb of Boston, 
 beyond all others ; the claim was only compara- 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 83 
 
 tive, and would not at all stand the test of Eng 
 lish gardening or even of our modern meth 
 ods, except perhaps in the fruit produced. I 
 remember that Stephen Perkins once took an 
 English visitor, newly arrived, to drive about 
 the region, and he was quite ready to admire 
 everything he saw, though not quite for the 
 reason that his American host expected. "It 
 is all so rough and wild " was his comment. 
 
 Into this summer life, on the invitation of 
 my cousin Barbara Channing, who spent much 
 time in Brookline, there occasionally came dele 
 gations of youths from Brook Farm, then flour 
 ishing. Among these were George and Burrill 
 Curtis, and Lamed, with Charles Dana, late 
 editor of the " New York Sun ; " all presenta 
 ble and agreeable, but the first three peculiarly 
 costumed. It was then very common for young 
 men in college and elsewhere to wear what 
 were called blouses, a kind of hunter s frock 
 made at first of brown holland belted at the 
 waist, these being gradually developed into 
 garments of gay-colored chintz, sometimes, it 
 was said, an economical transformation of their 
 sisters skirts or petticoats. All the young 
 men of this party except Dana wore these gay 
 garments and bore on their heads little round 
 and visorless caps with tassels. Mr. Perkins, 
 whose attire was always defiantly plain, re- 
 
84 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 garded these vanities with ill-concealed disap 
 proval, but took greatly to Dana, who dressed 
 like a well-to-do young farmer and was always 
 handsome and manly. My uncle declared him 
 to be full of sense and knowledge, and the 
 others to be nonsensical creatures. Dana was 
 indeed the best all-round man at Brook Farm, 
 a good teacher, editor, and farmer, but 
 was held not to be quite so zealous or unselfish 
 for the faith as were some of the others. It 
 was curious that when their public meetings 
 were held in Boston, he was their most effec 
 tive speaker, while I cannot remember that 
 George William Curtis, afterwards so eloquent, 
 ever opened his lips at all. 
 
 I was but twice at Brook Farm, once driving 
 over there in a sleigh during a snowstorm, to 
 convey my cousin Barbara to a fancy ball at 
 "the Community," as it was usually called, 
 where she was to appear in a pretty Creole 
 dress made of madras handkerchiefs and brought 
 by Stephen Perkins from the West Indies. 
 She was a most attractive and popular person, 
 and was enthusiastic about Brook Farm, where 
 she went ofteix, being a friend of Mrs. Ripley, 
 who was its "leading lady." Again I once 
 went for her in summer and stayed for an hour, 
 watching the various interesting figures, includ 
 ing George William Curtis, who was walking 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 85 
 
 about in shirtsleeves, with his boots over his trou 
 sers, yet was escorting a young maiden with 
 that elegant grace which never left him. It was 
 a curious fact that he, who was afterwards 
 so eminent, was then held wholly secondary in 
 interest to his handsome brother Burrill, whose 
 Raphaelesque face won all hearts, and who 
 afterwards disappeared from view in England, 
 surviving only in memory as Our Cousin the 
 Curate, in " Prue and I." But if I did not 
 see much of Brook Farm on the spot, I met its 
 members frequently at the series of exciting 
 meetings for Social Reform in Boston, where 
 the battle raged high between Associationists 
 and Communists, the leader of the latter being 
 John A. Collins. Defenders of the established 
 order also took part ; one of the best of the 
 latter being Arthur Pickering, a Boston mer 
 chant ; and in all my experience I have never 
 heard a speech so thrilling and effective as that 
 in which Henry Clapp, then a young radical 
 mechanic, answered Pickering s claim that indi 
 viduality was better promoted by the existing 
 method of competition. Clapp was afterwards 
 the admired leader of a Bohemian clique in 
 New York and had a melancholy career ; but 
 that speech did more than anything else to 
 make me at least a halfway socialist for life. 
 The Brook Farm people were also to be met 
 
86 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 occasionally at Mrs. Harrington s confectionery 
 shop in School Street, where they took econo 
 mical refreshments; and still oftener at Miss 
 Elizabeth Peabody s foreign bookstore in West 
 Street, which was a part of the educational in 
 fluences of the period. It was an atom of a 
 shop, partly devoted to the homoeopathic medi 
 cines of her father, a physician ; and she alone 
 in Boston, I think, had French and German 
 books for sale. There I made further acquaint 
 ance with Cousin and Jouffroy, with Constant s 
 "De la Religion" and Leroux "De 1 Human- 
 ite," the relics of the French Eclecticism, then 
 beginning to fade, but still taught in colleges. 
 There, too, were Schubert s " Geschichte der 
 Seele " and many of the German balladists 
 who were beginning to enthrall me. There was 
 also Miss Peabody herself, desultory, dreamy, 
 but insatiable in her love for knowledge and for 
 helping others to it. James Freeman Clarke 
 said of her that she was always engaged in sup 
 plying some want that had first to be created ; 
 it might be Dr. Kraitsir s lectures on language, 
 or General Bern s historical chart. She always 
 preached the need, but never accomplished the 
 supply until she advocated the kindergarten ; 
 there she caught up with her mission and came 
 to identify herself with its history. She lived 
 to be very old, and with her broad benevolent 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 87 
 
 face and snowy curls was known to many as 
 "The Grandmother of Boston." I best asso 
 ciate her with my last interview, a little before 
 her death, when I chanced to pick her out of a 
 snowdrift into which she had sunk overwhelmed 
 during a furious snowsquall, while crossing a 
 street in Boston. I did not know her until she 
 had scrambled up with much assistance, and 
 recognizing me at once, fastened on my offered 
 arm, saying breathlessly, " I am so glad to see 
 you. I have been wishing to talk to you about 
 Sarah Winnemucca. Now Sarah Winnemucca " 
 and she went on discoursing as peacefully 
 about a maligned Indian prote"ge"e as if she were 
 strolling in some sequestered moonlit lane, on 
 a summer evening. 
 
 I have said that the influence wrought upon 
 me by Brookline life was largely due to one 
 man and one or two writers. The writer who 
 took possession of me, after Emerson, was the 
 German author, Jean Paul Richter, whose me 
 moirs had just been written by a Brookline 
 lady, Mrs. Thomas Lee. This biography set 
 before me, just at the right time, the attrac 
 tions of purely literary life, carried on in a 
 perfectly unworldly spirit ; and his story of 
 "Siebenkas," just then opportunely translated, 
 presented the same thing in a more graphic 
 way. From that moment poverty, or at least 
 
88 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 extreme economy, had no terrors for me, and I 
 could not bear the thought of devoting my life 
 to the technicalities of Blackstone. Not that 
 the law-book had failed to interest me, for it 
 was a book, but I could not consent to sur 
 render my life to what it represented, nor have 
 I ever repented that decision. I felt instinc 
 tively what the late Dwight Foster said to me 
 long after : " The objection to the study of the 
 law is not that it is not interesting, for it is 
 eminently so, but that it fills your mind with 
 knowledge which cannot be carried into another 
 stage of existence." Long after this, more 
 over, my classmate Durant, at the height of 
 his professional success, once stoutly denied to 
 me that there was any real interest to be found 
 in legal study. "The law," he said, "is sim 
 ply a system of fossilized inj ustice ; there is 
 not enough of intellectual interest about it to 
 occupy an intelligent mind for an hour." This 
 I do not believe ; and he was probably not the 
 highest authority ; yet his remark and Judge 
 Foster s always helped me to justify to myself 
 that early choice. 
 
 With all this social and intellectual occupa 
 tion, much of my Brookline life was lonely 
 and meditative ; my German romances made 
 me a dreamer, and I spent much time in the 
 woods, nominally botanizing but in reality try- 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 89 
 
 ing to adjust myself, being still only nineteen 
 or twenty, to the problems of life. One favor 
 ite place was Hammond s Pond, then cele 
 brated among botanists as the only locality for 
 the beautiful Andromeda polifolia, so named by 
 Linnaeus because, like the fabled Andromeda, it 
 dwelt in wild regions only. The pond was, and 
 I believe still is, surrounded by deep woods and 
 overhung by a hill covered with moss-grown 
 fragments of rock, among which the pink Cy- 
 pripedium or lady s slipper used to grow pro 
 fusely. The Andromeda was on the other side 
 of the lake, and some one had left a leaky boat 
 there, which I used to borrow and paddle across 
 the dark water, past a cedar forest which lined 
 it on one side, and made me associate it with 
 the gloomy Mummelsee of one of my beloved 
 German ballads by August Schnezler : 
 
 " Amid the gloomy Mummelsee 
 Do live the palest lilies many. 
 All day they droop so drowsily 
 In azure air or rainy, 
 But when the dreadful moon of night 
 Rains down on earth its yellow light, 
 Up spring they, full of lightness, 
 In woman s form and brightness." 
 
 My lilies were as pale and as abundant as 
 any German lake could ever boast ; and among 
 them there was to be seen motionless the black 
 prow of some old boat which had sunk at its 
 
90 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 moorings and looked so uncanny that I never 
 would row near it. Above the lake a faint 
 path wound up the hill among the rocks, and 
 at the summit there was a large detached boul 
 der with a mouldering ladder reaching its top, 
 where I used to climb and rest after my long 
 rambling. Close by there was one dead pine- 
 tree of the older growth towering above the 
 younger trees ; and sometimes a homeward 
 faring robin or crow would perch and rest 
 there as I was resting, or the sweet bell of the 
 Newton Theological Seminary on its isolated 
 hill would peal out what seemed like the An- 
 gelus. 
 
 What with all these dreamings, and the in 
 fluence of Jean Paul and Heine, the desire for 
 a free life of study, and perhaps of dreams, 
 grew so strong upon me that I decided to go 
 back to Cambridge as " resident graduate," 
 there was then no graduate school, and es 
 tablish myself as cheaply as possible, to live 
 after my own will. I was already engaged to 
 be married to one of the Brookline cousins, but 
 I had taken what my mother called " the vow 
 of poverty," and was willing to risk the future. 
 Mrs. Farrar, an old friend of the family, with 
 whom I had spent a part of the summer before 
 entering college, reported with satisfaction that 
 she had met me one day driving my own small 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 91 
 
 wagon-load of furniture over muddy roads from 
 Brookline to Cambridge, like any emigrant lad, 
 whereas the last time she had seen me before 
 was at the opera in Boston, with soiled white 
 kid gloves on. Never was I happier in my life 
 than at that moment of transformation when she 
 saw me. It was my Flight into Egypt. 
 
 I established myself in the cheapest room I 
 could find, in a house then called "College 
 House," and standing on part of the ground 
 now occupied by the block of that name. Its 
 familiar appellation in Cambridge was "The 
 Old Den," and my only housemate at first was 
 an eccentric law student, or embryo lawyer, 
 popularly known as "Light-House Thomas," 
 because he had fitted himself for college in 
 one of those edifices. Here at last I could live 
 in my own way, making both ends meet by an 
 occasional pupil, and enjoying the same free 
 dom which Thoreau, then unknown to me, 
 was afterwards to possess in his hut. I did 
 not know exactly what I wished to study in 
 Cambridge ; indeed, I went there to find out. 
 Perhaps I had some vague notion of prepar 
 ing myself for a professorship in literature or 
 mathematics and metaphysics, but in the mean 
 time I read, as Emerson says of Margaret 
 Fuller, "at a rate like Gibbon s." There was 
 the obstacle to be faced, which has indeed 
 
92 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 always proved too much for me, the enor 
 mous wealth of the world of knowledge, and 
 the stupendous variety of that which I wished 
 to know. Doubtless the modern elective sys 
 tem, or even a wise teacher, would have helped 
 me ; they would have compelled me to con 
 centration, but perhaps I may have absolutely 
 needed some such period of intellectual wild 
 oats. This was in September, 1843. 
 
 I read in that year, and a subsequent similar 
 year, the most desultory and disconnected books, 
 the larger the better: Newton s "Principia" and 
 Whewell s "Mechanical Euclid;" Ritter s "His 
 tory of Ancient Philosophy;" Sismondi s "De 
 cline and Fall of the Roman Empire;" Lamen- 
 nais "Paroles d un Croyant"and "Livre du 
 Peuple;" Homer and Hesiod; Linnaeus s "Cor 
 respondence;" Emerson over and over. Fortu 
 nately I kept up outdoor life also and learned 
 the point where books and nature meet ; learned 
 that Chaucer belongs to spring, German ro 
 mance to summer nights, Amadis de Gaul and 
 the Morte d Arthur to the Christmas time ; 
 and found that books of natural history, in Tho- 
 reau s phrase, "furnish the cheerfulest winter 
 reading." Bettine Brentano and Giinderode 
 the correspondence between the two maidens 
 being just then translated by Margaret Fuller 
 also fascinated me ; and I have seldom been 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 93 
 
 happier than when I spent two summer days 
 beside the Rhine, many years after, in visiting 
 the very haunts where Bettine romanced, and 
 the spot where Giinderode died 
 
 I tried to read all night occasionally, as 
 Lowell told me he had sometimes done, and 
 as a mathematical classmate of mine had done 
 weekly, to my envy; but sleepiness and the 
 morning chill soon checked this foolish enter 
 prise. On one of these nights I had an experi 
 ence so nearly incredible that I scarcely dare 
 to tell it, yet it was, I believe, essentially true. 
 Sitting up till four one morning over a volume 
 of Lamennais, I left the mark at an unfinished 
 page, having to return the book to the college 
 library. A year after I happened to take the 
 book from the library again, got up at four 
 o clock to read, began where I left off, and 
 afterwards, not till afterwards, looking in 
 my diary, found that I had simply skipped a 
 precise year and gone on with the passage. 
 
 I continued to teach myself German on a 
 preposterous plan brought forward in those 
 days by a learned Hungarian, Dr. Charles 
 Kraitsir, who had a theory of the alphabet, 
 and held that by its means all the Indo-Euro 
 pean languages could be resolved into one ; so 
 that we could pass from each to another by an 
 effort of will, like the process of mind-healing. 
 
94 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Tried on the German ballads this method 
 proved very seductive, but when one went a 
 step farther it turned out very superficial ; as is 
 therefore all my knowledge of German, though 
 I have read a good deal of it. All this way 
 of living was intellectually very risky, as is 
 the process of "boarding one s self" which I 
 have also tried for the body ; and I am glad 
 to have come with no more serious injury 
 through them both. For a specialist this course 
 would have been disastrous, but I was plainly 
 not destined for a specialist ; for a predestined 
 essayist and public speaker, it was not so bad, 
 since to him nothing comes amiss. Fortunately 
 it was a period when a tonic influence and a 
 cohesive restraint came from a wholly different 
 direction ; indeed, I might say from two direc 
 tions. 
 
 The first of these influences was the renewal 
 of my acquaintance with Lowell, which had 
 been waived during my two years stay in 
 Brookline. He recognized in Thaxter, who 
 about this time went to New York to study for 
 the dramatic profession, and in myself, two of 
 his stoutest advocates. We met a little more 
 on a level than before ; the difference of nearly 
 five years which had formerly made him only 
 my elder brother s crony was now becoming 
 less important, and I found myself approaching 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 95 
 
 that maturer period which a clever woman de 
 fined as "the age of everybody." To be sure, 
 I could recall the time when my brother had 
 come home one evening with the curt remark, 
 " Jim Lowell doubts whether he shall really 
 be a lawyer, after all ; he thinks he shall be a 
 poet." Now that poet was really launched, and 
 indeed was "the best launched man of his time," 
 as Willis said. I used to go to his room and 
 to read books he suggested, such as Putten- 
 ham s "Arte of Poesie," and Chapman s plays. 
 He did most of the talking ; it was a way he 
 had ; but he was always original and trenchant, 
 though I sometimes rebelled inwardly at his 
 very natural attitude of leadership. We occa 
 sionally walked out together, late in the evening, 
 from Emerson s lectures or the concerts which 
 were already introducing Beethoven. Some 
 times there was a reception after the lecture, 
 usually at the rooms of a youth who was an 
 ardent Fourierite, and had upon his door a blaz 
 ing sun, with gilded rays emanating in all direc 
 tions, and bearing the motto " Universal Unity." 
 Beneath this appeared a neat black-and-white 
 inscription, thus worded : " Please wipe your 
 feet." 
 
 Our evening walks from Boston were delight 
 ful; and Longfellow s poem of "The Bridge" 
 does little more than put into verse the thoughts 
 
96 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 they inspired. The walk was then, as is cer 
 tainly not now the case, a plunge into dark 
 ness ; and there is no other point from which 
 the transformation of the older Boston is more 
 conspicuous. You now cross the bridge at 
 night through a circle of radiant lights glancing 
 in brilliant lines through all the suburbs ; but 
 in the old nights there was here and there in 
 the distance a dim oil lamp ; in time oil gave 
 place to kerosene ; then came gas, then electri 
 city, and still the brighter the lamps, the more 
 they multiplied. The river itself was different ; 
 there were far more vessels, and I have myself 
 been hailed on the bridge and offered money to 
 pilot a coasting schooner to Watertown. Seals 
 also came above the wharves and gave Lowell 
 the material for one of his best stories, but 
 one which he never, I think, quite ventured to 
 print. He saw two farmer lads watching from 
 the bridge one of these visitors as he played 
 in the water. "Wai, neaow," said one of the 
 youths, "be them kind o critters common up 
 this way, do ye suppose? Be they or be 
 they?" "Wai," responded the other, "dun- 
 no s they be, and dunno ez they be." This 
 perfect flower of New England speech, twin 
 blossoms on one stem, delighted Lowell hugely ; 
 and it was so unexampled in my own experi 
 ence that it always inspired in me a slight dis- 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 97 
 
 trust, as being too good to be true. Perhaps 
 it created a little envy, as was the case with 
 Albert Dicey, when he and James Bryce first 
 visited America, and I met them at a dinner 
 party in Newport. Dicey came in, rubbing 
 his hands, and saying with eagerness, " Bryce 
 is very happy ; at the Ocean House he has just 
 heard a man say European twice ! " 
 
 Another and yet more tonic influence, though 
 Lowell was already an ardent Abolitionist, 
 came from the presence of reformatory agita 
 tion in the world outside. There were always 
 public meetings in Boston to be attended ; 
 there were social reform gatherings where I 
 heard the robust Orestes Brownson and my 
 eloquent cousin William Henry Channing ; 
 there were anti-slavery conventions, with Garri 
 son and Phillips ; then on Sunday there were 
 Theodore Parker and James Freeman Clarke, 
 to show that one might accomplish something 
 and lead a manly life even in the pulpit. My 
 betrothed was one of the founders of Clarke s 
 Church of the Disciples, and naturally drew me 
 there ; the services were held in a hall and 
 were quite without those merely ecclesiastical 
 associations which were then unattractive to 
 me, and have never yet, I fear, quite asserted 
 their attraction. I learned from Clarke the 
 immense value of simplicity of statement and 
 
9 8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 perfect straightforwardness of appeal ; but in 
 the direction of pure thought and advanced 
 independence of opinion, Theodore Parker was 
 my teacher. To this day I sometimes dream 
 of going to hear him preach, the great, free, 
 eager congregation ; the strong, serious, com 
 manding presence of the preacher ; his rev 
 erent and earnest prayer; his comprehensive 
 hour-long sermon full of sense, knowledge, feel 
 ing, courage, he being not afraid even of his 
 own learning, absolutely holding his audience 
 in the hollow of his hand. Once in New York 
 a few years ago I went to Dr. Rainsford s 
 church and felt for a moment or two not, 
 indeed, while the surpliced choir was singing 
 that I was again in the hands of Theodore 
 Parker. 
 
 Under the potent influences of Parker and 
 Clarke I found myself gravitating toward what 
 was then called the " liberal " ministry ; one 
 very much secularized it must be, I foresaw, 
 to satisfy me. Even in this point of view my 
 action was regarded rather askance by some of 
 my more strenuous transcendental friends, even 
 George William Curtis expressing a little dis 
 approval ; though in later years he himself took 
 to the pulpit, in a yet more secular fashion, 
 to be sure, a good while after I had left it. 
 I had put myself meanwhile in somewhat the 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE NEWNESS 99 
 
 position of that backsliding youth at Concord 
 of whom some feminine friend said anxiously, 
 "I am troubled about Eben ; he used to be a 
 real Come-Outer, interested in all the reforms ; 
 but now he smokes and swears and goes to 
 church, and is just like any other young man." 
 Yet I resolved to risk even this peril, removed 
 my modest belongings to Divinity Hall, and 
 bought one of those very Hebrew Bibles which 
 my father had once criticised as having their 
 title-pages at the wrong end 
 
IV 
 
 THE REARING OF A REFORMER 
 
 SOME years before the time when I entered 
 the Harvard Divinity School, it had been de 
 scribed by the Rev. Dr. J. G. Palfrey, then its 
 dean, as being made up of mystics, skeptics, 
 and dyspeptics. This, being interpreted, really 
 meant that the young men there assembled 
 were launched on that wave of liberal thought 
 which, under Emerson and Parker, was rapidly 
 submerging the old landmarks. For myself, I 
 was wholly given over to the newer phase of 
 thought, and after a year of un chartered free 
 dom was ready to concentrate my reading a 
 little and follow the few appointed lines of study 
 which the school then required. The teachers 
 were men quite worth knowing ; and Dr. Con- 
 vers Francis, especially, had a noted library and 
 as dangerous a love of miscellaneous reading as 
 my own. Accordingly, during the first year I 
 kept up that perilous habit, and at the end of 
 this time stayed out of the school for another 
 year of freedom, returning only for the neces 
 sary final terms. There had just been a large 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 101 
 
 accession of books at the college library, and 
 from that and the Francis collection I had a full 
 supply. I read Comte and Fourier, Strauss s 
 " Life of Jesus " (a French translation), and 
 bought by economy a fine folio copy of Cud- 
 worth s "Intellectual System," on which I used 
 to browse at all odd hours keeping it open 
 on a standing desk. I read Mill s "Logic," 
 Whewell s "Inductive Sciences," Landor s "Ge- 
 bir " and "Imaginary Conversations." Maria 
 Lowell lent me also Landor s " Pentameron," a 
 book with exquisite passages ; Alford s poems, 
 then new, and, as she said, " valuable for 
 their simplicity;" and the fiery German lays 
 of Hoffmann von Fallersleben, some of which 
 I translated, as was also the case with poems 
 from Riickert and Freiligrath, besides making 
 a beginning at a version of the Swedish epic 
 "Frithiofs Saga," which Longfellow admired, 
 
 and of Fredrika Bremer s novel, "The H 
 
 Family." I returned to Homer and Dante in 
 the originals, and read something of Plato in 
 Cousin s French translation, with an occasional 
 reference to the Greek text. 
 
 Some verses were contributed by me, as well 
 as by my sister Louisa, at various times, to 
 "The Harbinger," published at Brook Farm and 
 edited by the late Charles A. Dana. My first 
 poem, suggested by the fine copy of the Sistine 
 
102 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Madonna which had been my housemate at 
 Brookline, had, however, been printed in " The 
 Present," a short-lived magazine edited by my 
 cousin, William Henry Channing; the verses 
 being afterward, to my great delight, reprinted 
 by Professor Longfellow in his "Estray." My 
 first prose, also, had appeared in " The Present," 
 an enthusiastic review of Mrs. Child s " Let 
 ters from New York," then eagerly read by us 
 young Transcendentalists. I dipped ardently, 
 about that time, into the easier aspects of Ger 
 man philosophy, reading Fichte s " Bestimmung 
 des Menschen " (Destiny of Man) with delight, 
 and Schelling s "Vorlesungen iiber die Me- 
 thode des Akademischen Studiums " (Lectures 
 on Academical Study). The influence of these 
 authors was also felt through Coleridge s " Lit 
 erary Remains," of which I was very fond, and 
 in "Vital Dynamics," by Dr. Green, Coleridge s 
 friend and physician. A more perilous book 
 was De Quincey s " Confessions of an English 
 Opium-Eater," which doubtless created more of 
 such slaves than it liberated : I myself was led 
 to try some guarded experiments in that direc 
 tion, which had happily no effect, and I was 
 glad to abandon them. It seems, in looking 
 back, a curious escapade for one who had a nat 
 ural dislike for all stimulants and narcotics and 
 had felt no temptation of that kind ; I probably 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 103 
 
 indulged the hope of stimulating my imagina 
 tion. 
 
 My mother and sisters having now left Cam 
 bridge, I rarely went to any house there, ex 
 cept sometimes to Lowell s, where his sweet 
 wife now presided over the upper story of his 
 father s large abode. She kept things as or 
 derly as she could ; always cruising like Admi 
 ral Van Tromp, Lowell said, with a broom at her 
 mast-head. She had fitted the rooms with pretty 
 devices, and rocked her baby in a cradle fash 
 ioned from a barrel cut lengthways, placed on 
 rockers, and upholstered by herself. At its foot 
 she painted three spears as the Lowell crest and 
 three lilies for her own, with the motto " Puri- 
 tas Potestas." This was fof their first child, 
 whose early death both Lowell and Longfel 
 low mourned in song. The Lowells sometimes 
 saw company in a modest way, and I remember 
 spending an evening there with Ole Bull and 
 John Weiss. Dr. Lowell, the father, was yet 
 living, always beneficent and attractive ; he still 
 sometimes preached in the college chapel, and 
 won all undergraduate hearts by providing only 
 fifteen-minute sermons. 
 
 If I belonged in the first two categories of 
 Dr. Palfrey s classification of the Divinity 
 School, I happily kept clear of the third, never 
 having been a dyspeptic, though I lived literally 
 
104 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 on bread and milk during the greater part of 
 a year, for purposes of necessary economy and 
 the buying of books. I kept up habits of ac 
 tive exercise, played football and baseball, and 
 swam in the river in summer. There was then 
 an attention paid to the art of swimming such 
 as is not now observable; the college main 
 tained large bath-houses where now are coal- 
 yards, and we used to jump or dive from the 
 roofs, perhaps twenty feet high ; we had a 
 Danish student named Stallknecht, who could 
 swim a third of the way across the river under 
 water, and we vainly tried to emulate him. In 
 winter there was skating on Fresh Pond. I 
 must not forget to add that at all seasons I took 
 long walks with Edward Tuckerman, then the 
 most interesting man about Cambridge, lead 
 ing a life which seemed to us like that of an 
 Oxford don, and already at work on his Latin 
 treatise on lichens. His room was a delightful 
 place to visit, a large chamber in a rambling 
 old house, with three separate reading-tables, 
 one for botany, one for the study of Coleridge, 
 and one for the Greek drama. He was the 
 simplest-hearted of men, shy, near-sighted, and 
 lovable ; the tragedy of whose life was that his 
 cruel father had sent him to Union College 
 instead of to Harvard ; a loss he made up by 
 staying years at the latter, graduating succes- 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 105 
 
 sively at the Law School and the Divinity 
 School, and finally taking his degree in the un 
 dergraduate department at what seemed to us 
 a ripe old age. 
 
 Another tonic in the way of cultured com 
 panionship was that of James Elliot Cabot, fresh 
 from a German university, then a rare expe 
 rience, he being, however, most un-German 
 in clearness and terseness. I remember that 
 when I complained to him of not understanding 
 Kant s " Critique of Pure Reason," in English, 
 he answered tranquilly that he could not ; that 
 having read it twice in German he had thought 
 he comprehended it, but that Meiklejohn s trans 
 lation was beyond making out. These men 
 were not in the Divinity School, but I met their 
 equals there. The hading men of a college class 
 gravitated then as naturally to the Divinity 
 School as now to the Law School; even though, 
 like myself, they passed to other pursuits after 
 ward. I met there such men as Thomas Hill, 
 afterward President of Harvard ; Octavius B. 
 Frothingham ; William R. Alger ; Samuel Long 
 fellow and Samuel Johnson, who compiled at 
 Divinity Hall their collection of hymns, a 
 volume called modestly " A Book of Hymns," 
 and more profanely named from its editors 
 familiar names "The Sam Book." Longfellow 
 was one of the born saints, but with a breadth 
 
106 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 and manliness not always to be found in that 
 class ; he was also a genuine poet, like his elder 
 brother, whose biographer he afterward became. 
 Johnson, a man of brilliant gifts and much per 
 sonal charm, is now best known by his later 
 work on " Oriental Religions." It is a curi 
 ous fact that many of their youthful hymns as 
 well as some of my own, appearing originally in 
 this heterodox work, have long since found their 
 way into the most orthodox and respectable 
 collections. 
 
 Two of the most interesting men in the Divin 
 ity School were afterward, like myself, in mil 
 itary service during the Civil War. One of 
 them was James Richardson, whom Frothing- 
 ham described later as "a brilliant wreath of 
 fire-mist, which seemed every moment to be on 
 the point of becoming a star, but never did." 
 He enlisted as a private soldier and died in hos 
 pital, where he had been detailed as nurse. 
 The other had been educated at West Point, 
 and had served in the Florida Indian wars; 
 he was strikingly handsome and mercilessly 
 opinionated ; he commanded the first regiment 
 of heavy artillery raised in Massachusetts, did 
 much for the defense of Washington in the 
 early days of the Civil War, and resigned his 
 commission when Governor Andrew refused 
 to see justice done as he thought to one 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 107 
 
 of his subordinates. His name was William 
 Batcheldor Greene. 
 
 But all these companionships were wholly 
 secondary to one which was for me most mem 
 orable, and brought joy for a few years and 
 sorrow for many. Going through the doors of 
 Divinity Hall I met one day a young man so 
 handsome in his dark beauty that he seemed 
 like a picturesque Oriental ; slender, keen-eyed, 
 raven-haired, he arrested the eye and the heart 
 like some fascinating girl. This was William 
 Hurlbert (originally Hurlbut), afterward the 
 hero of successive novels, Kingsley s " Two 
 Years Ago," Winthrop s " Cecil Dreeme," and 
 my own "Malbone," as well as of actual 
 events stranger than any novels. He was the 
 breaker, so report said, of many hearts, the 
 disappointer of many high hopes, and this 
 in two continents ; he was the most variously 
 gifted and accomplished man I have ever 
 known, acquiring knowledge as by magic, 
 passing easily for a Frenchman in France, an 
 Italian in Italy, a Spaniard in Spanish coun 
 tries ; beginning his career as a radical young 
 Unitarian divine, and ending it as a defender of 
 despotism. He was also for a time a Roman 
 Catholic, but died in the Church of England. 
 
 The turning-point of Hurlbert s life occurred, 
 for me at least, when I met him once, to my 
 
io8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 great delight, at Centre Harbor, I being on my 
 way to the White Mountains and he returning 
 thence. We had several hours together, and 
 went out on the lake for a long chat. He told 
 me that he had decided to go to New York 
 and enter the office of A. Oakey Hall, a law 
 yer against whom there was then, justly or 
 unjustly, some prejudice. I expressed surprise 
 and perhaps regret ; and he said frankly, "It is 
 the parting of the ways with me, and I feel it 
 to be necessary. I have made up my mind 
 that I cannot live the simple and moderate 
 life you and my other friends live in New Eng 
 land ; I must have a larger field, and more of 
 the appliances and even luxuries of existence." 
 This recalls what the latest biographer of Bay 
 ard Taylor has said of him : " The men of New 
 England were satisfied with plain homes and 
 simple living, and were content with the small 
 incomes of professional life. Taylor had other 
 aims. . . . Involved in the expense of Cedar- 
 croft, he never knew the enormous value of 
 freedom." 
 
 There was nothing intrinsically wrong in the 
 impulse of either, but the ambition brought 
 failure to both, though Taylor, with the tra 
 dition of a Quaker ancestry, and with less of 
 perilous personal fascination, escaped the moral 
 deterioration and the social scandals which be- 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 109 
 
 set Hurlbert, as well as his utter renunciation 
 of all his early convictions. Yet the charm 
 always remained in Hurlbert s case. When 
 we met at Centre Harbor, I remember, he was 
 summoned from dinner on some question about 
 stage arrangements ; and the moment he had 
 shut the door a lady of cultivated appearance 
 got up hastily from her chair and came round 
 where I was sitting. She said breathlessly, 
 " Can you tell me who that is ? We came here 
 in the stage with him, and he has been per 
 fectly delightful. I never saw such a man : he 
 knows all languages, talks upon all subjects ; 
 my daughter and I cannot rest without knowing 
 who he is." I did not even learn the lady s 
 name, but years after I met her again, and she 
 recalled the interview ; time for her had only 
 confirmed the instantaneous impression which 
 Hurlbert made, the whole thing suggesting 
 a similar story about Edmund Burke. 
 
 In Burke s case it was apparently a matter 
 of pure intellect, but in Hurlbert s it was due 
 largely to the constitutional and invariable im 
 pulse to attract and charm. I am told for I 
 had utterly forgotten it that I myself said of 
 him in those days, " He could not stop to buy 
 an apple of an old woman on the sidewalk with 
 out leaving her with the impression that she 
 alone had really touched his heart." 
 
no CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 I have known many gifted men on both sides 
 of the Atlantic, but I still regard Hurlbert 
 as unequaled among them all for natural bril 
 liancy; even Lowell was not his peer. Nor 
 can I be convinced that he was as President 
 Walker once said to me, when I urged Hurl- 
 bert s appointment, about 1850, as professor 
 of history at Harvard "a worthless fellow." 
 Among many things which were selfish and 
 unscrupulous there must have been something 
 deeper to have called out the warm affection 
 created by him in both sexes. I strongly sus 
 pect that if, after twenty years of non- inter 
 course, he had written to me to come and nurse 
 him in illness, I should have left all and gone. 
 Whatever may have been his want of moral prin 
 ciple, he certainly had the power not merely 
 of inspiring affection, but of returning it. I 
 know, for instance, that while borrowing money 
 right and left, he never borrowed of me, not 
 that I had then much to lend; if he helped 
 himself to my books and other small matters 
 as if they were his own, he was not an atom 
 more chary of the possessions that were his ; 
 and I recall one occasion when he left a charm 
 ing household in Boston and came out to Cam 
 bridge, in the middle of a winter vacation, on 
 purpose to have a fire ready for me in my room 
 on my return from a journey. I think it was 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER in 
 
 on that very evening that he read aloud to me 
 from Krummacher s "Parables," a book then 
 much liked among us, selecting that fine tale 
 describing the gradual downfall of a youth of 
 unbounded aspirations, which the author sums 
 up with the terse conclusion, " But the name of 
 that youth is not mentioned among the poets 
 of Greece." It was thus with Hurlbert when 
 he died, although his few poems in " Putnam s 
 Magazine " " Borodino," " Sorrento," and the 
 like seemed to us the dawn of a wholly new 
 genius ; and I remember that when the cool and 
 keen-sighted Whittier read his " Gan Eden," he 
 said to me that one who had written that could 
 write anything he pleased. Yet the name of 
 the youth was not mentioned among the poets ; 
 and the utter indifference with which the an 
 nouncement of his death was received was a 
 tragic epitaph upon a wasted life. 
 
 Thanks to a fortunate home training and the 
 subsequent influence of Emerson and Parker, I 
 held through all my theological studies a sunny 
 view of the universe, which has lasted me as 
 well, amid the storms of life, so far as I can 
 see, as the more prescribed and conventional 
 forms of faith might have done. We all, no 
 doubt, had our inner conflicts, yet mine never 
 related to opinions, but to those problems of 
 heart and emotion which come to every young 
 
112 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 person, and upon which it is not needful to 
 dwell. Many of my fellow students, however, 
 had just broken away from a sterner faith, 
 whose shattered eggshells still clung around 
 them. My friend of later years, David Wasson, 
 used to say that his health was ruined for life by 
 two struggles : first by the way in which he got 
 into the church during a revival, and then by 
 the way he got out of it as a reformer. This 
 I escaped, and came out in the end with the 
 radical element so much stronger than the sacer 
 dotal, that I took for the title of my address 
 at the graduating exercises "The Clergy and 
 Reform." I remember that I had just been 
 reading Home s farthing epic of Orion, and had 
 an ambitious sentence in my address, compar 
 ing the spirit of the age to that fabled being, 
 first blinded, and then fixing his sightless eyes 
 upon the sun that they might be set free once 
 more. Probably it was crude enough, but The 
 odore Parker liked it, and so I felt as did the 
 brave Xanthus, described by Landor, who only 
 remembered that in the heat of the battle Peri 
 cles smiled on him. I was asked to preach 
 as a candidate before the First Religious So 
 ciety at Newburyport, a church two hundred 
 years old, then ostensibly of the Unitarian 
 faith, but bearing no denominational name. 
 Receiving a farther invitation after trial, I went 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 113 
 
 there to begin my professional career, if such 
 it could properly be called. 
 
 There was something very characteristic of 
 my mother in a little incident which happened 
 in connection with my first visit to Newbury- 
 port. I had retained enough affection for the 
 opinion of Boston drawing-rooms to have de 
 vised for myself a well-cut overcoat of gray 
 tweed, with a cap of the same material trimmed 
 with fur. My elder sisters naturally admired 
 me in this garb, but implored me not to wear it 
 to Newburyport. " So unclerical," they said ; 
 it would ruin my prospects. " Let him wear 
 it, by all means," said my wiser mother. " If 
 they cannot stand that clothing, they can never 
 stand its wearer." Her opinion properly pre 
 vailed ; and I was perhaps helped as much as 
 hindered by this bit of lingering worldly vanity. 
 The younger people expected some pleasant ad 
 mixture of heresy about me, and it might as well 
 begin in this way as in any other. Henry C. 
 Wright, afterward a prominent Abolitionist, had 
 lost his parish, a few miles above Newburyport, 
 for the alleged indecorum of swimming across 
 the Merrimack River. 
 
 My first actual proposal of innovation was in 
 a less secular line, but was equally formida 
 ble. It was that I should be ordained as The 
 odore Parker had been, by the society itself: and 
 
114 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 this all the more because my ancestor, Francis 
 Higginson, had been ordained in that way 
 the first of all New England ordinations in 
 1629. To this the society readily assented, at 
 least so far as that there should be no ordain 
 ing council, and there was none. William 
 Henry Channing preached one of his impas 
 sioned sermons, " The Gospel of To-Day," and 
 all went joyously on, " youth at the prow and 
 pleasure at the helm," not foreseeing the storms 
 that were soon to gather, although any saga 
 cious observer ought easily to have predicted 
 them. It must be borne in mind that during 
 all this period I was growing more, not less 
 radical ; my alienation from the established 
 order was almost as great as that of Thoreau, 
 though as yet I knew nothing of him except 
 through "The Dial." 
 
 It must be remembered that two rather dif 
 ferent elements combined to make up the so- 
 called Transcendentalist body. There were the 
 more refined votaries, who were indeed the 
 most cultivated people of that time and place ; 
 but there was also a less educated contingent, 
 known popularly as " Come-Outers," a name 
 then as familiar and distinctive as is that of the 
 Salvation Army to-day. These were developed 
 largely by the anti-slavery movement, which 
 was not, like our modern civil service reform, 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 115 
 
 strongest in the more educated classes, but was 
 predominantly a people s movement, based on 
 the simplest human instincts, and far stronger 
 for a time in the factories and shoe-shops than 
 in the pulpits or colleges. The factories were 
 still largely worked by American operatives, and 
 the shoe manufacture was carried on in little 
 shops, where the neighbors met and settled 
 affairs of state, as may be read in Mr. Row 
 land Robinson s delightful stories called " Dan- 
 vis Folks." Radicalism went with the smell 
 of leather, and was especially active in such 
 towns as Lynn and Abington, the centres of 
 that trade. Even the least educated had re 
 cognized it in the form of the Second Advent 
 delusion just then flourishing. All these influ 
 ences combined to make the Come-Outer ele 
 ment very noticeable, it being fearless, dis 
 interested, and always self-asserting. It was 
 abundant on Cape Cod, and the " Cape Cod- 
 ders" were a recognized subdivision at reform 
 meetings. In such meetings or conventions 
 these untaught disciples were often a source of 
 obvious inconvenience : they defied chairmen, 
 scaled platforms, out-roared exhort ers. Some 
 of them, as Emerson says, "devoted themselves 
 to the worrying of clergymen ; " proclaiming a 
 gospel of freedom, I have heard them boast 
 of having ascended into pulpits and trampled 
 
Ii6 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 across their cushions before horrified ministers. 
 This was not a protest against religion, for 
 they were rarely professed atheists, but against 
 its perversions alone. 
 
 It must be remembered that the visible 
 church in New England was not then the prac 
 tical and reformatory body which it is to-day, 
 the change in the Episcopal Church being 
 the most noticeable of all, but that it devoted 
 itself very largely to the " tithing of anise and 
 cummin," as in Scripture times. Of the re 
 forms prominent before the people, nearly all 
 had originated outside the pulpit and even 
 among avowed atheists. Thomas Herttell, a 
 judge of the Marine Court of New York city, 
 who belonged to that heretical class, was the 
 first person in America, apparently, to write 
 and print, in 1819, a strong appeal in behalf 
 of total abstinence as the only remedy for in 
 temperance; and the same man made, in 1837, 
 in the New York Assembly, the first effort to 
 secure to married women the property rights 
 now generally conceded. All of us were famil 
 iar with the vain efforts of Garrison to enlist 
 the clergy in the anti-slavery cause ; and Ste 
 phen Foster, one of the stanchest of the early 
 Abolitionists, habitually spoke of them as " the 
 Brotherhood of Thieves." Lawyers and doc 
 tors, too, fared hard with those. enthusiasts, and 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 117 
 
 merchants not much better; Edward Palmer 
 writing against the use of money, and even 
 such superior men as Alcott having sometimes 
 a curious touch of the Harold Skimpole view of 
 that convenience. It seems now rather remark 
 able that the institution of marriage did not 
 come in for a share in the general laxity, but it 
 did not ; and it is to be observed that Henry 
 James speaks rather scornfully of the Brook 
 Farm community in this respect, as if its mem 
 bers must have been wanting in the courage 
 of their convictions to remain so unreasonably 
 chaste. I well remember that the contrary 
 was predicted and expected by cynics, and the 
 utter failure of their prophecies was the best 
 tribute to the essential purity of the time. It 
 was, like all seething periods, at least among 
 the Anglo-Saxon race, a time of high moral 
 purpose ; and the anti-slavery movement, reach 
 ing its climax after the passage of the Fugitive 
 Slave Law, was about to bring such qualities 
 to a test. 
 
 This agitation, at any rate, was so far the 
 leader in the reforms of the day that it brought 
 to a focus all their picturesque ingredients. 
 There were women who sat tranquilly knitting 
 through a whole anti-slavery convention, how 
 ever exciting, and who had that look of pro 
 longed and self-controlled patience which we 
 
n8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 associate with Sisters of Charity ; and others 
 who bore that uplifted and joyous serenity 
 which now seems a part of the discipline of the 
 Salvation lassies. There were always present 
 those whom Emerson tersely classified as " men 
 with beards ; " this style, now familiar, being 
 then an utter novelty, not tolerated in business 
 or the professions, and of itself a committal 
 to pronounced heresy. Partly as a result of 
 this unwonted adornment, there were men who 
 as is indeed noticed in European Socialist 
 meetings to-day bore a marked resemblance 
 to the accepted pictures of Jesus Christ. This 
 trait was carried to an extent which the news 
 papers called " blasphemous " in Charles Bur- 
 leigh, a man of tall figure, benign face, and 
 most persuasive tongue, wearing long auburn 
 curls and somewhat tangled tempestuous beard. 
 Lowell, whose own bearded condition marked 
 his initiation into abolitionism, used to be 
 amused when he went about with Burleigh and 
 found himself jeered at as a new and still fal 
 tering disciple. Finally, there was the Hutch- 
 inson Family, with six or eight tall brothers 
 clustered around the one rosebud of a sister, 
 Abby : all natural singers and one might say 
 actors, indeed unconscious poseurs, easily arous 
 ing torpid conventions with " The Car Emanci 
 pation " and such stirring melodies ; or at times, 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 119 
 
 when encored, giving " The Bridge of Sighs," 
 which seemed made for just the combination 
 they presented. When, in this song, the circle 
 of stalwart youths chanted, " Had she a sister ? " 
 or when the sweet Abby, looking up with dove- 
 like eyes at her guardians, sang in response, 
 "Or had she a brother?" it not only told its 
 own story, but called up forcibly the infinite 
 wrongs of the slave girls who had no such 
 protectors, and who perhaps stood at that very 
 moment, exposed and shrinking, on the auction- 
 block. 
 
 On removing to Newburyport I found my 
 self at once the associate of all that was most 
 reputable in the town, in virtue of my func 
 tions ; and also, by a fatality in temperament, 
 of all that was most radical. There prevailed 
 then a phrase, "the Sisterhood of Reforms," 
 indicating a variety of social and physiological 
 theories of which one was expected to accept 
 all, if any. This I learned soon after my arrival, 
 through the surprise expressed by some of my 
 more radical friends at my unacquaintance with 
 a certain family of factory operatives known 
 as the " Briggs girls." "Not know the Briggs 
 girls ? I should think you would certainly know 
 them. Work in the Globe Mills ; interested in 
 all the reforms ; bathe in cold water every 
 morning ; one of em is a Grahamite," mean- 
 
120 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 ing a disciple of vegetarianism ; that faith being 
 then a conspicuous part of " the Sisterhood of 
 Reforms," but one against which I had been 
 solemnly warned by William Henry Channing, 
 who had made experiment of it while living as 
 city missionary in New York city. He had 
 gone, it seemed, to a boarding-house of the 
 vegetarian faithful in the hope of finding spirit 
 ually minded associates, but was so woefully 
 disappointed in the result that he left them 
 after a while, falling back upon the world s 
 people, as more carnal, possibly, but more com 
 panionable. 
 
 Without a tithe of my cousin s eloquence, I 
 was of a cooler temperament, and perhaps kept 
 my feet more firmly on the earth or was more 
 guarded in my experiments. Yet I was gradu 
 ally drawn into the temperance agitation, in 
 cluding prohibition; the peace movement, for 
 which, I dare say, I pommeled as lustily as 
 Schramm s pupils in Heine s " Reisebilder ; " 
 the social reform debate, which was sustained 
 for some time after the downfall of Brook 
 Farm ; and of course the woman s rights move 
 ment, for whose first national convention I 
 signed the call in 1850. Of all the movements 
 in which I ever took part, except the anti- 
 slavery agitation, this last-named seems to me 
 the most important ; nor have I ever wavered 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 121 
 
 in the opinion announced by Wendell Phillips, 
 that it is "the grandest reform yet launched 
 upon the century, as involving the freedom of 
 one half the human race." Certainly the anti- 
 slavery movement, which was by its nature a 
 more temporary one, had the right of way, and 
 must first be settled ; it was, moreover, by its 
 nature a much simpler movement. Once re 
 cognize the fact that man could have no right 
 of property in man, and the whole affair was 
 settled ; there was nothing left but to agitate, 
 and if needful to fight. But as Stuart Mill 
 clearly pointed out, the very fact of the closer 
 relations of the sexes had complicated the affair 
 with a thousand perplexities in the actual work 
 ing out ; gave room for more blunders, more 
 temporary disappointments, more extravagant 
 claims, and far slower development. 
 
