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Though I were dead, I none the less should hear
Thy step, thy garment rustling on the sand.
And if thou waft me greetings from the grave,
I shall drink deep the breath of that cold land.
Take thou my days, command this life of mine,
If it can lengthen out the space of thine.
No voice I hear from lips death-pale and chill,
Yet deep within my heart it echoes still.
My frame remains-my soul to thee yearns forth;
A shadow I must tarry still on earth.
Back to the body dwelling here in pain
Return, my soul; make haste and come again!
Translation of Emma Lazarus. From The Poems of Emma Lazarus. Copy-
right, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , Boston
## p. 6874 (#254) ###########################################
6874
JEHUDAH HALLEVI
THE EARTH IN SPRING
HEN, day by day, her broidered gown
She changes for fresh wonder;
A rich profusion of gay robes
She scatters all around her.
THEN
From day to day her flowers' tints
Change quick, like eyes that brighten;
Now white, like pearl, now ruby red,
Now emerald green they'll lighten.
She turns all pale; from time to time
Red blushes quick o'er-cover;
She's like a fair fond bride that pours
Warm kisses on her lover.
The beauty of her bursting spring
So far exceeds my telling,
Methinks sometimes she pales the stars
That have in heaven their dwelling.
Translation of Edward G. King.
LONGING FOR JERUSALEM
O
CITY of the world, with sacred splendor blest,
My spirit yearns to thee from out the far-off West;
A stream of love wells forth when I recall thy day;
Now is thy temple waste, thy glory passed away.
Had I an eagle's wings, straight would I fly to thee,
Moisten thy holy dust with wet cheeks streaming free.
Oh! how I long for thee! albeit thy King has gone,
Albeit where balm once flowed, the serpent dwells alone.
Could I but kiss thy dust, so would I fain expire,
As sweet as honey then, my passion, my desire!
Translation of Emma Lazarus. From The Poems of Emma Lazarus. ' Copy-
right, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , Boston.
## p. 6875 (#255) ###########################################
6875
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
(1834-1894)
HE sneer of Disraeli, that a critic is a man who has failed
in the branch of work he sets up to judge, is like saying
that a mill-race is a stream which has failed to run in its
own channel: making a definition serve as an insult. The man who
does not fail is too busy with his own creations to spare much time
for shaping judgments on others'. And so far as it implies that
the failure leaves the critic no claim to be heard, it is shallow to the
point of stupidity. On the contrary, the only thing which does give
his verdicts weight is the fact that he has
wrought enough in the given field to know.
its technic and its implications. Experi-
ence without success is the very condition
of most good professional criticism. The
limitations and perversions involved by this
are equally clear, and must be allowed for.
Mr. Hamerton was in this generation the
best literary exponent of art to the public,
and of different classes of art to each other;
- for artists are often as narrow and dis-
torted in their estimates of other branches
than their own as the public is in its esti-
mates of all, and are perhaps even more
acrid and unreasonable. This position he
P. G. HAMERTON
owed precisely to the fact that he was a trained and learned artist,
versed in the technics of a singularly wide range of artistic methods,
but neither a great nor a popular artist; combined of course with
other qualities which marked him out for an efficient interpreter.
His analytic powers, his remarkable freedom from bias or bigotry, his
catholicity of taste and sanity of mind, gave him unusual insight and
foresight; few men have measured work or reputations with more
sobriety of judgment, or made fewer mistakes in prophecy.
The character and purpose of his writing must be borne in mind.