 It was in one respect fortunate that most of 
 the early advocates of the Woman Suffrage 
 reform had served previously as Abolitionists, 
 for they had been thereby trained to courage 
 and self-sacrifice ; but it was in other respects 
 unfortunate, because they had been accustomed 
 to a stem and simple " Thus saith the Lord," 
 which proved less applicable to the more com 
 plex question. When it came to the point, 
 the alleged aversion of the slaves to freedom al 
 ways vanished ; I never myself encountered an 
 
122 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 instance of it; every man, woman, and child, 
 whatever protestations might have been made 
 to the contrary, was eager to grasp at freedom ; 
 whereas in all communities there is a minority 
 of women who are actively opposed to each 
 successive step in elevating their condition, 
 and this without counting the merely indiffer 
 ent. All the ordinary objections to woman suf 
 frage, as that women have not, in the phrase of 
 old Theophilus Parsons, " a sufficient acquired 
 discretion," or that they are too impulsive, or 
 that they cannot fight, all these seem to me 
 trivial ; but it is necessary always to face the 
 fact that this is the only great reform in which 
 a minority, at least, of the very persons to be 
 benefited are working actively on the other 
 side. This, to my mind, only confirms its 
 necessity, as showing that, as Mill says, the 
 very nature of woman has been to some extent 
 warped and enfeebled by prolonged subjugation, 
 and must have time to recover itself. 
 
 It was in the direction of the anti- slavery 
 reform, however, that I felt the most immediate 
 pricking of conscience, and it may be interest 
 ing, as a study of the period, to note what 
 brought it about. There was, perhaps, some 
 tendency that way in the blood, for I rejoice to 
 recall the fact that after Judge Sewall, in 1700, 
 had published his noted tract against slavery, 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 123 
 
 called "The Selling of Joseph," the first protest 
 against slavery in Massachusetts, he himself tes 
 tified, six years later, "Amidst the frowns and 
 hard words I have met with for this Under 
 taking, it is no small refreshment to me that I 
 can have the Learned Reverend and Aged Mr. 
 Higginson for my Abetter." This was my 
 ancestor, the Rev. John Higginson, of Salem, 
 then ninety years old ; but my own strongest 
 impulse came incidentally from my mother. It 
 happened that my father, in his office of stew 
 ard of the college, was also " patron," as it was 
 called, having charge of the affairs of the more 
 distant students, usually from the Southern 
 States. This led to pleasant friendships with 
 their families, and to occasional visits paid by 
 my parents, traveling in their own conveyance. 
 Being once driven from place to place by an 
 intelligent negro driver, my mother said to him 
 that she thought him very well situated, after 
 all; on which he turned and looked at her, 
 simply saying, " Ah, missis ! free breath is 
 good." It impressed her greatly, and she put 
 it into her diary, whence my eldest brother, Dr. 
 Francis John Higginson, quoted it in a little 
 book he wrote, "Remarks on Slavery," pub 
 lished in 1834. This fixed it in my mind, and 
 I remember to have asked my aunt why my 
 uncle in Virginia did not free his slaves. She 
 
124 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 replied that they loved him, and would be sorry 
 to be free. This did not satisfy me ; but on 
 my afterward visiting the Virginia plantation, 
 there was nothing to suggest anything undesir 
 able : the head servant was a grave and digni 
 fied man, with the most unexceptionable man 
 ners ; and the white and black children often 
 played together in the afternoon. It was then 
 illegal to teach a slave to read, but one girl was 
 pointed out who had picked up a knowledge of 
 reading while the white children were learn 
 ing. The slaves seemed merely to share in the 
 kindly and rather slipshod methods of a South 
 ern establishment ; and my only glimpse of the 
 other side was from overhearing conversation 
 between the overseer and his friends, in which 
 all the domestic relations of the negroes were 
 spoken of precisely as if they had been animals. 
 Returning to Cambridge, I found the whole 
 feeling of the college strongly opposed to the 
 abolition movement, as had also been that 
 among my Brookline friends and kindred. My 
 uncle, Mr. Samuel Perkins, had lived in Hayti 
 during the insurrection, and had written an 
 account of it which he gave me to read, and 
 which was afterwards printed by Charles Per 
 kins in the " Proceedings of the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society." He thought, and most men 
 of his class firmly believed, that any step to- 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 125 
 
 ward emancipation would lead to instant and 
 formidable insurrection. It was in this sincere 
 but deluded belief that such men mobbed Gar 
 rison. When I once spoke with admiration of 
 that reformer to Mr. Augustus Aspinwall, a 
 frequent guest at my uncle s house, he replied 
 with perfect gentleness, sipping his wine, " It 
 may be as you say. I never saw him, but I 
 always supposed him to be a fellow who ought 
 to be hung." Mr. Aspinwall was a beautiful 
 old man, who cultivated the finest roses to be 
 found near Boston ; he had the most placid 
 voice, the sweetest courtesy, and the most 
 adamantine opinions, the kind of man who 
 might have been shot in the doorway of his own 
 chateau during the French Revolution. If it 
 had come in his way, he would undoubtedly 
 have seen Garrison executed, and would then 
 have gone back to finish clearing his roses of 
 snails and rose-beetles. The early history of 
 the anti-slavery agitation cannot possibly be un 
 derstood unless we comprehend this class of 
 men who then ruled Boston opinion. 
 
 I know of no book except the last two vol 
 umes of Pierce s "Life of Charles Sumner" 
 which fully does justice to the way in which 
 the anti-slavery movement drew a line of cleav 
 age through all Boston society, leaving most 
 of the more powerful or wealthy families on the 
 
126 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 conservative side. What finally determined me 
 in the other direction was the immediate influ 
 ence of two books, both by women. One of 
 these was Miss Martineau s tract, " The Martyr 
 Age in America," portraying the work of the 
 Abolitionists with such force and eloquence 
 that it seemed as if no generous youth could 
 be happy in any other company ; and the other 
 book was Mrs. Lydia Maria Child s " Appeal 
 for that Class of Americans called Africans." 
 This little work, for all its cumbrous title, was 
 so wonderfully clear, compact, and convincing, 
 it covered all its points so well and was so ab 
 solutely free from all unfairness or shrill invec 
 tive, that it joined with Miss Martineau s less 
 modulated strains to make me an Abolitionist. 
 This was, it must be remembered, some years 
 before the publication of " Uncle Tom s Cabin." 
 I longed to be counted worthy of such com 
 panionship ; I wrote and printed a rather crude 
 sonnet to Garrison ; and my only sorrow was 
 in feeling that, as Alexander lamented about 
 his father Philip s conquests, nothing had been 
 left for me to do. Fortunately, Lowell had 
 already gone far in the same direction, under 
 the influence of his wife ; and her brother Wil 
 liam, moreover, who had been for a time my 
 schoolmate, had left all and devoted himself to 
 anti-slavery lecturing. He it was who, when 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 127 
 
 on a tour with Frederick Douglass at the West, 
 was entertained with him at a house where 
 there was but one spare bed. To some apolo 
 gies by the hostess the ever ready and imperial 
 Douglass answered, with superb dignity, " Do 
 not apologize, madam ; I have not the slightest 
 prejudice against color." 
 
 This was the condition of things then prevail 
 ing around Boston ; and when I went to live 
 in Newburyport the same point of view soon 
 presented itself in another form. The parish, 
 which at first welcomed me, counted among its 
 strongest supporters a group of retired sea-cap 
 tains who had traded with Charleston and New 
 Orleans, and more than one of whom had found 
 himself obliged, after sailing from a Southern 
 port, to put back in order to eject some runa 
 way slave from his lower hold. All their pre 
 judices ran in one direction, and their view of 
 the case differed from that of Boston society 
 only as a rope s end differs from a rapier. One 
 of them, perhaps the quietest, was the very 
 Francis Todd who had caused the imprison 
 ment of Garrison at Baltimore. It happened, 
 besides, that the one political hero and favorite 
 son of Newburyport, Caleb Cushing for of 
 Garrison himself they only felt ashamed was 
 at that moment fighting slavery s battles in the 
 Mexican war. It now seems to me strange 
 
128 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 that, under all these circumstances, I held my 
 place for two years and a half. Of course it 
 cannot be claimed that I showed unvarying tact ; 
 indeed, I can now see that it was quite other 
 wise; but it was a case where tact counted for 
 little ; in fact, I think my sea-captains did not 
 wholly dislike my plainness of speech, though 
 they felt bound to discipline it ; and moreover 
 the whole younger community was on my side. 
 It did not help the matter that I let myself 
 be nominated for Congress by the new "Free 
 Soil" party in 1848, and "stumped the dis 
 trict," though in a hopeless minority. The 
 nomination was Whittier s doing, partly to pre 
 vent that party from nominating him ; and he 
 agreed that, by way of reprieve, I should go to 
 Lowell and induce Josiah G. Abbott, then a 
 young lawyer, to stand in my place. Abbott s 
 objection is worth recording : if elected, he 
 said, he should immediately get into quarrels 
 with the Southern members and have to fight 
 duels, and this he could not conscientiously do. 
 This was his ground of exemption. Years 
 after, when he was an eminent judge in Boston 
 and a very conservative Democrat, I once re 
 minded him of this talk, and he said, " I should 
 feel just the same now." 
 
 Having been, of course, defeated for Con 
 gress, as I had simply stood in a gap, I lived in 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 129 
 
 Newburyport for more than two years longer, 
 after giving up my parish. This time was 
 spent in writing for newspapers, teaching pri 
 vate classes in different studies, serving on the 
 school committee and organizing public evening 
 schools, then a great novelty. The place was, 
 and is, a manufacturing town, and I had a large 
 and intelligent class of factory girls, mostly 
 American, who came to my house for reading 
 and study once a week. In this work I en 
 listed a set of young maidens of unusual ability, 
 several of whom were afterward well known 
 to the world : Harriet Prescott, afterward Mrs. 
 Spofford ; Louisa Stone, afterward Mrs. Hop 
 kins (well known for her educational writings) ; 
 Jane Andrews (author of "The Seven Little 
 Sisters," a book which has been translated into 
 Chinese and Japanese) ; her sister Caroline, 
 afterward Mrs. Rufus Leighton (author of 
 "Life at Puget Sound,") and others not their 
 inferiors, though their names were not to be 
 found in print. I have never encountered else 
 where so noteworthy a group of young women, 
 and all that period of work is a delightful 
 reminiscence. My youthful coadjutors had 
 been trained in a remarkably good school, the 
 Putnam Free School, kept by William H. 
 Wells, a celebrated teacher ; and I had his 
 hearty cooperation, and also that of Professor 
 
130 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Alpheus Crosby, one of the best scholars in 
 New England, and then resident in Newbury- 
 port. With his aid I established a series of 
 prizes for the best prose and poetry written by 
 the young people of the town ; and the first 
 evidence given of the unusual talents of Harriet 
 Prescott Spofford was in a very daring and ori 
 ginal essay on Hamlet, written at sixteen, and 
 gaining the first prize. I had also to do with 
 the courses of lectures and concerts, and super 
 intended the annual Floral Processions which 
 were then a pretty feature of the Fourth of 
 July in Essex County. On the whole, per 
 haps, I was as acceptable a citizen of the town 
 as could be reasonably expected of one who 
 had preached himself out of his pulpit. 
 
 I supposed myself to have given up preach 
 ing forever, and recalled the experience of my 
 ancestor, the Puritan divine, Francis Higgin- 
 son, who, when he had left his church-living at 
 Leicester, England, in 1620, continued to lecture 
 to all comers. But a new sphere of reform 
 atory action opened for me in an invitation 
 to take charge of the Worcester Free Church, 
 the first of several such organizations that 
 sprang up about that time under the influence 
 of Theodore Parker s Boston society, which was 
 their prototype. These organizations were all 
 more or less of the " Jerusalem wildcat " de- 
 
THE REARING OF A REFORMER 131 
 
 scription this being the phrase by which a 
 Lynn shoemaker described one of them with 
 no church membership or communion service, 
 not calling themselves specifically Christian, 
 but resembling the ethical societies of the pre 
 sent day, with a shade more of specifically reli 
 gious aspect. Worcester was at that time a 
 seething centre of all the reforms, and I found 
 myself almost in fashion, at least with the un 
 fashionable; my evening congregations were 
 the largest in the city, and the men and women 
 who surrounded me now almost all passed 
 away were leaders in public movements in 
 that growing community. Before my transfer, 
 however, I went up to Boston on my first fugi 
 tive slave foray, as it might be called, not the 
 Anthony Burns affair, but the Thomas Sims 
 case, which preceded it, and which was to teach 
 me, once for all, that there was plenty left to 
 be done, and that Philip had not fought all the 
 battles. 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 
 
 "I canna think the preacher himself wad be heading the mob, 
 tho the time has been they have been as forward in a bruilzie as 
 their neighbors." SCOTT S The Heart of Mid-Lothian. 
 
 NOTHING did more to strengthen my anti- 
 slavery zeal, about 1848, than the frequent in 
 tercourse with Whittier and his household, 
 made possible by their nearness to Newbury- 
 port. It was but a short walk or drive of a few 
 miles from my residence to his home ; or, better 
 still, it implied a sail or row up the beautiful 
 river, passing beneath the suspension bridge at 
 Deer Island, to where the woods called " The 
 Laurels" spread themselves on one side, and 
 the twin villages of Salisbury and Amesbury 
 on the other. There was something delightful 
 in the position of the poet among the village 
 people : he was their pride and their joy, yet 
 he lived as simply as any one, was careful and 
 abstemious, reticent rather than exuberant in 
 manner, and met them wholly on matter-of-fact 
 ground. He could sit on a barrel and discuss the 
 affairs of the day with the people who came to 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 133 
 
 the " store," but he did not read them his verses. 
 I was once expressing regrets for his ill health, 
 in talking with one of the leading citizens of 
 Amesbury, and found that my companion could 
 not agree with me ; he thought that Whittier s 
 ill health had helped him in the end, for it had 
 "kept him from engaging in business," and had 
 led him to writing poetry, which had given him 
 reputation outside of the town. That poetry 
 was anything but a second choice, perhaps a ne 
 cessary evil, did not seem to have occurred to 
 my informant. Had he himself lost his health 
 and been unable to sell groceries, who knows 
 but he too might have taken up with the Muses ? 
 It suggested the Edinburgh citizen who thought 
 that Sir Walter Scott might have been " sic a 
 respectable mon " had he stuck to his original 
 trade of law advocate. 
 
 To me, who sought Whittier for his poetry 
 as well as his politics, nothing could have been 
 more delightful than his plain abode with its 
 exquisite Quaker neatness. His placid mother, 
 rejoicing in her two gifted children, presided 
 with few words at the hospitable board whose 
 tablecloth and napkins rivaled her soul in white 
 ness ; and with her was the brilliant " Lizzie," 
 so absolutely the reverse, or complement, of 
 her brother that they seemed between them to 
 make one soul. She was as plain in feature as 
 
I 3 4 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 he was handsome, except that she had a pair of 
 great luminous dark eyes, always flashing with 
 fun or soft with emotion, and often changing with 
 lightning rapidity from one expression to an 
 other ; her nose was large and aquiline, while his 
 was almost Grecian, and she had odd motions of 
 the head, so that her glances seemed shot at you, 
 like sudden javelins, from each side of a promi 
 nent outwork. Her complexion was sallow, not 
 rich brunette like his; and whereas he spoke 
 seldom and with some difficulty, her gay rail 
 lery was unceasing, and was enjoyed by him as 
 much as by anybody, so that he really appeared 
 to have transferred to her the expression of his 
 own opinions. The lively utterances thus came 
 with double force upon the auditor, and he 
 could not fail to go out strengthened and stim 
 ulated. Sometimes the Whittiers had guests ; 
 and " Lizzie " delighted to tell how their mother 
 was once met at the door by two plump maidens 
 who announced that they had come from Ohio 
 mainly to see her son. She explained that he 
 was in Boston. No matter ; they would come 
 in and await his return. But he might be 
 away a week. No matter ; they would willingly 
 wait that time for such a pleasure. So in they 
 came. They proved to be Alice and Phoebe 
 Gary, whose earlier poems, which had already 
 preceded them, were rilled with dirges and de- 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 135 
 
 spair ; but they were the merriest of house 
 mates, and as the poet luckily returned next 
 day, they stayed as long as they pleased, and 
 were welcome. 
 
 The invigorating influence of the Whittier 
 household supplied the tonic needed in those 
 trying days. The Fugitive Slave Law had 
 just passed, and a year or two after Garrison 
 had proudly showed a row of escaped negroes 
 sitting on the platform of an anti-slavery con 
 vention, and had defied the whole South to 
 reclaim them, these very men were fleeing 
 to Canada for their lives. When the storm 
 rirst broke, on February 15, 1851, in the arrest 
 of Shadrach, Boston had a considerable col 
 ored population, which handled his rescue with 
 such unexpected skill and daring that it almost 
 seemed as if Garrison were right ; yet it took 
 but a few days for their whole force to be scat 
 tered to the winds. The exact story of the Sha 
 drach rescue has never been written. The 
 account which appears most probable is that 
 on the day of the arraignment of the alleged 
 fugitive, the fact was noted in a newspaper by 
 a colored man of great energy and character, 
 employed by a firm in Boston and utterly un 
 connected with the Abolitionists. He asked 
 leave of absence, and strolled into the Court- 
 House. Many colored men were at the door and 
 
I 3 6 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 had been excluded ; but he, being known and 
 trusted, was admitted, and the others, making a 
 rush, followed in behind him with a hubbub of 
 joking and laughter. There were but a few 
 constables on duty, and it suddenly struck this 
 leader, as he and his followers passed near the 
 man under arrest, that they might as well keep 
 on and pass out at the opposite door, taking 
 among them the man under arrest, who was 
 not handcuffed. After a moment s beckoning 
 the prisoner saw his opportunity, fell in with 
 the jubilant procession, and amid continued up 
 roar was got outside the Court-House, when the 
 crowd scattered in all directions. 
 
 It was an exploit which, as has been well 
 said, would hardly have furnished a press item 
 had it been the case of a pickpocket, yet was 
 treated at Washington as if it had shaken the 
 nation. Daniel Webster called it "a case of 
 treason ; " President Fillmore issued a special 
 proclamation ; and Henry Clay gave notice of 
 a bill to lend added strength to the Fugitive 
 Slave Law, so as to settle the question " whether 
 the government of white men is to be yielded 
 to a government of blacks." More curious 
 even than this was the development of anti- 
 slavery ethics that followed. The late Rich 
 ard H. Dana, the counsel for various persons 
 arrested as accomplices in the rescue of Sha- 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 137 
 
 drach, used to tell with delight this tale of a 
 juryman impaneled on that trial. To Dana s 
 great surprise, the jury had disagreed concern 
 ing one client who had been charged with aid 
 ing in the affair and whose conviction he had 
 fully expected ; and this surprise was all the 
 greater because new and especial oaths had been 
 administered to the jurymen, pledging them to 
 have no conscientious scruples against convict 
 ing, so that it seemed as if every one with a 
 particle of anti- slavery sympathy must have 
 been ruled out. Years after, Dana encountered 
 by accident the very juryman a Concord 
 blacksmith whose obstinacy had saved his 
 client ; and learned that this man s unalterable 
 reason for refusing to condemn was that he 
 himself had taken a hand in the affair, inasmuch 
 as he had driven Shadrach, after his rescue, 
 from Concord to Sudbury. 1 
 
 I fear I must admit that while it would have 
 been a great pleasure to me to have lent a 
 hand in the Shadrach affair, the feeling did not 
 come wholly from moral conviction, but from an 
 
 1 Sec Adams s Life of Dana, i. 217. The story there is re 
 lated from Mr. Adams s recollection, which differs in several 
 respects from my own, as to the way in which Dana used to 
 tell it. Possibly, as with other good raconteurs, the details 
 may have varied a little as time went on. I write with 
 two MS. narratives before me, both from well-known Con 
 cord men. 
 
138 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 impulse perhaps hereditary in the blood. Prob 
 ably I got from my two soldier and sailor grand 
 fathers an intrinsic love of adventure which 
 haunted me in childhood, and which three 
 score and fourteen years have by no means 
 worn out. So far as I can now analyze it, this 
 early emotion was not created by the wish for 
 praise alone, but was mainly a boyish desire for 
 a stirring experience. No man so much excited 
 my envy during my whole college life as did a 
 reckless Southern law student, named Winfield 
 Scott Belton, who, when the old Vassall House 
 in Cambridge was all in flames, and the fire 
 men could not reach the upper story with their 
 ladders, suddenly appeared from within at an 
 attic window, amid the smoke, and pointed out 
 to them the way to follow. Like most boys, 
 I had a passion for fires ; but after this the tro 
 phies of Belton would not suffer me to sleep, 
 and I often ran miles towards a light in the hori 
 zon. But the great opportunity never occurs 
 twice, and the nearest I ever came to it was in 
 being one of several undergraduates to bring 
 the elder Professor Henry Ware out of his 
 burning house. It was not much of a feat, 
 we afterwards risked ourselves a great deal 
 more to bring some trays of pickle-jars from 
 the cellar, but in the case of the venerable 
 doctor the object was certainly worth all it cost 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 139 
 
 us ; for he was the progenitor of that admirable 
 race upon which, as Dr. Holmes said to Pro 
 fessor Stowe, the fall of Adam had not left the 
 slightest visible impression. 
 
 This combination of motives was quite 
 enough to make me wish that if there should 
 be another fugitive slave case I might at least 
 be there to see, and, joining the Vigilance Com 
 mittee in Boston, I waited for such an occa 
 sion. It was not necessary to wait long, for 
 the Shadrach case was soon to be followed by 
 another. One day in April, 1851, a messen 
 ger came to my house in Newburyport and 
 said briefly, " Another fugitive slave is arrested 
 in Boston, and they wish you to come." I 
 went back with him that afternoon, and found 
 the Vigilance Committee in session in the 
 " Liberator " office. It is impossible to conceive 
 of a set of men, personally admirable, yet less 
 fitted on the whole than this committee to un 
 dertake any positive action in the direction of 
 forcible resistance to authorities. In the first 
 place, half of them were non-resistants, as was 
 their great leader, Garrison, who stood com 
 posedly by his desk preparing his next week s 
 editorial, and almost exasperating the more hot 
 headed among us by the placid way in which 
 he looked beyond the rescue of an individual to 
 the purifying of a nation. On the other hand, 
 
140 
 
 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 the "political Abolitionists," or Free-Soilers, 
 while personally full of indignation, were ex 
 tremely anxious not to be placed for one mo 
 ment outside the pale of good citizenship. The 
 fr^y persons to be relied upon for action were 
 a fe^ whose temperament prevailed over the 
 restrictioss^of non-resistance on the one side, 
 and of politics" on the other ; but of course 
 their discussion was constantly damped by the 
 attitude of the rest. All this would not, how 
 ever, apply to the negroes, it might well seem ; 
 they had just proved their mettle, and would 
 doubtless do it again. On my saying this in 
 the meeting, Lewis Hayden, the leading negro 
 in Boston, nodded cordially and said, "Of 
 course they will." Soon after, drawing me 
 aside, he startled me by adding, " I said that 
 for bluff, you know. We do not wish any one 
 to know how really weak we are. Practically 
 there are no colored men in Boston ; the Sha- 
 drach prosecutions have scattered them all. 
 What is to be done must be done without 
 them." Here was a blow indeed ! 
 
 What was to be done ? The next day showed 
 that absolutely nothing could be accomplished 
 in the court-room. There were one or two 
 hundred armed policemen in and around the 
 Court-House. Only authorized persons could 
 get within ten feet of the building, Chains 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 141 
 
 were placed across the doors, and beneath these 
 even the judges, entering, had to stoop. The 
 United States court-room was up two high and 
 narrow flights of stairs. Six men were at the 
 door of the court-room. The prisoner, a slender 
 boy of seventeen, sat with two strong men on 
 each side and five more in the seat behind him, 
 while none but his counsel could approach him 
 in front. (All this I take from notes made at 
 the time.) The curious thing was that although 
 there was a state law of 1843 prohibiting every 
 Massachusetts official from taking any part in 
 the restoration of a fugitive slave, yet nearly 
 all these employees were Boston policemen, act 
 ing, so the city marshal told me, under orders 
 from the mayor and aldermen. Under these 
 circumstances there was clearly nothing to be 
 done at the trial itself. And yet all sorts of 
 fantastic and desperate projects crossed the 
 minds of those few among us who really, so to 
 speak, meant business. I remember consult 
 ing Ellis Gray Loring, the most eminent lawyer 
 among the Abolitionists, as to the possibility 
 of at least gaining time by making away with 
 the official record from the Southern court, a 
 document which lay invitingly at one time 
 among lawyers papers on the table. Again, I 
 wrote a letter to my schoolmate Charles Devens, 
 the United States marshal, imploring him to 
 
142 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 resign rather than be the instrument of send 
 ing a man into bondage, a thing actually 
 done by one of the leading Boston policemen. 
 It is needless to say to those who knew him 
 that he answered courteously and that he re 
 served his decision. No other chance opening, 
 it seemed necessary to turn all attention to an 
 actual rescue of the prisoner from his place of 
 confinement. Like Shadrach, Thomas Sims was 
 not merely tried in the United States Court- 
 House, but imprisoned there, because the state 
 jail was not opened to him ; he not having been 
 arrested under any state law, and the United 
 States having no jail in Boston. In the previ 
 ous case, an effort had been made to obtain 
 permission to confine the fugitive slave at the 
 Navy Yard, but Commodore Downes had re 
 fused. Sims, therefore, like Shadrach, was kept 
 at the Court-House. Was it possible to get him 
 out? 
 
 There was on Tuesday evening a crowded 
 meeting at Tremont Temple, at which Horace 
 Mann presided. I hoped strongly that some 
 result might come from this meeting, and made 
 a vehement speech there myself, which, as Dr. 
 Samuel Gridley Howe honored me by saying, 
 was bringing the community to the verge of 
 revolution, when a lawyer named Charles Mayo 
 Ellis protested against its tone, and threw cold 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 143 
 
 water upon all action. It was evident that if 
 anything was done, it must be done by a very 
 few. I looked round, during the meeting, for 
 a band of twenty-five men from Marlborough, 
 who had seemed to me to show more fighting 
 quality than the rest, but they had probably 
 gone home. Under this conviction half a dozen 
 of us formed the following plan. The room 
 where Sims was confined, being safe by reason 
 of its height from the ground, had no gratings 
 at the windows. The colored clergyman of 
 Boston, Mr. Grimes, who alone had the opportu 
 nity to visit Sims, agreed to arrange with him 
 that at a specified hour that evening he should 
 go to a certain window, as if for air, for he 
 had the freedom of the room, and should 
 spring out on mattresses which we were to 
 bring from a lawyer s office across the way; 
 we also providing a carriage in which to place 
 him. All was arranged, the message sent, 
 the mattresses ready, the carriage engaged as 
 if for an ordinary purpose ; and behold ! in the 
 dusk of that evening, two of us, strolling through 
 Court Square, saw men busily at work fitting 
 iron bars across this safe third-story window. 
 Whether we had been betrayed, or whether it 
 was simply a bit of extraordinary precaution, 
 we never knew. Colonel Montgomery, an ex 
 perienced guerrilla in Kansas, used to say, "It 
 
144 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 is always best to take for granted that your 
 opponent is at least as smart as you yourself 
 are." This, evidently, we had not done. 
 
 I knew that there was now no chance of the 
 rescue of Sims. The only other plan that had 
 been suggested was that we should charter a 
 vessel, place it in charge of Austin Bearse, a 
 Cape Cod sea-captain and one of our best men, 
 and take possession of the brig Acorn, on 
 which Sims was expected to be placed. This 
 project was discussed at a small meeting in 
 Theodore Parker s study, and was laid aside as 
 impracticable, not because it was piracy, but 
 because there was no absolute certainty that 
 the fugitive would be sent South in that pre 
 cise way. As no other plan suggested itself, 
 and as I had no wish to look on, with my hands 
 tied, at the surrender, I went back to my home 
 in deep chagrin. The following extract from a 
 journal written soon after is worth preserving 
 as an illustration of that curious period : 
 
 "It left me with the strongest impressions 
 of the great want of preparation, on our part, 
 for this revolutionary work. Brought up as 
 we have all been, it takes the whole experience 
 of one such case to educate the mind to the 
 attitude of revolution. It is so strange to find 
 one s self outside of established institutions; 
 to be obliged to lower one s voice and conceal 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 145 
 
 one s purposes ; to see law and order, police 
 and military, on the wrong side, and find good 
 citizenship a sin and bad citizenship a duty, 
 that it takes time to prepare one to act coolly 
 and wisely, as well as courageously, in such an 
 emergency. Especially this is true among 
 reformers, who are not accustomed to act ac 
 cording to fixed rules and observances, but to 
 strive to do what seems to themselves best, 
 without reference to others. The Vigilance 
 Committee meetings were a disorderly conven 
 tion, each man having his own plan or theory, 
 perhaps stopping even for anecdote or disqui 
 sition, when the occasion required the utmost 
 promptness of decision and the most unflinch 
 ing unity in action. . . . Our most reliable men 
 were non-resistants, and some who were other 
 wise were the intensest visionaries. Wendell 
 Phillips was calm and strong throughout ; I 
 never saw a finer gleam in his eyes than when 
 drawing up that stirring handbill at the anti- 
 slavery office." 
 
 During the months which followed, I at 
 tended anti-slavery conventions ; wrote editori 
 ally for the newly established " Commonwealth," 
 the Boston organ of the Free Soil party ; and 
 had also a daily " Independent Column " of my 
 own in the " Newburyport Union," a liberal 
 Democratic paper. No other fugitive slave 
 
I 4 6 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 case occurred in New England for three years. 
 The mere cost in money of Sims s surrender 
 had been vast ; the political results had been 
 the opposite of what was intended, for the elec 
 tion of Charles Sumner to the United States 
 Senate practically followed from it. The whole 
 anti-slavery feeling at the North was obviously 
 growing stronger, yet there seemed a period 
 of inaction all round, or of reliance on ordi 
 nary political methods in the contest. In 1852 I 
 removed to Worcester, into a strong anti-slavery 
 community of which my "Free Church" was 
 an important factor. Fugitives came some 
 times to the city, and I have driven them at 
 midnight to the farm of the veteran Abolition 
 ists, Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, in the 
 suburbs of the city. Perhaps the most curious 
 case with which we had to deal was that of a 
 pretty young woman, apparently white, with 
 two perfectly white children, all being con 
 signed to me by the Rev. Samuel May, then 
 secretary of the Boston Anti-Slavery Society, 
 and placed by him, for promptness of trans 
 portation to Worcester, under the escort of a 
 Worcester merchant, thoroughly pro-slavery in 
 sympathy, and not having the slightest concep 
 tion that he was violating the laws in finding a 
 seat for his charge and holding the baby on his 
 knee. We had them in our care all winter. 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 147 
 
 It was one of those cases of romantic incident 
 which slavery yielded. She was the daughter 
 of her former master, and was the mistress of 
 her present owner, her half-brother ; she could 
 scarcely read and write, but was perfectly lady 
 like, modest, and grateful. She finally married 
 a tradesman near Boston, who knew her story, 
 and she disappeared in the mass of white popu 
 lation, where we were content to leave her 
 untraced. 
 
 All this minor anti-slavery work ended when, 
 on Thursday evening, May 25, 1854, I had a 
 letter by private messenger from the same 
 Samuel May just mentioned, saying that a 
 slave had been arrested, and the case was to 
 be heard on Saturday morning ; that a meet 
 ing was to be held on Friday evening at Fan- 
 euil Hall, and it was important that Worcester 
 should be well represented. Mr. A. B. Alcott 
 also came thither on the same errand. I sent 
 messages to several persons, and especially to 
 a man of remarkable energy, named Martin 
 Stowell, who had taken part in a slave rescue 
 at Syracuse, New York, urging them to follow 
 at once. Going to Boston on the morning 
 train, I found myself presently in a meeting of 
 the Vigilance Committee, not essentially dif 
 ferent from those which had proved so disap 
 pointing three years before. There was not 
 
148 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 only no plan of action, but no set purpose of 
 united action. This can be imagined when I 
 say that at one moment when there seemed 
 a slight prospect of practical agreement, some 
 one came in to announce that Suttle and his 
 men, the slave-catchers, were soon to pass by, 
 and proposed that we should go out and gaze 
 at them, "pointing the finger of scorn," as if 
 Southern slave-catchers were to be combated 
 by such weapons. This, however, had an effect 
 in so far that the general committee adjourned, 
 letting those alone remain who were willing to 
 act personally in forcible resistance. This re 
 duced our sixty down to thirty, of whom I was 
 chosen chairman. Dr. Howe was then called 
 on to speak, and gave some general advice, 
 very good and spirited. Two things were re 
 solved on, to secure the names of those will 
 ing to act, and to have definite leadership. 
 One leader would have been best, but we had 
 not quite reached that point, so an executive 
 committee of six was chosen at last, Phillips, 
 Parker, Howe, Kemp (an energetic Irishman), 
 Captain Bearse,*and myself ; Stowell was added 
 to these at my request. Even then it was in 
 conceivably difficult to get the names of as 
 many as twenty who would organize and obey 
 orders. The meeting adjourned till afternoon, 
 when matters were yet worse, mere talk and 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 149 
 
 discussion ; but it seemed to me, at least, that 
 something must be done ; better a failure than 
 to acquiesce tamely as before, and see Massa 
 chusetts henceforward made a hunting-ground 
 for fugitive slaves. 
 
 All hopes now rested on Stowell, who was 
 to arrive from Worcester at six p. M. I met 
 him at the train, and walked up with him. He 
 heard the condition of affairs, and at once sug 
 gested a new plan as the only thing feasible. 
 The man must be taken from the Court-House. 
 It could not be done in cold blood, but the 
 effort must have behind it the momentum of 
 a public meeting, such as was to be held at 
 Faneuil Hall that night. An attack at the 
 end of the meeting would be hopeless, for 
 the United States marshal would undoubtedly 
 be looking for just that attempt, and would be 
 reinforced accordingly ; this being, as we after 
 wards found, precisely what that official was 
 planning. Could there not be an attack at the 
 very height of the meeting, brought about in 
 this way ? Let all be in readiness ; let a picked 
 body be distributed near the Court House and 
 Square; then send some loud-voiced speaker, 
 who should appear in the gallery of Faneuil 
 Hall and announce that there was a mob of 
 negroes already attacking the Court-House; 
 let a speaker, previously warned, Phillips, 
 
150 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 if possible, accept the opportunity promptly, 
 and send the whole meeting pell-mell to Court 
 Square, ready to fall in behind the leaders and 
 bring out the slave. The project struck me 
 as an inspiration. I accepted it heartily, and 
 think now, as I thought then, that it was one of 
 the very best plots that ever failed. " Good 
 plot, good friends, and full of expectation." 
 Why it came within an inch of success and 
 still failed will next be explained. 
 
 The first thing to be done after providing 
 a box of axes for attack on the Court-House 
 doors, a thing which I personally superintended 
 was to lay the whole matter before the com 
 mittee already appointed and get its concur 
 rence. This committee was to meet in the 
 ante-room of Faneuil Hall before the general 
 meeting. As a matter of fact it never came 
 together, for everybody was pushing straight 
 into the hall. The moments passed rapidly. 
 We caught first one member of the committee, 
 then another, and expounded the plot. Some 
 approved, others disapproved ; our stout sea- 
 captain, Bearse, distrusting anything to be at 
 tempted on land, utterly declining all part in it. 
 Howe and Parker gave a hasty approval, and 
 only half comprehending, as it afterwards proved 
 were warned to be ready to give indorsement 
 from the platform ; Phillips it was impossible 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 151 
 
 to find, but we sent urgent messages, which 
 never reached him ; Kemp stood by us : and 
 we had thus a clear majority of the committee, 
 which although it had been collectively opposed 
 to the earlier plan of an attack at the end of 
 the meeting, was yet now committed to a move 
 ment half way through, by way of surprise. 
 We at once found our gallery orator in the late 
 John L. Swift, a young man full of zeal, with 
 a stentorian voice, afterwards exercised stoutly 
 for many years in Republican and temperance 
 meetings. He having pledged himself to make 
 the proposed announcement, it was only ne 
 cessary to provide a nucleus of picked men to 
 head the attack Stowell, Kemp, and I were 
 each to furnish five of these, and Lewis Hay- 
 den, the colored leader, agreed to supply ten 
 negroes. So far all seemed ready, and the men 
 were found as well as the general confusion 
 permitted ; but the very success and over 
 whelming numbers of the Faneuil Hall meeting 
 soon became a formidable obstacle instead of 
 a help. 
 
 It was the largest gathering I ever saw in 
 that hall. The platform was covered with 
 men ; the galleries, the floor, even the outer 
 stairways, were absolutely filled with a solid 
 audience. Some came to sympathize, more to 
 look on, we could not estimate the propor- 
 
152 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 tion ; but when the speaking was once begun, 
 we could no more communicate with the plat 
 form than if the Atlantic Ocean rolled between. 
 There was then no private entrance to it, such 
 as now exists, and in this seemingly slight 
 architectural difference lay the failure of the 
 whole enterprise, as will be presently seen. 
 
 Those of us who had been told off to be 
 ready in Court Square went there singly, not 
 to attract attention. No sign of motion or life 
 was there, though the lights gleamed from 
 many windows, for it happened a bit of un 
 looked-for good fortune that the Supreme 
 Court was holding an evening session, and 
 ordinary visitors could pass freely. Planting 
 myself near a door which stood ajar, on the 
 east side of the building, I waited for the trap 
 to be sprung, and for the mob of people to 
 appear from Faneuil Hall. The moments 
 seemed endless. Would our friends never ar 
 rive ? Presently a rush of running figures, like 
 the sweep of a wave, came round the corner 
 of Court Square, and I watched it with such 
 breathless anxiety as I have experienced only 
 twice or thrice in life. The crowd ran on pell- 
 mell, and I scanned it for a familiar face. A 
 single glance brought the conviction of fail 
 ure and disappointment. We had the froth 
 and scum of the meeting, the fringe of idlers 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 153 
 
 on its edge. The men on the platform, the 
 real nucleus of that great gathering, were far 
 in the rear, perhaps were still clogged in the 
 hall. Still, I stood, with assumed carelessness, 
 by the entrance, when an official ran up from 
 the basement, looked me in the face, ran in, 
 and locked the door. There was no object in 
 preventing him, since there was as yet no vis 
 ible reinforcement of friends. Mingling with 
 the crowd, I ran against Stowell, who had been 
 looking for the axes, stored at a friend s office 
 in Court Square. He whispered, "Some of 
 our men are bringing a beam up to the west 
 door, the one that gives entrance to the upper 
 stairway." Instantly he and I ran round and 
 grasped the beam ; I finding myself at the head, 
 with a stout negro opposite me. The real at 
 tack had begun. 
 
 What followed was too hurried and confusing 
 to be described with perfect accuracy of de 
 tail, although the main facts stand out vividly 
 enough. Taking the joist up the steps, we 
 hammered away at the southwest door of the 
 Court-House. It could not have been many 
 minutes before it began to give way, was then 
 secured again, then swung ajar, and rested 
 heavily, one hinge having parted. There was 
 room for but one to pass in. I glanced in 
 stinctively at my black ally. He did not even 
 
154 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 look at me, but sprang in first, I following. In 
 later years the experience was of inestimable 
 value to me, for it removed once for all every 
 doubt of the intrinsic courage of the blacks. 
 We found ourselves inside, face to face with 
 six or eight policemen, who laid about them 
 with their clubs, driving us to the wall and 
 hammering away at our heads. Often as I had 
 heard of clubbing, I had never before known 
 just how it felt, and to my surprise it was not 
 half so bad as I expected. I was unarmed, 
 but had taken boxing lessons at several differ 
 ent times, and perhaps felt, like Dr. Holmes s 
 young man named John, that I had "a new 
 way of count erin I wanted to try ; " but hands 
 were powerless against clubs, although my 
 burly comrade wielded his lustily. All we 
 could expect was to be a sort of clumsy Arnold 
 Winkelrieds and " make way for liberty." All 
 other thought was merged in this, the expecta 
 tion of reinforcements. I did not know that I 
 had received a severe cut on the chin, whose 
 scar I yet carry, though still ignorant how it 
 came. Nor did I know till next morning, what 
 had a more important bearing on the seeming 
 backwardness of my supposed comrades, that, 
 just as the door sprang open, a shot had been 
 fired, and one of the marshal s deputies, a man 
 named Batchelder, had fallen dead. 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 155 
 
 There had been other fugitive slave rescues 
 in different parts of the country, but this was 
 the first drop of blood actually shed. In all 
 the long procession of events which led the 
 nation through the Kansas struggle, past the 
 John Brown foray, and up to the Emancipation 
 Proclamation, the killing of Batchelder was the 
 first act of violence. It was, like the firing on 
 Fort Sumter, a proof that war had really begun. 
 The mob outside was daunted by the event, 
 the marshal s posse inside was frightened, and 
 what should have been the signal of success 
 brought, on the contrary, a cessation of hostil 
 ities. The theory at the time was that the man 
 had been stabbed by a knife, thrust through the 
 broken panel. The coroner s inquest found it 
 to be so, and the press, almost as active as 
 now, yet no more accurate, soon got so far as to 
 describe the weapon, a Malay kris, said to 
 have been actually picked up in the street. For 
 years I supposed all this to be true, and conjec 
 tured that either my negro comrade did the 
 deed, or else Lewis Hayden, who was just be 
 hind him. 1 Naturally, we never exchanged a 
 
 1 Lewis Hayden apparently fired a shot in my defense, 
 after entrance had been made, but this was doubtless after the 
 death of Katchelder ; and the bullet or slug was said to have 
 passed between the arm and body of Marshal Freeman. 
 When Theodore Parker heard this statement, he wrung his 
 hands and said, " Why did he not hit him ?" 
 
156 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 word on the subject, as it was a serious matter ; 
 and it was not till within a few years (1888) 
 that it was claimed by a well-known journal 
 ist, the late Thomas Drew, that it was Martin 
 Stowell who shot, not stabbed, Batch elder ; that 
 Drew had originally given Stowell the pistol ; 
 and that when the latter was arrested and im 
 prisoned, on the night of the outbreak, he sent 
 for Drew and managed to hand him the weapon, 
 which Drew gave to some one else, who con 
 cealed it till long after the death of Stowell 
 in the Civil War. This vital part of the facts, 
 at the one point which made of the outbreak a 
 capital offense, remained thus absolutely un 
 known, even to most of the participants, for 
 thirty-four years. As Drew had seen the re 
 volver loaded in Worcester, and had found, 
 after its restoration, that one barrel had been 
 discharged, and as he was also in the attacking 
 party and heard the firing, there can be no 
 reasonable doubt that the revolver was fired. 
 On the other hand, I am assured by George H. 
 Munroe, Esq., of the "Boston Herald," who 
 was a member of the coroner s jury, that the 
 surgical examination was a very thorough one, 
 and that the wound was undoubtedly made by a 
 knife or bayonet, it being some two inches long, 
 largest in the middle and tapering towards each 
 end. A similar statement was made at the 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 157 
 
 time, to one of my informants, by Dr. Charles 
 T. Jackson, the reported discoverer of etheriza 
 tion, who was one of the surgical examiners. It 
 is therefore pretty certain that Stowell s bullet 
 did not hit the mark after all, and that the man 
 who killed Batchelder is still unknown. 
 
 All this, however, was without my knowledge ; 
 I only knew that we were gradually forced 
 back beyond the threshold, the door standing 
 now wide open, and our supporters having fallen 
 back to leave the steps free. Mr. Charles E. 
 Stevens, in his "Anthony Burns, a History," 
 published in 1856, says that I said on emerg 
 ing, " You cowards, will you desert us now ? " 
 And though his narrative, like most contem 
 porary narratives, is full of inaccuracies, this 
 statement may be true ; it was certainly what I 
 felt, not knowing that a man had already been 
 killed, and that Stowell and others had just 
 been taken off by the police. I held my place 
 outside, still hoping against hope that some 
 concerted reinforcement might appear. Mean 
 while the deputy marshals retreated to the 
 stairway, over which we could see their pistols 
 pointing, the whole hall between us and them 
 being brightly lighted. The moments passed 
 on. One energetic young lawyer, named Seth 
 Webb, whom I had known in college, ran up 
 the steps, but I dissuaded him from entering 
 
158 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 alone, and he waited. Then followed one of 
 the most picturesque incidents of the whole 
 affair. In the silent pause that ensued there 
 came quietly forth from the crowd the well- 
 known form of Mr. Amos Bronson Alcott, the 
 Transcendental philosopher. Ascending the 
 lighted steps alone, he said tranquilly, turning 
 to me and pointing forward, " Why are we not 
 within ? " " Because," was the rather impatient 
 answer, " these people will not stand by us." 
 He said not a word, but calmly walked up the 
 steps, he and his familiar cane. He paused 
 again at the top, the centre of all eyes, within 
 and without ; a revolver sounded from within, 
 but hit nobody ; and finding himself wholly un 
 supported, he turned and retreated, but without 
 hastening a step. It seemed to me that, under 
 the circumstances, neither Plato nor Pythago 
 ras could have done the thing better ; and the 
 whole scene brought vividly back the similar 
 appearance of the Gray Champion in Haw 
 thorne s tale. 
 
 This ended the whole affair. Two com 
 panies of artillery had been ordered out, and 
 two more of marines, these coming respectively 
 from Fort Warren and the Charlestown Navy 
 Yard. (Here again I follow Stevens.) Years 
 after, the successor of the United States mar 
 shal, the Hon. Roland G. Usher, said to me 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 159 
 
 that his predecessor had told him that the sur 
 prise was complete, and that thirty resolute 
 men could have carried off Burns. Had the 
 private entrance to the platform in Faneuil 
 Hall existed then, as now, those thirty would 
 certainly have been at hand. The alarm planned 
 to be given from the gallery was heard in the 
 meeting, but was disbelieved ; it was thought 
 to be a scheme to interrupt the proceedings. 
 Phillips had not received notice of it. Parker 
 and Howe had not fully comprehended the 
 project; but when the latter could finally get 
 out of the hall he ran at full speed up to the 
 Court-House, with Dr. William Francis Chan- 
 ning at his side, and they two of our most 
 determined men found the field lost. Had 
 they and such as they been present, it might 
 have been very different. 
 
 The attempt being a failure and troops ap 
 proaching, I went down the steps. There is 
 always a farce ready to succeed every tragedy, 
 and mine occurred when a man in the crowd 
 sidled quietly up to me and placidly remarked, 
 "Mister, I guess you ve left your rumberill." 
 It flashed through my mind that before tak 
 ing hold of the beam I had set down my um 
 brella for it was a showery day over the 
 railing of the Court-House steps. Recapturing 
 this important bit of evidence, I made my way 
 
160 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 to Dr. W. F. Channing s house, had my cut 
 attended to, and went to bed ; awaking in a 
 somewhat battered condition the next morning, 
 and being sent off to Worcester by my advisers. 
 Then followed my arrest after a few days, a 
 matter conducted so courteously that the way 
 of the transgressor became easy. 
 
 Naturally enough, my neighbors and friends 
 regarded my arrest and possible conviction as 
 a glory or a disgrace according to their opin 
 ions on the slavery question. Fortunately it did 
 not disturb my courageous mother, who wrote, 
 " I assure you it does not trouble me, though 
 I dare say that some of my friends are com 
 miserating me for having a son * riotously and 
 routously engaged, " these being the curious 
 legal terms of the indictment. For myself, it 
 was easy to take the view of my old favorite 
 Lamennais, who regarded any life as rather 
 incomplete which did not, as in his own case, 
 include some experience of imprisonment in a 
 good cause. (" II manque tou jours quelque 
 chose a la belle vie, qui ne finit pas sur le 
 champ de bataille, sur T6chafaud ou en prison.") 
 In my immediate household the matter was 
 taken coolly enough to suggest a calm inquiry, 
 one day, by the lady of the house, whether all 
 my letters to her from the prison would prob 
 ably be read by the jailer ; to which a young 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 161 
 
 niece, then staying with us, replied with the 
 levity of her years, " Not if he writes them in 
 his usual handwriting." 
 
 It was left to my honor to report myself at 
 the station in due time to meet the officers of 
 the law ; and my family, responding to this 
 courtesy, were even more anxious than usual 
 that I should not miss the train. In Boston, 
 my friend Richard Henry Dana went with me 
 to the marshal s office ; and I was seated in a 
 chair to be "looked over" for identification by 
 the various officers who were to testify at the 
 trial. They sat or stood around me in various 
 attitudes, with a curious and solemn depth of 
 gaze which seemed somewhat conventional and 
 even melodramatic. It gave the exciting sen 
 sation of being a bold Turpin just from Houn- 
 slow Heath ; but it was on a Saturday, and 
 there was something exquisitely amusing in the 
 extreme anxiety of Marshal Tukey a dark, 
 handsome, picturesque man, said to pride him 
 self on a certain Napoleonic look that I 
 should reach home in time for my Sunday s 
 preaching. Later the long trial unrolled itself, 
 in which, happily, my presence was not neces 
 sary after pleading to the indictment. Theo 
 dore Parker was the only one among the de 
 fendants who attended steadily every day, and 
 he prepared that elaborate defense which was 
 
162 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 printed afterwards. The indictment was ulti 
 mately quashed as imperfect, and we all got 
 out of the affair, as it were, by the side-door. 
 
 I have passed over the details of the trial as 
 I omitted those relating to the legal defense of 
 Burns, the efforts to purchase him, and his final 
 delivery to his claimant, because I am describ 
 ing the affair onlyas a private soldier tells of 
 what he personally saw and knew. I must, 
 however, mention, in closing, a rather amusing 
 afterpiece to the whole matter, something 
 which occurred on October 30, 1854. A Bos 
 ton policeman, named Butman, who had been 
 active at the time of Burns s capture, came up 
 to Worcester for the purpose, real or reputed, 
 of looking for evidence against those concerned 
 in the riot. The city being intensely anti-sla 
 very and having a considerable colored popu 
 lation, there was a strong disposition to lynch 
 the man, or at least to frighten him thoroughly, 
 though the movement was checked by a manly 
 speech to the crowd by George Frisbie Hoar, 
 now United States Senator, but then a young 
 lawyer ; the ultimate result being that But 
 man was escorted to the railway station on 
 Mr. Hoar s arm, with a cordon of Abolitionists 
 about him, as a shelter from the negroes who 
 constantly rushed at him from the rear. I was 
 one of this escort, and directly behind Butman 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 163 
 
 walked Joseph Rowland, a non-resistant of 
 striking appearance, who satisfied his sensitive 
 conscience by this guarded appeal, made at 
 intervals in a sonorous voice : " Don t hurt him, 
 mean as he is ! Don t kill him, mean though 
 he be ! " At Rowland s side was Thomas Drew, 
 a vivacious little journalist, already mentioned, 
 who compounded with his conscience very differ 
 ently. Nudging back reprovingly the negroes 
 and others who pressed upon the group, he 
 would occasionally, when the coast was clear, 
 run up and administer a vigorous kick to the 
 unhappy victim, and then fall back to repress 
 the assailants once more. As for these last, 
 they did not seem to be altogether in earnest, 
 but half in joke; although the scene gave the 
 foundation for a really powerful chapter, called 
 "The Roar of St. Domingo," in the now forgot 
 ten novel " Harrington," by W. D. O Connor. 
 
 Nevertheless, Butman was once knocked 
 down by a stone ; and when we reached the 
 station just as the express train moved away, 
 thus leaving him behind, there began to come 
 up an ugly shout from the mob, which seemed 
 to feel for a moment that the Lord had deliv 
 ered the offender into its hands. As a horse 
 with a wagon attached was standing near by, 
 it was hastily decided to put Butman into the 
 wagon and drive him off, a proposal which he 
 
164 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 eagerly accepted. I got in with him and took 
 the reins ; but the mob around us grasped the 
 wheels till the spokes began to break. Then 
 the owner arrived, and seized the horse by the 
 head to stop us. By the prompt action of 
 the late William W. Rice, since member of 
 Congress, a hack was at once substituted 
 for the wagon ; it drove up close, so that But- 
 man and I sprang into it and were whirled 
 away before the mob fairly knew what had hap 
 pened. A few stones were hurled through the 
 windows, and I never saw a more abject face 
 than that of the slave-catcher as he crouched 
 between the seats and gasped out, "They ll 
 get fast teams and be after us." This, how 
 ever, did not occur, and we drove safely beyond 
 the mob and out of the city towards Grafton, 
 where Butman was to take a later train. Hav 
 ing him thus at my mercy, and being doubtless 
 filled with prophetic zeal, I took an inhuman 
 advantage of Butman, and gave him a discourse 
 on the baseness of his whole career which 
 would perhaps have made my reputation as a 
 pulpit orator had my congregation consisted of 
 more than one, or had any modern reporter 
 been hidden under the cushions. Being over 
 taken a mile or two out of town by Lovell 
 Baker, the city marshal, with a "fast team" 
 such as Butman had dreaded, the man was 
 
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH 165 
 
 transferred to him, and was driven by him, not 
 merely to Graf ton, but at Butman s urgent re 
 quest to Boston and through the most unfre 
 quented streets to his home. I meanwhile 
 returned peacefully to Worcester, pausing only 
 at the now deserted station to hunt up my 
 wife s india-rubber overshoes, which I was car 
 rying to be mended when the tmcute broke out, 
 and which I had sacrificed as heroically as I had 
 nearly relinquished my umbrella at the Boston 
 Court-House. 
 
 The Burns affair was the last actual fugitive 
 slave case that occurred in Massachusetts, al 
 though for some years we kept up organiza 
 tions and formed plans, and were better and 
 better prepared for action as the call for it dis 
 appeared. I was for some years a stockholder 
 in the yacht Flirt, which was kept in commis 
 sion under the faithful Captain Bearse, and 
 was nominally let for hire, though really in 
 tended either to take slaves from incoming 
 vessels, or, in case of need, to kidnap the claim 
 ant of a slave and keep him cruising on the 
 coast of Maine until his claim should be surren 
 dered. It all now looks very far off, and there 
 has been time for the whole affair to be re 
 garded in several different aspects. After the 
 Civil War had accustomed men to the habitual 
 use of arms and to military organization, the 
 
166 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 " Burns riot " naturally appeared in retrospect 
 a boyish and inadequate affair enough ; we 
 could all see how, given only a community of 
 veteran soldiers, the thing might have been 
 more neatly managed. And again, now that 
 thirty years of peace have almost extinguished 
 the habits and associations of war, still another 
 phase of feeling has come uppermost, and it 
 seems almost incredible that any condition of 
 things should have turned honest American 
 men into conscientious law-breakers. Yet such 
 transitions have occurred in all periods of his 
 tory, and the author of the " Greville Journals " 
 records the amazement with which he heard 
 that "Tom Grenville, so mild, so refined, 
 adorned with such an amiable, venerable, and 
 decorous old age," should be the same man 
 who had helped, sixty years before, to carry the 
 Admiralty building by storm in the riots occa 
 sioned by the trial of Admiral Keppel, and had 
 been the second man to enter at the breach. 
 Probably, if the whole truth were told, the sin 
 cere law-breakers of the world are the children 
 of temperament as well as of moral conviction, 
 and at any period of life, if the whirligig of time 
 brought back the old conditions, would act very 
 much as they acted before. 
 
VI 
 
 THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 
 
 " We are looking abroad and back after a literature. Let us come 
 and live, and know in living a high philosophy and faith ; so shall 
 we find now, here, the elements, and in our own good souls the 
 fire. Of every storied bay and cliff we will make something in 
 finitely nobler than Salamis or Marathon. This pale Massachusetts 
 sky, this sandy soil and raw wind, all shall nurture us. ... Unlike 
 all the world before us, our own age and land shall be classic to our 
 selves." 
 
 THE passage above quoted is from the Mas 
 ter of Arts oration of a young scholar Robert 
 Bartlett, of Plymouth at the Harvard Com 
 mencement exercises of 1839. The original 
 title of the oration was, "No Good Possible 
 but shall One Day be Real." Bartlett, who had 
 been the first scholar in his class, and was a 
 tutor in the university, died a few years later, 
 but the prophecy above given attracted much 
 attention, and was printed in an English maga 
 zine, "Heraud s Monthly " (April, 1840) ; 
 and when in that same year " The Dial " began 
 to be published, the very first page of the first 
 number gave as its basis " the strong current 
 of thought and feeling which for a few years 
 
i68 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 past has led many sincere persons in New Eng 
 land to make new demands on literature." It 
 was a foregone conclusion, however, that these 
 new demands could not be fully met by the 
 prophets who first announced them. Prophets 
 only clear the way, and must wait for the 
 slower march of trained though perhaps un- 
 prophetic co-laborers. A new era of American 
 literature was at hand, but the Transcendental 
 movement of itself could not directly have cre 
 ated it. Neither its organ, " The Dial," nor the 
 avowed successor of that magazine, the " Mas 
 sachusetts Quarterly Review," announced by 
 Theodore Parker as being "the Dial with a 
 beard," ever achieved a wide circulation. 
 Fortunately, in the natural progress of things a 
 new combination effected itself, and those who, 
 like Holmes, had ridiculed the earlier move 
 ment found themselves ready within twenty 
 years to unite with those who, like Emerson, 
 had produced it ; that first impulse thus form 
 ing, by cohesion, a well-defined circle of contrib 
 utors who held for a time the visible leadership 
 in American letters. 
 
 That which saved this circle from becoming 
 a clique and a mere mutual admiration soci 
 ety was its fortunate variety of personal tem 
 peraments. Emerson, Hawthorne, Whittier, 
 Holmes, Longfellow, and Lowell, to name only 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 169 
 
 the six most commonly selected as the repre 
 sentatives of this period, were really so dissimi 
 lar in many ways that they could not possibly 
 duplicate one another, indeed, could not al 
 ways understand one another; and thus they 
 were absolutely prevented from imposing on 
 Boston anything like the yoke which Christo 
 pher North at one time imposed on Edinburgh. 
 This was still more true of others just outside 
 the circle, Motley, Parkman, Thoreau, and 
 in this way the essential variety in unity was 
 secured. Then there were other men, almost 
 equally gifted, who touched the circle, or might 
 have touched it but that they belonged to the 
 class of which Emerson says, " Of what use 
 is genius if its focus be a little too short or a 
 little too long ? " Alcott, Ellery Channing, 
 Weiss, Wasson, Brownlee Brown, each of whom 
 bequeathed to posterity only a name, or some 
 striking anecdote or verse, instead of a well- 
 defined fame. 
 
 It is an embarrassment, in dealing with any 
 past period of literary history, that we have to 
 look at its participants not merely as they now 
 seem, but as they appeared in their day, and 
 we must calculate their parallax. The men who 
 in those years were actually creating American 
 literature creating it anew, that is, after the 
 earlier and already subsiding impulse given by 
 
i;o CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Irving and Cooper do not retain the same 
 relative precedence to which they at first 
 seemed entitled ; Emerson and Hawthorne hav 
 ing held their own more indisputably than the 
 rest of the group. Some who distinctly formed 
 a part of the original Atlantic circle have in 
 deed failed to develop staying power. It would 
 have scarcely appeared possible, in those days, 
 that the brilliant and popular Whipple, who was 
 at first thought a second Macaulay, should be 
 at the end of the century an almost vanished 
 force, while the eccentric and unsuccessful Tho- 
 reau whom Lowell and even his own neigh 
 bors set aside as a mere imitator of Emerson 
 is still growing in international fame. I 
 remember well that when I endeavored to enlist 
 Judge Hoar, the leading citizen of Concord, in 
 an effort to persuade Miss Thoreau to allow 
 her brother s journals to be printed, he heard 
 me partly through, and then quickly said, "But 
 you have left unsettled the preliminary question, 
 Why should any one care to have Thoreau s 
 journals put in print?" I had to abandon the 
 argument as clearly hopeless. It is also plain 
 from Theodore Parker s correspondence that his 
 estimate of Thoreau was but little higher than 
 Judge Hoar s. 
 
 My own relation to this circle was the hum 
 ble one of a man younger than the rest, brought 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 171 
 
 up under their influence, yet naturally inde 
 pendent, not to say self-willed, and very much 
 inclined to live his own life. I had long be 
 fore noted with delight in Plutarch the tale of 
 the young Cicero consulting the Delphic oracle, 
 and being there advised to live for himself, and 
 not to take the opinions of others for his guide, 
 this answer being called by Niebuhr " one of 
 the oracles which might tempt one to believe in 
 the actual inspiration of the goddess." There 
 was not one of these older men whom I had not 
 sometimes felt free to criticise, with the pre 
 sumption of youth ; complaining of Emerson as 
 being inorganic in structure ; finding Whittier 
 sometimes crude, Hawthorne bloodless in style, 
 Holmes a trifler, Longfellow occasionally com 
 monplace, Lowell often arrogant. All this crit 
 icism was easier because I then lived at a distance 
 from Boston. At times, no doubt, I was dis 
 posed to fancy myself destined to unite all their 
 virtues and avoid all their faults, while at other 
 moments I felt, more reasonably, that I might 
 be of some use in gathering the scattered crumbs 
 from their table. It is quite certain that I was 
 greatly pleased when I had sent to the "At 
 lantic Monthly " my first contribution, " Saints 
 and their Bodies," and saw it printed in the 
 fifth number; it being later characterized by 
 Holmes as " an admirable paper," and he also 
 
172 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 designating me as "a young friend" of his, 
 a phrase which awakened, I regret to say, some 
 scarcely veiled irreverence on the part of a 
 young fellow at the Worcester Gymnastic Club, 
 of which I was then president. Alas, I was 
 already thirty-three years old, and youth is mer 
 ciless. Nor can I wonder at the criticism when 
 I recall that the daring boy who made it died a 
 few years after in the Civil War, a brevet briga 
 dier-general, at the age of twenty. 
 
 I had previously written an article for the 
 "North American Review," another for the 
 " Christian Examiner," and three papers in 
 prose for " Putnam s Magazine," one of these 
 latter being a description of a trip to Mount Ka- 
 tahdin, written as a jeu d? esprit in the assumed 
 character of a lady of the party. A few poems 
 of mine had also been accepted by the last- 
 named periodical ; but these had attracted little 
 notice, and the comparative tclat attendant on 
 writing for the "Atlantic Monthly" made it 
 practically, in my case, the beginning of a lit 
 erary life. I was at once admitted to the At 
 lantic Club, an informal dinner of contributors 
 in those days, and at first found it enjoyable. 
 Before this I had belonged to a larger club, 
 rather short-lived, but including some of the 
 same men, the Town and Country Club, 
 organized in 1849, at Boston. The earlier club 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 173 
 
 had no dinners ; in fact, it erred on the side of 
 asceticism, being formed, as Emerson declared, 
 largely to afford a local habitation and dignified 
 occupation to Mr. Alcott. Had its christening 
 been left to the latter, a rhetorical grandeur 
 would have belonged to its very opening ; for 
 he only hesitated whether the " Olympian Club " 
 or the " Pan Club " would be the more suita 
 ble designation. Lowell marred the dignity of 
 the former proposal by suggesting the name 
 " Club of Hercules " as a substitute for " Olym 
 pian ;" and since the admission of women was a 
 vexed question at the outset, Lowell thought 
 the " Patty Pan " quite appropriate. Upon this 
 question, indeed, the enterprise very nearly 
 went to pieces ; and Mr. Sanborn has printed 
 in his " Life of Alcott " a characteristic letter 
 from Emerson to myself, after I had, in order to 
 test the matter, placed the names of Elizabeth 
 Peabody and Mary Lowell Putnam Lowell s 
 sister, and also well known as a writer on the 
 nomination book. Emerson himself, with one 
 of those serene and lofty coups d ttat of which 
 only the saints are capable, took a pen and 
 erased these names, although the question had 
 not yet come up for decision, but was still pend 
 ing when the erasure was made. Another 
 vexed subject was the admission of colored 
 members, the names of Frederick Douglass 
 
174 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 and Charles Lenox Remond being proposed. 
 This Lowell strongly favored, but wrote to me 
 that he thought Emerson would vote against 
 it ; indeed, Emerson, as he himself admitted 
 to me, was one of that minority of anti-slavery 
 men who confessed to a mild natural colorpho- 
 bia, controlled only by moral conviction. These 
 names were afterwards withdrawn ; but the 
 Town and Country Club died a natural death 
 before the question of admitting women was 
 finally settled. 
 
 That matter was not, however, the occasion 
 of the final catastrophe, which was brought on 
 by FalstafF s remediless disease, a consumption 
 of the purse. Ellery Channing said that the 
 very name of the club had been fatal to it ; that 
 it promised an impossible alliance between Bos 
 ton lawyers, who desired only a smoking-room, 
 and, on the other hand, as he declared, a num 
 ber of country ministers, who expected to be 
 boarded and lodged, and to have their washing 
 done, whenever they came up to the city. In 
 either case, the original assessment of five dol 
 lars was clearly too small, and the utter hope 
 lessness of raising any additional amount was 
 soon made manifest. After the club had ex 
 isted six months, a circular was issued, asking 
 the members to remit, if possible, two dollars 
 each before April 4, 1850, that the debts of the 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 175 
 
 club might be paid, and their fellow members 
 "be relieved from an unequal burden." This 
 sealed the doom of the enterprise, and " the 
 rest is silence." It is now far easier to organize 
 a University Club on a fifty or one hundred 
 dollar basis than it was then to skim the cream 
 of intellectual Boston at five dollars a head. 
 The fine phrase introduced by Mr. Alcott into 
 the constitution, " the economies of the club," 
 proved only too appropriate, as the organization 
 had to be very economical indeed. Its member 
 ship, nevertheless, was well chosen and varied. 
 At its four monthly gatherings, the lecturers 
 were Theodore Parker, Henry James the elder, 
 Henry Giles (then eminent as a Shakespeare 
 lecturer), and the Rev. William B. Greene, 
 afterwards colonel of the First Massachusetts 
 Heavy Artillery. Among the hundred or more 
 members, there were well-known lawyers, as 
 Sumner, E. R. Hoar, Hillard, Burlingarne, 
 Bemis, and Sewall ; and there were clergy 
 men, as Parker, Hedge, W. H. C banning, Hill, 
 Bartol, Frothingham, and Hale ; the only non- 
 Unitarian clergyman being the Rev. John O. 
 Choules, a cheery little English Baptist, who 
 had been round the world with Commodore 
 Vanderbilt in his yacht, and might well feel 
 himself equal to any worldly companionship. 
 The medical profession was represented by Drs. 
 
176 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Channing, Bowditch, Howe, and Loring ; and 
 the mercantile world by the two brothers Ward, 
 Franklin Haven, William D. Ticknor, and 
 James T. Fields. Art appeared only in John 
 Cheney, the engraver, and literature in the 
 persons of Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, 
 Lowell, and Whipple. These five authors were 
 contributors to the "Atlantic Monthly," and 
 took part also in the early dinners of the At 
 lantic Club. 
 
 Holmes, as it appears from his biography, 
 confounded the Atlantic Club, in his later re 
 collections, with its larger coeval, the Saturday 
 Club ; but they will be found very clearly dis 
 criminated in Longfellow s journals. During 
 the first year of the magazine under Phillips & 
 Sampson s management, there were monthly 
 dinners, in or near Boston, under the general 
 ship of Francis H. Underwood, the office editor, 
 and John C. Wyman, then his assistant. The 
 most notable of these gatherings was undoubt 
 edly that held at the Revere House, on occa 
 sion of Mrs. Stowe s projected departure for 
 Europe. It was the only one to which ladies 
 were invited, and the invitation was accepted 
 with a good deal of hesitation by Mrs. Stowe, 
 and with a distinct guarantee that no wine 
 should be furnished for the guests. Other femi 
 nine contributors were invited, but for various 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 177 
 
 reasons no ladies appeared except Mrs. Stowe 
 and Miss Harriet Prescott (now Mrs. Spof- 
 ford), who had already won fame by a story 
 called " In a Cellar," the scene of which was 
 laid in Paris, and which was so thoroughly 
 French in all its appointments that it was sus 
 pected of being a translation from that lan 
 guage, although much inquiry failed to reveal 
 the supposed original. It may be well to add 
 that the honest young author had so little ap 
 preciation of the high compliment thus paid 
 her that she indignantly proposed to withdraw 
 her manuscript in consequence. These two 
 ladies arrived promptly, and the gentlemen were 
 kept waiting, not greatly to their minds, in the 
 hope that other fair contributors would appear. 
 When at last it was decided to proceed without 
 further delay, Dr. Holmes and I were detailed 
 to escort the ladies to the dining-room : he as 
 the head of the party, and I as the only one 
 who knew the younger lady. As we went up 
 stairs the vivacious Autocrat said to me, " Can 
 I venture it ? Do you suppose that Mrs. Stowe 
 disapproves of me very much?" he being 
 then subject to severe criticism from the more 
 conservative theologians. The lady was gra 
 cious, however, and seemed glad to be rescued 
 at last from her wearisome waiting. She came 
 downstairs wearing a green wreath, of which 
 
i;8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Longfellow says in his diary (July 9, 1859) tnat 
 he " thought it very becoming." 
 
 We seated ourselves at table, Mrs. Stowe at 
 Lowell s right, and Miss Prescott at Holmes s, 
 I next to her, Edmund Quincy next to me. 
 Dr. Stowe was at Holmes s left, Whittier at 
 his ; and Longfellow, Underwood, John Wyman, 
 and others were present. I said at once to 
 Miss Prescott, " This is a new edition of * Eve 
 lina, or a Young Lady s Entrance into the 
 World. Begin at the beginning : what did you 
 and Mrs. Stowe talk about for three quarters 
 of an hour ? " She answered demurely, " No 
 thing, except that she once asked me what 
 o clock it was, and I told her I didn t know." 
 There could hardly be a better illustration of 
 that curious mixture of mauvaise honte and 
 indifference which often marred the outward 
 manners of that remarkable woman. It is very 
 likely that she had not been introduced to her 
 companion, and perhaps had never heard her 
 name ; but imagine any kindly or gracious per 
 son of middle age making no effort to relieve 
 the shyness of a young girl stranded with herself 
 during three quarters of an hour of enforced 
 seclusion ! 
 
 The modest entertainment proceeded ; con 
 versation set in, but there was a visible awk 
 wardness, partly from the presence of two 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 179 
 
 ladies, one of whom was rather silent by reason 
 of youth, and the other by temperament ; and 
 moreover, the thawing influence of wine was 
 wanting. There were probably no men of the 
 party, except Whittier and myself, who did 
 not habitually drink it, and various little jokes 
 began to circle sotto voce at the table ; a sug 
 gestion, for instance, from Longfellow, that Miss 
 Prescott might be asked to send down into her 
 Cellar for the wine she had described so well, 
 since Mrs. Stowe would allow none abovestairs. 
 Soon, however, a change came over the aspect 
 of affairs. My neighbor on the right, Edmund 
 Quincy, called a waiter mysteriously, and giv 
 ing him his glass of water remained tranquilly 
 while it was being replenished. It came back 
 suffused with a rosy hue. Some one else fol 
 lowed his example, and presently the "con 
 scious water" was blushing at various points 
 around the board, although I doubt whether 
 Holmes, with water-drinkers two deep on each 
 side of him, got really his share of the cov 
 eted beverage. If he had, it might have modi 
 fied the course of his talk, for I remember that 
 he devoted himself largely to demonstrating to 
 Dr. Stowe that all swearing doubtless origi 
 nated in the free use made by the pulpit of 
 sacred words and phrases ; while Lowell, at the 
 other end of the table, was maintaining for Mrs, 
 
i8o CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Stowe s benefit that "Tom Jones" was the 
 best novel ever written. This line of discussion 
 may have been lively, but was not marked by 
 eminent tact; and Whittier, indeed, told me 
 afterwards that Dr. and Mrs. Stowe agreed in 
 saying to him that while the company at the 
 club was no doubt distinguished, the conver 
 sation was not quite what they had been led to 
 expect. Yet Dr. Stowe was of a kindly nature 
 and perhaps was not seriously disturbed even 
 when Holmes assured him that there were in 
 Boston whole families not perceptibly affected by 
 Adam s fall ; as for instance, the family of Ware. 
 In the minor gatherings of the Atlantic 
 Club I became gradually conscious of a certain 
 monotony. Neither Emerson nor Longfellow 
 nor Whittier was a great talker, and though 
 the conversation was always lively enough, it 
 had too much the character of a dialogue be 
 tween Holmes and Lowell. Neither of these 
 had received the beneficent discipline of Eng 
 lish dining-rooms, where, as I learned long 
 after, one is schooled into self-restraint ; and 
 even if I never heard in London any talk that 
 was on the whole so clever as theirs, yet in 
 the end the carving is almost as important as 
 the meat. Living in Worcester, I saw little of 
 my fellow contributors except at those dinners, 
 though Emerson frequently lectured in that 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 181 
 
 growing city, and I occasionally did the same 
 thing at Concord, where I sometimes stayed at 
 his house. It was a delight to be in his study, 
 to finger his few and well-read books ; a disci 
 pline of humility to have one s modest portman 
 teau carried upstairs by Plato himself ; a joy 
 to see him, relapsed into a happy grandparent, 
 hold a baby on his knee, and wave his playful 
 finger above the little clutching hands, saying 
 joyously, "This boy is a little philosopher; he 
 philosophizes about everything." To Worces 
 ter came also Alcott and Thoreau, from time 
 to time ; the former to give those mystic 
 monologues which he called conversations, and 
 which were liable to be disturbed and even 
 checked when any other participant offered 
 anything but meek interrogatories. Thoreau 
 came to take walks in the woods, or perhaps 
 to Wachusett, with Harrison Blake, his later 
 editor, and with Theophilus Brown, the freshest 
 and most original mind in Worcester, by voca 
 tion a tailor, and sending out more sparkles of 
 wit and humor over his measuring-tape and 
 scissors than any one else could extract from 
 Rabelais or Montaigne. Sometimes I joined 
 the party, and found Thoreau a dry humorist, 
 and also a good walker ; while Alcott, although 
 he too walked, usually steered for a convenient 
 log in the edge of the first grove, and, seat- 
 
182 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 ing himself there, "conversed" once more. It 
 may be that there are men now as quaint and 
 original as were easily accessible in those days ; 
 but if so, I wish some one would favor me with 
 a letter of introduction. 
 
 It was perhaps an advantage to me, and cer 
 tainly a great convenience, that I did not begin 
 writing for magazines until I was above thirty. 
 I thus escaped the preliminary ordeal of rejec 
 tion, a thing which I have indeed encountered 
 but once in respect to prose papers, during 
 my whole literary life. As Lowell, Holmes, 
 and Underwood all heartily approved my early 
 essays, I was tempted to stretch their range 
 wider and try experiments. This was not so 
 much from any changeableness or a wish to be 
 credited with versatility, a quality which I 
 commonly distrusted and criticised in others, 
 but because there were so many interesting 
 things to write about ; and because I had possi 
 bly been rather too much impressed by one of 
 Emerson s perilous maxims as applied to any 
 writer, " If he has hit the mark, let others shat 
 ter the target." If my critics agreed that I 
 could write a fairly good historical essay such 
 as " A Charge with Prince Rupert," or a good 
 outdoor paper such as "A Procession of the 
 Flowers," it seemed better to try my hand at 
 something else. There was no indolence about 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 183 
 
 this ; it was simply an eager desire to fill all 
 the parts. Such versatility makes life very 
 enjoyable, but perhaps not so really useful or 
 successful as a career like that of my con 
 temporary, Francis Parkman, who used to be 
 surrounded, even in college, by books of Indian 
 travel and French colonial history, and who 
 kept at work for half a century on his vast 
 theme until he achieved for himself a great lit 
 erary monument. He was really a specialist 
 before the days of specialism. To adopt a dif 
 ferent method, as I did, is to put one s self too 
 much in the position of a celebrated horse once 
 owned by a friend of mine, a horse which 
 had never won a race, but which was prized 
 as having gained a second place in more races 
 than any other horse in America. Yet it is to 
 be remembered that there is a compensation in 
 all these matters : the most laborious historian 
 is pretty sure to be superseded within thirty 
 years as it has already been prophesied that 
 even Parkman will be by the mere accumu 
 lation of new material ; while the more dis 
 cursive writer may perchance happen on some 
 felicitous statement that shall rival in immor 
 tality Fletcher of Saltoun s one sentence, or the 
 single sonnet of Blanco White. 
 
 In 1859 the "Atlantic Monthly" passed into 
 the hands of Ticknor & Fields, the junior pub- 
 
184 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 lisher becoming finally its editor. It was a 
 change of much importance to all its contribu 
 tors, and greatly affected my own literary life. 
 Lowell had been, of course, an appreciative 
 and a sympathetic editor, yet sometimes dila 
 tory and exasperating. Thus, a paper of mine 
 on Theodore Parker, which should have ap 
 peared directly after the death of its subject, 
 was delayed for five months by being acci 
 dentally put under a pile of unexamined manu 
 scripts. Lowell had, moreover, some conserva 
 tive reactions, and my essay " Ought Women 
 to Learn the Alphabet ? " which would now 
 seem very innocent, and probably had a wider 
 circulation than any other magazine article I 
 ever wrote, was not accepted without some 
 shaking of the head, though it was finally given 
 the place of honor in the number. Fields had 
 the advantage over Lowell of being both editor 
 and publisher, so that he had a free hand as 
 to paying for articles. The prices then paid 
 were lower than now, but were raised steadily ; 
 and he first introduced the practice of paying 
 for each manuscript on acceptance, though he 
 always lamented that this failed of its end so 
 far as he was individually concerned. His 
 object was to quiet the impatience of those 
 whose contributions were delayed ; but he de 
 clared that such persons complained more than 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 185 
 
 ever, saying, " Since you valued my contribution 
 so highly as to pay for it, you surely should 
 print it at once." He had a virtue which I have 
 never known in any other editor or publisher, 
 that of volunteering to advance money on 
 prospective articles, yet to be written ; and he 
 did this more than once to me. I have also 
 known him to increase the amount paid, on 
 finding that an author particularly needed the 
 money, especially if it were the case of a wo 
 man. His sympathy with struggling women 
 was always very great ; and I think he was 
 the only one in the early "Atlantic " circle, ex 
 cept Whittier and myself, with Emerson also, 
 latterly, who favored woman suffrage. This 
 financial kindliness was a part of his general 
 theory of establishing a staff, in which effort 
 he really succeeded, most of his contributors 
 then writing only for him, an aim which his 
 successors abandoned, as doubtless became in 
 evitable in view of the rapid multiplication of 
 magazines. Certainly there was something very 
 pleasant about Fields s policy on this point ; 
 and perhaps he petted us all rather too much. 
 He had some of the defects of his qualities, 
 could not help being a little of a flatterer, and 
 sometimes, though not always, evaded the tell 
 ing of wholesome truths. 
 
 I happened to be one of his favorites; he 
 
186 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 even wished me, at one time, to undertake the 
 whole critical department, which I luckily de 
 clined, although it appears by the index that I 
 wrote more largely for the first twenty volumes 
 of the magazine than any other contributor 
 except Lowell and Holmes. Fields was con 
 stantly urging me to attempt fiction, and when 
 I somewhat reluctantly followed his advice, he 
 thought better of the result, I believe, than any 
 one else did ; for my story of " Malbone," espe 
 cially, he prophesied a fame which the public 
 has not confirmed. Yet he was not indiscrimi 
 nate in his praise, and suggested some amend 
 ments which improved that tale very much. 
 He was capable also of being influenced by ar 
 gument, and was really the only editor I have 
 ever encountered whose judgment I could move 
 for an instant by any cajoling; editors being, 
 as a rule, a race made of adamant, as they 
 should be. On the other hand, he advised 
 strongly against my writing the " Young Folks 
 History of the United States," which never 
 theless turned out incomparably the most suc 
 cessful venture I ever made, having sold to the 
 extent of two hundred thousand copies, and still 
 selling well after twenty years. His practical 
 judgment was thus not infallible, but it came 
 nearer to it than that of any other literary man 
 I have ever known. With all his desire to 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 187 
 
 create a staff, Fields was always eagerly looking 
 out for new talent, and was ever prompt to 
 counsel and encourage. He liked, of course, 
 to know eminent men ; and his geese were apt 
 to be swans, yet he was able to discriminate. 
 He organized Dickens s readings, for instance, 
 and went to every one of them, yet confessed 
 frankly that their pathos was a failure ; that 
 Little Nell was unreal, and Paul Dombey a 
 tiresome creature whose death was a relief. 
 Fields was really a keen judge of character, 
 and had his own fearless standards. I once 
 asked him which he liked the better personally, 
 Thackeray or Dickens, and he replied, after a 
 moment s reflection, " Dickens, because Thack 
 eray enjoyed telling questionable stories, a thing 
 which Dickens never did." 
 
 There has been endless discussion as to the 
 true worth of the literary movement of which 
 the circle of " Atlantic " writers was the source. 
 By some, no doubt, it has been described with 
 exaggerated claims, and by others with a dis 
 approbation quite as unreasonable. Time alone 
 can decide the precise award ; the essential fact 
 is that in this movement American literature 
 was born, or, if not born, for certainly Irving 
 and Cooper had preceded, was at least set 
 on its feet. Whether it could not have been 
 better born is a profitless question. This group 
 
188 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 of writers was doubtless a local product ; but 
 so is every new variety of plum or pear which 
 the gardener finds in his garden. He does not 
 quarrel with it for having made its appearance 
 in some inconvenient corner instead of in the 
 centre, nor does he think it unpardonable that 
 it did not show itself everywhere at once ; the 
 thing of importance is that it has arrived. The 
 new literary impulse was indigenous, and, as 
 far as it felt an exotic influence, that force was 
 at any rate not English ; it was French, Italian, 
 and above all German, so far as its external 
 factors went. Nothing could be much further 
 from the truth than the late remark of an es 
 sayist that Boston is " almost the sole survival 
 upon our soil of a purely English influence." 
 As a matter of fact, the current of thought 
 which between 1816 and 1818 took our whole 
 American educational system away from the 
 English tradition, and substituted the German 
 methods, had been transmitted through four 
 young men from New England, who had stud 
 ied together at Gottingen. These reporters had 
 sent back the daring assertion that while our 
 cisatlantic schools and colleges had nothing to 
 learn from England, not even from the Ox 
 ford and Cambridge of that day, they had, 
 on the contrary, everything to learn from the 
 German institutions. The students in question 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 189 
 
 were Cogswell, Everett, Ticknor, and, in a less 
 degree, Bancroft. Three of these went from 
 Harvard College, Everett and Bancroft at the 
 expense of the university ; while Ticknor went 
 from Dartmouth. They all brought back to 
 Harvard what they could not find in England, 
 but had gained in Germany ; Everett writing 
 to my father in a letter which lies before me 
 (dated June 6, 1818), "There is more teach 
 ing and more learning in our American Cam 
 bridge than there is in Oxford and Cambridge 
 put together." They laid the foundation for 
 non-English training not only in Boston, but in 
 America, at a time when the very best literary 
 journal in New York, and indeed in this coun 
 try, was called " The Albion," and was English 
 through and through. 
 
 It was, in fact, made a temporary reproach 
 to the early Transcendental movement that it 
 was too French or too German, and not Eng 
 lish enough ; and when George Ripley s library 
 was sold, it proved to be by far the best Ger 
 man library in New England except Theodore 
 Parker s. There was at that time an eager 
 clamoring not only for German, but for French, 
 Italian, and even Swedish literature ; then, 
 when the " Atlantic " circle succeeded to the do 
 main of the Transcendentalists, it had in Long 
 fellow the most accomplished translator of his 
 
190 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 day; and the Continental influence still went 
 at least side by side with the English, if it did 
 not prevail over it. But behind this question 
 of mere intellectual aliment lay the problem 
 whether we should have a literature of our 
 own ; and it was a strength, not a weakness, 
 in these men when they aimed, in the words 
 of young Robert Bartlett, to make us " classic 
 to ourselves." Probably no one who did not 
 live in those days can fully realize what it was 
 to us to have our own aspects of nature, our 
 own historic scenes, our own types of character, 
 our own social problems, brought up and given 
 a prominent place. The mere substitution of 
 bobolink and oriole for lark and nightingale was 
 a delicious novelty. At any rate, for good or 
 evil, the transition was made. If the achieve 
 ment took on too much flavor of moral earnest 
 ness, as is now complained, this may have been 
 inevitable. In hewing down the forest, the 
 axe must have weight as well as edge. In the 
 work that obtruded itself while this literature 
 was being created, the crushing of Ameri 
 can slavery by the strong hand, it was not 
 found that this moral force had been a thing 
 superfluous. It was not a Bostonian, but a New 
 Yorker (Mr. John Jay Chapman), who lately 
 said of Emerson, " It will not be denied that 
 he sent ten thousand sons to the war. 1 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 191 
 
 It is certain, at any rate, that a belief like 
 this, in a literature actually forming before my 
 eyes, was an important part of my happiness 
 during my Worcester life, and that the work 
 growing out of it became by degrees a seri 
 ous interference with that required by the Free 
 Church, and led me to quit the latter. I had 
 also many other affairs on hand, being, as Mr. 
 Alcott said of me, " a man of tasks ; " and all 
 these, while multiplying enjoyment and useful 
 ness, were crowding too much on one another. 
 I interested myself in the new question of a 
 prohibitory liquor law, was for a time secretary 
 of the state committee, and also took a hand 
 again aided by Martin Stowell in enforcing 
 the law in Worcester. Experience brought me 
 to the opinion, which I have ever since held, that 
 such a law is useless except under the limita 
 tions of local option, so that the moral pressure 
 of each locality may be behind its enforcement. 
 
 I have already spoken of continued anti- 
 slavery work in Worcester. I was also deeply 
 interested in the problem of discharged con 
 victs, having in that direction one experience 
 so interesting that I must find room for it. In 
 another town of Massachusetts I had known a 
 young man of most respectable family, who, 
 after a series of skillful burglaries, had been 
 sent to prison on an eight years sentence. He 
 
192 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 had there sustained an excellent character, and, 
 after visiting him just before liberation, I had 
 brought him to Worcester, and placed him in a 
 family of worthy English people belonging to 
 the Free Church, who carried on at home a 
 little manufacturing business which he readily 
 learned. Of course they were told his story, 
 and their willingness to take him was the more 
 admirable inasmuch as they had once tried 
 much the same experiment and had been de 
 ceived. He behaved perfectly well, yet told 
 me frankly that he used to loiter before jewel 
 ers windows and think how easily he could get 
 possession of the glittering treasures inside. 
 He ultimately married a farmer s daughter in 
 a village near Worcester; he set up a little 
 shop on very scanty capital, but made no effort 
 to eke it out by any dishonorable action ; and 
 when the war came he somehow got a lieu 
 tenant s commission, but for some reason was 
 never assigned to any regiment, and eventually 
 died of disease. Here was a life saved from 
 further wrong, and by the simplest means ; and 
 when, in later life, I attended as a delegate the 
 meetings of prison reformers in Europe, I was 
 firm in the conviction that such things as I 
 have described could be done. 
 
 As to work within the circle of my own 
 people, I found plenty of it, and on the whole 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 193 
 
 enjoyed it. They had almost all come from 
 more conservative religious bodies, and some 
 of the best of them were Spiritualists. Only 
 one of the local clergy would exchange with 
 me, the exception being, as may be easily 
 believed, Edward Everett Hale, who had not 
 yet migrated to Boston, but I was gradually 
 brought into amicable relations with many of 
 the others, and had no reason to complain. I 
 was on the school committee until I was 
 dropped, during the Know-Nothing excitement, 
 for defending the right of a Roman Catholic 
 father to decide which version of the Scriptures 
 his child should read in school. Twice I have 
 thus been honorably dismissed from school 
 committees; for the same thing happened again 
 in Newport, Rhode Island, ten years later, in 
 consequence of the part I took in securing the 
 abolition of separate colored schools. In both 
 cases I was reinstated later ; being appointed 
 on a special examination committee in Worces 
 ter together with a Roman Catholic priest, and 
 on the regular committee in Newport with a 
 colored clergyman ; thus " bringing my sheaves 
 with me," as a clever woman said. I had a 
 hand in organizing the great Worcester Public 
 Library, and was one of its early board of trus 
 tees, at a time when we little dreamed of its 
 expansion and widespread usefulness. 
 
194 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 The old love for natural history survived, and 
 I undertook again the microscopic work which 
 I had begun in Newburyport under the guid 
 ance of an accomplished biologist, Dr. Henry C. 
 Perkins. He had also introduced me to the 
 works of Oken and Richard Owen ; and I had 
 written for the " Christian Examiner " (July, 
 1852) a paper called " Man and Nature," given 
 first as a lyceum lecture, which expressed some 
 thing of that morning glow before sunrise 
 which existed after the views of Goethe and 
 Oken had been made public, but when Dar 
 win s great discoveries were yet to be achieved. 
 In Worcester I did a great deal in the way of 
 field observation, and organized, with Hale and 
 others, the local Natural History Society, one 
 branch of which, the botanical club, still bears 
 my name. I also read many books on anthro 
 pology, and wrote for the " Atlantic " various 
 essays on kindred themes, which were after 
 wards published in a volume as " Out-Door 
 Papers." The preparation for this work gave 
 that " enormity of pleasure," in Wordsworth s 
 phrase, which only the habit of minute and 
 written observation can convey; and I had 
 many happy days, especially in the then unpro- 
 faned regions of Lake Quinsigamond. With 
 all this revived the old love of athletic exer 
 cises : I was president of a gymnastic club, a 
 
THE BIRTH OF A LITERATURE 195 
 
 skating club, and a cricket club, playing in sev 
 eral match games with the latter. I never 
 actually belonged to a volunteer engine com 
 pany, such as then existed everywhere, it is 
 a wonder that I did not, but was elected an 
 honorary member of Tiger Engine Company 
 Number 6, though unluckily the Tigers engaged 
 in a general fight at their annual meeting, be 
 fore I could join, and the company was dis 
 solved by the city fathers in consequence ; so 
 that this crowning distinction was at the last 
 moment wrested from me. Thus passed the 
 years, until the Kansas excitement burst upon 
 the nation and opened the way to new experi 
 ences. 
 
VII 
 
 KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 
 
 COMING into Boston Harbor in September, 
 1856, after a long and stormy passage in a sail 
 ing vessel from the island of Fayal, the passen 
 gers, of whom I was one, awaited with eager 
 interest the arrival of the pilot. He proved to 
 be one of the most stolid and reticent of his 
 tribe, as impenetrable to our curiosity as were 
 his own canvas garments to raindrops. At 
 last, as if to shake us off, he tugged from 
 some remote pocket a torn fragment of a daily 
 newspaper, large enough to set before our 
 eyes at a glance the momentous news of the 
 assault on Charles Sumner in the United States 
 Senate, and of the blockading of the Missouri 
 River against Free State emigrants. Arrived 
 on shore, my immediate party went at once to 
 Worcester ; and the public meeting held by 
 my friends to welcome me back became also 
 a summons to call out volunteer emigrants 
 for Kansas. Worcester had been thoroughly 
 wakened to the needs of the new Territory 
 through the formation of the Emigrant Aid 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 197 
 
 Society, which had done much good by direct 
 ing public attention to the opportunities of 
 fered by Kansas, though the enterprise had 
 already lost some momentum by the obvious 
 limitations of its method of " organized emigra 
 tion." It had been shown that it was easy to 
 get people to go together to a new colony, but 
 hard to keep them united after they got there, 
 since they could not readily escape the Amer 
 ican impulse to disregard organization and go 
 to work, each for himself ; this desire being as 
 promptly visible in the leaders as in anybody 
 else. Moreover, it seemed necessary to arm any 
 party of colonists more openly and thoroughly 
 than had been the policy of the Emigrant Aid 
 Society ; and so a new movement became need 
 ful. A committee was appointed, of which I was 
 secretary, with a view to sending a series of 
 parties from Worcester ; and of these we in the 
 end furnished three. 
 
 First, however, I was sent to St. Louis to 
 meet a party of Massachusetts emigrants, un 
 der Dr. Calvin Cutter, who had been turned 
 back from the river by the Missourians, or 
 "Border Ruffians," as they had then begun to 
 be called. I was charged with funds to pro 
 vide for the necessities of this body, and was 
 also to report on the practicability of either 
 breaking the river blockade or flanking it A 
 
198 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 little inquiry served to show that only the lat 
 ter method would as yet be available. Events 
 moved rapidly ; a national committee was soon 
 formed, with headquarters at Chicago, and it 
 was decided to send all future emigrants across 
 Iowa and Nebraska, fighting their way, if neces 
 sary, into Kansas. Our three parties, accord 
 ingly, went by that route ; the men being pro 
 vided with rifles, revolvers, and camp equipage. 
 Two of these parties made their rendezvous in 
 Worcester, one under command of my friend 
 Stowell ; the third party was formed largely of 
 Maine lumbermen, recruited in a body for the 
 service. I never saw thirty men of finer phy 
 sique, as they strode through Boston in their 
 red shirts and rough trousers to meet us at the 
 Emigrant Aid Society rooms, which had been 
 kindly lent us for the purpose. The rest of the 
 men came to us singly, from all over New Eng 
 land, some of the best being from Vermont, 
 including Henry Thompson, afterwards John 
 Brown s son-in-law, killed at Harper s Ferry. 
 
 I have never ceased to regret that all the 
 correspondence relating to these companies, 
 though most carefully preserved for years, was 
 finally lost through a casualty, and they must 
 go forever unrecorded ; but it was all really a 
 rehearsal in advance of the great enlistments 
 of the Civil War. The men were personally of 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 199 
 
 as high a grade as the later recruits, perhaps 
 even higher ; they were of course mostly undis 
 ciplined, and those who had known something 
 of military service as in the Mexican War, 
 for instance were usually the hardest to man 
 age, save and except the stalwart lumbermen, 
 who were from the beginning a thorn in the 
 flesh to the worthy Orthodox Congregational 
 clergyman whom it became necessary to put 
 in charge of this final party of emigrants. He 
 wrote back to me that if I had any lingering 
 doubts of the doctrine of total depravity, I had 
 better organize another party of Maine lumber 
 men and pilot them to Kansas. Sympathy 
 was certainly due to him ; and yet I should 
 have liked to try the experiment. 
 