He was not instructing artists but the public, even though a special,
wealthy, and fairly cultivated public; a body which, as he has said,
is at once practically ignorant of art and sorely affronted at being
taxed with such ignorance. He was therefore in the general position
## p. 6876 (#256) ###########################################
6876
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
of a schoolmaster with a voluntary school of jealous and conceited
pupils. His lucid and pleasing literary style, his clearness of analy-
sis, his justness of spirit, and a temper never ruffled even into a tu
quoque, gave him unequaled power of persuasiveness over this audi-
ence; but great depth or originality of exposition would have been
worse than wasted. He says himself that "the vulgarization of rudi-
ments has nothing to do with the advance of science"; nor has it
anything to do with the advance of art, except-and the exception
is of the first importance-by raising the level of the buyers of art
work. Hence it is unreasonable to blame him for the commonplace-
ness which artists fret over in his art writing: it was an indispensable
part of his service and influence; and probably fewer are beyond the
need and scope of his commonplaces than would like to acknowledge
it. Indeed, through his guiding of public taste, he had much more
influence even on the development of art forms themselves than is
generally supposed: it is due mainly to him that etching, the most
individual and expressive of the methods of engraving, has been
raised from an unfamiliar specialty to the foremost place in the favor
of cultivated art lovers.
His literary services to art taken as a whole-his quarter-century
editing of the Portfolio which he founded, with his clear and patient
analysis of current works of art, and his indirect and conciliatory but
all the more effective rebuffs to public ignorance and presumption;
his thorough technical works on Etching, on Landscape, on all the
Graphic Arts; his life of Turner; his 'Thoughts on Art,' steadily read-
able and clarifying; and much other matter-have probably done
more than all other art writing of the age together to put the public
mind into the only state from which anything good can be hoped
for art; to wit, a willing recognition of its ignorance of the primary
laws and limitations of artistic processes, and its lack of any right
to pass on their embodiments till the proper knowledge is acquired.
He has removed some of that ignorance, but in the very process
contrives to explain how vast a body is still left, and how crude,
random, and worthless any judgments based upon that vacuity of
knowledge must be. To do this and yet rouse no irritation in his
pupils, but leave instead a great personal liking, is a signal triumph
of good exposition, good manners, and intrinsic good feeling. Mr
Hamerton never indulges in the acrimony by which critics so often
mar their influence; he assumes that when his readers make mistakes,
they do so from misunderstanding, and would be glad of knowledge
courteously presented: and he is rewarded by being both listened
to and liked. And to the uninstructed who listen teachably, his
incomparably lucid explanations of the principles of artistic values
and sacrifices, the piecemeal attempts of different forms of art to
## p. 6877 (#257) ###########################################
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
6877
interpret nature, and their insuperable boundaries, the technics of
materials, the compulsion to imaginative work by physical limitations,
and other pieces of analysis, form the best of preliminary trainings
in rational judgment of art, and render the worst class of ignorant
misjudgments wholly impossible.
His literary work unconnected with art was of considerable volume,
and equals the other in general repute and appreciation. Best known.
of all his books is The Intellectual Life,' which deserves its fame as
being the chief storehouse of philosophic consolation to the vast class
of literary weaklings developed by a comfortable democracy. It is a
perpetual healing in the hours of despondency that come to every
aspiring but limited worker, when he looks on his petty accomplish-
ment by the light of his ambition. It consists of a set of short con-
versational articles, many of them in the form of letters, developing
the thesis that the intellectual life is not a matter of volume but of
quality and tendency; that it may be lived intensely and satisfyingly
with little actual acquirement and no recognized position; that it
consists not in the amassing of facts or even in power of creation, but
in the constant preference of higher thought to lower, in aspiration
rather than attainment; and that any one mind is in itself as worthy
as another. The single utterance that "It never could have been
intended that everybody should write great books," naïvely obvious
as it is, was worth writing the book for, as an aid to self-content.
It is full of the gentlest, firmest, most sympathetically sensible
advice and suggestion and remonstrance, as to the limitations of
time and strength, the way in which most advantages breed com-
pensating obstacles so that conditions are far more equal than they
appear, the impossibility of achievement without sacrifice, the need of
choice among incompatible ends, and many other aspects of life as
related to study and production. Its teaching of sobriety and attain-
ability of aim, of patient utilization of means, and of contentment in
such goal as our powers can reach, is of inestimable value in an age
of a general half-education which breeds ambitions in far greater
number than can be realized.