 Being appointed as an agent of the National 
 Kansas Committee, I went out in September, 
 1856, to meet and direct this very party, and 
 others including several hundred men 
 which had been collected on the Nebraska 
 border. The events of the six weeks following 
 were described by me in a series of letters, 
 signed " Worcester," in the " New York Tri 
 bune," and later collected in a pamphlet entitled 
 "A Ride through Kansas." It was a period 
 when history was being made very rapidly, a 
 period which saw a policy of active oppression 
 at last put down and defeated, although backed 
 
200 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 by the action or sustained by the vacillation of 
 the national government. The essential differ 
 ence between the Northern and the Southern 
 forces in Kansas at that period was that the 
 Northern men went as bona fide settlers, and 
 the Southerners mainly to break up elections 
 and so make it a Slave Territory. Every mem 
 ber of our Worcester parties signed a pledge 
 to settle in Kansas, and nearly all kept it. On 
 the other hand, the parties from South Caro 
 lina and Virginia, whom I afterwards encoun 
 tered, had gone there simply on a lark, meaning 
 to return home when it was over, as they freely 
 admitted. This difference of material, rather 
 than any superiority of organization, was what 
 finally gave Kansas to freedom. 
 
 The end of Western railway communication 
 was then Iowa City, in Iowa, and those who 
 would reach Kansas had six hundred miles 
 farther to walk or ride. I myself rode across 
 Iowa for four days and nights on the top of 
 a stage-coach, in the path of my emigrants, 
 watching the sun go down blazing, and some 
 times pear-shaped, over the prairie horizon, just 
 as it goes down beyond the ocean, and then 
 seeing it rise in the same way. When the 
 stage at last rolled me into Nebraska City, it 
 seemed as if I had crossed the continent, for I 
 had passed through Council Bluffs, which in 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 201 
 
 my school geography had figured as the very 
 outpost of the nation. Once arrived there, I 
 felt as bewildered as a little boy on the Ca 
 nadian railway who, when the conductor an 
 nounced the small village called London, waked 
 from a doze and exclaimed in my hearing, " Do 
 we really pass through London that great 
 city ? " One of the first needful duties was to 
 visit our party of lumbermen and restore peace, 
 if possible, between them and their officers. 
 For this purpose I made my first stump speech, 
 in a literal sense, standing on a simple ped 
 estal of that description, and reasoning with the 
 mutineers to the best of my ability. They had 
 behaved so like grown-up children that I fear 
 my discourse was somewhat in the line adopted 
 in later years by a brilliant woman of my ac 
 quaintance, whose son had got into a college 
 difficulty. I asked her, " Did you talk the 
 matter over with him ? " " Certainly," she said 
 eagerly. " I reasoned with him. I said to him, 
 
 1 L , you are a great fool ! It was not 
 
 necessary to be quite so plain-spoken in this 
 case ; and as I was fortified by the fact of hav 
 ing all their means of subsistence in a money- 
 belt about my waist, the advantage was clearly 
 on my side, and some order was finally brought 
 out of chaos. 
 
 Soon after arriving I had to drive from Ne- 
 
202 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 braska City to Tabor on an errand, over about 
 twenty miles of debatable ground, absolutely 
 alone. It had been swept by the hostile par 
 ties of both factions ; there was no more law 
 than in the Scottish Highlands ; every swell of 
 the rolling prairie offered a possible surprise, 
 and I had some of the stirring sensations of a 
 moss-trooper. Never before in my life had I 
 been, distinctively and unequivocally, outside 
 of the world of human law ; it had been ready 
 to protect me, even when I disobeyed it. Here 
 it had ceased to exist ; my Sharp s rifle, my re 
 volvers, or, these failing, my own ingenuity 
 and ready wit, were all the protection I had. 
 It was a delightful sensation ; I could quote to 
 myself from Browning s magnificent soliloquy 
 in " Colombe s Birthday : " 
 
 " When is man strong until he feels alone ? " 
 
 and there came to mind some thrilling pas 
 sages from Thornbury s " Ballads of the Cava 
 liers and Roundheads" or from the "Jacobite 
 Minstrelsy." On this very track a carrier had 
 been waylaid and killed by the Missourians only a 
 few days before. The clear air, the fresh breeze, 
 gave an invigorating delight, impaired by no 
 thing but the yellow and muddy streams of that 
 region, which seemed to my New England eye 
 such a poor accompaniment for the land of the 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 203 
 
 free. Tabor itself was then known far and wide 
 as a Free State town, from the warm sympathy 
 of its people for the struggles of their neigh 
 bors, and I met there with the heartiest encour 
 agement, and had an escort back. 
 
 The tavern where I lodged in Nebraska City 
 was miserable enough ; the beds being fear 
 fully dirty, the food indigestible, and the table 
 eagerly beset by three successive relays of men. 
 One day a commotion took place in the street : 
 people ran out to the doors ; and some thirty 
 rough-riders came cantering up to the hostelry. 
 They might have been border raiders for all 
 appearance of cavalry order : some rode horses, 
 some mules ; some had bridles, others had lari 
 ats of rope ; one man had on a slight semblance 
 of uniform, and seemed a sort of lieutenant. 
 The leader was a thin man of middle age, in 
 a gray woolen shirt, with keen eyes, smooth 
 tongue, and a suggestion of courteous and even 
 fascinating manners ; a sort of Prince Rupert of 
 humbler grade. This was the then celebrated 
 Jim Lane, afterwards Senator James H. Lane, 
 of the United States Congress ; at this time 
 calling himself only " Major-General command 
 ing the Free State Forces of Kansas." He 
 was now retreating from the Territory with 
 his men, in deference to the orders of the new 
 United States governor, Geary, who was making 
 
204 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 an attempt, more or less serious, to clear Kansas 
 of all armed bands. Lane stopped two days in 
 Nebraska City, and I did something towards 
 renewing the clothing of his band. He made 
 a speech to the citizens of the town, they 
 being then half balanced between anti-slavery 
 and pro-slavery sympathies, and I have sel 
 dom heard eloquence more thrilling, more tact 
 ful, better adjusted to the occasion. Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson, I remember, was much im 
 pressed by a report of this speech as sent by 
 me to some Boston newspaper. Lane went with 
 me, I think, to see our emigrants, encamped near 
 by ; gave me some capital suggestions as to our 
 march into the Territory ; and ended by hand 
 ing me a bit of crumpled paper, appointing me 
 a member of his staff with the rank of brigadier- 
 general. 
 
 As I rode out of Nebraska City on the 
 march, next day, my companion, Samuel F. 
 Tappan, riding at my side, took occasion to ex 
 hibit casually a similar bit of paper in his own 
 possession ; and we thus found that the Kan 
 sas guerrilla leader carried out the habit of 
 partisan chiefs in all history, who have usually 
 made up in titles and honors what they could 
 not bestow in actual emoluments. After this 
 discovery Tappan and I rode on in conscious 
 inward importance, a sort of dignity d deux, 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 205 
 
 yet not knowing but that at any moment some 
 third brigadier-general might cross our path. 
 We accompanied and partially directed the 
 march of about a hundred and sixty men, with 
 some twenty women and children. There were 
 twenty-eight wagons, all but eight being drawn 
 by horses. The nightly tents made quite an 
 imposing encampment ; while some of the men 
 fed and watered the stock, others brought wood 
 from far and near, others cleaned their rifles, 
 others prepared the wagons for sleeping ; the 
 cooks fried pork and made bread ; women with 
 their babies sat round the fire ; and a sad 
 dler brought out his board and leather every 
 night and made belts and holsters for the emi 
 grants. Each man kept watch for an hour, 
 striding in thick boots through the prairie grass 
 heavy with frost. Danger had always to be 
 guarded against, though we were never actually 
 attacked; and while we went towards Kan 
 sas, we met armed parties day after day flee 
 ing from it, hopeless of peace. When at last 
 we reached the Kansas River, we found on its 
 muddy banks nineteen wagons with emigrants, 
 retreating with heavy hearts from the land of 
 promise so eagerly sought two years before. 
 " The Missourians could not conquer us," they 
 said, " but Governor Geary has." 
 
 On my first morning in Lawrence, Kansas, 
 
206 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 I waked before daybreak, and looking out saw 
 the house surrounded by dragoons, each sit 
 ting silent on his horse. This again was a 
 new experience in those ante-bellum days. A 
 party of a hundred and fifty of these men had 
 been sent to intercept us, we learned, under 
 the command of Colonel Preston and Captain 
 Walker of the United States Army ; the latter 
 luckily being an old acquaintance of my own. 
 As a result, I went with Charles Robinson, the 
 Free State governor, and James Redpath for 
 a half -amicable, half -compulsory interview with 
 the actual governor, Geary ; and we parted, 
 leaving everything undecided, indeed, nothing 
 ever seemed to be decided in Kansas ; the whole 
 destiny of the Territory was one of drifting, 
 until it finally drifted into freedom. Yet in 
 view of the fact that certain rifles which we 
 had brought, and which had been left at Tabor, 
 Iowa, for future emergencies, were the same 
 weapons which ultimately armed John Brown 
 and his men at Harper s Ferry, it is plain that 
 neither Governor Geary s solicitude nor the mil 
 itary expedition of Colonel Preston was at all 
 misplaced. 
 
 I formed that day a very unfavorable impres 
 sion of Governor Geary, and a favorable one of 
 Governor Robinson, and lived to modify both 
 opinions. The former, though vacillating in 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 207 
 
 Kansas, did himself great credit afterwards in 
 the Civil War ; while the latter did himself very 
 little credit in Kansas politics, whose bitter 
 hostilities and narrow vindictiveness he was 
 the first to foster. Jealousy of the influence of 
 Brown, Lane, and Montgomery led him in later 
 years to be chiefly responsible for that curious 
 myth concerning the Kansas conflict which has 
 wholly taken possession of many minds, and 
 has completely perverted the history of that 
 State written by Professor Spring, a theory 
 to the effect that there existed from the begin 
 ning among the Free State people two well- 
 defined parties, the one wishing to carry its 
 ends by war, the other by peace. As a mat 
 ter of fact there was no such division. In re 
 gard to the most extreme act of John Brown s 
 Kansas career, the so-called " Pottawatomie 
 massacre" of May 24, 1856, I can testify that 
 in September of that year there appeared to 
 be but one way of thinking among the Kansas 
 Free State men, this being precisely the fact 
 pointed out by Colonel William A. Phillips, in 
 his " Conquest of Kansas," which is altogether 
 the best and fairest book upon the confused 
 history of that time and place. I heard of no 
 one who did not approve of the act, and its 
 beneficial effects were universally asserted, 
 Governor Robinson himself fully indorsing it 
 
208 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 to me, and maintaining, like the rest, that it 
 had given an immediate check to the armed 
 aggressions of the Missourians. 
 
 It is certain that at a public meeting held at 
 Lawrence, Kansas, three years later (Decem 
 ber 15, 1859), Robinson supported resolutions 
 saying that the act was done "from sad neces 
 sity;" that on August 30, 1877, at the unveiling 
 of Brown s monument at Osawatomie, he com 
 pared Brown to Jesus Christ ; and that on Feb 
 ruary 5, 1878, he wrote in a letter to James 
 Han way, " I never had much doubt that Cap 
 tain Brown was the author of the blow at Pot- 
 tawatomie, for the reason that he was the only 
 man who comprehended the situation and saw 
 the absolute necessity of some such blow and 
 had the nerve to strike it." Personally, I have 
 never fully reconciled myself to this vindication 
 of "the blow;" but that Charles Robinson, 
 after justifying it for nearly thirty years, and 
 after the fighting men of the Territory (Brown, 
 Lane, Montgomery) were dead, should have be 
 gun to pose as a non-resistant, and should later 
 have spoken of " the punishment due Brown 
 for his crimes in Kansas," this appears to 
 me to have been either simply disgraceful, or 
 else the product of a disordered mind. 
 
 The people in Lawrence had been passing 
 through a variety of scenes of danger and dis- 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 209 
 
 comfort before the arrival of our party ; and 
 though the Missouri attacks had practically 
 ceased, their effects remained in the form of 
 general poverty and of privations as to food, es 
 pecially as regarded breadstuff s. The hotel and 
 Governor Robinson s house had been burned, 
 as well as many mills and bridges ; some of 
 the best citizens were in jail as prisoners of 
 state, and their families were really suffering. 
 When I visited these prisoners at Lecomp- 
 ton, one man reported to me that he had left 
 six children at home, all ill, and his wife acci 
 dentally away and unable to get back ; but he 
 supposed that "some of the neighbors would 
 look after them." Another had in his arms 
 his crying baby, said to be the first child born 
 in Lawrence, and named after the settlement. 
 Such imprisonment was the lot of more than 
 a hundred of the Free State men. In the 
 more rural regions though everything in 
 Kansas was then rural, but treeless there 
 was a perpetual guerrilla warfare going on in 
 a vague and desultory way; and the parties 
 were so far defined that their labels attached 
 even to dumb animals, and people spoke of an 
 anti-slavery colt or a pro-slavery cow. 
 
 Several of us visited, near Blanton s Bridge, 
 the ruins of a large mill, built by a Pennsylva- 
 nian named Straub. We met there his daugh- 
 
210 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 ter, who was a noble -looking girl of twenty, 
 but rather needlessly defiant in manner, as we 
 thought, till at last she said frankly, " Why, I 
 thought you were Missourians, and I was re 
 solved that you should hear the truth." We 
 being three to one, this attitude was certainly 
 plucky ; but I heard later that this girl had 
 walked alone into the midst of the Missourians, 
 while the mill was burning, and had called on 
 one of them to give up her favorite horse which 
 he had taken. This she did with such spirit 
 that his comrades compelled him to dismount 
 and surrender it. She mounted it and was 
 riding away, when the man followed and at 
 tempted to get the halter from her hand ; she 
 held on ; he took his bowie-knife and threatened 
 to cut her hand off ; she dared him to do it ; 
 he cut the rope close to her hand and got con 
 trol of the horse. She slipped off, defeated ; 
 but presently two of the fellow s companions 
 rode up and gave her the horse once more. It 
 was a time when a horse was worth more than 
 a life in Kansas, and we can estimate the com 
 pleteness of the triumph. 
 
 As I had been urged to preach to the people 
 of Lawrence, it seemed well to take for my text 
 that which was employed by the Rev. John 
 Martin on the Sunday after he had fought at 
 Bunker Hill : " Be not ye afraid of them ; re- 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 211 
 
 member the Lord, which is great and terri 
 ble, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and 
 your daughters, your wives, and your houses." 
 Riding a few days after to Leavenworth, then a 
 " Border Ruffian " town, to witness an election 
 under the auspices of that faction, I found my 
 self in a village provided with more than fifty 
 liquor shops for two thousand inhabitants, while 
 the doors of the hotel were almost barricaded 
 with whiskey casks. Strangers were begged 
 to take a hand in the voting, as if it were some 
 thing to drink ; I was several times asked to 
 do this, and my plea that I was only a trav 
 eler was set aside as quite irrelevant. Many 
 debated on the most available point at which 
 to cast their pro- slavery votes for the Free 
 State men denied the validity of the election 
 and would not vote at all as coolly as a knot 
 of village shopkeepers might debate whether 
 to go to Boston or New York for purchases. 
 Once the conversation began to grow rather 
 personal. Said one man, just from Lecompton, 
 " Tell you what, we ve found out one thing : 
 there s a preacher going about here preaching 
 politics." "Fact?" and "Is that so?" were 
 echoed with virtuous indignation on all sides. 
 "That s so," continued he, "and he fixes it 
 this way: first, he has his text and preaches 
 religion ; then he drops that and pitches into 
 
212 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 politics ; and then he drops that too, and begins 
 about the suff erin niggers " (this with ineffa 
 ble contempt). " And what s more, he s here 
 in Leavenworth now." " What s his name ? " 
 exclaimed several eagerly. " Just what I don t 
 know," was the sorrowful reply, "and I should 
 n t know him if I saw him ; but he s here, 
 boys, and in a day or two there 11 be some gen 
 tlemen here that know him." (At my last 
 speech in Lawrence I had been warned that 
 three Missouri spies were present.) " It s well 
 we ve got him here, to take care of him," said 
 one. "Won t our boys enjoy running him out 
 of town ? " added another affectionately ; while 
 I listened with dubious enjoyment, thinking 
 that I might perhaps afford useful informa 
 tion. But the " gentlemen " did not appear, or 
 else were in search of higher game ; and I was 
 to leave town that night, at any rate, for St. 
 Louis. 
 
 I took the steamer Cataract on October 9, 
 1856, and went down the river ; my chief com 
 panions being a large party of youths from 
 Virginia and South Carolina, who had come 
 into the Territory of Kansas confessedly to 
 take a hand in the election, and also in the 
 fighting, should a chance be offered. They 
 were drunken, gambling, quarrelsome boys, but 
 otherwise affable enough, with the pleasant 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 213 
 
 manners and soft accent of the South. Nothing 
 could be more natve than their confidences. 
 " Don t you remember," said one, with a sort 
 of tender regret, " how when we went up the 
 river we were all of us drunk all the time ? " 
 " So we would be now," replied his friend 
 sadly, "only we ain t got no money." They 
 said that they had been inveigled into coming 
 by Atchison and others, on the promise of 
 support for a year and fifty dollars bonus, but 
 that they had got neither, and had barely 
 enough to take them to St. Louis. " Let me 
 once get home," said the same youth who made 
 the above confession, " and I d stay at home, 
 sure. It has cost me the price of one good 
 nigger just for board and liquor, since I left 
 home." Curiously enough, in reading a copy 
 of Mrs. Stowe s "Dred," just published, which 
 I had bought in Lawrence, I opened soon after 
 on the apt Scriptural quotation, "Woe unto 
 them, for they have cast lots for my people, 
 . . . and sold a girl for wine, that they may 
 drink ! " 
 
 The few Free State men on board were 
 naturally not aggressive, although we spent a 
 whole day on a sand-bank, a thing not condu 
 cive to serenity of mind ; but the steamer 
 which pulled us off had on board the secretary 
 of the Kansas State Committee, Miles Moore, 
 
214 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 and there had been an effort to lynch him, 
 prevented only by Governor Cobb, of Alabama, 
 who was on the boat. Renewal of hostilities 
 being threatened, I invited Moore on board the 
 Cataract at Jefferson City, where we lay over 
 night. He and I barricaded ourselves in my 
 stateroom, with our revolvers ready, but heard 
 only occasional threats from outside ; there 
 was no actual assault. When we reached St. 
 Louis, after more than four days on board 
 the steamboat, and I finally discharged my 
 revolver and put it away in my trunk, there 
 occurred the most curious reaction from the 
 feeling with which I had first loaded it. When 
 it fully came home to me that all the tonic 
 life of the last six weeks was ended, and that 
 thenceforward, if any danger impended, the 
 proper thing would be to look meekly about 
 for a policeman, it seemed as if all the vigor 
 had suddenly gone out of me, and a despicable 
 effeminacy had set in. I could at that moment 
 perfectly understand how Rob Roy, wishing to 
 repay a debt he owed to the Edinburgh pro 
 fessor, offered to take his benefactor s son back 
 into the Highlands "and make a man of him." 
 In twenty-four hours, however, civilization reas- 
 sumed its force, and Kansas appeared as far off 
 as Culloden. 
 After returning home, I kept up for a long 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 215 
 
 time an active correspondence with some of 
 the leading Kansas men, including Montgom 
 ery, Hinton, my old ally Martin Stowell, and 
 my associate brigadier, Samuel F. Tappan, after 
 wards lieutenant-colonel of the First Colorado 
 Cavalry. Some of these wrote and received 
 letters under feigned names, because many of 
 the post-offices in the Territory were in the 
 hands of pro-slavery men who were suspected of 
 tampering with correspondence. I also spoke 
 on Kansas matters by request, before the legis 
 latures of Massachusetts and Vermont, and was 
 nominated by the Worcester Republicans for 
 the state legislature on the issue of Kansas 
 sympathy ; but declined, feeling that I must at 
 length recognize the claim of the Free Church 
 on my attention. I was brought much in con 
 tact with that noble and self -devoted man, 
 George Luther Stearns, of Medford, who gave, 
 first and last, ten thousand dollars to maintain 
 liberty in the new Territory ; and also with Dr. 
 Howe and Frank Sanborn, then the leading 
 men in the Massachusetts Kansas Committee. 
 In looking back on the inevitable confusion of 
 that period, and the strange way in which men 
 who had been heroic in danger grew demoral 
 ized in politics, I have often recalled as true 
 the remark made by Sanborn, that it was diffi 
 cult for a man to have much to do with the 
 
2i6 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 affairs of Kansas, even at long range, without 
 developing a crack in his brain. 
 
 It will doubtless seem to some readers a 
 very natural transition to pass from this asser 
 tion to the later events which brought some of 
 the above-named men into intimate relations 
 with Captain John Brown. It has never been 
 quite clear to me whether I saw him in Kansas 
 or not ; he was then in hiding, and I remem 
 ber to have been taken somewhat covertly to 
 a house in Lawrence, for an interview with a 
 fugitive slave who was being sheltered by a 
 white man ; and though this man s name, which 
 I have forgotten, was certainly not Brown, it 
 may have been one of Brown s aliases. My 
 first conscious acquaintance with that leader 
 was nearly a year and a half later, when I re 
 ceived from him this communication, implying, 
 as will be seen, that we had met before : 
 
 ROCHESTER, N. Y. zd Petty, 1858. 
 MY DEAR SIR, I am here concealing my 
 whereabouts for good reasons (as I think) not 
 however from any anxiety about my personal 
 safety. I have been told that you are both a 
 true man: and a true abolitionist; "and I 
 partly believe," the whole story. Last fall I 
 undertook to raise from $500 to $1000, for 
 secret service -, and succeeded in getting $500. 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 217 
 
 I now want to get for the perfecting of BY FAR 
 the most important undertaking of my whole 
 life ; from $500 to $800 within the next sixty 
 days. I have written Rev. Theodore Parker, 
 George L. Stearns and F. B. Sanborn Esqrs. 
 on the subject ; but do not know as either Mr. 
 Stearns or Mr. Sanborn are abolitionists. I 
 suppose they are. Can you be induced to op- 
 perate at Worcester and elsewhere during that 
 time to raise from #/*-slavery men and wo 
 men (or any other parties) some part of that 
 amount ? I wish to keep it entirely still about 
 where I am ; and will be greatly obliged if you 
 will consider this communication strictly confi 
 dential: unless it may be with such as you are 
 sure will feel and act and keep very still. Please 
 be so kind as to write N. Hawkins on the sub 
 ject, Care of Wm. I. Watkins, Esqr. Rochester, 
 N. Y. Should be most happy to meet you 
 again ; and talk matters more freely. Hope 
 this is my last effort in the begging line. 
 Very Respectfully your Friend, 
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 This name, " N. Hawkins," was Brown s 
 favorite alias. The phrase "partly believe" 
 was a bit of newspaper slang of that period, 
 but came originally from Paul s First Epistle to 
 the Corinthians (xl 18) whence Brown may well 
 
2i8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 have taken it. I wrote in return, wishing for 
 farther information, and asking if the " under 
 ground railroad " business was what he had in 
 view. In a few days came this reply : 
 
 ROCHESTER, N. Y. i2tk Petty, 1858. 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have just read your kind 
 letter of the 8th inst, and will now say that 
 Rail Road business on a somewhat extended 
 scale is the identical object for which I am try 
 ing to get means. I have been connected with 
 that business as commonly conducted from my 
 boyhood and never let an opportunity slip. I 
 have been opperating to some purpose the past 
 season ; but I now have a measure on foot that 
 I feel sure would awaken in you something 
 more than a common interest if you could un 
 derstand it. I have just written my friends 
 G. L. Stearns and F. B. Sanborn asking them 
 to meet me for consultation at Gerrit Smith s, 
 Peterboro [N. Y.]. I am very anxious to have 
 you come along ; certain as I feel, that you will 
 never regret having been one of the council. I 
 would most gladly pay your expenses had I the 
 means to spare. Will you come on? Please 
 write as before. 
 
 Your Friend JOHN BROWN. 
 
 As I could not go to Peterboro , he made an 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 219 
 
 appointment in Boston, and I met him in his 
 room at the American House in March, 1858. 
 I saw before me a man whose mere appearance 
 and bearing refuted in advance some of the 
 strange perversions which have found their way 
 into many books, and which have often wholly 
 missed the type to which he belonged. In his 
 thin, worn, resolute face there were the signs 
 of a fire which might wear him out, and practi 
 cally did so, but nothing of pettiness or base 
 ness ; and his talk was calm, persuasive, and 
 coherent. He was simply a high-minded, un 
 selfish, belated Covenanter; a man whom Sir 
 Walter Scott might have drawn, but whom such 
 writers as Nicolay and Hay, for instance, have 
 utterly failed to delineate. To describe him in 
 their words as " clean but coarse " is curiously 
 wide of the mark ; he had no more of coarseness 
 than was to be found in Habakkuk Muckle- 
 wrath or in George Eliot s Adam Bede ; he 
 had, on the contrary, that religious elevation 
 which is itself a kind of refinement, the 
 quality one may see expressed in many a ven 
 erable Quaker face at yearly meeting. Coarse 
 ness absolutely repelled him ; he was so strict 
 as to the demeanor of his men that his band 
 was always kept small, while that of Lane was 
 large ; he had little humor, and none of the hu 
 morist s temptation towards questionable con- 
 
220 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 versation. Again, to call him "ambitious to 
 irritation," in the words of the same authors, 
 is equally wide of the mark. I saw him after 
 wards deeply disappointed and thwarted, and 
 this long before his final failure, but never 
 could find in him a trace of mere ambition; 
 he lived, as he finally died, absolutely absorbed 
 in one idea ; and it is as a pure enthusiast 
 fanatic, if you please that he is to be judged. 
 His belief was that an all-seeing God had cre 
 ated the Alleghany Mountains from all eternity 
 as the predestined refuge for a body of fugi 
 tive slaves. He had traversed those mountains 
 in his youth, as a surveyor, and knew points 
 which could be held by a hundred men against 
 a thousand ; he showed me rough charts of some 
 of those localities and plans of connected moun 
 tain fortresses which he had devised. 
 
 Of grand tactics and strategy Brown knew 
 as little as Garibaldi ; but he had studied guer 
 rilla warfare for himself in books, as well as in 
 Europe, and had for a preceptor Hugh Forbes, 
 an Englishman who had been a Garibaldian 
 soldier. Brown s plan was simply to penetrate 
 Virginia with a few comrades, to keep utterly 
 clear of all attempt to create slave insurrection, 
 but to get together bands and families of fugi 
 tive slaves, and then be guided by events. If 
 he could establish them permanently in those 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 221 
 
 fastnesses, like the Maroons of Jamaica and 
 Surinam, so much the better ; if not, he would 
 make a break from time to time, and take par 
 ties to Canada, by paths already familiar to 
 him. All this he explained to me and others, 
 plainly and calmly, and there was nothing in 
 it that we considered either objectionable or 
 impracticable ; so that his friends in Boston 
 Theodore Parker, Howe, Stearns, Sanborn, and 
 myself were ready to cooperate in his plan 
 as thus limited. Of the wider organization 
 and membership afterwards formed by him in 
 Canada we of course knew nothing, nor could 
 we foresee the imprudence which finally per 
 verted the attack into a defeat. We helped 
 him in raising the money, and he seemed draw 
 ing toward the consummation of his plans, 
 when letters began to come to his Massachu 
 setts supporters from Hugh Forbes, already 
 mentioned, threatening to make the whole mat 
 ter public unless we could satisfy certain very un 
 reasonable demands for money. On this point 
 our committee was at once divided, not as to re 
 fusing the preposterous demands, but because 
 the majority thought that this threat of disclo 
 sure made necessary an indefinite postponement 
 of the whole affair ; while Howe and myself, and 
 Brown also, as it proved, thought otherwise. 
 He came again to Boston (May 31, 1858), 
 
222 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 when I talked with him alone, and he held, as 
 I had done, that Forbes could do him no real 
 harm ; that if people believed Forbes they 
 would underrate his (Brown s) strength, which 
 was just the thing he wished ; or if they over 
 rated it, "the increased terror would perhaps 
 counterbalance this." If he had the means, 
 he would not lose a day. But as I could not, 
 unaided, provide the means, I was obliged to 
 yield, as he did. He consented to postpone 
 the enterprise and return to Kansas, carrying 
 with him $500 in gold, and an order for certain 
 arms at Tabor, which had belonged originally 
 to the State Kansas Committee, but had since 
 been transferred, in consideration of a debt, to 
 our friend Stearns, who gave them to Brown 
 on his own responsibility. Nearly a year now 
 passed, during which I rarely heard from Brown, 
 and thought that perhaps his whole project 
 had been abandoned. A new effort to raise 
 money was made at Boston in the spring of 
 1859, but I took little part in it. It had all 
 begun to seem to me rather chimerical. The 
 amount of $2000 was, nevertheless, raised for 
 him at Boston, in June, 1859, an ^ I find tnat 
 Sanborn wrote to me (June 4), "Brown has 
 set out on his expedition ;" and then on Octo 
 ber 6, "The $300 desired has been made up 
 and received. Four or five men will be on the 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 223 
 
 ground next week from these regions and else 
 where." Brown s address was at this time at 
 West Andover, Ohio, and the impression was 
 that the foray would begin in that region, if at 
 all. Nobody mentioned Harper s Ferry. 
 
 Ten days later the blow came. I went into 
 a newspaper shop in Worcester one morning, 
 and heard some one remark casually, " Old 
 Osawatomie Brown has got himself into a tight 
 place at last." I grasped eagerly at the morn 
 ing paper, and read the whole story. Natu 
 rally, my first feeling was one of remorse, that 
 the men who had given him money and arms 
 should not actually have been by his side. In 
 my own case, however, the justification was 
 perfectly clear. Repeated postponements had 
 taken the edge off from expectation, and the 
 whole enterprise had grown rather vague and 
 dubious in my mind. I certainly had not that 
 degree of faith in it which would have led me 
 to abandon all else, and wait nearly a year and 
 a half for the opportunity of fulfillment ; and 
 indeed it became obvious at last that this longer 
 postponement had somewhat disturbed the deli 
 cate balance of the zealot s mind, and had made 
 him, at the very outset, defy the whole power 
 of the United States government, and that 
 within easy reach of Washington. Nothing of 
 this kind was included in his original plans. 
 
224 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 At any rate, since we were not with him, the 
 first question was what part we were now to 
 take. It will be remembered that the explo 
 sion of the Brown affair caused at once a vast 
 amount of inquiry at Washington, and many 
 were the threats of prosecuting Brown s previ 
 ous friends and supporters. There was some 
 talk of flight to Canada, and one or two of 
 these persons actually went thither or to Eu 
 rope. It always seemed to me undesirable to 
 do this ; it rather looked as if, having befriended 
 Brown s plans so far as we understood them, 
 it was our duty to stand our ground and give 
 him our moral support, at least on the witness- 
 stand. This view was perhaps easier for me to 
 take, as my name was only incidentally men 
 tioned in the newspapers ; and it is only within 
 a few months that I have discovered that it had 
 been early brought, with that of Sanborn, to 
 the express attention of Governor Wise, of Vir 
 ginia. Among his papers captured at Charles- 
 town, Va., by Major James Savage, of the Sec 
 ond Massachusetts Infantry, was this anony 
 mous letter, received by the Virginia governor, 
 and indorsed by him for transmission to some 
 one else, probably in Congress, but perhaps 
 never forwarded. It read as follows : " There 
 are two persons in Massachusetts, and I think 
 only two, who, if summoned as witnesses, can ex- 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 225 
 
 plain the whole of Brown s plot. Their names 
 are Francis B. Sanborn, of Concord, and T. 
 W. Higginson, of Worcester, Mass. No time 
 should be lost, as they may abscond, but I do 
 not think they will, as they think you would 
 not think it best to send for them. A Friend 
 of Order." This was indorsed "A Friend to 
 Gov. Wise, Oct., 1859. Call attention to this." 
 And just below, " Sent to me, now sent to 
 you for what it is worth. Richmond, Oct. 29, 
 H. A. W. [Henry A. Wise.] A. Huntin [pre 
 sumably the name of a secretary]." 
 
 This communication was written during the 
 trial of Captain Brown, and a few days before 
 his sentence, which was pronounced on Novem 
 ber 2. It is hard to say whether it had any 
 direct bearing on the arrest of Sanborn at Con 
 cord in the following April. It is very prob 
 able that it had, and if so, his arrest, had it been 
 sustained by the court, might have been fol 
 lowed by mine ; but it would have been quite 
 superfluous, for I should at any time have been 
 ready to go if summoned, and should, in fact, 
 have thought it rather due to the memory of 
 Brown. I could at least have made it plain 
 that anything like slave insurrection, in the or 
 dinary sense of the word, was remote from his 
 thoughts, and that his plan was wholly different. 
 He would have limited himself to advising a 
 
226 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 fugitive slave, if intercepted, to shoot down any 
 one who attempted to arrest him ; and this ad 
 vice would have been given by every Abolition 
 ist, unless a non-resistant. 
 
 There was, of course, an immediate impulse 
 to rescue Brown from prison. I do not know 
 how far this extended, and can only vouch for 
 myself. The primary obstacle to it was that 
 one of Brown s first acts, on meeting a North 
 ern friend in his prison, had been positively to 
 prohibit any such attempt ; the message being 
 sent North by Judge Thomas Russell, from 
 whom I received it at the railway station on his 
 arrival. This barred the way effectually, for 
 after Brown had taken that position he would 
 have adhered to it. It occurred to me, how 
 ever, that his wife s presence would move him, 
 if anything could, and that she might also be 
 a valuable medium of communication, should he 
 finally yield to the wishes of his friends. For 
 this purpose I went to North Elba, New York, 
 the mountain home of the Browns, to fetch her, 
 and wrote, after that memorable trip, a full ac 
 count of it, which was prefixed to Redpath s 
 "Life of Brown." Upon entering for the first 
 time the superb scenery of the Adirondacks, I 
 saw myself in a region which was a fit setting 
 for the heroic family to be visited. I found 
 them poor, abstemious, patient, unflinching. 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 227 
 
 They felt that the men of their household had 
 given their lives for freedom, and there was no 
 weak regret, no wish to hold them back. In 
 the family was Annie Brown, who had been 
 with the conspirators in Virginia, and had kept 
 house and cooked for them. There were also 
 the widows of the two slain sons, young girls 
 of sixteen and twenty, one of them having also 
 lost two brothers at Harper s Ferry. It illus 
 trates the frugal way in which the Browns had 
 lived that the younger of these two widows was 
 not regarded by the household as being abso 
 lutely destitute, because her husband had left 
 her five sheep, valued at two dollars apiece. 
 
 On my return, Mrs. Brown the elder rode 
 with me for a whole day on a buckboard to 
 Keeseville, and I had much talk with her. I 
 have never in my life been dn contact with a 
 nature more dignified and noble ; a Roman 
 matron touched with the finer element of Chris 
 tianity. She told me that this plan had occu 
 pied her husband s thoughts and prayers for 
 twenty years ; that he always believed himself 
 an instrument in the hands of Providence, and 
 she believed it too. She had always prayed 
 that he might be killed in fight rather than fall 
 into the hands of slaveholders, but she " could 
 not regret it now, in view of the noble words 
 of freedom which it had been his privilege to 
 
228 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 utter." She also said, "I have had thirteen 
 children, and only four are left ; but if I am to 
 see the ruin of my house, I cannot but hope that 
 Providence may bring out of it some benefit 
 for the poor slaves." She little foresaw how, 
 within two years, her dead husband s name 
 would ring through the defiles of the Virginia 
 mountains in the songs of the Union soldiers. 
 When, the next day, I had to put into her 
 hands, in the railway-car, the newspaper contain 
 ing his death-warrant, she bent her head for a 
 few moments on the back of the seat before us, 
 and then lifted it again unchanged. Her errand 
 was absolutely in vain, Brown refusing even to 
 see her, possibly distrusting his own firmness, 
 or wishing to put it above all possibility of peril ; 
 and she returned to her mountain home. 
 
 Meanwhile, one of the few of his band who 
 had escaped had come to my door one day in 
 Worcester. When he reached my house, he 
 appeared utterly demented after the danger 
 and privations of his flight through the moun 
 tains. He could not speak two coherent sen 
 tences, and I was grateful when, after twenty- 
 four hours, I could send him to his friends in 
 Boston. Another and far abler refugee from 
 Harper s Ferry was Charles Plummer Tidd, 
 one of our Worcester emigrants, afterwards 
 well known as Sergeant Charles Plummer of 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 229 
 
 the Twenty - First Massachusetts, who told 
 me, in an interview on February 10, 1860, of 
 which I still preserve the written record, " All 
 the boys opposed Harper s Ferry, the younger 
 Browns most of all. In September it nearly 
 broke up the camp. He himself [Tidd] left, 
 almost quarreling with Brown. Finally, when 
 they consented, it was with the agreement that 
 men should be sent in each direction to burn 
 bridges ;" which was not done, however. Tidd 
 pronounced the Harper s Ferry attack "the 
 only mistake Brown ever made," and attributed 
 it, as it is now generally assigned, to a final loss 
 of mental balance from overbrooding on one 
 idea. Brown s general project he still heartily 
 indorsed ; saying that the Virginia mountains 
 were " the best guerrilla country in the world," 
 all crags and dense laurel thickets; that 
 "twenty -five men there could paralyze the 
 whole business of the South," and that "no 
 body could take them." The negroes, he said, 
 had proved ready enough to follow Brown, but 
 naturally slipped back to their masters when 
 they saw that the enterprise was to fail. 
 
 The same question of a rescue presented it 
 self, after Captain Brown s execution, in regard 
 to the two members of his party whose trial 
 and conviction took place two months later, 
 Stevens and Hazlett, the former of whom I had 
 
230 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 met with Lane s party in Kansas. In Feb 
 ruary, 1860, after urgent appeals from Mrs. Re 
 becca Spring, of New York, who had visited 
 these men, I made up my mind to use for 
 their relief a portion of certain funds placed 
 in my hands for the benefit of the Brown fam 
 ily; first, of course, consulting Mrs. Brown, 
 who fully approved. Thayer and Eldridge, 
 two young publishers in Boston, also took an 
 interest in raising funds for this purpose ; and 
 the fact is fixed in my memory by the cir 
 cumstance that, on visiting their shop one day, 
 during the negotiations, I met for the first 
 and only time Walt Whitman. He was there 
 to consult them about the publication of his 
 poems, and I saw before me, sitting on the 
 counter, a handsome, burly man, heavily built, 
 and not looking, to my gymnasium-trained eye, 
 in really good condition for athletic work. I 
 perhaps felt a little prejudiced against him from 
 having read his " Leaves of Grass " on a voy 
 age, in the early stages of seasickness, a fact 
 which doubtless increased for me the intrinsic 
 unsavoriness of certain passages. But the per 
 sonal impression made on me by the poet was 
 not so much of manliness as of Boweriness, if I 
 may coin the phrase ; indeed rather suggesting 
 Sidney Lanier s subsequent vigorous phrase, 
 "a dandy roustabout." This passing impres- 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 231 
 
 sion did not hinder me from thinking of Whit 
 man with hope and satisfaction at a later day 
 when regiments were to be raised for the war, 
 when the Bowery seemed the very place to 
 enlist them, and even "Billy Wilson s Zou 
 aves" were hailed with delight. When, how 
 ever, after waiting a year or more, Whitman de 
 cided that the proper post for him was hospital 
 service, I confess to feeling a reaction, which was 
 rather increased than diminished by his profuse 
 celebration of his own labors in that direction. 
 Hospital attendance is a fine thing, no doubt, 
 yet if all men, South and North, had taken the 
 same view of their duty that Whitman held, 
 there would have been no occasion for hospi 
 tals on either side. 
 
 The only persons beside myself who were 
 intimately acquainted with the project formed 
 for rescuing Stevens and Hazlett were Richard 
 H. Hinton, already mentioned, and John W. 
 LeBarnes, afterwards lieutenant of a German 
 company in the Second Massachusetts Infantry 
 during the Civil War. It was decided that an 
 attempt at rescue could best be made from 
 a rendezvous at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and 
 that Hinton should go to Kansas, supplied with 
 money by LeBarnes and myself, to get the co 
 operation of Captain James Montgomery and 
 eight or ten tried and trusty men. I was to 
 
232 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 meet these men at Harrisburg, while LeBarnes 
 was to secure a reinforcement of German- 
 Americans, among whom he had much influ 
 ence, from New York. Only one man in Har 
 risburg, an active Abolitionist, knew of our 
 purpose, and I met Montgomery at this man s 
 house, after taking up my own residence, on 
 February 17, 1860, at the United States Hotel, 
 under the name of Charles P. Carter. I had 
 met the guerrilla leader once before in Kansas, 
 and we now consulted about the expedition, 
 which presented no ordinary obstacles. 
 
 The enterprise would involve traversing fifty 
 miles of mountain country by night, at the rate 
 of about ten miles each night, carrying arms, 
 ammunition, blankets, and a week s rations, 
 with the frequent necessity of camping without 
 fire in February, and with the certainty of detec 
 tion in case of snow. It would include cross 
 ing the Potomac, possibly at a point where 
 there was neither a bridge nor a ford. It would 
 culminate in an attack on a building with a 
 wall fourteen feet high, with two sentinels out 
 side and twenty-five inside ; with a certainty of 
 raising the town in the process, and then, if 
 successful, with the need of retreating, perhaps 
 with wounded men and probably by daylight. 
 These were the difficulties that Montgomery, 
 as our leader, had to face ; and although, in 
 
KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 233 
 
 Kansas, he had taken Fort Scott with twenty- 
 two men against sixty-eight, yet this was quite a 
 different affair. For myself, I had at that time 
 such confidence in his guidance that the words 
 of the Scotch ballad often rang in my ears : 
 
 " I could ha e ridden the border through 
 Had Christie Graeme been at my back." 
 
 Lithe, quick, low -voiced, reticent, keen, he 
 seemed the ideal of a partisan leader, and was, 
 indeed, a curious compound of the moss-trooper 
 and the detective. Among his men were Car 
 penter, Pike, Shamans, Rice, Gardner, Willis, 
 and Silas Soule, all well known in Kansas. 
 The last three of these men had lately been 
 among the rescuers of Dr. Doy from jail at St. 
 Joseph, Missouri, a town of eleven thousand 
 inhabitants, under circumstances of peculiar 
 daring ; one of them personating a horse-thief 
 and two others the officers who had arrested 
 him, and thus getting admission to the jail. 
 
 The first need was to make exploration of 
 the localities, and, taking with him one of his 
 companions, a man, as it proved, of great 
 resources, Montgomery set out by night and 
 was gone several days. While he examined 
 the whole region, his native Kentucky accent 
 saving him from all suspicion, his comrade 
 penetrated into the very jail, in the guise of 
 a jovial, half -drunken Irishman, and got speech 
 
234 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 with the prisoners, who were thus notified of 
 the proposed rescue. They expressed great 
 distrust of it, and this partly because, even if 
 successful, it would endanger the life of the 
 jailer, Avis, who had won their gratitude, as 
 well as Brown s, by his great kindness. I have 
 never known whether this opposition had any 
 covert influence on the mind of Montgomery, 
 but I know that he came back at last, and 
 quenched all our hopes by deciding that a se 
 vere snowstorm which had just occurred ren 
 dered the enterprise absolutely hopeless. I 
 was not at the time quite satisfied with this 
 opinion, but it was impossible to overrule our 
 leader ; and on visiting that region and the jail 
 itself, many years later, I was forced to believe 
 him wholly right. At any rate, it was decided 
 by vote of the party to abandon the expedition, 
 and the men were sent back to Kansas, their 
 arms being forwarded to Worcester, while I 
 went to Antioch, Ohio, to give a promised lec 
 ture to the college students, and then returned 
 home. I now recognize how almost hopeless 
 the whole enterprise had appeared in my own 
 mind : the first entry in my notebook, after 
 returning (March i, 1860), is headed with the 
 words of that celebrated message in the First 
 Book of Dickens s "A Tale of Two Cities," 
 "Recalled to Life." 
 
VIII 
 
 CIVIL WAR 
 
 " Black faces in the camp 
 Where moved those peerless brows and eyes of old." 
 
 BROWNING S Luria. 
 
 FROM the time of my Kansas visit I never 
 had doubted that a farther conflict of some sort 
 was impending. The absolute and increasing 
 difference between the two sections of the na 
 tion had been most deeply impressed upon me 
 by my first and only visit to a slave-mart. On 
 one of my trips to St. Louis I had sought John 
 Lynch s slave-dealing establishment, following 
 an advertisement in a newspaper, and had 
 found a yard full of men and women strolling 
 listlessly about and waiting to be sold. The 
 proprietor, looking like a slovenly horse-dealer, 
 readily explained to me their condition and 
 value. Presently a planter came in, having 
 been sent on an errand to buy a little girl to 
 wait on his wife ; stating this as easily and nat 
 urally as if he had been sent for a skein of 
 yarn. Mr. Lynch called in three sisters, the 
 oldest perhaps eleven or twelve, nice little 
 
236 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 mulatto girls in neat pink calico frocks suggest 
 ing a careful mother. Some question being 
 asked, Mr. Lynch responded cheerfully, " Strip 
 her and examine for yourself. I never have 
 any secrets from my customers." This cere 
 mony being waived, the eldest was chosen; 
 and the planter, patting her on the head kindly 
 enough, asked, " Don t you want to go with 
 me ? " when the child, bursting into a flood of 
 tears, said, " I want to stay with my mother." 
 Mr. Lynch s face ceased to be good-natured 
 when he ordered the children to go out, but 
 the bargain was finally completed. It was an 
 epitome of slavery ; the perfectly matter-of-fact 
 character of the transaction, and the circum 
 stance that those before me did not seem 
 exceptionally cruel men, made the whole thing 
 more terrible. I was beholding a case, not 
 of special outrage, but of every-day business, 
 which was worse. If these were the common 
 places of the institution, what must its excep 
 tional tragedies be ? 
 
 With such an experience in my mind, and 
 the fact everywhere visible in Kansas of the 
 armed antagonism of the Free State and pro- 
 slavery parties, I readily shared the feeling 
 then more widely spread than we can now 
 easily recall of the possible necessity of ac 
 cepting the disunion forced upon us by the 
 
CIVIL WAR 237 
 
 apparently triumphant career of the slave 
 power. It was a period when Banks had said, 
 in a speech in Maine, that it might be needful, 
 in a certain contingency, " to let the Union 
 slide ; " and when Whittier had written in the 
 original form of his poem on Texas, 
 
 Make our Union-bond a chain, 
 We will snap its links in twain, 
 We will stand erect again I " 
 
 These men were not Garrisonians or theoreti 
 cal disunionists, but the pressure of events 
 seemed, for the moment, to be driving us all in 
 their direction. 
 
 I find that at the jubilant twenty-fifth anni 
 versary of the founding of the Massachusetts 
 Anti-Slavery Society (January 2, 1857) I said, 
 in Faneuil Hall, " To-morrow may call us to 
 some work so stern that the joys of this even 
 ing will seem years away. To-morrow may 
 make this evening only the revelry by night 
 before Waterloo." Under this conviction I 
 took an active part with the late Francis W. 
 Bird and a few other Republicans and some 
 Garrisonian Abolitionists in calling a state dis 
 union convention at Worcester on January 15, 
 1857; but the Republican party was by no 
 means ready for a movement so extreme, though 
 some of its leaders admitted frankly that it was 
 well for the North to suggest that freedom was 
 
238 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 more valuable than even the Union. The Kan 
 sas question, it must be remembered, was yet 
 impending, and it was obviously possible that it 
 might result in another Slave State, leading the 
 way to others still. Moreover, passports were 
 now for the first time refused to free colored 
 men, under the Taney decision, on the ground 
 of their not being citizens of the nation. It 
 was also understood that, under this decision, 
 slaveholders would be protected by the Su 
 preme Court in carrying their slaves with them 
 into Free States and holding them there. Such 
 things accounted for the temporary develop 
 ment of a Northern disunion feeling about that 
 time ; and a national convention at Cleveland, 
 following the state convention, had been fully 
 planned by a committee of which I was chair 
 man, the call for this receiving the names 
 of more than six thousand signers, representing 
 all of the Free States, when there came the 
 formidable financial panic which made the year 
 1857 so memorable. As this calamity had be 
 gun in Ohio, and was felt most severely there, 
 it was decided that the convention should be 
 postponed, and this, as it proved, forever. 
 
 In the following year Senator Seward made 
 his great speech in which he accepted fully the 
 attitude, which was the basis of our position, 
 that the whole anti-slavery contest was a thing 
 
CIVIL WAR 239 
 
 inevitable, " an irrepressible conflict between 
 opposing and enduring forces," and that the 
 United States must and would "sooner or later 
 become entirely a slave-holding nation or en 
 tirely a free labor nation." Either, Seward 
 said, the plantations of the South must ulti 
 mately be tilled by free men, or the farms of 
 Massachusetts and New York must be surren 
 dered to the rearing of slaves ; there could 
 be no middle ground. Lincoln had said, in the 
 controversy with Douglas, "A house divided 
 against itself cannot stand." In view of these 
 suggestions, some of us were for accepting the 
 situation, after our fashion, and found ourselves 
 imitating that first mate of a vessel, who, see 
 ing her to be in danger, and being bidden by 
 his captain to go forward and attend to his 
 own part of the ship, came aft again presently, 
 
 touched his cap, and said, " Captain , my 
 
 part of the ship is at anchor." It was doubt 
 less well that the march of events proved too 
 strong for us, and that the union feeling itself 
 was finally aroused to do a work which the anti- 
 slavery purpose alone could not have accom 
 plished ; yet we acted at the time according to 
 our light, and we know from the testimony of 
 Lincoln himself that it was the New England 
 Abolitionists from whom he learned that love 
 of liberty which at last made him turn the scale. 
 
240 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Then came the John Brown affair, as de 
 scribed in a previous chapter; and there fol 
 lowed after this, in the winter of 1860, a curi 
 ous outbreak in New England itself of the old 
 prescriptive feeling. There ensued an interval 
 when the Boston Abolitionists were again called 
 upon to combine, in order to prevent public 
 meetings from being broken up and the house 
 of Wendell Phillips from being mobbed. Phil 
 lips was speaking at that time on Sundays at 
 the Boston Music Hall, and it was necessary 
 to protect the assembly by getting men to act 
 together, under orders, and guard the various 
 approaches to the hall. I was placed at the 
 head of a company formed for this purpose, 
 and it was strange to find how little advance 
 had been made beyond the old perplexity in 
 organizing reformers. There was more will 
 ingness to arm than formerly, but that was 
 all. Mr. George W. Smalley has lately given 
 a graphic description of that period, and has 
 described those lovers of freedom as being 
 "well organized;" but he was not wholly in 
 a position to judge, because he and another 
 young man the John W. LeBarnes already 
 mentioned in connection with the abortive 
 Virginia foray had chivalrously constituted 
 themselves the body-guard of Wendell Phillips, 
 and were at his side day and night, thus being 
 
CIVIL WAR 241 
 
 in a manner on special service. Their part of 
 the work being so well done, they may naturally 
 have supposed the rest to be in an equally satis 
 factory condition ; but as a matter of fact the 
 so-called organization was only the flimsiest 
 shell. It consisted, while nominally under my 
 command, of some forty men, half of these 
 being Germans, half Americans : the Germans 
 were inconveniently full of fight, and the Amer 
 icans hardly awakened to the possibility of it. 
 After going through the form of posting my 
 men at the numerous doors of the Music Hall, 
 each as it were on picket duty, I almost always 
 found, on visiting them half an hour later, that 
 the Americans had taken comfortable seats in 
 side and were applauding the speakers, as if 
 that were their main duty ; while the Germans 
 had perhaps got into some high discussion in 
 the corridors, ending in an exhibition of pistols 
 and in being carried off by the police. Ex 
 postulating once with one of my nominal lieu 
 tenants, an American, I referred to a certain 
 order as having been disregarded. " Oh," he 
 said calmly, " that was an order, was it ? I 
 had viewed it in the light of a suggestion." In 
 asmuch as one or two public meetings had 
 been broken up by gentlemen of property and 
 standing, who at least obeyed the directions of 
 the bully who led them, this attitude of the 
 
242 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 defenders seemed discouraging. It was too 
 much like that croquet party in " Alice s Ad 
 ventures in Wonderland," where the game was 
 disturbed by the fact that the attendants who 
 were expected to stoop down and officiate as 
 wickets kept constantly straightening them 
 selves up and walking away. 
 
 I spent one night on guard at Phillips s 
 house with his young henchmen, and was 
 struck, then as before, with his high-bred bear 
 ing. Always aristocratic in aspect, he was 
 never more so than when walking through the 
 streets of his own Boston with a howling mob 
 about him. It was hard to make him adopt 
 ordinary precautions ; he did not care to have 
 the police protect his house, and he would have 
 gone to the scaffold if necessary, I firmly be 
 lieve, like the typical French marquis in the 
 Reign of Terror, who took a pinch of snuff 
 from his snuff-box while looking on the crowd. 
 This was never more conspicuously the case 
 than at the annual convention of the Massachu 
 setts Anti-Slavery Society, just after a meeting 
 on the anniversary of John Brown s execution 
 had been broken up by a mob of very much 
 the same social grade with that which had for 
 merly mobbed Garrison. I did not happen to 
 be present at the John Brown gathering, being 
 in Worcester ; but at the larger convention 
 
CIVIL WAR 243 
 
 (January 24, 1861), held at Tremont Temple, I 
 was again in service with the same body of fol 
 lowers already described to defend the meet 
 ing and the speakers, if needful. The body of 
 the hall was solidly filled with grave Abolition 
 ists and knitting women, but round the doors 
 and galleries there was a noisy crowd of young 
 fellows, mostly well dressed and many of them 
 well educated, who contrived, by shouting and by 
 singing uproarious songs, to drown the voices 
 of the speakers, and to compel Phillips himself 
 to edge in his sentences when the singers were 
 out of breath. The favorite burden was, 
 
 "Tell John Andrew, 
 Tell John Andrew, 
 Tell John Andrew 
 John Brown s dead ; " 
 
 with more ribald verses following. It was not 
 many months before those who took part in 
 the meeting and those who tried to suppress 
 it were marching southward in uniform, elbow 
 to elbow, singing a very different John Brown 
 song. 
 
 There was one moment during this session 
 when it seemed as if an actual hand-to-hand 
 conflict had come. There was a sudden move 
 ment at the doors, and a body of men came 
 pressing toward the platform, along each of the 
 aisles ; and I know that I, for one, had my 
 
244 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 hand on my revolver, when the invaders proved 
 to be Mayor Wightman with aldermen and 
 police, on an apparently peaceful mission. He 
 turned and announced, however, that he came 
 to dissolve the meeting by request of the trus 
 tees of the building. This being promptly de 
 nied by the trustees, who were present, and 
 who compelled him to read their letter, it was 
 shown that he had been requested to come 
 and protect the assembly instead, and this, 
 with curious changeableness, he proceeded to 
 attempt ; at least securing partial order, and 
 stopping the mob from throwing down cush 
 ions and furniture from the galleries, which it 
 had already begun to do. The speakers at this 
 session were Phillips, Emerson, Clarke, and my 
 self, and it was on this occasion that Phillips 
 uttered a remark which became historic. Turn 
 ing from the mob, which made him inaudible, 
 he addressed himself wholly to the reporters, 
 and said : " When I speak to these pencils, I 
 speak to a million of men. . . . My voice is 
 beaten by theirs [those of the mob], but they 
 cannot beat types. All honor to Faust, for he 
 made mobs impossible." At last the mayor 
 promised the chairman, Edmund Quincy, to 
 protect the evening session with fifty police 
 men ; but instead of this he finally prohibited 
 it, and when I came, expecting to attend it, I 
 
CIVIL WAR 245 
 
 found the doors closed by police, while numer 
 ous assailants, under their leader, Jonas H. 
 French, were in possession of the outer halls. 
 A portion of these, bent on mischief, soon set 
 off in search of it among the quarters of the 
 negroes near Charles Street, and I followed, 
 wishing to stand by my friends in that way, if 
 it could be done in no other. Lewis Hayden 
 afterwards said that I should not have done 
 this, for the negroes were armed, and would 
 have shot from their houses if molested. But 
 there was only shouting and groaning on the 
 part of the mob, with an occasional breaking of 
 windows ; the party attacked kept indoors, and 
 I went home undisturbed. 
 
 All these things looked like a coming storm. 
 It was observable that men were beginning to 
 use firearms more, about that time, even in 
 New England. I find that in those days I read 
 military books ; took notes on fortifications, 
 strategy, and the principles of attack and de 
 fense. Yet all these preliminary events were 
 detached and disconnected ; their disturbances 
 were only like the little local whirlwinds that 
 sometimes precede a tornado. There was a 
 lull ; and then, on the day when Fort Sumter 
 was fired upon, the storm burst and the whole 
 community awaked One of the first things 
 thought of by all was the unprotected condition 
 
246 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 of Washington. It seemed to me that there 
 was one simple measure to be undertaken for 
 its defense, in case of danger ; so I went, on 
 the very day when the news reached us, to 
 several leading men in Worcester, who gave 
 me a letter of recommendation to Governor An 
 drew, that I might ask him to appropriate a 
 sum from his contingent fund, and to let me 
 again summon Montgomery and his men from 
 Kansas ; going with them into the mountains 
 of Virginia, there to kindle a back fire of alarm 
 and draw any rebel force away from Washing 
 ton. Governor Andrew approved the project, 
 but had no contingent fund ; Dr. S. G. Howe 
 entered warmly into it, and took me on State 
 Street to raise money, as did Mr. S. G. Ward, 
 afterwards, on Wall Street in New York. One 
 or two thousand dollars were pledged, and I 
 went to Harrisburg to see Governor Curtin, of 
 Pennsylvania. He said that he would give a 
 thousand dollars if John Brown could be brought 
 back to life, and had my plan under considera 
 tion, when the rapid progress of events strength 
 ened the government enough to make any such 
 irregular proceeding quite undesirable. 
 
 Coming back to Worcester, I was offered 
 the majorship of the Fourth Battalion of Infan 
 try, then hastily called into the United States 
 service ; and when I declined this, the position 
 
CIVIL WAR 247 
 
 was offered to my old schoolmate, Charles 
 Devens, who, though almost wholly ignorant 
 of military drill, accepted it on condition that 
 our best local drill-master, Captain Goodhue, 
 should go with him as adjutant. My reasons 
 for not accepting were various : first, that I 
 doubted my competency ; secondly, that my 
 wife, always an invalid, was just at that time 
 especially dependent on me ; and lastly, that 
 it was then wholly uncertain whether the gov 
 ernment would take the anti-slavery attitude, 
 without which a military commission would 
 have been for me intolerable, since I might 
 have been ordered to deliver up fugitive slaves 
 to their masters, as had already happened to 
 several officers. I have often thought what a 
 difference it might have made in both Devens s 
 life and mine if I had accepted this early oppor 
 tunity. I might have come out a major-general, 
 as he did ; but I dare say that the government 
 gained by the exchange a better soldier than it 
 lost. Meanwhile I went on drilling and taking 
 fencing lessons ; and a few months later, when 
 the anti-slavery position of the government be 
 came clearer, I obtained authority from Governor 
 Andrew to raise a regiment, and had about half 
 the necessary ten companies provided for, in 
 different parts of the State, when one of the 
 sudden stoppages of recruiting occurred, and 
 
248 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 the whole affair proved abortive. It was under 
 stood with Governor Andrew that while I was 
 to raise the regiment, I was to be only second 
 in command, the colonel being Captain Rufus 
 Saxton, U. S. A., an officer with whom, by a 
 curious coincidence, I was later to have the 
 most intimate connection. I had been engaged 
 upon this organization between October, 1861, 
 and February, 1862, and the renewed disap 
 pointment was very hard to bear. In several 
 of my printed essays, especially at the end of 
 that called "A Letter to a Young Contributor," 
 I find traces of this keen regret; and when 
 finally a new nine months regiment, the Fifty- 
 First Massachusetts, was called out, in August, 
 my wife being in somewhat better health, I 
 could keep out of the affair no longer, but 
 opened a recruiting office in Worcester. Being 
 already well known among the young men 
 there, through the athletic clubs and drill clubs, 
 I had little difficulty in getting much more than 
 the required number, giving a strong nucleus 
 for a second company, which was transferred 
 to the command of my friend John S. Baldwin, 
 now of the " Worcester Spy." 
 
 It is almost impossible here to reproduce the 
 emotions of that period of early war enlist 
 ments. As I ventured to say in the preface to 
 " Harvard Memorial Biographies," "To call it a 
 
CIVIL WAR 249 
 
 sense of novelty was nothing ; it was as if one 
 had learned to swim in air, and were striking out 
 for some new planet." All the methods, stand 
 ards, habits, and aims of ordinary life were re 
 versed, and the intrinsic and traditional charm 
 of the soldier s life was mingled in my own case 
 with the firm faith that the death-knell of sla 
 very itself was being sounded. Meanwhile, the 
 arts of drill and the discipline were to be learned 
 in practice, and the former proved incompara 
 bly easier than had been expected ; it turned 
 out that there was no department of science in 
 which the elements were so readily acquired. 
 As to the exercise of authority, however, it 
 was different. It was no longer possible to 
 view a command only " in the light of a sug 
 gestion." Moreover, we were dealing with a 
 democratic society, on which a new temporary 
 aristocracy of military rank was to be built, 
 superseding all previous distinction ; and the 
 task was not light. Fortunately, I was older 
 than many raw officers, being thirty-eight, 
 and had some very young men in my com 
 pany, who had been confided to me by their 
 parents as to a father. Within my own imme 
 diate command I had hardly a trace of trouble ; 
 nor did I find the least difficulty in deferring 
 to the general in command of the camp, who 
 was by occupation a working mechanic, and 
 
250 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 uneducated except in war. But the trouble 
 was that he was on duty only by day, returning 
 to his home every night, during which period 
 the regiment became a heterogeneous mass of 
 men, as yet little trained either to command or 
 to obey. Discipline was not easy, especially 
 in the case of some newly arrived company, 
 perhaps in a high state of whiskey; and we 
 had to learn to bear and forbear. I know that 
 in the effort* to enforce order I fell rapidly out 
 of popularity, usually for my merits ; and then 
 inexplicably fell into it again, sometimes through 
 acts of negligence. But nobody denied that my 
 own company was at least in good condition, 
 and from the moment we had a permanent 
 colonel, and an admirable one, afterwards 
 General A. B. R. Sprague, since mayor of 
 Worcester, all went as it should. I was only 
 a month with the regiment, but the experience 
 was simply invaluable. Every man is placed 
 at the greatest disadvantage in a higher mili 
 tary command, unless he has previously sown 
 his wild oats, as it were, in a lower ; making his 
 mistakes, suffering for them, and learning how 
 to approach his duty rightly. 
 
 There came into vogue about that time a 
 " nonsense verse," so called, bearing upon my 
 humble self, and vivacious enough to be widely 
 quoted in the newspapers. It was composed, I 
 
CIVIL WAR 251 
 
 believe, by Mrs. Sivret, of Boston, and ran as 
 follows : 
 
 " There was a young curate of Worcester 
 Who could have a command if he d choose ter, 
 But he said each recruit 
 Must be blacker than soot, 
 Or eke he d go preach where he used ter." 
 
 As a matter of fact it came no nearer the truth 
 than the famous definition of a crab by Cu- 
 vier s pupil, since I had never been a curate, 
 had already left the pulpit for literature before 
 the war, and was so far from stipulating for a 
 colored regiment that I had just been commis 
 sioned in a white one ; nevertheless the hit was 
 palpable, and deserved its popularity. I had 
 formed even in a short time a strong attach 
 ment to my own company, regiment, and regi 
 mental commander, and one day, when the 
 governor of Rhode Island had made his first 
 abortive suggestion of a black regiment, I had 
 notified my young lieutenants, John Goodell 
 and Luther Bigelow, that such an enterprise 
 would be the only thing likely to take me from 
 them. A few days after, as we sat at dinner 
 in the Worcester barracks, I opened a letter 
 from Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton, military 
 commander of the Department of the South, 
 saying that he had at last received authority to 
 recruit a regiment of freed slaves, and wished 
 me to be its colonel. It was an offer that took 
 
252 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 my breath away, and fulfilled the dream of a 
 lifetime. This was long before Massachusetts 
 took steps in the same direction ; Kansas was, 
 however, enlisting a regiment of free negroes, 
 and three similar regiments, formed by the 
 Confederates in Louisiana, had been turned 
 into Union troops by General Butler ; but the 
 first regiment of emancipated slaves as such 
 had yet to be mustered in. There remained 
 but one doubt : would it really be a regiment, 
 or a mere plantation guard in uniform ? This 
 doubt could be determined only on the spot ; 
 so I got a furlough, went to South Carolina 
 to inspect the situation, and saw promptly that 
 General Saxton was in earnest, and that I could 
 safely leave all and follow him. 
 
 The whole condition of affairs at what was to 
 be for me the seat of war was then most pecu 
 liar. General Saxton, who had been an Aboli 
 tionist even at West Point, was discharging the 
 semi-civil function of military governor. Freed 
 slaves by thousands, men, women, and children, 
 had been collected on the Sea Islands of South 
 Carolina, and were being rationed, employed, 
 and taught under the direction of missionaries, 
 agents, and teachers from the North ; these 
 being sometimes admirable, but sometimes in 
 competent, tyrannical, or fanatical. Between 
 these and the troops there existed a constant 
 
CIVIL WAR 253 
 
 jealousy, and General Saxton, in a position 
 requiring superhuman patience and tact, was 
 obliged to mediate between the two parties. 
 Major- General Hunter, at the head of the 
 department, had been the very first to arm 
 the blacks (in May, 1862), and had adhered, 
 after his fashion, to that policy, my regiment 
 being a revival of that early experiment ; but 
 some of his staff were bitterly opposed to any 
 such enlistment, and thwarted him as soon as 
 his back was turned, a thing not difficult, as 
 he was indolent, forgetful, changeable, and eas 
 ily accessible to flattery. While, therefore, my 
 regiment had a nominal support, it was con 
 stantly hindered : there were difficulties as to 
 uniforms, medicines, and guns ; it was often 
 necessary to struggle to obtain more than a 
 Cinderella s portion. This had the farther dis 
 advantage that it tempted us, perhaps, to be 
 sometimes needlessly suspicious ; nor was our 
 beloved General Saxton always free from over- 
 sensitiveness. Incidentally, also, we found that 
 in all connection with the regular army we 
 must come in for our share of its internal 
 feuds ; and we discovered that old West Point 
 grudges were sometimes being wreaked on our 
 unoffending heads, General Saxton s enemies 
 occasionally striking at him through us. He, 
 on the other hand, distrusted the intentions of 
 
254 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 certain officers in regard to us, feared lest we 
 should be sacrificed under any orders but his, 
 and sometimes held us back from service when 
 he might better have risked us. All these 
 drawbacks were trifles, however, beside the plea 
 sure of being fairly in military harness, and of 
 bringing into the public service the warlike ma 
 terial which most persons regarded with doubt. 
 There was also a happiness in dealing with 
 an eminently trustful and affectionate race, 
 and seeing the tonic effect of camp discipline 
 upon the blacks. In this respect there was 
 an obvious difference between them and the 
 whites. Few white soldiers enjoyed serving 
 in the ranks, for itself ; they accepted it for 
 the sake of their country, or because others did, 
 or from the hope of promotion, but there was 
 nevertheless a secret feeling in most minds that 
 it was a step down ; no person of democratic 
 rearing really enjoys being under the orders of 
 those who have hitherto been his equals. The 
 negroes, on the other hand, who had been or 
 dered about all their lives, felt it a step upward 
 to be in uniform, to have rights as well as 
 duties ; their ready imitativeness and love of 
 rhythm made the drill and manual exercises 
 easy for them ; and they rejoiced in the dignity 
 of guard and outpost duty, which they did to 
 perfection. It is, however, a great mistake to 
 
CIVIL WAR 255 
 
 suppose that slavery, as such, was altogether 
 a good preparation for military life ; and the 
 officers who copied the methods of plantation 
 overseers proved failures. It was necessary to 
 keep constantly before the men that they were 
 much more than slaves, to appeal to their pride 
 as soldiers, to win their affection also, and then 
 to exercise absolute justice ; and the officer 
 who did all this could wind them round his 
 finger. Through such influences it was needful 
 to teach them, among other things, to obey the 
 non-commissioned officers of their own color, 
 and this they at first found hard. " I don t 
 want him to play de white man ober me," was 
 a frequent remark in such cases, and the ob 
 jection had to be patiently met by explaining 
 that color had nothing to do with it ; that they 
 obeyed their sergeants only as those sergeants 
 obeyed their captains, or the captains yielded 
 to me, or I took my orders from the general. 
 In a little while this became perfectly clear to 
 their minds, and they were proud, not offended, 
 when sent on some expedition under a sergeant 
 of their own race. This was made easier by 
 the fact that we had among the non-commis 
 sioned officers much admirable material ; and 
 the color-sergeant, Prince Rivers, was not only 
 a man of distinguished appearance, but superior 
 in the power of command to half of the white 
 
256 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 officers in the regiment. He had previously 
 been the most conspicuous private coachman in 
 Charleston; there had been a reward of one 
 thousand dollars offered for him when he es 
 caped from slavery ; and once, when visiting 
 New York as General Hunter s orderly, he had 
 been mobbed in the street for wearing the 
 United States uniform, and had defended him 
 self successfully against half a dozen men, tak 
 ing his position in a doorway. After the war 
 he was appointed a justice of the peace in 
 South Carolina. 
 
 It was a fortunate thing for both General 
 Saxton and myself that each of us had been 
 satisfied in advance of the essential courage of 
 the blacks. In my case this was the result of 
 a little experience, previously related, at the 
 Burns riot, when a negro stepped into the 
 Court-House door before me ; in Saxton s case 
 it came from his participation in the war be 
 tween the United States troops and the Florida 
 Seminoles, when he had observed, having both 
 blacks and Indians to fight against, that the 
 negroes would often stand fire when the In 
 dians would run away. We were thus saved 
 from all solicitude such as beset for a time the 
 mind of that young hero, Colonel Robert Shaw, 
 when he took the field, six months later, with 
 his Massachusetts colored regiment. When I 
 
CIVIL WAR 257 
 
 rode over to his camp to welcome him, on his 
 first arrival, he said that while I had shown 
 that negro troops were effective in bush-fight 
 ing, it had yet to be determined how they 
 would fight in line of battle ; and I expressing 
 no doubt on this point, he suggested that it 
 would always be possible to put another line 
 of soldiers behind a black regiment, so as to 
 present equal danger in either direction. I was 
 amazed, for I never should have dreamed of 
 being tempted to such a step ; and he learned 
 a lesson of more confidence when his men fol 
 lowed him upon the parapets of Fort Wagner, 
 after a white regiment, in a previous assault, 
 had lain down and refused to face the terrific 
 fire from that almost impregnable fort. 
 
 The colored soldiers caused me, and I think 
 caused their officers generally, no disappoint 
 ment whatever in respect to courage or con 
 duct. As General Saxton wrote to a Northern 
 committee of inquiry as to the freed blacks, 
 they were " intensely human." They were cer 
 tainly more docile than white soldiers, more 
 affectionate, and more impulsive ; they prob 
 ably varied more under different officers and 
 were less individually self-reliant, but were, on 
 the other hand, under good guidance, more 
 eager and impetuous than whites. They had 
 also, in the case of my regiment, a valuable 
 
258 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 knowledge of the country. They were very 
 gregarious, and liked to march together even 
 on a fatigue party, singing as they marched, 
 whereas white soldiers on such service were 
 commonly to be seen tramping along singly. 
 In regard to courage, there was not, I suspect, 
 much difference. Most men have the ordinary 
 share of that attribute ; comparatively few are 
 adventurous ; the commander of any regiment, 
 white or black, soon knew perfectly well just 
 which of his men would be likely to volun 
 teer for a forlorn hope. Whether the better 
 education and social position of white soldiers 
 brought them more under the influence of what 
 Sir Philip Sidney calls "the great appetites 
 of honor " I cannot say ; this being, it will be 
 remembered, Sidney s reason for expecting 
 more courage from officers than from enlisted 
 men. It is quite certain, on the other hand, 
 that any want of such qualities was more than 
 balanced by the fact that the black soldiers 
 were fighting for their freedom and that of 
 their families, this being the most potent of all 
 motives. They used often to point out, in con 
 versation, that they had really far more at stake 
 than their officers had, since, if the Confeder 
 ates conquered, or even if it were a drawn 
 game, the negroes would all relapse into sla 
 very, while their white officers would go back 
 
CIVIL WAR 259 
 
 to the North and live much as before. This 
 solicitude was at the foundation of all their 
 enthusiasm ; and besides this there was their 
 religious feeling, which was genuine and ardent, 
 making them almost fatalists in action, and giv 
 ing their very amusements that half-pious, half- 
 dramatic character which filled the camp every 
 evening with those stirring songs that I was 
 perhaps the first person to put in print, and 
 that have reached so many hearts when sung 
 by the Hampton singers and others. Riding 
 towards the camp, just after dark, I could hear, 
 when within a half-mile or thereabouts, the 
 chorus of the song and the rhythmical clap 
 ping of hands ; and as I drew nearer, the gleam 
 of the camp-fires on the dusky faces made the 
 whole scene look more like an encampment of 
 Bedouin Arabs than like anything on the At 
 lantic shores. 
 
 Before I had joined the regiment, detach 
 ments of recruits had been sent down the coast 
 of South Carolina and Georgia to destroy salt 
 works and bring away lumber ; and after it 
 had grown to fuller size, there occurred several 
 expeditions into the interior, under my com 
 mand, with or without naval escort. We went 
 by ourselves up the St. Mary s River, where 
 the men were for the first time actively under 
 fire, and acquitted themselves well. The river 
 
260 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 itself was regarded by naval officers as the most 
 dangerous in that region, from its great rapid 
 ity, its sudden turns, and the opportunity of 
 attack given by the projecting bluffs. To this 
 day I have never understood why our return 
 was not cut off by the enemy s felling trees, 
 which could have been done easily at several 
 points. We were on a " double-ender," a 
 steamer built for a ferry-boat, and afterwards 
 protected by iron plates. There was often no 
 way of passing a sharp curve, in descending, 
 except by running one end ashore and letting 
 the swift current swing the other extremity 
 round, after which we steamed downwards, the 
 engine being reversed, till the process was re 
 peated. At these points the enemy always 
 mustered in numbers, and sometimes tried to 
 board the vessel, besides pouring volleys on our 
 men, who at such times were kept below, only 
 shooting from the windows. The captain of 
 my boat was shot and killed, and I shall never 
 forget the strange sensation when I drew his 
 lifeless form into the pilot-house which he had 
 rashly quitted. It was the first dead body I 
 had ever handled and carried in my arms, and 
 the sudden change from full and vigorous life 
 made an impression that no later experience 
 surpassed. 
 
 A more important enterprise was the recap- 
 
CIVIL WAR 261 
 
 ture of Jacksonville, Florida, which had been 
 held by the Union troops, and then deserted ; 
 it was the only position that had been held on 
 the mainland in the Department of the South, 
 and was reoccupied (March, 1863) by two black 
 regiments under my command, with the aid of 
 a naval gunboat under Captain (afterwards Ad 
 miral) Charles Steedman, U. S. N. We took a 
 large supply of uniforms, equipments, and extra 
 rations, with orders, when once Jacksonville 
 was secured, to hand it over to white troops 
 that were to be sent under Colonel John D. 
 Rust ; we meanwhile pressing on up the river 
 to Magnolia, where there were large unoccu 
 pied buildings. These we were to employ as 
 barracks, and as a basis for recruiting stations 
 yet farther inland. It was of this expedition 
 that President Lincoln wrote to General Hun 
 ter (April i, 1863): "I am glad to see the 
 account of your colored force at Jacksonville. 
 I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, 
 as is to be expected. It is important to the 
 enemy that such a force shall not take shape 
 and grow and thrive in the South, and in pre 
 cisely the same proportion it is important to us 
 that it shall" Our part was faithfully carried 
 through, and no disaster occurred, though I 
 had to defend the town with a force so small 
 that every resource had to be taxed to mislead 
 
262 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 the enemy into thinking us far more numerous 
 than we were; this so far succeeding that 
 General Finnegan afterwards the victor at 
 Olustee quadrupled our real numbers in his 
 reports. We fortified the approaches to the 
 town, drove back the enemy s outposts, and 
 made reconnoissances into the interior; and 
 Colonel Rust with his white troops had actually 
 appeared, when General Hunter, with one of 
 his impulsive changes of purpose, altered his 
 whole plan, and decided to abandon Jackson 
 ville. 
 
 Once again, after the arrival of General Gill- 
 more, we were sent up a Southern river. A 
 night was chosen when the moon set late, so 
 that we could reach our objective point a little 
 before daybreak ; thus concealing our approach, 
 and giving us the whole day to work in. It 
 was needed on the South Edisto, for we found 
 across a bend of the river a solid structure of 
 palings which it took the period of a whole tide 
 to remove, and which, had not my lieutenant- 
 colonel (C. T. Trowbridge) been an engineer offi 
 cer, could not have been displaced at all. Even 
 then only two out of our three small steamers 
 could ascend the shallow stream ; and of these, 
 one soon grounded in the mud, and the other 
 was disabled by a shore battery. The expe 
 dition which should never have been sent 
 
CIVIL WAR 263 
 
 without more accurate local reconnoissances 
 failed of its nominal end, which was the de 
 struction of a railway bridge utterly beyond 
 our reach. My own immediate object, which 
 was recruiting, was accomplished, but at the 
 final cost of health and subsequent military op 
 portunities. As I stood on the deck, while we 
 were in action with a shore battery, I felt a 
 sudden blow in the side, doubling me up as 
 if a Sullivan or a Fitzsimmons had struck me. 
 My clothes were not torn, but very soon a 
 large purple spot, called " ecchymosis " by the 
 surgeons, covered the whole side, and for weeks 
 I was confined to bed. I had supposed it to 
 have been produced by the wind of a ball, but 
 the surgeons declared that there could be no 
 ecchymosis without actual contact, and that I 
 must have been grazed by a grapeshot or an 
 exploded shell. This was to have found myself 
 only half an inch from death, yet, in Mercutio s 
 phrase, it was enough. I was long in hospital, 
 my life being saved from the perils of perito 
 nitis, I was told, by the fact that I had never 
 used whiskey. I came North on a furlough in 
 1863 ; went back too soon, as men often did ; 
 found the regiment subdivided and demoral 
 ized ; and having to overwork in bringing it 
 into shape, with the effects of malaria added, I 
 had ultimately to resign in the autumn of 1864, 
 
264 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 after two years service, foregoing all hopes of 
 further military experience. Up to this time I 
 had stood the influence of a malarial climate 
 better than most of my officers, and had re 
 ceived from the major, a somewhat frank and 
 outspoken personage, the assurance that I was 
 "tougher than a biled owl." 
 
 During a part of my invalidism I was shel 
 tered together with my surgeon, who was 
 also ill by my friend Mrs. Jean M. Lander, 
 widow of the celebrated General Lander, and 
 well known in earlier days on the dramatic 
 stage; a woman much respected and beloved 
 by all who knew her fine qualities. She had 
 tried to establish hospitals, but had always been 
 met by the somewhat whimsical opposition of 
 Miss Dorothea L. Dix, the national superinten 
 dent of nurses, a lady who had something of 
 the habitual despotism of the saints, and who 
 had somewhat exasperated the soldiers by mak 
 ing anything like youth or good looks an abso 
 lute bar to hospital employment ; the soldiers 
 naturally reasoning that it assisted recovery to 
 have pleasant faces to look upon. One of Miss 
 Dix s circulars read thus : " No woman under 
 thirty years need apply to serve in government 
 hospitals. All nurses are required to be very 
 plain-looking women. Their dresses must be 
 brown or black, with no bows, no curls or jew- 
 
CIVIL WAR 265 
 
 elry, and no hoopskirts." Undaunted by this 
 well-meant prohibition, Mrs. Lander, who was 
 then a little more than thirty, but irreclaimably 
 good looking, came down to Beaufort, South 
 Carolina, accompanied by her mother, in the 
 hope of establishing a hospital there. A sudden 
 influx of wounded men gave General Saxton, 
 erelong, the opportunity of granting her wish, 
 and she entered with immense energy into her 
 new task. She had on her hands some fifty 
 invalid soldiers, and took for their use an empty 
 building, which had yet to be fitted up, warmed, 
 and properly furnished ; even the requisite beds 
 were difficult to obtain. She would come in 
 abruptly some morning and say to Dr. Rogers 
 and myself, " Gentlemen, to-day I must remove 
 every bedstead in this house to the hospital 
 building. You have blankets ? " We could 
 only meekly respond that we had blankets, and 
 that the floor was wide. Twenty-four hours 
 after, it would be, " Gentlemen, this day the 
 cooking-stove goes ! Your servants can cook 
 by the open fire ? " Oh yes, our servants could 
 easily manage that, we replied, and accepted 
 the inadequate results. One day there came a 
 rap at the old-fashioned door-knocker, and Mrs. 
 Lander, passing swiftly through the hall, flung 
 the portal open regally, as if it were in Macbeth s 
 palace. We heard a slender voice explaining 
 
266 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 that the visitor was the Reverend Mr. So-and- 
 So from New York, just arrived by steamer. 
 " Mr. So-and-So ? " said our prima donna. " De 
 lighted to see you, sir ! Can you dress wounds ? " 
 this in Siddons tones. The poor man started 
 back, and said apologetically, " Spiritual wounds, 
 madam ! " " No time for that, sir, now, no 
 time for that ; there are still thirty men in yon 
 der hospital with no beds to lie on ; we must 
 secure the common comforts first." Timidly 
 explaining that he had come from the North to 
 Beaufort for his health, and that he had been 
 recommended to her for "a comfortable lodg 
 ing," the pallid youth withdrew. It was no 
 fault of his that he was forlorn and useless and 
 decidedly in the way at an army station ; but I 
 could not help wondering if, after his return, he 
 would preach a sermon on the obvious defer 
 ence due to man as the military sex, and on the 
 extreme uselessness of women in time of war. 
 
 I have given few details as to my way of 
 living in South Carolina and Florida, because 
 much of it was described a few years after in 
 a volume called " Army Life in a Black Regi 
 ment," which was translated into French by 
 Madame de Gasparin in 1884. There was 
 plenty that was picturesque about this experi 
 ence, and there were some things that were 
 dangerous ; we all fought, for instance, with 
 
CIVIL WAR 267 
 
 ropes around our necks, the Confederate author 
 ities having denied to officers of colored regi 
 ments the usual privileges, if taken prisoners, 
 and having required them to be treated as fel 
 ons. Personally, I never believed that they 
 would execute this threat, and so far as we 
 were concerned they had no opportunity ; but 
 the prospect of hanging was not a pleasant 
 thing even if kept in the background, nor was 
 it agreeable to our friends at home. In other 
 respects my life in the army had been enjoy 
 able ; but it had been, after all, one mainly of 
 outpost and guerrilla duty, and I had shared 
 in none of the greater campaigns of the war. 
 I had once received from an officer, then high 
 in influence, what was equivalent to an offer 
 of promotion, if I would only write a letter to 
 Senator Sumner asking for it ; but this I had 
 declined to do. As my promotion to a colonelcy 
 had come unsought, so, I preferred, should any 
 higher commission. For nominal rank I cared 
 little, and I should have been unwilling to leave 
 my regiment ; but I should have liked to see 
 great battles and to fill out my experience 
 through all the grades, if it had been possible. 
 I came nearest to this larger experience in the 
 case of the aimless but bloody engagement of 
 Olustee, where I should have commanded a 
 brigade had not my regiment been ordered 
 
268 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 back, even after being actually embarked for 
 Florida. 
 
 I never felt at all sure how far up in the 
 service I might have climbed, even under the 
 most favorable circumstances ; for that was al 
 ways a hard thing to predict of any one, in 
 those days, even apart from the frequent oc 
 currences of favoritism and injustice. I saw 
 around me men who had attained a much 
 higher position than mine without a greater 
 outfit, perhaps, of brains or energy ; but 
 whether I could have shown that wide grasp, 
 that ready military instinct, which belong to 
 the natural leader of large forces, I can never 
 know ; and I am afraid that I might always 
 have been a little too careful of my men. Cer 
 tainly, I should have been absolutely incapable 
 of that unsparing and almost merciless sac 
 rifice of them which made the reputation of 
 some very eminent officers ; while for the 
 mere discharge of ordinary duty I might have 
 been as good as my neighbors. After all, it 
 must be admitted that marked military talent 
 is a special gift, and a man who has not had 
 the opportunity can no more tell whether he 
 would have displayed that faculty than a man 
 who has never learned chess can tell whether 
 he might or might not have developed into a 
 champion player. For the final result, my 
 
CIVIL WAR 269 
 
 sagacious elder brother felt content, he told 
 me, that I should leave the army with the rank 
 of colonel only. He said, with his accustomed 
 keen philosophy, " A man may go through his 
 later life quite respectably under the title of 
 colonel, but that of general is too much for 
 a civilian to bear up under, and I am glad you 
 stopped short of it." For myself, I felt that 
 to have commanded, with fair credit, the first 
 slave-regiment in the Civil War was well worth 
 one man s life or health ; and I lived to see 
 nearly two hundred thousand (178,975) black 
 soldiers marching in that column where the 
 bayonets of the First South Carolina had once 
 gleamed alone. 
 
 When I left the service, two years of army 
 life, with small access to books, had so far 
 checked the desire for active literary pursuits, 
 on my part, that I should actually have been 
 content not to return to them. I should have 
 liked better to do something that involved the 
 charge and government of men, as for instance 
 in the position of agent of a large mill or a 
 railway enterprise. This mood of mind was 
 really identical with that which led some vol 
 unteer officers to enter the regular army, and 
 others to undertake cotton-raising at the South. 
 In few cases did this impulse last long ; a regu 
 lar army career in time of peace usually proving 
 
270 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 unattractive, as did also the monotony of the 
 plantation. In my own case this unsettled 
 feeling soon passed away, and the old love of 
 letters rapidly revived ; the editing of the 
 " Harvard Memorial Biographies " affording an 
 easy transition, as was also the work of trans 
 lating the noble writings of Epictetus, of whom 
 I could think with satisfaction that he was him 
 self a slave, and was the favorite author of Tous- 
 saint L Ouverture, the black military leader. 
 Moreover, my wife had removed for health s 
 sake to Newport, Rhode Island, and I found 
 ready distraction in the new friendships and 
 social life of that attractive place of residence. 
 Of this portion of my life I have already given 
 some glimpse in the novel called " Malbone " 
 and in the collection of sketches called " Old- 
 port Days," so that I will not dwell further 
 upon it here. 
 
IX 
 
 LITERARY LONDON TWENTY YEARS AGO 
 
 No day in an American s recollection can 
 easily be more cheerful than that in which he 
 first found himself within reach of London, 
 prepared, as Willis said half a century ago, to 
 see whole shelves of his library walking about 
 in coats and gowns. This event did not hap 
 pen to me for the first time until I was forty- 
 eight years old, and had been immersed at 
 home in an atmosphere of tolerably cultivated 
 men and women ; but the charm of the new 
 experience was none the less great, and I in 
 spected my little parcel of introductory letters 
 as if each were a key to unlock a world un 
 known. Looking back, I cannot regret that I 
 did not have this experience earlier in life. Val 
 entine, in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 
 says that homekeeping youth have ever homely 
 wits ; yet it is something to have wits at all, 
 and perhaps there is more chance of this if 
 one is not transplanted too soon. Our young 
 people are now apt to be sent too early to Eu 
 rope, and therefore do not approach it with their 
 
272 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 own individualities sufficiently matured ; but 
 in those days foreign travel was much more of 
 an enterprise than now, and no one could ac 
 cuse me, on my arrival, of being unreasonably 
 young. 
 
 I visited London in 1872, and again in 1878, 
 and some recollections based on the letters 
 and diaries of those two years will be combined 
 in this chapter. The London atmosphere and 
 dramatis persona changed little within the in 
 terval, but the whole period was separated by 
 a distinct literary cycle from that on which 
 Emerson looked back in 1843. He then wrote 
 that Europe had already lost ground; that it 
 was not " as in the golden days when the same 
 town would show the traveler the noble heads 
 of Scott, of Mackintosh, Coleridge, Words 
 worth, Cuvier, and Humboldt." Yet I scarcely 
 missed even these heads, nearly thirty years 
 later than the time when he wrote, in the pro 
 spect of seeing Carlyle, Darwin, Tennyson, 
 Browning, Tyndall, Huxley, Matthew Arnold, 
 and Froude, with many minor yet interesting 
 personalities. Since the day when I met these 
 distinguished men another cycle has passed, 
 and they have all disappeared. Of those whom 
 I saw twenty-five years ago at the Athenaeum 
 Club, there remain only Herbert Spencer and 
 the delightful Irish poet Aubrey de Vere, 
 
LITERARY LONDON 273 
 
 and though the Club now holds on its lists 
 the names of a newer generation, Besant and 
 Hardy, Lang and Haggard, I cannot think that 
 what has been added quite replaces what has 
 been lost. Yet the younger generation itself 
 may think otherwise ; and my task at present 
 deals with the past alone. It has to do with 
 the older London group, and I may write of 
 this the more freely inasmuch as I did not 
 write during the lifetime of the men described ; 
 nor do I propose, even at this day, to report 
 conversations with any persons now living. 
 
 My first duty in England was, of course, to 
 ascertain my proper position as an American, 
 and to know what was thought of us. This 
 was easier twenty-five years ago than it now is, 
 since the English ignorance of Americans was 
 then even greater than it is to-day, and was 
 perhaps yet more frankly expressed. One of 
 the first houses where I spent an evening was 
 the very hospitable home of a distinguished 
 scholar, then the president of the Philological 
 Society, and the highest authority on the vari 
 ous dialects of the English language; but I 
 was led to think that his sweet and kindly wife 
 had not fully profited by his learning. She 
 said to me, "Is it not rather strange that you 
 Americans, who seem such a friendly and cor 
 dial race, should invariably address a newcomer 
 
274 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 as stranger, while we English, who are 
 thought to be cold and distant, are more likely 
 to say my friend ? " She would scarcely 
 credit it when I told her that I had hardly ever 
 in my life been greeted by the word she 
 thought so universal ; and then she added, " I 
 have been told that Americans begin every 
 sentence with Well, stranger, I guess. I 
 was compelled to plead guilty to the national 
 use of two of these words, but still demurred 
 as to the "stranger." Then she sought for 
 more general information, and asked if it were 
 really true, as she had been told, that railway 
 trains in America were often stopped for the 
 purpose of driving cattle off the track. I ad 
 mitted to her that in some regions of the far 
 West, where cattle abounded and fencing ma 
 terial was scarce, this might still be done ; and 
 I did not think it necessary to say that I had 
 seen it done, in my youth, within twenty miles 
 of Boston. But I explained that we Ameri 
 cans, being a very inventive race, had devised 
 a little apparatus to be placed in front of the 
 locomotive in order to turn aside all obstruc 
 tions ; and I told her that this excellent inven 
 tion was called a cow-catcher. She heard this 
 with interest, and then her kindly face grew 
 anxious, and she said hesitatingly, "But isn t it 
 rather dangerous for the boy ? " I said wonder- 
 
LITERARY LONDON 275 
 
 ingly, "What boy?" and she reiterated, "For 
 the boy, don t you know, the cow-catcher." 
 Her motherly fancy had depicted an unfortu 
 nate youth balanced on the new contrivance, 
 probably holding on with one arm, and dispers 
 ing dangerous herds with the other. 
 
 One had also to meet, at that time, sharp 
 questions as to one s origin, and sometimes 
 unexpected sympathy when this was ascer 
 tained. A man of educated appearance was 
 then often asked, and indeed is still liable 
 to be asked, on his alluding to America, how 
 much time he had spent there. This question 
 was put to me, in 1878, by a very lively young 
 maiden at the table of a clergyman who was 
 my host at Reading ; she went on to inform 
 me that I spoke English differently from any 
 Americans she had ever seen, and she had 
 known " heaps of them " in Florence. When 
 I had told her that I spoke the language just 
 as I had done for about half a century, and as 
 my father and mother had spoken it before me, 
 she caught at some other remark of mine, and 
 asked with hearty surprise, "But you do not 
 mean that you really like being an American, 
 do you ? " When I said that I should be very 
 sorry not to be, she replied, " I can only say 
 that I never thought of such a thing ; I sup 
 posed that you were all Americans because you 
 
276 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 could n t help it ; " and I assured her that we 
 had this reason, also. She sung, later in the 
 evening, with a dramatic power I never heard 
 surpassed, Kingsley s thrilling ballad of " Lor 
 raine," of which the heroine is a jockey s wife, 
 who is compelled by her husband to ride a 
 steeple-chase, at which she meets her death. 
 The young singer had set the ballad to music, 
 and it was one of those coincidences stranger 
 than any fiction that she herself was killed by 
 a runaway horse but a few months later. 
 
 An American had also to accustom himself, 
 in those days, to the surprise which might be 
 expressed at his knowing the commonplaces 
 of English history, and especially of English 
 legend. On first crossing the border into Scot 
 land, I was asked suddenly by my only rail 
 way companion, a thin, keen man with high 
 cheek-bones, who had hitherto kept silence, 
 "Did ye ever hear of Yarrow?" I felt in 
 clined to answer, like a young American girl 
 of my acquaintance when asked by a young 
 man if she liked flowers, " What a silly ques 
 tion ! " Restraining myself, I explained to him 
 that every educated American was familiar with 
 any name mentioned by Burns, by Scott, or 
 in the "Border Minstrelsy." Set free by this, 
 he showed me many things and places which I 
 was glad to see, passes by which the High- 
 
LITERARY LONDON 277 
 
 land raiders came down, valleys where they 
 hid the cattle they had lifted ; he showed me 
 where their fastnesses were, and where " Tin- 
 tock tap " was, on which a lassie might doubt 
 less still be wooed if she had siller enough. By 
 degrees we came to literature in general, and 
 my companion proved to be the late Princi 
 pal Shairp, professor of poetry at Oxford, and 
 author of books well known in America. 
 
 I encountered still another instance of the 
 curious social enigma then afforded by the 
 American in England, when I was asked, soon 
 after my arrival, to breakfast with Mr. Froude, 
 the historian. As I approached the house I 
 saw a lady speaking to some children at the 
 door, and she went in before I reached it Be 
 ing admitted, I saw another lady glance at me 
 from the region of the breakfast parlor, and 
 was also dimly aware of a man who looked over 
 the stairway. After I had been cordially re 
 ceived and was seated at the breakfast-table, it 
 gradually came out that the first lady was Mrs. 
 Froude s sister, the second was Mrs. Froude 
 herself, while it was her husband who had 
 looked over the stairs ; and I learned further 
 more that they had severally decided that, who 
 ever I was, I could not be the American gen 
 tleman who was expected at breakfast. What 
 was their conception of an American, what 
 
278 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 tomahawk and scalping-knife were looked for, 
 what bearskin or bareskin, or whether it was 
 that I had omitted the customary war-whoop, 
 this never was explained. Perhaps it was as 
 in Irving s case, who thought his kind recep 
 tion in England due to the fact that he used a 
 goose-quill in his hand instead of sticking it in 
 his hair, a distinction which lost all its value, 
 however, with the advent of steel pens. At 
 any rate, my reception was as kind as possible, 
 though my interest in Froude, being based 
 wholly on his early book, "The Nemesis of 
 Faith," was somewhat impaired by the fact 
 that he treated that work as merely an indis 
 cretion of boyhood, and was more interested 
 in himself as the author of a history, which, 
 unluckily, I had not then read. We met better 
 upon a common interest in Carlyle, a few days 
 later, and he took me to see that eminent 
 author, and to join the afternoon walk of the 
 two in Hyde Park. Long ago, in the "At 
 lantic Monthly," I described this occasion, and 
 dwelt on the peculiar quality of Carlyle s laugh, 
 which, whenever it burst out in its full volume, 
 had the effect of dissolving all the clouds of his 
 apparent cynicism and leaving clear sky behind. 
 Whatever seeming ungraciousness had pre 
 ceded, his laugh revealed the genuine humorist 
 at last, so that he almost seemed to have been 
 
LITERARY LONDON 279 
 
 playing with himself in the fierce things he had 
 said. When he laughed, he appeared instantly 
 to follow Emerson s counsel and to write upon 
 the lintels of his doorpost " Whim ! " I was 
 especially impressed with this peculiar quality 
 during our walk in the park. 
 
 Nothing could well be more curious than 
 the look and costume of Carlyle. He had been 
 living in London nearly forty years, yet he had 
 the untamed aspect of one just arrived from 
 Ecclefechan. He wore "an old experienced 
 coat," such as Thoreau attributes to his Scotch 
 fisherman, one having that unreasonably high 
 collar of other days, in which the head was 
 sunk ; his hair was coarse and stood up at its 
 own will ; his bushy whiskers were thrust into 
 prominence by one of those stiff collars which 
 the German students call " father-killers," from 
 a tradition that the sharp points once pierced 
 the jugular vein of a parent during an affection 
 ate embrace. In this guise, with a fur cap and 
 a stout walking - stick, he accompanied Froude 
 and myself on our walk. I observed that near 
 his Chelsea home the passers-by regarded him 
 with a sort of familiar interest, farther off with 
 undisguised curiosity, and at Hyde Park, again, 
 with a sort of recognition, as of an accustomed 
 figure. At one point on our way some poor 
 children were playing on a bit of rough ground 
 
280 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 lately included in a park, and they timidly 
 stopped their frolic as we drew near. The 
 oldest boy, looking from one to another of us, 
 selected Carlyle as the least formidable, and 
 said, " I say, mister, may we roll on this here 
 grass ? " Carlyle stopped, leaning on his staff, 
 and said in his homeliest accents, "Yes, my 
 little fellow, ye may r-r-roll at discraytion ; " 
 upon which the children resumed their play, 
 one little girl repeating his answer audibly, as 
 if in a vain effort to take in the whole meaning 
 of the long word. 
 
 One of my pleasantest London dinners was 
 at the ever hospitable house of the late Sir 
 Frederick Pollock ; the other persons present 
 being Lady Pollock, with her eldest son, the 
 present wearer of the title, and two most agree 
 able men, Mr. Venable, for many years the 
 editor of the annual summary of events in 
 the " London Times," and Mr. Newton, of the 
 British Museum. The latter was an encyclo 
 paedia of art and antiquities, and Mr. Venable 
 of all the social gossip of a century ; it was 
 like talking with Horace Walpole. Of one sub 
 ject alone I knew more than they did, namely, 
 Gilbert Stuart s pictures, one of which, called 
 The Skater, had just been unearthed in Lon 
 don, and was much admired. "Why don t 
 they inquire about the artist ? " said Sir Fred- 
 
LITERARY LONDON 281 
 
 erick Pollock. " He might have done some 
 thing else." They would hardly believe that 
 his pictures were well known in America, and 
 that his daughter was still a conspicuous per 
 son in society. Much of the talk fell upon 
 lawyers and clergymen. They told a story of 
 Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, that he had actu 
 ally evaded payment of his tailor s bill on the 
 ground that it had not been presented for six 
 years, which in England is the legal limit. 
 They vied with one another in tales of the 
 eccentricities of English clergymen, of one 
 who was eighteen years incumbent of an im 
 portant parish, and lived in France all the time ; 
 of another who did not conduct service in the 
 afternoon, as that was the time when it was 
 necessary for him to take his spaniels out; of 
 another who practiced his hawks in the church ; 
 of another who, being a layman, became master 
 of Caius College (pronounced Keys) at Oxford, 
 had a church living at his disposal, and pre 
 sented it to himself, taking orders for the pur 
 pose. After officiating for the first time he 
 said to the sexton, " Do you know, that s a 
 very good service of your church?" He had 
 literally never heard it before ! But all agreed 
 that these tales were of the past, and that the 
 tribe of traditional fox-hunting and horse-racing 
 parsons was almost extinct. I can testify, 
 
282 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 however, to having actually encountered one of 
 the latter class within a year. 
 
 I met Matthew Arnold one day by appoint 
 ment at the Athenaeum, in 1878, and expressed 
 some surprise that he had not been present at 
 the meeting of the Association LitteVaire In 
 ternationale which I had just attended in Paris. 
 He said that he had declined because such 
 things were always managed with a sole view 
 to the glorification of France ; yet he admitted 
 that France was the only nation which really 
 held literature in honor, as was to be seen in 
 its copyright laws, England and America 
 caring far less for it, he thought. He told me 
 that his late address on "Equality" was well 
 enough received by all the audience except the 
 Duke of Northumberland, the presiding officer, 
 and in general better by the higher class, which 
 well knew that it was materialized, than by 
 the middle class, which did not know that it 
 was vulgarized. Lord William Russell, whom I 
 found talking with him as I came up, had said 
 to him, with amusement, " There was I sitting 
 on the very front seat, during the lecture, in 
 the character of the Wicked Lord." Arnold 
 fully agreed with a remark which I quoted to 
 him from Mrs. George Bancroft, who had been 
 familiar with two courts, to the effect that 
 there was far more sycophancy to rank among 
 
LITERARY LONDON 283 
 
 literary men in London than in Berlin. She 
 said that she had never known an English 
 scholar who, if he had chanced to dine with a 
 nobleman, would not speak of it to everybody, 
 whereas no German savant would think of 
 mentioning such a thing. "Very true," replied 
 Arnold, " but the German would be less likely 
 to be invited to the dinner." He thought that 
 rank was far more exclusive and narrow in 
 Germany, as seen in the fact that men of rank 
 did not marry out of their circle, a thing which 
 frequently took place in England. He also 
 pointed out that the word mesalliance was not 
 English, nor was there any word in our lan 
 guage to take its place. Arnold seemed to 
 me, personally, as he had always seemed in lit 
 erature, a keen but by no means judicial critic, 
 and in no proper sense a poet. That he is 
 held to be such is due, in my judgment, only 
 to the fact that he has represented the cur 
 rent attitude of mind in many cultivated per 
 sons. 
 
 I visited Darwin twice in his own house at 
 an interval of six years, once passing the night 
 there. On both occasions I found him the 
 same, but with health a little impaired after 
 the interval, always the same simple, noble, 
 absolutely truthful soul. Without the fasci 
 nating and boyish eagerness of Agassiz, he was 
 
284 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 also utterly free from the vehement partisan 
 ship which this quality brings with it, and he 
 showed a mind ever humble and open to new 
 truth. Tall and flexible, with the overhanging 
 brow and long features best seen in Mrs. Cam 
 eron s photograph, he either lay half reclined 
 on the sofa or sat on high cushions, obliged 
 continually to guard against the cruel digestive 
 trouble which haunted his whole life. I remem 
 ber that at my first visit, in 1872, I was telling 
 him of an address before the Philological So 
 ciety by Dr. Alexander J. Ellis, in which he had 
 quoted from "Through the Looking -Glass" 
 the description of what were called portman 
 teau words, into which various meanings were 
 crammed. As I spoke, Mrs. Darwin glided qui 
 etly away, got the book, and looked up the 
 passage. "Read it out, my dear," said her 
 husband ; and as she read the amusing page, 
 he laid his head back and laughed heartily. It 
 was altogether delightful to see the man who 
 had revolutionized the science of the world giv 
 ing himself wholly to the enjoyment of Alice 
 and her pretty nonsense. Akin to this was 
 his hearty enjoyment of Mark Twain, who had 
 then hardly begun to be regarded as above the 
 Josh Billings grade of humorist ; but Darwin 
 was amazed that I had not read " The Jump 
 ing Frog," and said that he always kept it by 
 
LITERARY LONDON 285 
 
 his bedside for midnight amusement. I recall 
 with a different kind of pleasure the interest 
 he took in my experience with the colored 
 race, and the faith which he expressed in the 
 negroes. This he afterward stated more fully 
 in a letter to me, which may be found in his 
 published memoirs. It is worth recording that 
 even the incredulous Carlyle had asked eagerly 
 about the colored soldiers, and had drawn the 
 conclusion, of his own accord, that in their 
 case the negroes should be enfranchised. " You 
 could do no less," he said, "for the men who 
 had stood by you." 
 
 Darwin s house at Beckenham was ap 
 proached from Orpington station by a delight 
 ful drive through lanes, among whose tufted 
 hedges I saw the rare spectacle of two Ameri 
 can elms, adding those waving and graceful 
 lines which we their fellow countrymen are 
 apt to miss in England. Within the grounds 
 there were masses of American rhododendrons, 
 which grow so rapidly in England, and these 
 served as a background to flower-beds more 
 gorgeous than our drier climate can usually 
 show. 
 
 At my second visit Darwin was full of in 
 terest in the Peabody Museum at Yale College, 
 and quoted with approval what Huxley had 
 told him, that there was more to be learned 
 
286 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 from that one collection than from all the 
 museums of Europe. But for his chronic sea 
 sickness, he said, he would visit America to 
 see it. He went to bed early that night, I 
 remember, and the next morning I saw him, 
 soon after seven, apparently returning from a 
 walk through the grounds, an odd figure, 
 with white beard, and with a short cape wrapped 
 round his shoulders, striding swiftly with his 
 long legs. He said that he always went out 
 before breakfast, besides breakfasting at the 
 very un-English hour of half -past seven, and 
 that he was also watching some little experi 
 ments. His son added reproachfully, "There 
 it is : he pretends not to be at work, but he is 
 always watching some of his little experiments, 
 as he calls them, and gets up in the night to 
 see them." Nothing could be more delightful 
 than the home relations of the Darwin family ; 
 and the happy father once quoted to me a 
 prediction made by some theological authority 
 that his sons would show the terrible effects of 
 such unrighteous training, and added proudly, 
 looking round at them, " I do not think I have 
 much reason to be ashamed." 
 
 I think it was on this same day that I passed 
 from Darwin to Browning, meeting the latter 
 at the Athenaeum Club. It seemed strange to 
 ask a page to find Mr. Browning for me, as if 
 
LITERARY LONDON 287 
 
 it were the easiest thing imaginable; and it 
 reminded me of the time when the little daugh 
 ter of a certain poetess quietly asked at the 
 dinner-table, in my hearing, between two bites 
 of an apple, "Mamma, did I ever see Mr. 
 Shakespeare ? " The page spoke to a rather 
 short and strongly built man who sat in a win 
 dow-seat, and who jumped up and grasped my 
 hand so cordially that it might have suggested 
 the remark of Madame Navarro (Mary Ander 
 son) about him, made, however, at a later 
 day, that he did not appear like a poet, but 
 rather "like one of our agreeable Southern 
 gentlemen." He seemed a man of every day, 
 or like the typical poet of his own " How It 
 Strikes a Contemporary." In all this he was, 
 as will be seen later, the very antipodes of Ten 
 nyson. He had a large head of German shape, 
 broadening behind, with light and thin gray 
 hair and whitish beard; he had blue eyes, 
 and the most kindly heart. It seemed wholly 
 appropriate that he should turn aside presently 
 to consult Anthony Trollope about some poor 
 author for whom they held funds. He ex 
 pressed pleasure at finding in me an early sub 
 scriber to his " Bells and Pomegranates," and 
 told me how he published that series in the 
 original cheap form in order to save his father s 
 money, and that single numbers now sold for 
 
288 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 ten or fifteen pounds. He was amused at my 
 wrath over some changes which he had made 
 in later editions of those very poems, and readily 
 admitted, on my suggesting it, that they were 
 merely a concession to obtuse readers ; he pro 
 mised, indeed, to alter some of the verses back 
 again, but as is the wont of poets failed to 
 do so. I was especially struck with the way 
 in which he spoke about his son, whose career 
 as an artist had well begun, he said ; but it was 
 an obstacle that people expected too much of 
 him, as having had such a remarkable mother. 
 It was told in the simplest way, as if there 
 were nothing on the paternal side worth con 
 sidering. 
 
 The most attractive literary headquarters in 
 London, in those days, was, of course, the 
 Athenaeum Club. It used to be said that no 
 man could have any question to ask which he 
 could not find somebody to answer the same 
 afternoon between five and six o clock, at that 
 Club. The Savile Club and Cosmopolitan 
 Club were also attractive. The most agreea 
 ble private receptions of poets and artists were 
 then to be found, I think, at the house of 
 William Rossetti, where one not merely had 
 the associations and atmosphere of a brilliant 
 family, which had already lost, however, its 
 most gifted member, but also encountered 
 
LITERARY LONDON 289 
 
 the younger set of writers, who were all pre- 
 raphaelites in art, and who read Morris, Swin 
 burne, and for a time, at least, Whitman and 
 even Joaquin Miller. There one met Mrs. Ros- 
 setti, who was the daughter of Madox Brown, 
 and herself an artist ; also Alma Tadema, just 
 returned from his wedding journey to Italy 
 with his beautiful wife. One found there men 
 and women then coming forward into litera 
 ture, but now much better known, Edmund 
 Gosse, Arthur O Shaughnessy, Cayley, the 
 translator of Dante, and Miss Robinson, now 
 Madame Darmesteter. Sometimes I went to 
 the receptions of our fellow countrywoman, 
 Mrs. Moulton, then just beginning, but already 
 promising the flattering success they have 
 since attained. Once I dined with Professor 
 Tyndall at the Royal Society, where I saw men 
 whose names had long been familiar in the 
 world of science, and found myself sitting next 
 to a man of the most eccentric manners, who 
 turned out to be Lord Lyttelton, well known to 
 me by name as the Latin translator of Lord 
 Houghton s poems. I amazed him, I remem 
 ber, by repeating the opening verses of one of 
 his translations. 
 
 I met Du Maurier once at a dinner party, 
 before he had added literary to artistic suc 
 cesses. Some one had told me that he was 
 
290 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 probably the most bored man in London, din 
 ing out daily, and being tired to death of it. 
 This I could easily believe when I glanced at 
 him, after the ladies had retired, lounging back 
 in his chair with his hands in his pockets, and 
 looking as if the one favor he besought of 
 everybody was to let him alone. This mute 
 defiance was rather stimulating, and as he sat 
 next to me I was moved to disregard the im 
 plied prohibition ; for after all, one does not go 
 to a dinner party in order to achieve silence ; 
 one can do that at home. I ventured, there 
 fore, to put to him the bold question how he 
 could justify himself in representing the Eng 
 lish people as so much handsomer than they 
 or any other modern race as I considerately 
 added really are. This roused him, as was 
 intended ; he took my remark very good-hu- 
 moredly, and pleaded guilty at once, but said 
 that he pursued this course because it was much 
 pleasanter to draw beauty than ugliness, and, 
 moreover, because it paid better. "There is 
 Keene," said he, "who is one of the greatest 
 artists now living, but people do not like his 
 pictures so well as mine, because he paints 
 people as they really are." I then asked him 
 where he got the situations and mottoes for 
 his charming pictures of children in the Lon 
 don parks. He had an especial group, about 
 
LITERARY LONDON 291 
 
 that time, who were always walking with a 
 great dog and making delightful childish ob 
 servations. He replied that his own children 
 provided him with clever sayings for some time ; 
 and now that they had grown too old to utter 
 them, his friends kept him supplied from their 
 nurseries. I told him that he might imitate a 
 lady I once knew in America, who, when her 
 children were invited to any neighboring house 
 to play, used to send by the maid who accom 
 panied them a notebook and pencil, with the 
 request that the lady of the house would jot 
 down anything remarkable which they might 
 say during the afternoon. He seemed amused 
 at this ; and a month or two later, when I took 
 up a new London " Punch " at Zermatt, I found 
 my veritable tale worked up into a picture : a 
 fat, pudgy little mother handing a notebook 
 to a rather stately and defiant young govern 
 ess; while the children clustering round, and 
 all looking just like the mother, suggested to 
 the observer a doubt whether their combined 
 intellects could furnish one line for the record 
 It was my scene, though with a distinct im 
 provement ; and this was my first and only 
 appearance, even by deputy, in the pages of 
 "Punch." 
 
 It was in 1872, on my first visit to England, 
 that I saw Tennyson. That visit was a very 
 
292 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 brief one, and it curiously happened that in the 
 choice which often forces itself upon the hur 
 ried traveler, between meeting a great man 
 and seeing an historic building, I was compelled 
 to sacrifice Salisbury Cathedral to this poet, 
 as I had previously given up York Minster 
 for Darwin. Both sacrifices were made on 
 the deliberate ground, which years have vindi 
 cated, that the building would probably last for 
 my lifetime, while the man might not. I had 
 brought no letter to Tennyson, and indeed my 
 friend James T. Fields had volunteered a refusal 
 of any, so strong was the impression that the 
 poet disliked to be bored by Americans ; but 
 when two ladies whom I had met in London, 
 Lady Pollock and Miss Anne Thackeray, 
 afterwards Mrs. Ritchie, had kindly offered 
 to introduce me, and to write in advance that 
 I was coming, it was not in human nature, at 
 least in American nature, to decline. I spent 
 the night at Cowes, and was driven eight miles 
 from the hotel to Farringford by a very intel 
 ligent young groom who had never heard of 
 the poet ; and when we reached the door of 
 the house, the place before me seemed such a 
 haven of peace and retirement that I actually 
 shrank from disturbing those who dwelt therein. 
 I even found myself recalling a tale of Tenny 
 son and his wife, who were sitting beneath a 
 
LITERARY LONDON 293 
 
 tree and talking unreservedly, when they dis 
 covered, by a rustling in the boughs overhead, 
 that two New York reporters had taken posi 
 tion in the branches and were putting down 
 the conversation. Fortunately, I saw on the 
 drawing-room table an open letter from one 
 of the ladies just mentioned, announcing my 
 approach, and it lay near a window, through 
 which, as I had been told, the master of the 
 house did not hesitate to climb, by way of es 
 cape from any unwelcome visitor. 
 
 I therefore sent up my name. Presently I 
 heard a rather heavy step in the adjoining 
 room, and there stood in the doorway the 
 most un-English looking man I had yet seen. 
 He was tall and high-shouldered, careless in 
 dress, and while he had a high and domed 
 forehead, yet his brilliant eyes and tangled 
 hair and beard gave him rather the air of a par 
 tially reformed Corsican bandit, or else an im 
 perfectly secularized Carmelite monk, than of 
 a decorous and well-groomed Englishman. He 
 greeted me shyly, gave me his hand, which 
 was in those days a good deal for an English 
 man, and then sidled up to the mantelpiece, 
 leaned on it, and said, with the air of a vexed 
 schoolboy, " I am rather afraid of you Ameri 
 cans ; your countrymen do not treat me very 
 well. There was Bayard Taylor " and then 
 
294 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 he went into a long narration of some griev 
 ance incurred through an indiscreet letter of 
 that well-known journalist. Strange to say, 
 the effect of this curious attack was to put 
 me perfectly at my ease. It was as if I had 
 visited Shakespeare, and had found him in a 
 pet because some one of my fellow countrymen 
 had spelled his name wrong. I knew myself 
 to be wholly innocent and to have no journal 
 istic designs, nor did I ever during Tennyson s 
 lifetime describe the interview. He perhaps 
 recognized my good intentions, and took me 
 to his study, then to his garden, where the 
 roses were advanced beyond any I had yet seen 
 in England. I was struck, in his conversa 
 tion, with that accuracy of outdoor knowledge 
 which one sees in his poems ; he pointed out, 
 for instance, which ferns were American, and 
 which had been attempted in this country, but 
 had refused to grow. He talked freely about 
 his own books, and it seemed to me that he 
 must be like Wordsworth, as we find him in 
 the descriptions of contemporaries, a little 
 too isolated in his daily life, and too much 
 absorbed in the creations of his own fancy. 
 Lord Houghton, his lifelong friend, said to me 
 afterwards, "Tennyson likes unmixed flattery." 
 This I should not venture to say, but I noticed 
 that when he was speaking of other men, he 
 
LITERARY LONDON 295 
 
 mentioned as an important trait in their char 
 acter whether they liked his poems or not, 
 Lowell, he evidently thought, did not. Perhaps 
 this is a habit of all authors, and it was only 
 that Tennyson spoke out, like a child, what 
 others might have concealed. 
 
 He soon offered, to my great delight, to 
 take me to the house of Mrs. Cameron, the 
 celebrated amateur photographer, who lived 
 close by. We at once came upon Mr. Cameron 
 a very picturesque figure, having fine white 
 hair and beard, and wearing a dressing-gown 
 of pale blue with large black velvet buttons, 
 and a heavy gold chain. I had heard it said 
 that Mrs. Cameron selected her housemaids 
 for their profiles, that she might use them 
 for saints and madonnas in her photographic 
 groups ; and it turned out that all these dam 
 sels were upstairs, watching round the sick 
 bed of the youngest, who was a great favorite 
 in the Tennyson family. We were ushered 
 into the chamber, where a beautiful child lay 
 unconscious upon the bed, with weeping girls 
 around ; and I shall never forget the scene 
 when Tennyson bent over the pillow, with his 
 sombre Italian look, and laid his hand on the 
 unconscious forehead ; it was like a picture by 
 Ribera or Zamacois. The child, as I after 
 wards heard, never recovered consciousness, 
 
296 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 and died within a few days. Presently Mrs. 
 Cameron led us downstairs again, and opened 
 chests of photographs for me to choose among. 
 I chose one, The Two Angels at the Sep 
 ulchre, for which one of the maid servants 
 had stood as a model ; another of Tennyson s 
 Eleanore, for which Mrs. Stillman (Miss Spar- 
 talis) had posed ; and three large photographs 
 of Darwin, Carlyle, and Tennyson himself, 
 the last of these being one which he had chris 
 tened The Dirty Monk, and of which he wrote, 
 at Mrs. Cameron s request, in my presence, 
 a certificate that it was the best likeness ever 
 taken of him. I have always felt glad to have 
 seen Tennyson not merely in contact with a 
 stranger like myself, but as he appeared among 
 these friendly people, and under the influence 
 of a real emotion of sympathy, showing the 
 deeper nature of the man. 
 
 No one knows better than myself how slight 
 and fragmentary are the recollections here re 
 corded, yet even such glimpses occasionally 
 suggest some aspect of character which formal 
 biographers have missed. A clever woman 
 once said to me that she did not know which 
 really gave the more knowledge of a noted 
 person, to have read all he had written and 
 watched all he had done, or, on the other hand, 
 
LITERARY LONDON 297 
 
 to have taken one moment s glance at his face. 
 As we grow older, we rely more and more on 
 this first glance. I never felt for an instant 
 that I had really encountered in England men 
 of greater calibre than I had met before, for 
 was I not the fellow countryman of Emerson 
 and Hawthorne, of Webster and Phillips ? 
 yet, after all, the ocean lends a glamour to the 
 unseen world beyond it, and I was glad to have 
 had a sight of that world, also. I was kindly 
 dismissed from it, after my first brief visit, by a 
 reception given me at the rooms of the Anglo- 
 American Club, where Thomas Hughes 
 whom I had first known at Newport, Rhode 
 Island presided, and where Lord Houghton 
 moved some too flattering resolutions, which 
 were seconded by the present Sir Frederick 
 Pollock. Returning to my American home, I 
 read, after a few days, in the local newspaper 
 (the " Newport Mercury "), that I was reported 
 to have enjoyed myself greatly in England, and 
 to have been kindly received, " especially among 
 servants and rascals." An investigation by 
 the indignant editor revealed the fact that the 
 scrap had been copied from another news 
 paper ; and that a felicitous misprint had sub 
 stituted the offending words for the original 
 designation of my English friends as " savants 
 and radicals." 
 
LITERARY PARIS TWENTY YEARS AGO 
 
 I REACHED Paris, from London, on the morn 
 ing of May 30, 1878, arriving just in time for 
 admission to the Theatre des Folies Drama- 
 tiques, where the Voltaire centenary celebration 
 was to be held that day, with Victor Hugo for 
 the orator. As I drove up, the surrounding 
 streets were full of people going toward the 
 theatre ; while the other streets were so empty 
 as to recall that fine passage in Landor s " Im 
 aginary Conversations " where Demosthenes 
 describes the depopulation of all other spots 
 in Athens except that where he is speaking to 
 the people. The neighborhood of the theatre 
 was placarded with announcements stating that 
 every seat was sold ; and it was not until I had 
 explained to a policeman that I was an Ameri 
 can who had crossed from London expressly 
 for this celebration, that he left his post and 
 hunted up a speculator from whom I could 
 buy seats. They were twin seats, which I 
 shared with a young Frenchman, who led me in 
 through a crowd so great that the old women 
 
LITERARY PARIS 299 
 
 who, in Parisian theatres, guide you to your 
 place and take your umbrella, found their oc 
 cupation almost gone. 
 
 It was my first experience of French public 
 oratory ; and while I was aware of the resources 
 of the language and the sympathetic power of 
 the race, I was not prepared to see these so 
 superbly conspicuous in public meetings. The 
 ordinary appreciation of eloquence among the 
 French seemed pitched in the key of our great 
 est enthusiasm, with the difference that their 
 applause was given to the form as well as to 
 the substance, and was given with the hands 
 only, never with the feet. Even in its aspect 
 the audience was the most noticeable I ever 
 saw: the platform and the five galleries were 
 filled almost wholly with men, and these of 
 singularly thoughtful and distinguished bear 
 ing, an assembly certainly superior to Parlia 
 ment or Congress in its look of intellect. A 
 very few were in the blouse of the ouvrier, and 
 there was all over the house an amount of talk 
 ing that sounded like vehement quarreling, 
 though it was merely good - natured chatter. 
 There were only French people and French 
 words around me, and though my immediate 
 companion was from the provinces and knew 
 nobody, yet there was on the other side a very 
 handsome man, full of zeal and replete with 
 
300 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 information. When I asked him whether Vic 
 tor Hugo was yet upon the platform, he smiled, 
 and said that I would not ask such a question 
 if I knew the shout that would go up from the 
 crowd when he came in. 
 
 Applaud they certainly did when a white head 
 was seen advancing through the throng upon 
 the stage; and the five galleries and the par 
 quet seemed to rock with excitement as he took 
 his seat. I should have known Victor Hugo 
 anywhere from the resemblance to his pictures, 
 except that his hair and beard, cropped short, 
 were not quite so rough and hirsute as they are 
 often depicted. He bowed his strong leonine 
 head to the audience, and then seated himself, 
 the two other speakers sitting on either side of 
 him ; while the bust of the smiling Voltaire with 
 a wreath of laurel and flowers rose behind and 
 above their heads. The bust was imposing, and 
 the smile was kindly and genial, a smile such 
 as one seldom sees attributed to Voltaire. The 
 first speaker, M. Spuller, was a fine-looking man, 
 large, fair, and of rather English bearing ; he 
 rested one hand on the table, and made the 
 other hand do duty for two, and I might almost 
 say for a dozen, after the manner of his race. 
 Speaking without notes, he explained the plan of 
 the celebration, and did it so well that sentence 
 after sentence was received with " Bravo ! " 
 
LITERARY PARIS 301 
 
 or "Admirable!" or "Oh-h-h!" in a sort of 
 profound literary enjoyment. 
 
 These plaudits were greater still in case of 
 the next speaker, M. Emile Deschanel, the author 
 of a book on Aristophanes, and well known as 
 a politician. He also was a large man of dis 
 tinguished bearing. In his speech he drew a 
 parallel between the careers of Victor Hugo and 
 Voltaire, but dwelt especially upon that of the 
 latter. One of the most skillful portions of the 
 address touched on that dangerous ground, Vol 
 taire s outrageous poem of "La Pucelle," founded 
 on the career of Jeanne d Arc. M. Deschanel 
 claimed that Voltaire had at least set her be 
 fore the world as the saviour of France. He 
 admitted that the book bore the marks of the 
 period, that it was licencieux et coupable ; yet he 
 retorted fiercely on the clerical party for their 
 efforts to protest against Voltaire on this ac 
 count. When he said, at last, with a sudden 
 flash of parting contempt, "Who was it that 
 burned her ? " (Qui est-ce qui 1 a brule"e ?) he 
 dismissed the clergy and the subject with a 
 wave of the hand that was like the flashing of 
 the scimitar of Saladin. Then followed a per 
 fect tempest of applause, and Victor Hugo took 
 the stage. 
 
 His oration on Voltaire since translated by 
 Mr. James Part on was delivered from notes, 
 
302 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 written in an immense hand on sheets twice a$ 
 large as any foolscap paper I had ever seen ; 
 and he read from these without glasses. He 
 was at this time seventy-six, but looked ten 
 years younger. He stood behind two great 
 sconces, each holding six candles ; above these 
 appeared his strong white-bearded face, and 
 above him rose Voltaire and his laurel wreath. 
 He used much gesture, and in impassioned mo 
 ments waved his arm above his head, the fingers 
 apart and trembling with emotion. Sometimes 
 he clapped one hand to his head as if to tear 
 out some of his white hairs, though this hardly 
 seemed, at the moment, melodramatic. His 
 voice was vigorous, and yet from some defect of 
 utterance, I lost more of what he said than in 
 case of the other speakers. Others around me 
 made the same complaint. His delivery, how 
 ever, was as characteristic as his literary style, 
 and quite in keeping with it, being a series of 
 brilliant detached points. It must be a stimulat 
 ing thing, indeed, to speak to a French audience, 
 to men who give sighs of delight over a fine 
 phrase, and shouts of enthusiasm over a great 
 thought. The most striking part of Hugo s ad 
 dress, to my mind, was his defense of the smile 
 of Voltaire, and his turning of the enthusiasm 
 for the pending Exposition into an appeal for 
 international peace. Never was there a more 
 
LITERARY PARIS 303 
 
 powerful picture than his sketch of " that terrific 
 International Exposition called a field of battle." 
 After the address the meeting ended, there 
 was no music, which surprised me, and every 
 one on the platform rushed headlong at Victor 
 Hugo. Never before had I quite comprehended 
 the French effervescence as seen in the Chambre 
 des De pute s; but here it did not seem child 
 ish, only natural ; as where Deschanel, during 
 his own speech, had once turned and taken 
 Victor Hugo s hand and clapped him caress 
 ingly on the shoulder. The crowd dispersed 
 more easily than I expected ; for I had said to 
 my French neighbor that there would be little 
 chance for us in case of a fire, and he had 
 shrugged his shoulders, looked up to heaven, 
 and said, "Adieu ! " I went out through a side 
 entrance, where Hugo was just before me : it 
 was hardly possible to get him into his carriage ; 
 the surrounding windows were crammed with 
 people, and he drove away amid shouts. There 
 was a larger and more popular demonstration 
 that day at the Cirque Ame"ricain ; but the elo 
 quence was with us. To add to the general pic- 
 turesqueness it was Ascension Day, and occa 
 sionally one met groups of little white-robed 
 girls, who were still being trained, perhaps, to 
 shudder at the very name of Voltaire, or even of 
 Victor Hugo. 
 
304 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 I dined one day with M. Talandier, a member 
 of the "Extreme Left" in the Chambre des 
 De pute s, a gentleman to whom my friend 
 Conway had introduced me, they having become 
 acquainted during our host s long exile in Eng 
 land. Louis Blanc, the historian, was present, 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Conway and a few French 
 men who spoke no English ; and as there was 
 also a pretty young girl who had been born in 
 England of French parents, there was some con 
 fusion of tongues, though the Talandier family 
 and Louis Blanc were at home in both lan 
 guages. I was delighted to meet this last- 
 named man, whose career had been familiar to 
 me since the revolution of 1848. He was very 
 short, yet square in person, and not insignifi 
 cant ; his French was clear and unusually de 
 liberate, and I never missed a word, even when 
 he was not addressing me. His small size and 
 endless vivacity made him look like a French 
 Tom Moore. He told many stories about the 
 revolution, one of an occasion where flags 
 were to be presented by the provincial govern 
 ment to the regiments, and he was assigned to 
 the very tallest colonel, a giant in size, who at 
 once lifted Louis Blanc in his arms and hugged 
 him to his breast. The narrator acted this 
 all out inimitably, and told other stories, at one 
 of which Carlyle had once laughed so that he 
 
LITERARY PARIS 305 
 
 threw himself down and rolled on the floor, and 
 Louis Blanc very nearly acted this out, also. 
 
 He seemed wonderfully gentle and sweet for 
 one who had lived through so much ; and con 
 firmed, without bitterness, the report I had 
 heard that he had never fully believed in the 
 National Workshops, which failed under his 
 charge in 1 848, but that they were put into his 
 hands by a rival who wished them and him to 
 fail. Everything at the meal was simple, as 
 our hosts lived in honorable poverty after their 
 exile. We sat at table for a while after din 
 ner, and then both sexes withdrew together. 
 Through the open windows we heard the music 
 from a students dance-garden below, and could 
 catch a glimpse of young girls, dressed mod 
 estly enough, and of their partners, dancing with 
 that wonderful grace and agility which is pos 
 sible only to young Frenchmen. All spheres 
 of French life intermingle so closely that there 
 seemed nothing really incongruous in all this 
 exuberant gayety beneath the windows, while 
 the two veteran radicals who had very likely 
 taken their share in such amusements while 
 young were fighting over again their battles 
 of reform. Both now have passed away. Louis 
 Blanc s "Ten Years" still finds readers, and 
 some may remember the political papers written 
 a few years later by Talandier for the " Inter 
 national Review," published in Boston. 
 
306 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 By invitation of M. Talandier I spent a day 
 (June 3) at Versailles, where the Chambre des 
 De pute s was then sitting, and discovered in the 
 anteroom, or salle d attente, that, by a curious 
 rule, foreigners were excluded until four P. M. ; 
 yet the name of my host brought me in after a 
 little delay. The hall was full of people wait 
 ing, each having to send his card to some mem 
 ber, naming on it the precise hour of arrival. 
 The member usually appeared promptly, when 
 an immense usher called in a stentorian voice 
 for "la personne qui a fait demander M. Con 
 stant " or whosoever it might be. Then the 
 constituent for such it commonly was ad 
 vanced toward the smiling member, who never 
 looked bored; the mask of hospitality being 
 probably the same, in this respect, through 
 out the legislative halls of the world. At last 
 M. Talandier appeared, and found me a place 
 among the Corps Diplomatique. The Cham 
 ber itself was more like the House of Repre 
 sentatives at Washington than like the House 
 of Commons; the members had little locked 
 desks, and some were writing letters, like our 
 Representatives, though I saw no newspapers. 
 The ordinary amount of noise was like that in 
 our Congress, though there was, happily, no 
 clapping of hands for pages ; but when the 
 members became especially excited, which in- 
 
LITERARY PARIS 307 
 
 deed happened very often, it was like a cage 
 of lions. For instance, I entered just as some 
 body had questioned the minister of war, Gen 
 eral Borel, about an alleged interference with 
 elections ; and his defiant reply had enraged 
 the " Lefts," or radicals, who constituted the 
 majority of the assembly. They shouted and 
 gesticulated, throwing up their hands and then 
 slapping them on their knees very angrily, until 
 the president rang his great bell, and they qui 
 eted down, lest he might put on his hat and 
 adjourn the meeting. In each case the mem 
 ber speaking took his stand in the desk, or tri 
 bune, below the president ; and the speeches 
 were sometimes read, sometimes given without 
 notes. The war minister, a stout, red-faced man, 
 always, the radicals said, half intoxicated, 
 stood with folded arms, and looked ready for a 
 coup d etat ; yet I heard it said about me that 
 he would be compelled either to retreat or to 
 resign. One saw at a glance how much pro- 
 founder political differences must be in France 
 than with us, since in that country they avow 
 edly concern the very existence of the republic. 
 I saw no women at the Chambre des De"pute"s, 
 even as spectators, though they may have been 
 concealed somewhere, as in the Ladies Gallery 
 of the House of Commons. An American was 
 surprised, twenty years ago, with all the asso- 
 
308 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 ciations of the French revolutions in his mind, 
 to see in Paris so much less exhibition of inter 
 est in public affairs, or indeed of general know 
 ledge, on the part of women than among men. 
 For instance, on my going one day into a crt- 
 merie in a distant part of Paris, and partaking 
 of a bowl of bouillon bourgeois at twenty-five 
 centimes (five cents), the woman in charge was 
 interested to hear that I was from America, and 
 asked if they spoke German there. Her hus 
 band laughed at her ignorance, and said that 
 America was discovered by Christophe Colon ; 
 going on to give a graphic and correct account 
 of the early struggles of Columbus, of his voy 
 age and his discouragement, of the mutiny of 
 his men, of his seeing the light on the shore, and 
 so on. Then he talked about Spain, the Italian 
 republic, and other matters, saying that he had 
 read it all in the school-books of the children 
 and in other books. It was delightful to find 
 a plain Frenchman in a blouse who, although 
 coarse and rough-looking, could talk so intelli 
 gently ; and his manners also had perfect cour 
 tesy. I could not but contrast him with the 
 refined Italian youth who once asked a friend 
 of mine in Florence what became of that young 
 Genoese who sailed westward in 1492 to dis 
 cover a new continent, and whether he had 
 ever been heard of again. 
 
LITERARY PARIS 309 
 
 On another day I dined with Louis Blanc in 
 bachelor quarters, with the Talandiers, Con- 
 ways, and one or two others. He was less gay 
 than before, yet talked much of the condition 
 and prospect of affairs. France, he said, was 
 not a real republic, but a nominal one ; having 
 monarchical institutions and traditions, with a 
 constitution well framed to make them per 
 petual. All the guests at his house seemed 
 alike anxious for the future. The minister of 
 war, whom I had heard virtually defying the 
 people a few days before, was so well en 
 trenched in power, they said, as to be practi 
 cally beyond reach ; and though the republi 
 cans controlled the Chambre des Deputes, that 
 was all, for the three other parties hated the 
 republic more than one another. I asked Louis 
 Blanc about Lamartine, whom he thought not 
 a great man, and even injurious to the republic 
 through his deference to the bourgeoisie. He 
 described the famous speech in which Lamar 
 tine insisted on the tricolored flag instead of 
 the red flag, and said it was quite wrong and 
 ridiculous. The red flag did not mean blood 
 at all, but order and unity, it was the old 
 oriflamme, the flag of Jeanne d Arc. The tri 
 color had represented the three orders of the 
 state, which were united into one by the revo 
 lution of 1848, so that the symbol was now 
 
310 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 meaningless ; and the demand for the red flag 
 was resisted only by the bourgeoisie. The red 
 flag, moreover, had always been the summons 
 to order, when it was raised a mob had notice 
 to disperse (as on the reading of the riot act) ; 
 and it was absurd in Lamartine to represent it 
 to the contrary, he knew better. The other 
 gentlemen all agreed with this, and with the 
 estimate of Lamartine. After dinner M. Talan- 
 dier played for us on the piano the Marseillaise, 
 which is always thrilling, and then the Carma 
 gnole, which is as formidable and dolorous as the 
 guillotine itself. It was strange, in view of this 
 beautiful city, constantly made more beautiful 
 by opening new great avenues, some not yet 
 finished, to recall these memories of all it had 
 been through, and to see those who had been 
 actors in its past scenes. 
 
 On leaving home I had been appointed a dele 
 gate to the Prison Discipline Congress, to be 
 held that year at Stockholm ; and though I 
 never got so far, I attended several preliminary 
 meetings of delegates in London and Paris, and 
 was especially pleased, in the latter place, to 
 see the high deference yielded by French ex 
 perts to our American leader, the late Dr. E. C. 
 Wines, and also the familiar knowledge shown 
 by these gentlemen in regard to American 
 methods and experiments. Less satisfactory 
 
LITERARY PARIS 311 
 
 was our national showing at another assem 
 blage, where we should have been represented 
 by a far larger and abler body of delegates. 
 This was the Association LitteVaire Interna 
 tionale, which was appointed to assemble under 
 the presidency of Victor Hugo, on June u. I 
 had gone to a few of the committee meetings at 
 the rooms of the Socie te des Gens de Lettres, 
 and, after my wonted fashion, had made an 
 effort to have women admitted to the Associa 
 tion LitteVaire ; this attempt having especial 
 reference to Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, who was 
 then in Paris, and whose unusual command of 
 the French language would have made her a 
 much better delegate than most of the actual 
 American representatives. In this effort I 
 failed, although my judgment was afterwards 
 vindicated when she gave great delight by a 
 speech in French at a women s convention, 
 where I heard her introduced by the courteous 
 and delicately articulating chairman as " Mees- 
 ses Ouardow." 
 
 As to the more literary gathering, the early 
 meetings were as indeterminate and unsatisfy 
 ing as such things are wont to be, so that I was 
 quite unprepared for the number and character 
 of those who finally assembled. The main 
 meeting was in some masonic hall, whose walls 
 were covered with emblems and Hebrew in- 
 
3 i2 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 scriptions ; and although the men were nearly 
 all strangers to me, it was something to know 
 that they represented the most cultivated liter 
 ary traditions of the world. When the roll was 
 called, there proved to be eighty-five Frenchmen 
 present, and only thirty-five from all other na 
 tions put together ; five of this minority being 
 Americans. I was the only one of these who 
 had ever published a book, I think. Mr. W. H. 
 Bishop was another delegate, but his first 
 novel, "Detmold," had not yet reached comple 
 tion in the " Atlantic ; " while the three remain 
 ing delegates were an Irishman, an Englishman, 
 and an American, all correspondents of Amer 
 ican newspapers, the last of them being the 
 late Edward King, since well known in liter 
 ature. It is proper to add that several den 
 tists, whose names had been duly entered as 
 delegates, had not yet arrived; and that at 
 later sessions there appeared, as more substan 
 tial literary factors, President Andrew D. White 
 and Mr. George W. Smalley. On that first 
 day, however, the English delegation was only 
 a little more weighty than ours, including Blan- 
 chard Jerrold and Tom Taylor, with our own 
 well-known fellow countryman "Hans Breit- 
 mann " (Charles Godfrey Leland), who did not 
 know that there was to be an American delega 
 tion, and was naturally claimed by the citizens 
 
LITERARY PARIS 313 
 
 of both his homes. Edmond About presided, 
 a cheery, middle-aged Frenchman, short and 
 square, with broad head and grayish beard ; and 
 I have often regretted that I took no list of the 
 others of his nationality, since it would have 
 doubtless included many who have since be 
 come known to fame. It is my impression that 
 Adolphe Belot, Jules Claretie, and Hector Malot 
 were there, and I am inclined to think that Max 
 Nordau also was present. 
 
 The discussions were in French, and there 
 fore of course animated ; but they turned at 
 first on unimportant subjects, and the whole 
 thing would have been rather a disappointment 
 to me since Victor Hugo s opening address 
 was to be postponed had it not been rumored 
 about that Tourgue"neff was a delegate to the 
 convention. Wishing more to see him than to 
 behold any living Frenchman, I beg~~* +^p. ever 
 kind secretary, M. Zaccone, to introduce me to 
 him after the adjournment. He led me to a 
 man of magnificent bearing, who towered above 
 all the Frenchmen, and was, on the whole, the 
 noblest and most attractive literary man whom 
 I have ever encountered. I can think of no 
 better way to describe him than by saying that 
 he united the fine benignant head of Longfellow 
 with the figure of Thackeray ; not that Tour- 
 gu^neff was as tall as the English novelist, but 
 
314 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 he had as distinctly the effect of height, and 
 afterwards, when he, Leland, and I stood to 
 gether, we were undoubtedly the tallest men 
 in the room. But the especial characteristic 
 of Tourgue"neff was a winning sweetness of 
 manner, which surpassed even Longfellow s, 
 and impressed one as being " kind nature s," to 
 adopt Tennyson s distinction, and not merely 
 those " next to best " manners which the poet 
 attributes to the great. 
 
 Tourgue neff greeted us heartily as Amer 
 icans, Mr. Bishop also forming one of the 
 group, and spoke warmly of those of our 
 compatriots whom he had known, as Emma 
 Lazarus and Professor Boyesen. He seemed 
 much gratified when I told him that the types 
 of reformers in his latest book, " Virgin Soil," 
 which may be read to more advantage in its 
 French form as "Terres Vierges," appeared 
 to me universal, not local, and that I was con 
 stantly reminded by them of men and women 
 whom I had known in America. This pleased 
 him, he explained, because the book had been 
 very ill received in Russia, in spite of its having 
 told the truth, as later events showed. All 
 this he said in English, which he continued to 
 use with us, although he did not speak it with 
 entire ease and correctness, and although we 
 begged him to speak in French. Afterwards, 
 
LITERARY PARIS 315 
 
 when he was named as one of the vice-presi 
 dents of the new association, the announcement 
 was received with applause, which was renewed 
 when he went upon the platform ; and it was 
 noticeable that no other man was so honored. 
 This showed his standing with French authors ; 
 but later I sought in vain for his photograph in 
 the shops, and his name proved wholly unfa 
 miliar. He was about to leave Paris, and I lost 
 the opportunity of further acquaintance. Since 
 then his fame has been temporarily obscured by 
 the commanding figure of Tolstoi, but I fancy 
 that it is now beginning to resume its prestige ; 
 and certainly there is in his books a more wholly 
 sympathetic quality than in Tolstoi s, with almost 
 equal power. In his " Poems in Prose " little 
 known among us, I fear, in spite of the admir 
 able translation made by Mrs. Perry there is 
 something nearer to the peculiar Hawthorn- 
 esque quality of imagination than in any other 
 book I know. 
 
 As to the Association Litteraire Interna 
 tionale, it had the usual provoking habit of 
 French conventions, and met only at intervals 
 of several days, as if to give its delegates 
 plenty of leisure to see Paris, and I could 
 attend no later meeting, although I was placed 
 on the Executive Committee for America ; but 
 it has since held regular annual conventions in 
 
316 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 different capitals, and has doubtless helped the 
 general agitation for better copyright laws. 
 
 I went again to the apartments of Louis Blanc 
 on July 14, with a young American friend, to 
 get tickets for the Rousseau centenary, which 
 was also to be, after the convenient French 
 habit of combination, a celebration of the cap 
 ture of the Bastille. Rousseau died July 2, 
 1778, and the Bastille was taken on July 14, 
 1789, so that neither date was strictly centen 
 nial, but nobody ever minds that in Paris ; and 
 if it had been proposed that our Declaration of 
 Independence or the Landing of the Pilgrims 
 should also be included in the festival, there 
 would have been no trouble in any mind on ac 
 count of the dates. Committee men were busy 
 in Louis Blanc s little parlor, and this as noisily 
 and eagerly as if the Bastille were again to be 
 taken : they talked and gesticulated as only 
 Latin races can ; in fact, the smallest commit 
 tee meeting in France is as full of excitement 
 as a monster convention. It is a wonder that 
 these people do not wear themselves out in 
 youth ; and yet old Frenchmen have usually 
 such an unabated fire in their eyes, set off by 
 gray hair and often black eyebrows, that they 
 make Anglo-Saxons of the same age look heavy 
 and dull in comparison. French emotion does 
 not exhaust itself, but accumulates strength in- 
 
LITERARY PARIS 317 
 
 definitely, needing only a touch of flame, at any 
 a g e > to go off like a rocket. 
 
 Little Louis Blanc came in and went out, in a 
 flowered dressing-gown ; and he really seemed, 
 after his long English residence, to be an ele 
 ment of calmness in the eager crowd. We ob 
 tained tickets for the evening banquet (Bastille 
 celebration) at three and a half francs each, and 
 also received cards for the afternoon (Rousseau 
 celebration) free and with reserved seats. To 
 prepare the mind for both occasions, I attended 
 a very exclusive and aristocratic mass at the 
 Chapelle Expiatoire, and, later, went by omni 
 bus to the Cirque Ame ricain, then existing in 
 the Place du Chdteau d Eau. This was the 
 place where the popular demonstration had 
 been held on the Voltaire day ; but I had not 
 seen that, and it was, in case of Rousseau, the 
 scene of the only daylight celebration. Crowds 
 of people were passing in, all seemingly French ; 
 we did not hear a syllable of any other language. 
 We were piloted to good seats, and found our 
 selves in the middle of enthusiastic groups, 
 jumping up, sitting down, calling, beckoning, 
 gesticulating, and talking aloud. There were 
 soon more than six thousand persons in a hall 
 which seated but four thousand, and the noise 
 of this multitude was something to make one 
 deaf. Every one seemed either looking for a 
 
3i8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 friend or making signals to one. Most of those 
 present were neatly dressed, even those who 
 wore blue blouses and white caps ; and all was 
 good nature, except that now and then some 
 man would make himself obnoxious and be put 
 out, usually under the charge of being a Bona- 
 partist sent there purposely to make trouble. 
 At such times there would be a sudden roar, 
 a waving of arms and sticks, amid which one 
 could discern a human figure being passed along 
 rapidly from hand to hand, and at last dropped, 
 gently but firmly, over the stairway; his hat 
 being considerately jammed down upon his 
 head during the process. Yet all was done 
 as good-naturedly as such a summary process 
 permits ; there was nothing that looked like 
 rioting. Opposite the high tribune, or speak 
 er s stand, was placed a bust of Rousseau, look 
 ing very white against a crimson velvet back 
 ground ; five French flags were above it, and 
 wreaths of violets and immortelles below, with 
 this inscription, " Consacra sa vie a la ve"riteY 
 Beside this were panels inscribed with the chief 
 events of Rousseau s life. 
 
 When at last Louis Blanc came in with others 
 all towering above him there was a great 
 clapping of hands, and shouts of " Vive 1 amnis- 
 tie ! Vive la Rdpublique ! Vive Louis Blanc ! " 
 The demand for amnesty referred to the pardon 
 
LITERARY PARIS 319 
 
 of political prisoners, and was then one of the 
 chief war-cries of the radical party of France. 
 After the group of speakers there appeared a 
 larger group of singers, there had been a 
 band present even earlier, and then all said 
 " Sh ! sh ! sh ! " and there was absolute silence 
 for the Marseillaise. Nothing of the kind in 
 this world can be more impressive than the way 
 in which an audience of six thousand French 
 radicals receives that wonderful air. I ob 
 served that the group of young men who led 
 the singing never once looked at the notes, and 
 few even had any, so familiar was it to all. 
 There was a perfect hush in that vast audience 
 while the softer parts were sung, and no one 
 joined even in the chorus at first, for everybody 
 was listening. The instant, however, that the 
 strain closed, the applause broke like a trop 
 ical storm, and the clapping of hands was like 
 the taking flight of a thousand doves all over the 
 vast arena. Behind those twinkling hands the 
 light dresses of ladies and the blue blouses of 
 workingmen seemed themselves to shimmer in 
 the air ; there was no coarse noise of pounding 
 on the floor or drumming on the seats, but there 
 was a vast cry of " Bis ! Bis ! " sent up from 
 the whole multitude, demanding a repetition. 
 When this was given, several thousand voices 
 joined in the chorus ; then the applause was 
 
320 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 redoubled, as if the hearers had gathered new 
 sympathy from one another ; after which there 
 was still one more great applauding gust, and 
 then an absolute quiet as Louis Blanc arose. 
 
 It all brought home to me that brief and 
 thrilling passage in Erckmann-Chatrian s story 
 of "Madame The rese," where a regiment of 
 French soldiers, having formed square, is being 
 crushed in by assaults on all sides, when the 
 colonel, sitting on his horse in the middle, takes 
 off his chapeau and elevates it on the point of 
 his sword, and then begins in a steady voice 
 to chant a song. Instantly a new life appears 
 to run through those bleeding and despairing 
 ranks ; one voice after another swells the chant, 
 and the crushed sides of the square gradually 
 straighten out under the strong inspiration, 
 until it is all in shape again, and the regiment is 
 saved. I could perfectly picture to myself that 
 scene, while listening to this performance of 
 the Marseillaise. Afterwards another air of the 
 French Revolution was played by the band, the 
 Chant du Depart, and this was received with 
 almost equal ecstasy, and was indeed fine and 
 stirring. There was also music of Rousseau s 
 own composition, the first I had ever heard, and 
 unexpectedly good. This was finely sung by 
 two vocalists from the Theatre Lyrique, and I 
 was told that they were risking their appoint 
 
LITERARY PARIS 321 
 
 ments at that theatre by singing in an assembly 
 so radical. 
 
 The speaking was eloquent and impressive, 
 being by Louis Blanc, M. Marcou, and M. 
 Hamel. All read their speeches, yet each so 
 gesticulated with the hand and accompanied 
 the action with the whole movement of the 
 body that it seemed less like reading than like 
 conversation. The orators were not so distin 
 guished as at the Voltaire celebration, yet it 
 was impossible to see and hear Louis Blanc 
 without liking and trusting him, while he es 
 caped wholly from that air of posing which was 
 almost inseparable from Victor Hugo, and was, 
 perhaps, made inevitable by the pedestal on 
 which France had placed him so long. The 
 audience on this occasion was three times as 
 large as at Hugo s address, but the attention 
 was as close and the appreciation almost as 
 delicate. It seems impossible to bring together 
 a French audience that has not an artistic 
 sense. The applause, like the speaking, had 
 always a certain intellectual quality about it ; 
 the things said might be extravagant or even 
 truculent, yet they must be passed through the 
 fine medium of the French tongue, and they 
 were heard by French ears. Whenever there 
 was the long swell of a sonorous sentence, the 
 audience listened with hushed breath ; and if 
 
322 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 any one interrupted the cadence by premature 
 applause, there came an almost angry " Sh ! 
 sh ! " to postpone it. Once when this inter 
 ruption was persistently made, my next neigh 
 bor exclaimed with fury, " C est tr-r-rop de 
 precipitation ! " throwing himself forward and 
 glaring at the unhappy marplot with an expres 
 sion suggestive of guillotines ; but when the 
 interruption subsided and the sentence stood 
 fulfilled, the reserved applause broke with ac 
 cumulated power, like a breaking wave. The 
 enthusiasm of a French radical audience is as 
 wonderful as the self-control of its stillness, or 
 as the sudden burst of vivacity let loose during 
 all the intervals between the speeches. The 
 whole affair lasted from two o clock until nearly 
 six, and during the last hour or two of the time 
 I found myself steadily losing that disentan 
 gling power which one must use in comprehend 
 ing the sentences of a foreign language ; the 
 faculty became, as it were, benumbed in me, 
 and the torrent of speech simply flowed by 
 without reaching the brain ; it was much the 
 same, I found, with my two young companions. 
 Yet Louis Blanc was of all Frenchmen I had 
 ever met the easiest to follow, a thing the 
 more remarkable as his brother, Charles Blanc, 
 the well-known art critic, was one of the most 
 difficult. 
 
LITERARY PARIS 323 
 
 The evening banquet in memory of the de 
 struction of the Bastille was to take place at 
 half past seven in a cafe" in the Rue de Belle 
 ville, near the city barriers. As we went to 
 ward the place, we found ourselves in an abso 
 lutely French region. There was no more 
 " English spoken " in the shop windows ; the 
 people around us were natives or residents, not 
 lookers-on ; there was an air of holiday ; and 
 there were children not a few, including even 
 babies tightly swathed. As we toiled up the 
 long hill, we found ourselves approaching the 
 very outskirts of Paris ; and when we entered 
 the hall, there must have been five hundred 
 persons already seated, among whom we were 
 perhaps the only Anglo-Saxons. The men and 
 women around us were about equal in num 
 ber, and were all neatly, sometimes fashionably 
 dressed. Two men opposite us had an espe 
 cially cultivated look, and soon encouraged some 
 conversation. At first they took us for Eng 
 lish, but were obviously pleased to hear that 
 we were Americans, and then as visibly disap 
 pointed at learning, on inquiry, that neither of 
 us belonged to the masonic order, with which 
 European radicals claim a certain affinity. 
 They drank their claret to the Re*publique 
 Ame"ricaine, but when I proposed the Re*pub- 
 lique Franchise they shook their heads quite 
 
324 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 sadly, and pronounced that to be a widely dif 
 ferent thing. This, it must be remembered, 
 was nearly twenty years ago, when the sense 
 of uncertainty was far greater than it is now, 
 and when the policy of the administration was 
 thought very reactionary. 
 
 There was a surprisingly good banquet for the 
 money, when it comes to cooking, Frenchmen 
 of all parties make much the same demands, 
 but there were too few waiters and the courses 
 came very slowly, so that when we left the hall, 
 at ten o clock, the guests had got no farther 
 than chicken. Perhaps it was one result of 
 this that the speaking took place as the dinner 
 went on, instead of waiting for the cigars, as 
 with us. I cannot recall the names of the ora 
 tors, except General Wimpffen, a man of vet 
 eran and soldierly appearance, who was received 
 with great enthusiasm, the French army, since 
 the Commune, being regarded as on the con 
 servative side. A peculiarly cordial greeting 
 was given to a lady who read extracts from 
 letters ; such a spectacle being then rare, I was 
 told, at French public meetings. The speakers 
 captured and destroyed the Bastille with great 
 repetition and unanimously, and some of the 
 talk was entirely without notes and quite elo 
 quent. At intervals the band would strike in 
 with tremendous force, especially in the direc- 
 
LITERARY PARIS 325 
 
 tion of the Marseillaise, the guests all joining 
 in the chorus, with their mouths full and with 
 a great thumping of knife-handles on the table. 
 One of my young companions pointed out that 
 the gleam of the blades during this last per 
 formance was the only thing which made a red 
 republic seem a possibility. 
 
 The nearest approach to a disturbance was 
 provoked by a man who utterly refused to keep 
 still during the speeches, and gave forth awful 
 vociferations. At first all thought him a Bona- 
 partist who had come in to make trouble, and 
 they were going to put him out by main force. 
 He succeeded, however, in explaining that he 
 did not aim at a revolution, but at his dinner ; 
 the waiters having repeatedly passed him by, 
 he said, so that he had had nothing to eat. 
 Then all sympathy turned at once eagerly in 
 his favor, for he had touched a national chord, 
 and one appealing to radical and conservative 
 alike, the world over ; so he was fed profusely 
 at last, and all was peace. 
 
XI 
 
 ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 LIVING in a university city, I am occasionally 
 asked by students how they can best train 
 themselves for public speaking ; and I always 
 begin with one bit of counsel, based on half 
 a century s experience : " Enlist in a reform." 
 Engage in something which you feel for the 
 moment to be so unspeakably more important 
 than yourself as wholly to dwarf you, and the 
 rest will come. No matter what it is, tariff 
 or free trade, gold standard or silver, even com 
 munism or imperialism, the result is the 
 same as to oratory, if you are only sincere. 
 Even the actor on the dramatic stage must fill 
 himself with his part, or he is nothing, and the 
 public speaker on the platform must be more 
 than a dramatic actor to produce the highest 
 effects. When the leading debater in an inter 
 collegiate competition told me, the other day, 
 that he did not believe in the cause which he 
 was assigned to advocate, my heart sank for 
 him, and I dimly foresaw the defeat which 
 came. There is an essential thing wanting to 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 327 
 
 the eloquence of the men who act a part ; but 
 given a profound sincerity, and there is some 
 thing wonderful in the way it overcomes the ob 
 stacles of a hoarse voice, a stammering tongue, 
 or a feeble presence. 
 
 On the anti-slavery platform, where I was 
 reared, I cannot remember one really poor 
 speaker; as Emerson said, "eloquence was 
 dog-cheap " there. The cause was too real, too 
 vital, too immediately pressing upon heart and 
 conscience, for the speaking to be otherwise 
 than alive. It carried men away as with a 
 flood. Fame is never wide or retentive enough 
 to preserve the names of more than two or 
 three leaders : Bright and Cobden in the anti- 
 corn-law movement ; Clarkson and Wilberforce 
 in that which carried West India Emancipa 
 tion ; Garrison, Phillips, and John Brown in 
 the great American agitation. But there were 
 constantly to be heard in anti-slavery meetings 
 such minor speakers as Parker, Douglass, 
 William Henry Channing, Burleigh, Foster, 
 May, Remond, Pillsbury, Lucretia Mott, Abby 
 Kelley, each one holding the audience, each 
 one making converts. How could eloquence 
 not be present there, when we had not time to 
 think of eloquence ? as Clarkson under simi 
 lar circumstances said that he had not time to 
 think of the welfare of his soul. I know that 
 
328 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 my own teachers were the slave women who 
 came shyly before the audience, women per 
 haps as white as my own sisters, Ellen Craft 
 was quite as white, women who had been 
 stripped and whipped and handled with insolent 
 hands and sold to the highest bidder as un 
 hesitatingly as the little girl whom I had seen 
 in the St. Louis slave-market ; or women who, 
 having once escaped, had, like Harriet Tubman, 
 gone back again and again into the land of 
 bondage to bring away their kindred and friends. 
 My teachers were men whom I saw first walk 
 ing clumsily across the platform, just arrived 
 from the South, as if they still bore a hundred 
 pounds weight of plantation soil on each ankle, 
 and whom I saw develop in the course of years 
 into the dignity of freedom. What were the 
 tricks of oratory in the face of men and women 
 like these ? We learned to speak because their 
 presence made silence impossible. 
 
 All this, however, I did not recognize at the 
 time so clearly as I do now; nor was I sure 
 that I, at least, was accomplishing much for the 
 cause I loved. In one respect the influence 
 of Wendell Phillips did me harm for a time, as 
 to speaking in public, because it was his firm 
 belief that the two departments of literature 
 and oratory were essentially distinct, and could 
 not well be combined in the same person. He 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 329 
 
 had made his choice, he said, and had aban 
 doned literature. It was hard to persuade him 
 to write even a pamphlet or a circular, although 
 when he did it was done with such terseness 
 and vigor as to refute his theory. Of this I 
 was gradually convinced, but there was a long 
 period during which I accepted the alternative 
 offered by him, and therefore reasoned that 
 because literature was my apparent vocation, 
 oratory was not. Of course it was often neces 
 sary for me to appear on the platform, but I 
 did it at first only as a duty, and did not feel 
 sure of myself in that sphere. Little by little 
 the impression passed away, and I rejected 
 Phillips s doctrine. Since the civil war, espe 
 cially, I have felt much more self-confidence 
 in public speaking ; and it is one sign of this 
 that I have scarcely ever used notes before an 
 audience, and have long since reached the point 
 where they would be a hindrance, not a help. 
 Indeed, I believe that most young speakers 
 can reach this point much earlier than they 
 suppose ; and in my little book, " Hints on 
 Writing and Speech-making," I have indicated 
 how this can be done. A speaker s magnetic 
 hold upon his audience is unquestionably im 
 paired by the sight of the smallest bit of paper 
 in his hand 
 
 During a long intervening period, however, I 
 
330 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 lectured a great deal in what were then called 
 "lyceum" courses, which stretched over the 
 northern half of the United States, forty years 
 ago, to an extent now hardly conceivable. 
 There were two or three large organizations, 
 or bureaus, which undertook systematically the 
 task of bringing speaker and audience together, 
 with the least possible inconvenience to both. 
 One of these, whose centre was Dubuque, 
 Iowa, negotiated in 1867 for thirty-five lectur 
 ers and one hundred and ten lecture courses; 
 undertaking to distribute the one with perfect 
 precision, and to supply the other. As a re 
 sult, the lecturer left home with a printed cir 
 cular in his pocket, assigning his dozen or his 
 hundred engagements, as the case might be. 
 Many of these might be in towns of which he 
 had never heard the names. No matter; he 
 was sure that they would be there, posted a 
 day s journey apart, and all ready to receive 
 him. As a rule, he would meet in each new 
 place what looked like the same audience, 
 would make the same points in his lecture as 
 before, would sleep at what seemed the same 
 hotel, and breakfast on the same tough beef 
 steak. He would receive the usual compli 
 ments, if any, and make the same courteous 
 reply to the accustomed questions as to the 
 acoustics of the hall and the intelligence of the 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 331 
 
 audience. In the far West he would perhaps 
 reach villages where, as the people came twenty 
 miles for their entertainments, a dance might 
 be combined with the lecture, " tickets to 
 Emerson and ball, one dollar." I have still a 
 handbill, printed in some village in Indiana in 
 1867, wherein Mr. J. Jackson offers to read 
 "Hamlet" for twenty -five cents admission, 
 ladies free. He adds that after the reading 
 he will himself plan for the formation of a com 
 pany, with a small capital, for the manufacture 
 of silk handkerchiefs of a quality superior to 
 anything in the market, and will relate some 
 incidents of his early life in connection with this 
 particular article. Thus having administered 
 Hamlet once, he would prepare his audience to 
 shed the necessary tears on a second hearing. 
 
 To the literary man, ordinarily kept at home 
 by task work or by domestic cares, and both 
 of these existed in my own case, there was a 
 refreshing variety in a week or two, possibly a 
 month or more, of these lecturing experiences. 
 Considered as a regular vocation, such lectur 
 ing was benumbing to the mind as well as 
 exhausting to the body, but it was at any rate 
 an antidote for provincialism. It was a good 
 thing to be entertained beyond the Mississippi, 
 at a house which was little more than a log 
 cabin, and to find, as I have found, Longfel- 
 
332 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 low s Dante on the table and Millais* Hugue 
 not Lovers on the wall ; or to visit, as I once 
 visited, a village of forty houses, in the same 
 region, in nineteen of which the "Atlantic 
 Monthly" was regularly taken. After such 
 experiences a man could go back to his writing 
 or his editing with enlarged faith. He would 
 get new impressions, too, of the dignity and 
 value of the lecture system itself. In one of 
 my trips, while on a small branch railway in 
 New England, I found everybody talking about 
 the prospective entertainment of that evening, 
 conductor, brakemen, and passengers all 
 kept recurring to the subject; everybody was 
 going. As we drew near the end, the conduc 
 tor singled me out as the only stranger and the 
 probable lecturer, and burst into eager explana 
 tion. " The president of the lyceum," he said, 
 " is absent from the village, and the vice-presi 
 dent, who will present you to the audience, is 
 the engineer of this very train." So it turned 
 out : the engineer introduced me with dignity 
 and propriety; he proved to be a reader of 
 Emerson and Carlyle, and he gave me a ride 
 homeward on his locomotive the next morning. 
 There was something pleasant, also, in the 
 knowledge that the lecturer himself met the 
 people as man to man; that he stood upon 
 the platform to be judged and weighed. From 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 333 
 
 the talk of his fellow travelers in the train, be 
 forehand, he could know what they expected of 
 him ; and from the talk next morning, how he 
 had stood the test. Wendell Phillips especially 
 dreaded this last ordeal, and always went home 
 after lecturing, if his home could by any possi 
 bility be reached that night, in order to avoid 
 it. The lecturer, often unrecognized in his 
 traveling garb, might look through the eyes of 
 others on his own face and figure ; might hear 
 his attitudes discussed, or his voice, or his opin 
 ions. Once, after giving a lecture on physical 
 education, I heard it talked over between two 
 respectable ladies, with especial reference to 
 some disrespectful remarks of mine on the 
 American pie. I had said, in a sentence which, 
 though I had not really reduced it to writing, 
 yet secured a greater circulation through the 
 newspapers than any other sentence I shall 
 ever write, that the average pie of the Amer 
 ican railway station was " something very white 
 and indigestible at the top, very moist and indi 
 gestible at the bottom, and with untold horrors 
 in the middle." I had given this lecture at 
 Fall River, and was returning by way of the 
 steamboat to Providence, when I heard one of 
 my neighbors ask the other if she heard the 
 lecture. 
 
 " No," she answered, " I did n t. But Mis 
 
334 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 Jones, she come home that night, and she 
 flung her hood right down on the table, and 
 says she, There, says she, Mr. Jones, I m 
 never goin to have another o them mince pies 
 in the house just as long as I live, says she. 
 There was Sammy, says she, he was sick all 
 last night, and I do believe it was nothin in all 
 the world but just them mince pies, says she." 
 
 "Well," said the other lady, a slow, deliberate 
 personage, " I do suppose that them kind of 
 concomitants ain t good things." 
 
 Here the conversation closed, but Mr. Weller 
 did not feel more gratified when he heard the 
 Bath footmen call a boiled leg of mutton a 
 "swarry," and wondered what they would call 
 a roast one, than I when my poor stock of 
 phrases was reinforced by this unexpected poly 
 syllable. Instead of wasting so many words 
 to describe an American railway pie, I should 
 have described it, more tersely, as a " concom 
 itant." 
 
 The lecture system was long since shaken to 
 pieces in America by the multiplying of news 
 papers and the growth of musical and dra 
 matic opportunities. The "bureaus" now exist 
 mainly for the benefit of foreign celebrities; 
 and the American lecturer has come to concern 
 himself more and more with questions of pub 
 lic policy and morals, while literature and sci- 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 335 
 
 ence have receded more into the background. 
 The transition was easy from the lyceum course 
 to the political platform, and this, at least, has 
 held its own. No delusion is harder to drive 
 out of the public mind than the impression that 
 college -bred American men habitually avoid 
 public duties. It may hold in a few large cities, 
 but is rarely the case in country towns, and in 
 New England generally is quite untrue. In 
 looking back fifty years, I cannot put my finger 
 on five years when I myself was not perform 
 ing some official service for the city or state, 
 or both simultaneously. In each of the four 
 places where I have resided I have been a 
 member of some public school committee ; and 
 in three of these places a trustee of the public 
 library, there being then no such institution in 
 the fourth town, although I was on a committee 
 to prepare for one. 
 
 As to service to the commonwealth, since my 
 return to my native state twenty years ago 
 I have spent thirteen years in some public 
 function, one year as chief of the governor s 
 personal staff, two years as member of the state 
 House of Representatives, three years on the 
 state Board of Education, and seven years as 
 state military and naval historian. How well 
 I did my duty is not the question ; we are deal 
 ing with quantity of service, not quality. Be- 
 
336 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 sides all this, I have almost invariably voted 
 when there was any voting to be done, have 
 repeatedly been a delegate to political con 
 ventions, and have usually attended what are 
 called primary meetings, often presiding at them. 
 There is nothing exceptional in all this ; it is 
 a common thing for American citizens to have 
 rendered as much service as is here stated, and 
 in the university city where I dwell it is the 
 rule, and not the exception, for professors and 
 instructors to take their share in public duties. 
 Some of those most faithful in this respect have 
 been among the most typical and fastidious 
 scholars, such as Professor Charles Eliot Norton 
 and the late Professor Francis James Child. I 
 confess that it makes me somewhat indignant 
 to hear such men stigmatized as mere idealists 
 and dilettantes by politicians who have never in 
 all their lives done so much to purify and ele 
 vate politics as these men have been doing daily 
 for many years. 
 
 Side by side with this delusion there is an im 
 pression, equally mistaken, that college-bred men 
 are disliked in politics, and have to encounter 
 prejudice and distrust, simply by reason of edu 
 cation. They do indeed encounter this preju 
 dice, but it comes almost wholly from other edu 
 cated men who think that they can make a point 
 against rivals by appealing to some such feeling. 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 337 
 
 Nobody used this weapon more freely, for in 
 stance, than the late General B. F. Butler, who 
 was himself a college graduate. He was always 
 ready to deride Governor John D. Long for hav 
 ing translated Virgil ; while his audiences, if let 
 alone, would have thought it a creditable per 
 formance. As a rule, it may be assumed that 
 any jeer at a " scholar in politics " proceeds 
 from some other scholar in politics. It was 
 almost pathetic to me to see, while in the Mas 
 sachusetts legislature, the undue respect and 
 expectation with which the more studious men 
 in that body were habitually treated by other 
 members, who perhaps knew far more than 
 they about the matters of practical business 
 with which legislatures are mainly occupied. It 
 was, if analyzed, a tribute to a supposed breadth 
 of mind which did not always exist, or to a com 
 mand of language which proved quite inade 
 quate. Many a college graduate stammers and 
 repeats himself, while a man from the anvil or 
 the country store says what he has to say and 
 sits down. Again and again, during my service 
 in the legislature, when some member had been 
 sent there by his town, mainly to get one thing 
 done, a boundary changed or a local railway 
 chartered, he has come to me with an ur 
 gent request to make his speech for him ; and I 
 have tried to convince him of the universal truth 
 
338 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 that a single-speech man who has never before 
 opened his lips, but who understands his ques 
 tion through and through, will be to other mem 
 bers a welcome relief from a voice they hear 
 too often. Wordsworth says : 
 
 " I Ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds 
 
 With coldness still returning ; 
 Alas ! the gratitude of men 
 
 Hath oftener left me mourning." 
 
 I have much oftener been saddened by the too 
 great deference of men who were my superiors 
 in everything but a diploma than I have been 
 amazed by their jealousy or distrust. 
 
 It is my firm conviction that there never was 
 an honester body of men, on the whole, than 
 the two Massachusetts legislatures with which 
 I served in 1880 and 1881. If there has been 
 a serious change since, which I do not believe, 
 it has been a very rapid decline. Doubtless the 
 legislature was extremely liable to prejudice and 
 impatience ; it required tact to take it at the right 
 moment, and also not to bore it. I had next me, 
 for a whole winter, a politician of foreign birth, 
 so restless that he never could remain half an 
 hour in his seat, and who took such an aversion 
 to one of the ablest lawyers in the house, because 
 of his long and frequent speeches, that he made 
 it a rule to go out whenever this orator began, 
 and to vote against every motion he made. This 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 339 
 
 was an individual case ; yet personal popularity 
 certainly counted for a great deal, up to the 
 moment when any man trespassed upon it and 
 showed that his head was beginning to be 
 turned ; from that moment his advantage was 
 gone. Men attempting to bully the House usu 
 ally failed ; so did those who were too visibly 
 wheedling and coaxing, or who struck an unfair 
 blow at an opponent, or who aspersed the gen 
 eral integrity of the body they addressed, or 
 who even talked down to it too much. On 
 the other hand, there existed among the mem 
 bers certain vast and inscrutable undercurrents 
 of prejudice ; as, for instance, those relating to 
 the rights of towns, or the public school system, 
 or the law of settlement, or perhaps only ques 
 tions of roads and navigable streams, or of the 
 breadth of wheels or the close tim* of fishing, 
 points which could never be quite appreci 
 ated by academic minds or even city-bred minds, 
 and which yet might at any moment create a 
 current formidable to encounter, and usually 
 impossible to resist. Every good debater in 
 the House and every one of its recognized legal 
 authorities might be on one side, and yet the 
 smallest contest with one of these latent preju 
 dices would land them in a minority. 
 
 There were men in the House who scarcely 
 ever spoke, but who comprehended these pre- 
 
340 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 judices through and through; and when I had 
 a pet measure to support, I felt more alarmed 
 at seeing one of these men passing quietly 
 about among the seats, or even conversing with 
 a group in the cloak-room, than if I had found 
 all the leaders in the legislature opposed to me. 
 Votes were often carried against the leaders, 
 but almost never against this deadly undertow 
 of awakened prejudice. No money could pos 
 sibly have affected it ; and indeed the attempt 
 to use money to control the legislature must 
 then have been a very rare thing. There was 
 not then, and perhaps is not to this day, any 
 organized corporation which had such a control 
 ling influence in Massachusetts as have certain 
 railways, according to rumor, in Connecticut and 
 Pennsylvania. Something of this power has 
 been attributed, since my time, perhaps with 
 out reason, to the great West End Railway ; 
 but there was certainly only one man in the 
 legislature, at the time I describe, who was 
 generally believed to be the agent of a powerful 
 corporation ; and although he was one of the 
 most formidable debaters in the house, by rea 
 son of wit and brilliancy, he yet failed to carry 
 votes through this general distrust. Men in 
 such bodies often listen eagerly, for entertain 
 ment, to an orator who commands after all but 
 few votes, while they are perhaps finally con- 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 341 
 
 vinced, nevertheless, by some dull or stammer 
 ing speaker who thoroughly comprehends what 
 he is discussing and whose sincerity is recog 
 nized by all. 
 
 Perhaps the most tedious but often the most 
 amusing part of legislative life consists in the 
 hearings before committees. I was at differ 
 ent times House chairman of committees on 
 constitutional amendments, on education, on 
 woman suffrage, and on " expediting the busi 
 ness of the House." All these were liable to 
 be the prey of what are called cranks, but espe 
 cially the first of these, which gathered what 
 Emerson once called " the soul of the soldiery 
 of dissent." There were men and women who 
 haunted the State House simply to address the 
 sessions of the Committee on Constitutional 
 Amendments, and who would have been per 
 fectly ready to take all that part of the business 
 off our hands. I find in my notebook that one 
 of these, an Irishman, once said to us, with 
 the headlong enthusiasm of his race, " Before I 
 say anything on this subject, let me say a word 
 or two ! In a question of integral calculus, 
 you must depend on some one who can solve it. 
 Now I have solved this question of Biennial Ses 
 sions," this being the subject under considera 
 tion, " and you must depend on me. Working 
 men, as a rule, have what may be called a moral 
 
342 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 sense. Moral sense is that which enables us to 
 tell heat from cold, to tell white from yellow : 
 that is moral sense. Moral sense tells us right 
 from wrong." Then followed an address with 
 more of fact and reasoning than one could pos 
 sibly associate with such an introduction, but 
 ending with the general conclusion, "It [the 
 biennial method] would give more power to the 
 legislature, for they would centralize more money 
 into their pockets. I hope every member of the 
 legislature, when this matter comes up, will be 
 voted down." All these flowers of speech are 
 taken from my own notebook as kept in the 
 committee. 
 
 I always rather enjoyed being contradicted 
 in the legislature or being cross-examined on the 
 witness-stand ; first, because the position gives 
 one opportunity to bring in, by way of rejoinder, 
 points which would not have fitted legitimately 
 into one s main statement, thus approaching the 
 matter by a flank movement, as it were ; and 
 again because the sympathy of the audience is 
 always with the party attacked, and nothing 
 pleases the spectators better, especially in the 
 court-room, then to have a witness turn the 
 tables on the lawyer. It is much the same in 
 legislative bodies, and nothing aided the late 
 General Butler more than the ready wit with 
 which he would baffle the whole weight of argu- 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 343 
 
 ment by a retort. The same quality belonged 
 to the best rough-and-ready fighter in the Mas 
 sachusetts legislature of 1881, a man to whom 
 I have already referred as lacking the confi 
 dence of the House. He was a man who often 
 hurt the cause he advocated by the brutality 
 of his own argument, and was never so formid 
 able as when he was driven into a corner, and 
 suddenly, so to speak, threw a somerset over 
 his assailant s head and came up smiling. I re 
 member to have been once the victim of this 
 method when I felt safest. I was arguing 
 against one of those bills which were constantly 
 reappearing for the prohibition of oleomarga 
 rine, and which usually passed in the end, from 
 a sheer desire to content the farmers. I was 
 arguing what I have always thought to this 
 day that good oleomargarine was far better 
 than bad butter, and should not be prohibited ; 
 and I fortified this by a story I had just heard 
 of a gentleman in New York city, who had in 
 troduced the substitute without explanation at 
 a lunch he had lately given, and who, on asking 
 his guests to compare it with the best butter, 
 also on the table, found them all selecting the 
 oleomargarine. The House had seemed about 
 equally divided, and I thought my little anecdote 
 
 had carried the day, when Mr. arose and 
 
 with the profoundest seriousness asked, " Will 
 
344 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 the gentleman kindly inform us at what precise 
 stage of the lunch party this test was applied ? " 
 The retort brought down the house instantly, 
 and the rout which followed was overwhelming. 
 It readily occurred to the experienced, or even 
 to the inexperienced, that at a convivial party 
 in New York there might arrive a period when 
 the judgment of the guests would lose some of 
 its value. 
 
 I had, in the legislature, my fair share of suc 
 cesses and failures, having the pleasure, for 
 instance, of reporting and carrying through the 
 present law which guarantees children in pub 
 lic schools from being compelled to read from 
 the Bible against the wish of their parents, and 
 also the bill giving to the Normal Art School a 
 dwelling-place of its own. I contributed largely, 
 the reporters thought, to the defeat of a mea 
 sure which my constituents generally approved, 
 the substitution of biennial sessions for annual ; 
 and have lived to see it finally carried through 
 the legislature, and overwhelmingly defeated by 
 the popular vote. I supported many proposi 
 tions which required time to mature them and 
 have since become laws ; as the abolition of the 
 poll tax qualification for voting, and the final 
 effacement of the school district system. Other 
 such measures which I supported still require 
 farther time for agitation, as woman suffrage 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 345 
 
 and the removal of the stigma on atheist wit 
 nesses. The latter, as well as the former, was 
 very near my heart, since I think it an outrage 
 first to admit the evidence of atheists, and then 
 admit evidence to show that they are such, 
 a contradiction which Professor Longfellow de 
 scribed as " allowing men to testify, and then 
 telling the jury that their testimony was not 
 worth having." This measure was defeated, 
 not by the Roman Catholics in the House, but 
 by the Protestants, the representatives of the 
 former being equally divided ; a result attrib 
 uted mainly to my having a certain personal 
 popularity among that class. A more curious 
 result of the same thing was when the woman 
 suffrage bill was defeated, and when four Irish- 
 American members went out and sat in the 
 lobby, beside Mr. Plunkett, the armless ser- 
 geant-at-arms, who told me the fact afterwards, 
 not wishing either to vote for the bill or to 
 vote against what I desired. I rejoice to say 
 that I had the same experience described by 
 Theodore Roosevelt, in finding my general lik 
 ing for the Irish temperament confirmed by 
 seeing men of that race in public bodies. Often 
 unreasonable, impetuous, one-sided, or schem 
 ing, they produce certainly some men of a high 
 type of character. There was no one in the 
 legislature for whose motives and habits of mind 
 
346 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 I had more entire respect than for those of a 
 young Irish-American lawyer, since dead, who 
 sat in the next seat to mine during a whole 
 session. I believe that the instinct of this 
 whole class for politics is on the whole a sign of 
 promise, although producing some temporary 
 evils ; and that it is much more hopeful, for in 
 stance, than the comparative indifference to 
 public affairs among our large French-Canadian 
 population. 
 
 The desire for office, once partially gratified, 
 soon becomes very strong, and the pride of 
 being known as a " vote-getter " is a very po 
 tent stimulus to Americans, and is very demor 
 alizing. Few men are willing to let the offices 
 come to them, and although they respect this 
 quality of abstinence in another, if combined 
 with success, they do not have the same feel 
 ing for it per se. They early glide into the 
 habit of regarding office as a perquisite, and as 
 something to be given to the man who works 
 hardest for it, not to the man who is best fitted 
 for it. Money too necessarily enters into the 
 account, as is shown by the habit of assessing 
 candidates in proportion to their salaries a 
 thing to which I have always refused to sub 
 mit. Again, I am sorry to say, there is a cer 
 tain amount of hypocrisy on the subject, and 
 men often carry on a still hunt, as it is tech- 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 347 
 
 nically called, and do not frankly own their 
 methods. I remember when, some thirty years 
 ago, a man eminent in our public life was boast 
 ing to me of the nomination of his younger 
 brother for Congress, and this especially on 
 the ground that whereas his competitor for the 
 nomination had gone about promising offices 
 and other rewards to his henchmen, the suc 
 cessful candidate had entirely refused to do 
 anything of the kind, and had won on his 
 merits alone. Afterward, on my asking the 
 manager of the latter s campaign whether there 
 was really so much difference in the methods 
 of the two, he said with a chuckle, " Well, I 
 guess there was n t much left undone on either 
 side." The whole tendency of public life is 
 undoubtedly to make a man an incipient boss, 
 and to tempt him to scheme and bargain ; and 
 it is only the most favorable circumstances 
 which can enable a man to succeed without 
 this ; it is mainly a question whether he shall 
 do it in person, or through an agent or " wicked 
 partner." The knowledge of this drives from 
 public life some men well fitted to adorn it, and 
 brings in many who are unfit. The only ques 
 tion is whether there is much variation in this re 
 spect between different countries, and whether 
 the process by which a man gets promotion in 
 England, for instance, differs always essentially 
 
34 8 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 from the method by which position is gained in 
 American public life. It is my own impression 
 that this is also a case where there is not much 
 left undone on either side. 
 
 Here is one plain advantage in the hands of 
 the literary man: that he lives mainly in a 
 world where these various devices are far less 
 needful. The artist, said Goethe, is the only 
 man who lives with unconcealed aims. Suc 
 cesses are often won by inferior productions, 
 no doubt, but it is because these are in some 
 way better fitted to the current taste, and it is 
 very rarely intrigue or pushing which secures 
 fame. It is rare to see a book which suc 
 ceeds mainly through business strategy ; and if 
 such a case occurs, it is very apt to be only a 
 temporary affair, followed by reaction. This, 
 therefore, is an advantage on the side of litera 
 ture ; but, on the other hand, the direct contact 
 with men and the sense of being uncloistered 
 is always a source of enjoyment in public life, 
 and I should be sorry to go altogether without 
 it. Presiding at public meetings, for instance, 
 is a position which affords positive enjoyment 
 to any one to whom it comes easily ; it demands 
 chiefly a clear head, prompt decision, absolute 
 impartiality, and tolerable tact. An audience 
 which recognizes these qualities will almost in 
 variably sustain the chairman; those present 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 349 
 
 have usually come there for a certain purpose, 
 to carry the meeting fairly through, and they 
 will stand by a man who helps to this, though 
 if he is tricky they will rebel, and if he is 
 irresolute they will ride over him. The rules 
 of order are really very simple, and are almost 
 always based on good common sense ; and 
 there is the same sort of pleasure in managing 
 a somewhat turbulent meeting that is found in 
 driving a four-in-hand. At smaller meetings of 
 committees and the like, an enormous amount 
 can be done by conciliation ; nine times out of 
 ten the differences are essentially verbal, and 
 the suggestion of a word, the substitution of a 
 syllable, will perhaps quell the rising storm. 
 People are sometimes much less divided in 
 purpose than they suppose themselves to be, 
 and an extremely small concession will furnish 
 a sufficient relief for pride. There is much, 
 also, in watching the temper of those with 
 whom you deal and in choosing the fortunate 
 moment, a thing which the late President 
 Garfield, while leader of the House of Repre 
 sentatives at Washington, pointed out to me 
 as the first essential of success. There were 
 days, he said, when one could carry through, 
 almost without opposition, measures that at 
 other times would have to be fought inch by 
 inch ; and I afterwards noticed the same thing 
 
350 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 in the Massachusetts legislature. It is so, 
 also, I have heard the attendants say, even 
 with the wild beasts in a menagerie : there are 
 occasions when the storm signals are raised, 
 and no risks must be taken, even with the 
 tamest. 
 
 Probably no other presidential election which 
 ever took place in this country showed so small 
 a share of what is base or selfish in politics as 
 the first election of President Cleveland; and 
 in this I happened to take a pretty active part. 
 I was concerned in his original nomination and 
 afterwards spoke in his behalf in five different 
 states, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ver 
 mont, New York, and New Jersey, and was 
 brought closely in contact with the current of 
 popular feeling, which I found a sound and 
 wholesome one. The fact that he was a new 
 man kept him singularly free from personal 
 entanglements until actually in office ; and his 
 rather deliberate and stubborn temperament, 
 with the tone of his leading supporters, gave 
 an added safeguard. On the other hand, the 
 same slowness of temperament made it impossi 
 ble for him to supervise all departments at once, 
 and he had to leave some of them in the hands 
 of old-fashioned spoilsmen. There was among 
 those who originally brought him forward 
 the so-called Mugwumps an almost exag- 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 351 
 
 gerated unselfishness, at least for a time; in 
 Massachusetts, especially, it was practically un 
 derstood among them that they were to ask 
 for nothing personally ; and they generally got 
 what they asked for. Mr. Cleveland s admin 
 istration, with all its strength and weakness, 
 has gone into history ; he had, if ever a man 
 had, les dtfauts dc ses qualitfs, but I cannot 
 remember any President whose support im 
 plied so little that was personally unsatisfac 
 tory. This I say although I was led by my in 
 terest in him to accept, rather against my will, 
 a nomination for Congress on the Democratic 
 ticket at the time when Mr. Cleveland failed 
 of reelection (1888). I made many speeches 
 in my own district, mainly in his behalf ; and 
 although I was defeated, I had what is regarded 
 in politics as the creditable outcome of having 
 more votes in the district than the head of the 
 ticket. 
 
 There are always many curious experiences in 
 campaign-speaking. It will sometimes happen 
 that the orators who are to meet on the plat 
 form have approached the matter from wholly 
 different points of view, so that each makes 
 concessions which logically destroy the other s 
 arguments, were the audience only quick 
 enough to find it out ; or it may happen 
 which is worse that the first speaker antici- 
 
352 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 pates the second so completely as to leave him 
 little to say. It is universally the case, I be 
 lieve, that toward the end of the campaign 
 every good point made by any speaker, every 
 telling anecdote, every neat repartee, is so 
 quoted from one to another that the speeches 
 grow more and more identical. One gets ac 
 quainted, too, with a variety of prejudices, and 
 gains insight into many local peculiarities and 
 even accents. I remember that once, when I 
 was speaking on the same platform with an 
 able young Irish lawyer, he was making an 
 attack on the present Senator Lodge, and said 
 contemptuously, " Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge of 
 Ncihant" and he paused for a response which 
 did not adequately follow. Then he repeated 
 more emphatically, " Of Nahant ! He calls it 
 in that way, but common people say Nahant ! " 
 Then the audience took the point, and, being 
 largely Irish, responded enthusiastically. Now, 
 Mr. Lodge had only pronounced the name of 
 his place of residence as he had done from 
 the cradle, as his parents had said it before 
 him, and as all good Bostonians had habitually 
 pronounced it, with the broad sound that is 
 universal among Englishmen, except as Mr. 
 Thomas Hardy has lately assured me in the 
 Wessex region ; while this sarcastic young 
 political critic, on the other hand, representing 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 353 
 
 the Western and Southern and Irish mode of 
 speech, treated this tradition of boyhood as a 
 mere bit of affectation. 
 
 One forms unexpected judgments of charac 
 ters, also, on the platform. I can remember 
 one well-known lawyer, not now living, 
 with whom I was at several times associated, 
 and whose manner to an audience, as to a 
 jury, was so intolerably coaxing, flattering, and 
 wheedling that it always left me with a strong 
 wish that I could conscientiously vote against 
 him. I remember also one eminent clergyman 
 and popular orator who spoke with me before 
 a very rough audience at Jersey City, and who 
 so lowered himself by his tone on the platform, 
 making allusions and repartees so coarse, that 
 I hoped I might never have to speak beside 
 him again. Of all the speakers with whom I 
 have ever occupied the platform, the one with 
 whom I found it pleasantest to be associated 
 was the late Governor William Eustis Russell 
 of Massachusetts. Carrying his election three 
 successive times in a state where his party was 
 distinctly in the minority, he yet had, among 
 all political speakers whom I have ever heard, 
 the greatest simplicity and directness of state 
 ment, the most entire absence of trick, of clap 
 trap, or of anything which would have low 
 ered him. Striking directly at the main line of 
 
354 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 his argument, always well fortified, making his 
 points uniformly clear, dealing sparingly in joke 
 or anecdote, yet never failing to hold his audi 
 ence, he was very near the ideal of a political 
 speaker ; nor has the death of any man in pub 
 lic life appeared so peculiar and irremediable 
 a loss. 
 
 On the election of John Davis Long, now 
 Secretary of the Navy, as governor of Massa 
 chusetts in 1880, he asked me to act on his 
 military staff ; and although I had not known 
 him personally, I felt bound to accept the post. 
 The position is commonly regarded in time of 
 peace as merely ornamental, but I had learned 
 during the civil war how important it might 
 become at any moment ; and as nearly all his 
 staff had seen some actual service, I regarded 
 the appointment as an honor. So peaceful 
 was his administration that my chief duty was 
 in representing him at public dinners and mak 
 ing speeches in his place. Sometimes, how 
 ever, I went with him, and could admire in 
 him that wondrous gift, which is called in other 
 countries " the royal faculty," of always remem 
 bering the name of every one. With the ut 
 most good will toward the human race, I never 
 could attain to this gift of vivid personal recol 
 lection, and could only admire in my chief the 
 unerring precision with which he knew in each 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 355 
 
 case whether it was his constituent s wife or 
 grandaunt who had been suffering under chronic 
 rheumatism last year, and who must now be 
 asked for with accuracy. He had, too, the 
 greatest tact in dealing with his audiences, not 
 merely through humor and genial good sense, 
 but even to the point of risking all upon some 
 little stroke of audacity. This happened, for 
 instance, when he delighted the Ancient and 
 Honorable Artillery, a body made up from vari 
 ous military and non- military ingredients, by 
 complimenting them on their style of marching, 
 which was rarely complimented by others, 
 and this on the ground that he did "not re 
 member ever to have seen just such march 
 ing." The shot told, and was received with 
 cheer upon cheer. Almost the only mistake I 
 ever knew this deservedly popular official to 
 make in dealing with an audience was when he 
 repeated the same stroke soon after upon a 
 rural semi-military company of somewhat sim 
 ilar description, which received it in stern and 
 unsympathetic silence ; for it was their march 
 ing upon which these excellent citizens had, 
 perhaps mistakenly, prided themselves the most 
 The Nemesis of public speaking the thing 
 which makes it seem almost worthless in the 
 long run is the impossibility of making it 
 tell for anything after its moment is past 
 
356 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 A book remains always in existence, litera 
 scripta manet, and long after it seems for- 
 gotten it may be disinterred from the dust of 
 libraries, and be judged as freshly as if written 
 yesterday. The popular orator soon disappears 
 from memory, and there is perhaps substituted 
 in his place some solid thinker like Burke, who 
 made speeches, indeed, but was called "the 
 Dinner Bell," because the members of Parlia 
 ment scattered themselves instead of listening 
 when he rose. Possibly this briefer tenure of 
 fame is nature s compensation for the more 
 thrilling excitement of the orator s life as com 
 pared with the author s. The poet s eye may 
 be in never so fine a frenzy rolling, but he 
 enjoys himself alone ; he can never wholly 
 trust his own judgment, nor even that of his 
 admiring family. A perceptible interval must 
 pass before he hears from his public. The 
 orator s appreciation, on the other hand, comes 
 back as promptly as an answering echo : his 
 hearers sometimes hardly wait for his sentence 
 to be ended. In this respect he is like the 
 actor, and enjoys, like him, a life too exciting 
 to be quite wholesome. There are moments 
 when every orator speaks, as we may say, above 
 himself. Either he waked that morning fresher 
 and more vigorous than usual, or he has had 
 good news, or the audience is particularly sym- 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 357 
 
 pathetic ; at any rate, he surprises himself by 
 going beyond his accustomed range. Or it may 
 be, on the other hand, that he has heard bad 
 news, or the audience is particularly antago 
 nistic, so that he gets the warmth by reaction, 
 as from a cold bath. When Wendell Phillips was 
 speaking more tamely than usual, the younger 
 Abolitionists would sometimes go round behind 
 the audience and start a hiss, which roused 
 him without fail. The most experienced public 
 speaker can never fully allow for these varia 
 tions, or foretell with precision what his suc 
 cess is to be. No doubt there may be for all 
 grades of intellect something akin to inspira 
 tion, when it is the ardor of the blood which 
 speaks, and the orator himself seems merely to 
 listen. Probably a scolding fishwoman has her 
 days of glory when she is in remarkably good 
 form, and looks back afterward in astonishment 
 at her own flow of language. Whatever sur 
 prises the speaker is almost equally sure to 
 arrest the audience ; his prepared material may 
 miss its effect, but his impulse rarely does. 
 "Indeed," as I wrote elsewhere long ago, "the 
 best hope that any orator can have is to rise at 
 favored moments to some height of enthusiasm 
 that shall make all his previous structure of 
 preparation superfluous ; as the ship in launch 
 ing glides from the ways, and scatters cradle- 
 
358 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 timbers and wedges upon the waters that are 
 henceforth to be her home." 
 
 The moral of my whole tale is that while no 
 man who is appointed by nature to literary ser 
 vice should forsake it for public life, yet the 
 experience of the platform, and even of direct 
 political service, will be most valuable to him 
 up to a certain point. That neither of these 
 avenues leads surely to fame or wealth is a 
 wholly secondary matter. Gibbon says of him 
 self that "in circumstances more indigent or 
 more wealthy " he " should never have accom 
 plished the task or acquired the fame of an 
 historian." For myself, I have always been 
 very grateful, first for not being rich, since 
 wealth is a condition giving not merely new 
 temptations, but new cares and responsibilities, 
 such as a student should not be called upon 
 to undertake ; and secondly, for having always 
 had the health and habits which enabled me to 
 earn an honest living by literature, and this 
 without actual drudgery. Drudgery in litera 
 ture is not simply to work hard, which is a 
 pleasure, but to work on unattractive material. 
 If one escapes drudgery, it seems to me that 
 he has in literature the most delightful of all 
 pursuits, but especially if he can get the added 
 variety that comes from having the immediate 
 contact with life which occasional public speak- 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 359 
 
 ing gives. The writer obtains from such inter 
 course that which Selden, in his "Table Talk," 
 attributes to the habit of dining in public as 
 practiced by old English sovereigns : " The 
 King himself used to eat in the hall, and his 
 lords with him, and then he understood men." 
 It is, after all, the orator, not the writer, who 
 meets men literally face to face; beyond this 
 their functions are much alike. Of course 
 neither of them can expect to win the vast 
 prizes of wealth or power which commerce 
 sometimes gives ; and one s best preparation is 
 to have looked poverty and obscurity in the 
 face in youth, to have taken its measure and 
 accepted it as a possible alternative, a thing 
 insignificant to a man who has, or even thinks 
 he has, a higher aim. 
 
 No single sentence, except a few of Emer 
 son s, ever moved me so much in youth as did 
 a passage translated in Mrs. Austen s "Ger 
 man Prose Writers " from Heinzelmann, an 
 author of whom I never read another word : 
 " Be and continue poor, young man, while 
 others around you grow rich by fraud and dis 
 loyalty ; be without place or power, while others 
 beg their way upward ; bear the pain of dis 
 appointed hopes, while others gain the accom 
 plishment of theirs by flattery ; forego the gra 
 cious pressure of the hand, for which others 
 
360 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 cringe and crawl ; wrap yourself in your own 
 virtue, and seek a friend, and your daily bread. 
 If you have, in such a course, grown gray with 
 unblenched honor, bless God, and die." This 
 should be learned by heart by every young 
 man; but he should also temper it with the 
 fine saying of Thoreau, that he " did not wish 
 to practice self-denial unless it was quite neces 
 sary." In other words, a man should not be an 
 ascetic for the sake of asceticism, but he should 
 cheerfully accept that attitude if it proves to be 
 for him the necessary path to true manhood. 
 It is not worth while that he should live, like 
 Spinoza, on five cents a day. It is worth while 
 that he should be ready to do this, if need 
 ful, rather than to forego his appointed work, 
 as Spinoza certainly did not. If I am glad of 
 anything, it is that I learned in time, though 
 not without some early stumblings, to adjust 
 life to its actual conditions, and to find it richly 
 worth living. 
 
 After all, no modern writer can state the 
 relative position of author and orator, or the 
 ultimate aims of each, better than it was done 
 eighteen centuries ago in that fine dialogue 
 which has been variously attributed to Quin- 
 tilian and Tacitus, in which the representatives 
 of the two vocations compare their experience. 
 Both agree that the satisfaction of exercising 
 
OUTSKIRTS OF PUBLIC LIFE 361 
 
 the gift and of knowing its usefulness to others 
 provides better rewards than all office, all 
 wealth. Aper, the representative orator, says 
 that when he is called on to plead for the op 
 pressed or for any good cause, he rises above 
 all places of high preferment, and can afford to 
 look down on them all. ("Turn mihi supra 
 tribunatus et praeturas et consulatus ascendere 
 videor.") Maternus, who has retired from the 
 public forum to write tragedies, justifies his 
 course on the ground that the influence of the 
 poet is far more lasting than that of the orator; 
 and he is so far from asking wealth as a reward 
 that he hopes to leave behind him, when he 
 shall come to die, only so much of worldly pos 
 sessions as may provide parting gifts for a few 
 friends. (" Nee plus habeam quam quod pos- 
 sim cui velim relinquere. ") If ancient Rome 
 furnished this lofty standard, cannot modern 
 Christendom hope at least to match it ? 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 IN reading reminiscences like those contained 
 in this volume, the public may often justly 
 complain that too much has been told. The 
 writer, on the other hand, when he comes to 
 review what he has written, may be more justly 
 amazed to see how large a portion of what is to 
 him most important has remained unmentioned. 
 Unless he has by nature the oppressive com 
 municativeness of a French or Italian autobio- 
 grapher, he will probably have left unchroni- 
 cled the most intimate and essential parts of 
 his own existence, love, friendship, home, so 
 ciety, health, while only that which is more 
 overt and tangible remains in view. The frank 
 est writer doubtless leaves untold more of the 
 story of his life than he tells. For the rest, 
 his career, be it larger or smaller, belongs to 
 his own time ; and its record is chiefly valuable 
 for the light it throws on the period and the 
 place. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that one who has 
 habitually occupied the attitude of a reformer 
 must inevitably have some satisfactions, at the 
 
EPILOGUE 363 
 
 latter end of life, which those who are con 
 servative by temperament can hardly share. 
 To the latter, things commonly seem to be 
 changing for the worse, and this habit of mind 
 must be a dreary companion as the years ad 
 vance. The reformer, on the other hand, sees 
 so much already accomplished, in the direction 
 of his desires, that he can await in some security 
 the fulfillment of the rest. Personally I should 
 like to live to see international arbitration se 
 cured, civil service reform completed, free trade 
 established ; to find the legal and educational 
 rights of the two sexes equalized ; to know that 
 all cities are as honestly governed as that in 
 which I dwell ; to see natural monopolies owned 
 by the public, not in private hands ; to see 
 drunkenness extirpated ; to live under absolute 
 as well as nominal religious freedom ; to per 
 ceive American literature to be thoroughly 
 emancipated from that habit of colonial defer 
 ence which still hampers it. Yet it is some 
 thing to believe it possible that, after the 
 progress already made on the whole in these 
 several directions, some future generation may 
 see the fulfillment of what remains. 
 
 To those who were living when the American 
 nation lifted and threw off from its shoulders 
 the vast incubus of human slavery, what other 
 task can seem too great to be accomplished? 
 
364 CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS 
 
 In the presence of such a step in human pro 
 gress as this, how trivial and unimportant are 
 all personal ambitions ! The high-water mark 
 of earthly endeavor is not to be found in the 
 pure love of science or art or literature, since 
 these do not, at their utmost, include all the 
 interests of man ; nor in the wish to establish 
 the glory of God, which needs no establishing ; 
 but it lies in aims so far-reaching that they 
 exclude all petty personalities in aims such 
 as are expressed in George Eliot s " choir invis 
 ible," or in the sublime prayer of the French 
 iconoclast, Proudhon, " Let my memory perish, 
 if only humanity may be free." 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABBOTT, J. G., 128. 
 
 Abolitionists, the, 139. 
 
 About, Edmund, 313. 
 
 Adam, 139, 180. 
 
 Adams, C. F., 21, 52, 53, 137. 
 
 Adams, Hannah, 6. 
 
 Agassiz, Alexander, 283. 
 
 " Albion, The," 189, 
 
 Alcott, A. B., 117, 147, 158, 169, 173, 
 175, iSV, 191. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 126. 
 
 Alford, Henry, 101. 
 
 Alger, W. R., 105. 
 
 Allston, Washington, 45. 
 
 American Reforms, largely of secu 
 lar origin, 1 16. 
 
 Anderson, Mary, 287. 
 
 Andrew, J. A., 106, 243, 246, 247. 
 248. 
 
 Andrews and Stoddard, 21. 
 
 Andrews, Jane, 129. 
 
 Andromeda, 89. 
 
 Aper, a Roman orator, 361. 
 
 Aristophanes, 301. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 272, 282, 283. 
 
 Aspinwall, Augustus, 125. 
 
 Atchison, D. R., 213. 
 
 Athletic exercises, influence of, 59. 
 
 Atlantic Circle of Authors, the, 168, 
 187. 
 
 Atlantic Club, the, 172, 176. 
 
 Austin, Mrs. Sarah, 359. 
 
 Autobiography, Obstacles to, i. 
 
 Autolycus, in "Winter s Tale," 
 quoted, 64. 
 
 Avis, John, 234. 
 
 Bachi, Pietro, 17, 55. 
 Bacon, Sir Francis, 58. 
 Baker, Lovell, 164. 
 Baldwin, J. S., 248. 
 Bancroft, Aaron, 15. 
 Bancroft, George, 189. 
 Bancroft, Mrs. George, 282. 
 Banks, N. P., 237. 
 Barnard, Henry, 9. 
 Banlett, Robert, 167, 190. 
 
 Bartol, C. A., 175. 
 
 Batchelder, Mr., 154, 155, 156, 157. 
 
 Batchelder, Mrs. F. L., 4. 
 
 Bearse, Andrew, 144, 148, 165. 
 
 Beatrice, 76. 
 
 Beck, Charles, 54. 
 
 Bede, Adam, 219. 
 
 Beethoven, Ludwig von, 18, 95. 
 
 Belot, Adolphe, 313. 
 
 Belton, W. S., 138. 
 
 Bern, Joseph, 86. 
 
 Bemis, George, 175. 
 
 Besant, Sir Walter, 273. 
 
 Bewick, John, 15. 
 
 Bigelow, Luther, 251. 
 
 Billings, Josh, 284. 
 
 Bird, F. W., 237. 
 
 BIRTH OF A LITERATURE, THE, 
 
 167-195. 
 
 Bishop, W. H., 312. 314. 
 Blackstone, Sir William, 88. 
 Blake, Harrison, 181. 
 Blanc, Charles, 322. 
 Blanc, Louis, 304, 305, 309, 316, 317, 
 
 318, 320, 321, 322. 
 Boarding-schools, Dangers of, 22. 
 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 77. 
 Borel, General, 307. 
 Boswell, James, 15. 
 Bowditch, H. I., 176. 
 Bowditch, Nathaniel, 50. 
 Bowen, Francis, 53, 54. 
 Boyesen, H. H., 314. 
 Bremer, Fredrika, 101. 
 Brentano, Bettine, 25, 92, 93. 
 Briges, the Misses, 119. 
 Bright, John, 327. 
 Brook JFarm, 83, 84, 120. 
 Brookline, Mass., summer life in, 
 
 It. 
 
 Brown, Annie, 227. 
 Brown, Brownlee, 169. 
 Brown, C. B., 58. 
 Brown, John, 155, 196-234, 240, 242, 
 
 243, 246, 327- . 
 Brown, Mrs. John, 227, 230. 
 Brown, Madox, 289. 
 
368 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Brown ? Theophilus, 181. 
 Browning, Robert, 66, 67, 202, 235, 
 
 272, 286. 
 
 Brownson, Orestes, 97. 
 Bryce, James, 97. 
 Bull, Ole, 103. 
 Burke, Edmund, 109, 356. 
 Burleigh, C. C., 327. 
 Burleigh, Charles, 118. 
 Burlingame, Anson, 175. 
 Burney, Fanny, 15. 
 Burns, Anthony, 131, 157, 159, 162, 
 
 165, 166. 
 
 Burns, Robert, 276. 
 Butler, B. F., 337, 342. 
 Butman, A. O., 162, 163, 164, 165. 
 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 15, 23. 
 
 Cabot, Edward, 9. 
 
 Cabot, George, 10. 
 
 Cabot, J. E., 105. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE BOYHOOD, A., 1-37. 
 
 Cambridge Churchyard, the, 32. 
 
 Cameron, Mr., 295. 
 
 Cameron, Mrs. J. M., 284, 295, 296. 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, 15. 
 
 Canning, George, 23. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 77, 272, 278, 279, 
 
 280, 285, 296, 304, 332. 
 Carpenter, Mr., 233. 
 Carter, Charles P., 232. 
 Carter family, the, 75. 
 Gary, Alice, 134. 
 Gary, Phoebe, 134. 
 Cayley, Mr., 289. 
 Channing, Barbara, 83, 84. 
 Channing, E. T., 49, 52, 53, 57. 
 Channing, Ellery, 169, 174. 
 Channing, W. F., 159, 160, 176. 
 Channing, W. H., 43, 44, 97, 102, 
 
 114, 120, 175, 327. 
 Chapman, George, 95. 
 Chapman, J. J., 190. 
 Charles River, the, 96. 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 92. 
 Cheney, John, 176. 
 CHILD OF THB COLLEGE, A, 38-68. 
 Child, F.J., 52, 53,336. 
 Child, Mrs. Lydia Maria, 77, 102, 
 
 126. 
 
 Choules, J. O., 175. 
 Christ, Jesus, 118. 
 Church of the Disciples, the, 97. 
 Cicero, 171. 
 Cinderella, 253. 
 CIVIL WAR, THE, 235-270. 
 Clapp, Henry, 85. 
 Claretie, Jules, 313. 
 Clarke, Edward, 62. 
 Clarke, J. F., 86, 97, 98, 244. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas, 337. 
 
 Clay, Henry, 136. 
 
 Clemens, S. L. (Mark Twain), 284. 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, 350, 351. 
 
 Cobb, Governor, 214. 
 
 Cobden, Richard, 327. 
 
 Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice, 281. 
 
 Cogswell, J. G., 189. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 102, 104, 272. 
 
 Collins, J. A., 85. 
 
 Collins, William, 15. 
 
 " Colombe s Birthday " (Browning), 
 
 202. 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, 308. 
 Come-outers, the, 114. 
 Comte, Auguste, 101. 
 Confucius, 2. 
 Constant, Benjamin, 86. 
 Conway, M. D., 304, 309. 
 Conway, Mrs. M. D., 304. 
 Cooper, J. F., 41, 170, 187. 
 Copley, J. S., 79. 
 Courier, P. L., 80. 
 Cousin, Victor, 86, 101. 
 Craft, Ellen, 328. 
 Cranch, C. P., 18. 
 Crosby, Alpheus, 130. 
 Cudworth, Ralph, 101. 
 Curtin, Governor, 246. 
 Curtis, Burrill, 78, 83, 85. 
 Curtis, G. W., 78, 83, 84, 98. 
 Curtis, Mary (Story), 22. 
 Cushing, Caleb, 127. 
 Cutter, Calvin, 197. 
 Cuvier, Baron G. C. L. D. de, 251, 
 272. 
 
 Dana, C. A., 83, 84, 101. 
 
 Dana, R. H., 21, 53, 136, 137, 161. 
 
 Dante degli Alighieri, 76, 101, 289. 
 
 D Arc, Jeanne, 301, 309. 
 
 D Arlon, 29. 
 
 Darmesteter, Madame, 289. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 194, 272, 283, 284, 
 
 2$5 t 286, 292, 296. 
 Darwin, Mrs. Charles, 284. 
 Davis, C. H., 19. 
 Davis, Helen, 18. 
 Davis, Margaret, 37. 
 Demosthenes, 298. 
 De Quincey, Thomas, 102. 
 Deschanel, Emile, 301, 303. 
 Devens, Charles, 48, 74, 141, 247. 
 Devens, Mary, 74. 
 De Vere, Aubrey, 272. 
 "Dial, The," 1 14. 
 Dicey, Albert, 97. 
 Dickens, Charles, 187, 234. 
 Discharged convict, reform of, 191. 
 Dix, Dorothea L., 264. 
 
INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 Dobson, Susanna, 15. 
 
 Dombey, Paul, 187. 
 
 Douglas, S. A., 230. 
 
 Douglass, Frederick, 137, 173, 327. 
 
 Dowries, Commodore, 142. 
 
 Doy, Doctor, 233. 
 
 Drew. Thomas, 156, 163. 
 
 Du Maurier, George, 289. 
 
 Durant, H. F., 63, 88. 
 
 Dwight, John, 18. 
 
 Edgewoith, Maria, 15. 
 
 " Eleanore, Tennyson s, 296. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 7. 
 
 Ellis, A. )., 284, 
 
 Ellis, C. M., 142. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 23, 36, 53, 67, 69, 
 77i 87, 91, 92, 95, 100, in, 115, 
 118, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 
 176, 180, 182, 185, 190, 204, 244, 
 272, 279, 297, 327, 331, 332, 341, 
 359. 
 
 Emigrant Aid Society, The, 196. 
 
 Epictetus, 270. 
 
 EPILOGUE, 362-364. 
 
 Erckmann-Chatrian, 320. 
 
 " Estray, The," 102. 
 
 Everett, Edward, 12, 79, 189. 
 
 Everett, Mrs. Edward, 12. 
 
 Fallersleben, Hoffmann von, 101. 
 
 Falstaff, quoted, 174. 
 
 Farlow, W. G., 59. 
 
 Farrar, Mrs. John, 90. 
 
 Faust, 244. 
 
 Fay, Maria, 34, 74, 75. 
 
 Fay, S. P. P., 75. 
 
 Fayal, Voyage from, 196. 
 
 Felton, C. C., 53, 54. 
 
 Fichte, I. G., 102. 
 
 Fields, J. T., 176, 183, 184, 185, 186, 
 
 187, 292. 
 
 Fillmore, Millard, 136. 
 Finnegan, General, 262. 
 Fiske, John, 58, 59. 
 Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 66. 
 Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun, 183. 
 Follen, Charles, 16. 
 Forbes, Hugh, 220, 221, 222. 
 Foster, Abby Kelley, 146. 
 Foster, Dwight, 88. 
 Foster, S. S., 116, 146, 327. 
 Fourier, Charles, 101. 
 Francis, Convers, 100, 101. 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 16. 
 Free Church of Worcester, 146. 
 Freeman, Watson, 155. 
 Freiligrath, Ferdinand, xoi. 
 French, J. H., 245. 
 Frithiof s Saga, 101. 
 
 Frothingham, O. B., 44, 105, 106, 
 
 Froude, T. A., 272, 277, 278, 279. 
 rroude, Mrs. J. A., 277. 
 FUGITIVE SLAVE EPOCH, THE, 132- 
 
 166. 
 
 Fugitive Slave Law, Passage of, 135. 
 Fuller, Margaret, 12, 77, 91, 93* 
 
 Gardner, Joseph, 233. 
 Garfield, J. A., 349. 
 Garibaldi, Giuaeppe, 220. 
 Garrison, W. L., 97, 116, 125, 126, 
 
 "7. !3S. >39 242, 3*7- 
 Gaspann, Madame de, 266. 
 Geary, J. W., 203, 205, 206. 
 German influence on American 
 
 thought, 188. 
 Gibbon, Edward, 91, 358. 
 Giles, Henry, 175. 
 Gillmore, Q. A., 262. 
 Goethe, J. F. W. von, 15, 43, 194, 
 
 348. 
 
 Goodell, John, 251. 
 Goodhue, J. M., 247. 
 Gosse, Edmund, 289. 
 Graeme, Christie, 233. 
 Grandison. Sir Charles, 15. 
 Green, J. H., 102. 
 Greene, W. B., 107, 175. 
 Grenville, Tom, 166. 
 Grimes, Mr., 143. 
 Giinderode, Caroline von, 92, 93. 
 
 Habersham, W. N., 18. 
 
 Haggard, Rider, 273. 
 
 Hale, E. E., 53, 175, 93, 194- 
 
 Hale family, the, 75. 
 
 Hall, A. O., 108. 
 
 Hall, Fitzedward, 53. 
 
 Hamel, M.,32i. 
 
 Hanway, James, 208. 
 
 " Harbinger, The," 101. 
 
 Hardy, Thomas, 273, 353. 
 
 Harrington, Mrs., 86. 
 
 Harris, T.W., 56. 
 
 Harvard University in 1837, 44 ; im 
 provements in morals and man 
 ners, 46 ; elective system at, 57. 
 
 Haven, Franklin, 176. 
 
 Hawkins, N., 217. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 12, 158, 168, 
 170, 171, 176, 297, 315. 
 
 Hay, George, 55. 
 
 Hay, John, 219. 
 
 Hayden, Lewis, 140, 151, 155, 245. 
 
 Hazlett, Albert, 229, 231. 
 
 Hazlitt, William, 67. 
 
 Hedge, F. H., , ,75. 
 
 Heine, Heinrich., 80, 90, 120. 
 
370 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Heinzelmann, 359. 
 
 "Heraud s Monthly Magazine," 
 quoted, 167. 
 
 Herttell, Thomas, 116. 
 
 Hesiod, 92. 
 
 Higginson, Barbara, 80. 
 
 Higginson, F. J., 123. 
 
 inson, Francis, 4, 114, 130. 
 inson, John, 123. 
 
 Higginson, Louisa (Storrow), 8, 10, 
 34, 1 60. 
 
 Higginson, Louisa Susan, 101. 
 
 Higginson, Stephen, senior, 4; de 
 scription of, by W. H. Channing, 
 
 Higginson, Stephen, junior, 4. 
 
 Higginson, T. W., birth and home, 
 3 ; school days, 19 ; college life, 
 42 ; residence at Brook line, 81 ; 
 favorite reading, 92, 102; love of 
 natural history, 24, 194 ; first pub 
 lications, 10 1, 102; post-collegiate 
 study, 90; residence at Newbury- 
 port, 112, 127; interest in Wo 
 man s Rights, 120 ; early anti-sla 
 very influences, 126; residence at 
 Worcester, 130, 146; fugitive slave 
 events, 139; speech at Tremont 
 Temple, 142 ; editorial writing, 
 145; first magazine articles, 172; 
 first contribution to " Atlantic 
 Monthly," 171 ; perilous versatil 
 ity, 182 ; " Young Folks History 
 of United States," 186; love of 
 athletic exercises, 194; school 
 committee work, 193; first book, 
 194; trip to Fayal, 196; visit to 
 Kansas, 197 ; meeting with J. H. 
 Lane, 203 ; intercourse with John 
 Brown, 218; visit to his family, 
 226 ; attempt to rescue his confed 
 erates, 231 ; visit to a slave deal 
 er s, 235 ; action during civil war, 
 245; enlistment, 248; transfer to 
 South Carolina, 252 ; first military 
 expedition, 259 ; " Army Life in 
 a Black Regiment," 266; "Har 
 vard Memorial Biographies," 270; 
 " Epictetus," 270; " Malbone " 
 and " Oldport Days," 270; resi 
 dence in Newport, 270; visits to 
 London, 271 ; to Paris, 298; pub 
 lic speaking, 326; public office, 
 
 HJeginson, Waldo, 73. 
 HiD, Thomas, 53, 105, 175. 
 Hillard, G. S., 53, 175- 
 Hinton, R. H., 215, 231. 
 Hoar, E. R., 170, 175. 
 
 Hoar, G. F., 162. 
 Hoffman, Wickham, 62. 
 Holmes, Abiel, 13. 
 Holmes, John, 16, 39, 42. 
 Holmes, O. W., 4, 13, 24, 31, 32, 53, 
 
 *39 !54 168, I 7*i *76 I77i *7 8 
 
 179, 180, 182, 186. 
 Homer, 92, 101. 
 Hoole, John, 15. 
 Hopkins, Louisa (Stone), 129. 
 Home, R. H., 112. 
 Horsford, E. N., 27. 
 Houghton, Lord, 2, 289, 294, 297. 
 Houghton, Mr., 34. 
 Howard, John, 5. 
 Howe, Julia Ward, 311. 
 Howe, S. G., 142, 148, 150, 159, 176, 
 
 215, 221, 246. 
 Howland, Joseph, 163. 
 Hughes, Thomas, 297. 
 Hugo, Victor, 298, 300, 301, 302, 303, 
 
 311, 313, 321. 
 Humboldt, Baron F. H. A. von, 
 
 272. 
 
 Hunter, David, 253, 256, 261, 262. 
 Huntin, A., 225. 
 Hurlbert (originally Hurlbut), W. 
 
 H., 107, 109, no, in. 
 Hutchinson, Abby, 118, 119. 
 Huxley, T. H., 272, 285. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 12, 170, 187, 
 
 278. 
 
 Jackson, C. T., 157. 
 Jacksonville, capture of, 261. 
 
 ames, Henry, senior, 175. 
 
 ames, Henry, 117. 
 
 efferson, Thomas, 5, 10. 
 
 errold, Blanchard, 312. 
 
 ohnson, Dr. Samuel, 15. 
 
 ohnson, Rev. Samuel, 105, 106. 
 
 ones, Mr., 334. 
 
 ones, Mrs., 334. 
 
 ones, Sammy, 334. 
 
 onson, Ben, 3. 
 
 ouffroy, T. S., 86. 
 
 KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN, 196- 
 
 234. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 105. 
 Keats, John, 19, 67. 
 Keene, Charles, 290. 
 Kelley, Abby, 327. 
 Kemp, Mr., 148, 151. 
 Keppel, Augustus, 166. 
 King, Edward, 312. 
 King family.the, 75. 
 King, Mrs. Rufus, 17 
 
INDEX 
 
 371 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, 107, 176. 
 Kirkland, I. T.,6. 
 Kraitsir, Charles, 86, 93. 
 Krummacher, F. A., in. 
 
 Lamartine, A. M. L. de, 309, 310. 
 Lamennais, H. F. R., AbW de, 92, 
 
 93, 160. 
 
 Lander, F. W., 164. 
 Lander, Jean M., Mrs., 264, 265. 
 Landor, W. S., 24, 101. 112, 298. 
 Lane, G. M., 53. 
 Lane, J. H. f 303, 204, 207, 208, 219, 
 
 230. 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 273. 
 Lamer, Sidney, 230. 
 Laplace, Marquis de, 50, 51. 
 Larned, Mr., 83. 
 Laura, 76. 
 
 Lazarus, Emma, 314. 
 Le Barnes, J. W., 231, 232, 240. 
 Lee, Mrs. Thomas, 87. 
 Leighton, Caroline (Andrews), 129. 
 Leland, C. G., 312, 314. 
 Leroux, Pierre, 86. 
 Lewes, Mrs. (George Eliot), 219. 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 239, 261. 
 Linnxus, Charles von, 89, 92. 
 LITERARY LONDON TWENTY YEARS 
 
 AGO, 271-297. 
 LITERARY PARIS TWENTY YEARS 
 
 AGO, 298-325. 
 Literature and Oratory compared, 
 
 360. 
 Locke, John, 70. 
 
 Lodge, H.C., 35*. 
 
 Long, J. D., 337, 354. 
 
 Longfellow, H. W., 12, 13, 33, 54, 
 55, 67, 95, 101, 102, 103, 168, 171, 
 176, 178, 179, 180, 189, 313, 314, 
 
 Longfellow, Samuel, 105. 
 
 Lonng, E. G., 141. 
 
 Loring, G. B., 176. 
 
 L Ouverture, Toussaint, 270. 
 
 Lovering, Joseph, 53, 54. 
 
 Lowell, Charles, 103. 
 
 Lowell, J. R., 24, 28, 37, 42, 53, 55, 
 67. 70, 75. A 77, 93 94. 95. 96, 
 97, 103, no, 118, 126, 128, 168, 
 170, 171, 173, 174, 176, 178, 179, 
 180, 182, 184, 186, 295. 
 
 Lowell, John. 5. 
 
 Lowell, Maria (White), 67, 75, 76, 
 77, 101. 
 
 Lynch, John, 235, 236. 
 
 Lyttelton, Lord, 289. 
 
 Macaulay, T. B., 170. 
 
 Macbeth, 26$. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, 272. 
 
 Magnolia, Florida, 261. 
 
 Ma lot, Hector, 313. 
 
 Man of Ross, The, 5. 
 
 Mangual, Pedro, 22. 
 
 Mann, Horace, 142. 
 
 M. in. iii, M., 321. 
 
 Marshall. John, 15. 
 
 Martin, John. 210. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, 126. 
 
 Mary, Queen, 35. 
 
 Mason, Charles, 54. 
 
 Maternus. a Roman poet, 361. 
 
 Mather, Cotton, 4. 
 
 Mather, Increase, 53. 
 
 May, S. J., 327- 
 
 May, Samuel, 146, 147. 
 
 Meikeljohn, J. M. D., 105. 
 
 Melusina, 42. 
 
 Mercutio, in " Romeo and Juliet," 
 
 quoted, 263. 
 
 Mill, J. S., 101, 121, 122. 
 Millais, J. E., 332. 
 Miller, Toaquin, 289. 
 Mills, Harriet, 19. 
 Minot, Francis, 62. 
 Montaigne, Michael de, 181. 
 Montgomery, James, 143, 207, 208, 
 
 215, 231, 232, 233, 234, 246. 
 Moore, Miles, 213, 214. 
 Moore, Thomas, 304. 
 Morris, William, 289. 
 Morse, Jedediah, 6. 
 Morse, Royal, 70. 
 Motley, J. L., 53, 74, 169. 
 Mott. Lucre tia, 327. 
 Mou It on, Louise Chandler, 289. 
 Mucklewrath Habakkuk, 219. 
 Munroe, G. H., 156. 
 Music, Influence of, on a child, 18. 
 
 Nemesis of Public Speaking, The, 
 
 Newton, Mr., 280. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 92. 
 Nicolay, J. G., 219. 
 Niebuhr, B. G., 171. 
 Nordau, Max, 313. 
 North, Christopher, 169. 
 Northumberland, Duke of, 282. 
 Norton, Andrews, 12. 
 Norton, C. E., 39, 53, 336. 
 
 O Brien, Fitzjames, 42. 
 O Connor, W. D., 163. 
 Oken, Lorenz, 194. 
 ON THE OUTSKIRTS or PUBLIC 
 LIKE, 326-361. 
 
372 
 
 INDEX 
 
 O Shaughnessy, Arthur, 289. 
 Ossoli, see Fuller. 
 Owen, Richard, 194. 
 
 Palfrey, J. G., 12, 100, 103. 
 
 Palmer, Edward, 117. 
 
 Papanti, Lorenzo, 37. 
 
 Parker, F. E., 53, 62, 63, 64. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 69, 97, 98, 100, 
 in, 112, 113, 130, 144, 148, 150, 
 iSS. i59, 161, 168, 170, 175, 184, 
 
 189, 217, 221, 327. 
 
 Parkmau, Francis, 169, 183. 
 Parsons, Charles, 13, 24, 40. 
 Parsons, Theophilus, 122. 
 Parton, James, 301. 
 Paul, Apostle, 217. 
 Peabody, A. P., 5, 53, 63. 
 Peabody, Elizabeth, 86, 87, 173. 
 Peirce, Benjamin, 17, 49, 50, 51, 52. 
 Pericles, 112. 
 PERIOD OF THB NEWNESS, THE, 
 
 Perkins, C. C., 20, 66, 124. 
 
 Perkins, H. C., 194. 
 
 Perkins, S. G., 80, 81, 124. 
 
 Perkins, S. H., 79, So, 83, 84. 
 
 Perkins, T. H., 80. 
 
 Perry, Mrs., 315. 
 
 Peter, Mrs., 17. 
 
 Petrarca, Francisco, 76. 
 
 Philip of Macedon, 126, 131. 
 
 Phillips & Sampson, 176. 
 
 Phillips, W. A., 207. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 53, 97, 121, 145, 
 148, 149, 150, 159, 240, 242, 243, 
 244, 297, 327, 328, 329, 333, 357. 
 
 Pickering, Arthur, 85. 
 
 Pierce, A. L., 125. 
 
 Pierce, John, 45. 
 
 Pike, Mr., 233? 
 
 Pillsbury, Parker, 327. 
 
 Pinckney, C. C., 13. 
 
 Plato, 101, 158, 181. 
 
 Plunkett, Sergeant, 345. 
 
 Plutarch, 15, 57, 171. 
 
 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 280, *8i, 
 
 Pollock, Lady, 280, 292. 
 Pope, Alexander, i, 5. 
 Pottawatomie Massacre, The, ap 
 proved in Kansas, 207. 
 Poverty, compensations of, 359. 
 Pratt, Dexter, 12. 
 Pratt, Rowena, 12. 
 Precocity, perils of, 68. 
 Preston, Colonel, 206. 
 Prescott, W. H., 82. 
 Prohibitory Laws, 120 
 
 Proudhon, P. J., 364. 
 Provincialism, advantages of, for 
 
 children, 3. 
 
 Putnam, Mary Lowell, 173. 
 Puttenham, George, 95. 
 Pythagoras, 158. 
 
 uincy, Edmund, 178, 179, 244. 
 uincy, Josiah, 56, 71. 
 uintilian, 360. 
 
 Rabelais, Francis, 181. 
 
 Rainsford, W. S., 98. 
 
 Raynal, W. T. F., 15. 
 
 Redpath, James, 206, 226. 
 
 Rees, Abraham, 31. 
 
 REFORMER, THE REARING OF A, 
 
 100-131. 
 
 Remond, C. L., 174, 327. 
 Retzsch, Moritz, 79. 
 Revere, John, 54. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 79. 
 Ribera, Jose\ 295. 
 Rice, Mr., 233. 
 Rice, W. W., 164. 
 Richard, King, 60. 
 Richardson, James, 106. 
 Richter, J. P., 87, 90. 
 Rigual, Magin, 22. 
 Ripley, George, 189. 
 Ripley, Mrs. Sophia, 84. 
 Ritchie, Anne Thackeray, 292. 
 Ritter, J. W., 92. 
 Rivers, Prince, 255. 
 Rob Roy, 36, 214. 
 Robinson, Charles, 206, 207, 208, 
 
 209. 
 
 Robinson, Rowland, 115. 
 Roelker, Bernard, 55. 
 Rogers, Seth, 265. 
 Rollins, E. W., 60. 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 345. 
 Rosello. Victoriano, 22. 
 Rossetti, William, 288. 
 Rossetti, Mrs., 289. 
 Rousseau, J. J., 316, 317, 318, 320. 
 Riickert, Friedrich, 101. 
 Rupert, Prince, 203. 
 Russell, W. E., 353- 
 Russell, Thomas, 226. 
 Russell, William, 21. 
 Russell, Lord William, 282. 
 Rust, J. D., 261, 262. 
 
 Saladin, 60, 301. 
 Sales, Francis, 55. 
 Saltoun, Fletcher of, 183. 
 Sanborn, F. B., 173, 215, 217, 218, 
 
 221, 222, 224, 225. 
 
INDEX 
 
 373 
 
 Sand, George, 77. 
 
 Savage, James, 224. 
 
 Saxton, Rufus, 248, 251, 252, 253, 
 
 256. 257, 265. 
 Scheliing, F. W. J., ,02. 
 Schnctzler, August, 89. 
 Scholar in politics, the, no prejudice 
 
 against, 336. 
 
 Schramm, Heir von, 120. 
 Schubert, G. H. von, 86. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 16, 132, 133, 219, 
 
 272, 276. 
 
 Seamans, Mr., 233. 
 Sedgwick, Charles, 60. 
 Selden, John, 359. 
 Sewall, S. E., 175. 
 Sewall, Samuel, 122. 
 Seward, W. H., 238, 239- 
 Shadrach (a slave), 135, 136, 137, 
 
 39, M", 42- 
 Shairp, Principal, 277. 
 Shakespeare, William, 64, 287, 294. 
 Shaw, k. G.,2 5 6. 
 Shimmin, C. F., 60. 
 Siddons, Mrs., 266. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 258. 
 Sims, Thomas, 131, 142, 143, 144, 
 
 146. 
 
 Sismondi, J. C. L. S. de, 92. 
 " Sisterhood of Reforms," the, 119. 
 Sivret, Mrs., 251. 
 Skimpole, Harold, 117. 
 Smalley, G. W., 240, 312. 
 Smith, Gerrit, 218. 
 Smith, H. W.,64. 
 Smith, T. C. H.,62. 
 Social feeling in Cambridge, 71. 
 Somerville, Mrs., 17. 
 Soule, Silas, 233. 
 Spanish school-boys, 22. 
 Sparks, Jared, 16, 56, 58. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 272. 
 Spenser, Edmund, n, 28. 
 Spinoza, Benedict, 360. 
 Spofford, Harriet (Prescott), 129, 
 
 130, 177. 78, 179- 
 prague, A. B. R., 
 pring, L. W., 207. 
 
 Sprague, A. H. K., 250. 
 
 Spring, " 
 
 Spring, Mrs. Rebecca, 230. 
 
 Spuller, M., 300. 
 
 Stackpole, J. L. , 74. 
 
 Stallknecht, F. S., 104. 
 
 Stearns, G. L., 215, 217, 218, 2i, 
 
 222. 
 
 Steedman, Charles, 261. 
 Stevens, A. I)., 229, 231. 
 Stevens, C. E., 157, 158. 
 Stewart, Dugald, n. 
 Stillman, Mrs., 296. 
 
 Storrow, Ann (Appleton), 7, 9. 
 
 Storrow, Anne G., 7. 
 
 Storrow, S. E., 74. 
 
 Storrow, Thomas, 7, 8. 
 
 Story, Joseph, 47. 
 
 Story, W. W.; 77. 
 
 Story, William, 19, 22, 28. 
 
 Story family, the, 75. 
 
 Stowe, C. E., 139, 178, 179, 180. 
 
 Stowe, Hamet Beecher, 176, 177, 
 
 178, 179, 180, 213. 
 Stowell, Martin, 147, 148, 149, 151, 
 
 53; 156, 57 191. 198,215- 
 Straub, Mr., 209. 
 Straub, Miss, 209. 
 Strauss, D. F., 101. 
 Stuart, Gilbert, 280. 
 Sullivan, J. L., 263. 
 Sunnier, Charles, 53, 125, 146, 175, 
 
 196, 267. 
 
 Suttle, C. F., 148. 
 Swift, J. L., 151. 
 Swinburne, A. C., 289. 
 Swiveller, Dick, 30. 
 
 Tacitus, C. C., 360. 
 Tadema, Alma, 289. 
 Talandier, M., 304, 305, 306, 309, 
 
 310. 
 
 Taney, R. B., 238. 
 Tappan, S. F., 204, 215. 
 Taylor, Bayard, 108, 293. 
 Taylor, Henry, 29. 
 Taylor, Tom, 312. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 67, 272, 287, 291, 
 
 292, 294, 295, 296, 314. 
 Thackeray, W. M., 187, 313. 
 Thaxter, Celia, 67. 
 Thaxter, L. L., 66, 67, 76, 94. 
 Thaxter, Roland, 67. 
 Thaxter family, the, 75. 
 Thayer and Eldridge, 230. 
 The"rese, Madame, 320. 
 Thomas, C. G., 91. 
 Thompson, Henry, 198. 
 Thoreati, Miss, 170, 
 Thoreau, H. D., 25, 53, 78, 91, 92, 
 
 114, 169, 170, 181, 279, 360. 
 Ticknor, George, 12, 15, 49, 189. 
 Ticknor, W. D., 176. 
 Ticknor & Fields, 183. 
 Tidd, C. P., 228, 229. 
 Todd, Francis, 127. 
 Tolstoi, Count Leo, 315. 
 Torrey, H. W., 53,58. 
 Tourgue neff (or Turge"nev), I. S., 
 
 3i3, 314- 
 
 Town and Country Club, the, 172. 
 Transcendentalism, 69. 
 
374 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Transcendentalists, the, 114. 
 Trenck, Baron, 23. 
 Trollope, Anthony, 287. 
 Trowbridge, C. T., 262. 
 Tubman, Harriet, 328. 
 Tuckerman, Edward, 104. 
 Tuckerman family, the, 75. 
 Tukey, Marshal, 161. 
 Turpin, Richard, 161. 
 Tyndall, John, 272, 289. 
 
 Underwood, F. H., 176, 178, 182. 
 Ursuline Convent, Burning of the, 
 
 Usher, R. G., 158. 
 
 Valentine, in "Two Gentlemen of 
 
 Verona," quoted, 271. 
 Vanderbilt, Commodore, 175. 
 Van der Velde, Willem, 79. 
 Van Tromp, Admiral, 103. 
 Venable, Mr., 280. 
 Very, Jones, 54. 
 Village Blacksmith, the, 12. 
 Virgil, 337. 
 
 Vigilance Committee, the, 139, 145. 
 Voltaire, F. M. A. de, 298, 300, 301, 
 
 302,303,317, 321. 
 
 Walker, Captain, 206. 
 Walker, F. A., 26. 
 Walker, James, 56, no. 
 Walpole, Horace, 280. 
 Ward, G. C., 176. 
 Ward, S. G., 176, 246. 
 Ware, George, 25. 
 Ware, Henry, 138. 
 Ware, Thornton, 29. 
 Ware family, the, ido. 
 Washington, George, 16. 
 Wasson, D. A., 112, 169. 
 Watkins, W. I., 217. 
 Watson, Marston, 78. 
 Webb, Seth, 157. 
 Webster, Daniel, 82, 136, 297. 
 
 Webster, J. W., 27. 
 
 Weiss, John, 103, 169. 
 
 Weld, S. M., 78. 
 
 Weller, Sam, 334. 
 
 Wells, W. H., 129. 
 
 Wells, William, 19, 20,21. 
 
 Wendell, Barrett, 52. 
 
 Wentworth, Amy, 8. 
 
 Weyman, Stanley, 29. 
 
 Whewell, William, 92, 101. 
 
 Whipple, E. P., 170, 176. 
 
 White, A. D., 312. 
 
 White, Blanco, 183. 
 
 White, William, 126. 
 
 White fugitive slaves, 146. 
 
 Whitman, Walt, 230, 231, 289. 
 
 Whittier, J. G., 8, m, 128, 132, 133, 
 
 34 i35. 168, 171, 178, 179, 180, 
 
 85, 237. 
 
 Whittier, Elizabeth, 133, 134. 
 Wightman, Mayor, 244. 
 Wilberforce, William, 327. 
 Wilder, S. V. S., 10. 
 Willis, Mr., 233. 
 Willis, N. P., 95, 271. 
 Wilson, Billy, 231. 
 Wimpffen, General, 324. 
 Wines, E. C., 310. 
 Winkelried, Arnold, 154. 
 Winnemucca, Sarah, 87. 
 Winthrop, R. C., 53. 
 Winthrop, Theodore, 107. 
 Wise, H. A., 224, 225. 
 Woman s Rights Movement, 120. 
 Woman Suffrage, 121. 
 Woodward, Rufus, 62. 
 Wordsworth, William, 69, 194, 272, 
 
 294, 338. 
 
 Wright, H.C., 113. 
 Wyman, J C., 176, 178. 
 
 Xanthus, 112. 
 
 Zaccone, M., 313. 
 
 Zamacois, Eduardo, 295. 
 
O. Houghton & Co. 
 CmmtH^.ifa^U.S.A. 
 
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