'Human Intercourse' is a collection of essays on life and society,
some of them ranking among his best: the admirable chapter on
'The Noble Bohemianism' is really an estray from The Intellectual
Life. ' The book 'French and English,' most of it first published in
the Atlantic Monthly, is a comparison of the two peoples and modes
of life and thought, of great charm and suggestiveness. His double
position, as a loyal Englishman by birth and long residence and a sort
of adoptive Frenchman by marriage and also long residence, made
him solicitous to clear up the misunderstandings each people had of
the other; and he wrote much to this end, with his usual calm sense
## p. 6878 (#258) ###########################################
6878
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
and gentlemanly urbanity. Five Modern Frenchmen is a set of
excellent biographies of French artists and others. Chapters on
Animals' explains itself. He wrote two novels, Wenderholme and
'Marmorne,' deserving of more reading than they receive; and a
number of other works, besides publishing collected volumes of
shorter papers, and at twenty-one a volume of poems.
Mr. Hamerton was born in Laneside, near Shaw, Lancashire, Eng-
land, September 10th, 1834. After preparing for Oxford, he went to
Paris to study art and literature. A few years later he set up a camp
at Loch Awe, Scotland, to paint landscapes; this he described in 'A
Painter's Camp in the Highlands,' and began to gain the note as a
man of letters which he vainly hoped to gain as an artist. From 1866
to 1868 he was art critic for the London Saturday Review. In 1869
he established the Portfolio, a high-grade art review, addressing a
public of supposably cultivated art lovers rather than the miscella-
neous mass; but how little he felt himself dispensed from rudimentary
exposition, and how low an estimate he set on even their connoisseur-
ship, may be learned from the first chapter of the Thoughts on Art. '
He married a French lady of Autun, and spent the latter part of his
life mostly there or in Boulogne; he died in the latter place Novem-
ber 5th, 1894.
Greater geniuses in dying have deprived the world of less service
and less enjoyment. Many of his readers felt a personal bereavement
in his loss, as in that of a companion with a nature at once lofty
and tender, a safe guide and elevating friend, unfailing in charm,
comfort, and instructiveness.
PEACH-BLOOM
From The Sylvan Year'
Τ'
HERE is a corner of a neglected old garden at the Val Ste.
Veronique in which grows a certain plant very abundantly,
that inevitably reminds us of an ancient philosopher.
To-
wards the end of March it is all carpeted with young hemlock,
which at this stage of its existence lies almost perfectly flat upon
the ground, and covers it with one of the most minutely beauti-
ful designs that can possibly be imagined; the delicate division.
of the fresh green leaves making a pattern that would be fit for
some room, if a skillful manufacturer copied it. Our own hem-
lock is believed to be identical with that which caused the death
of Socrates, but its action in northern countries is much feebler
than in the warmer climate of the Mediterranean.
## p. 6879 (#259) ###########################################
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
6879
In the same old abandoned garden where the hemlock grows
on the walls there remain a few fruit-trees, and amongst these
some peaches and apricots. They are in full bloom towards the
end of March; and of all the beautiful sights to be seen at this
time of the year, I know of none to be compared to these old
peach-trees with their wreath of rosy bloom, which would be
beautiful in any situation but is especially in this, because there
happen to be some mellow-tinted walls behind them, the very
background that a painter would delight in. There is some pretty
coloring in the apricot blossoms, on account of the pink calyx
and the pinkish brown of the young twigs, which has an influ-
ence on the effect; but the peach is incomparably richer. And
after the grays of wintry trees and wintry skies, the sight is
gladdened beyond measure by the flush of peach-blossom and the
blue of the clear spring heaven. But to enjoy these two fresh
and pure colors to the utmost we need some quiet coloring in
the picture, and nothing supplies this better than such old walls.
as those of the monastic buildings at the Val Ste. Veronique;
walls that Nature has been painting in her own way for full
four hundred years, with the most delicate changes of gray and
brown and dark gleamings of bronze and gold. There is some-
thing, too, which gratifies other feelings than those of simple
vision in the renewal of the youth of Nature, contrasting with
the steady decay of any ancient human work; and in the con-
trast between her exquisiteness, her delicacy, her freshness, as
exhibited in a thing so perfect as a fresh peach-blossom, with its
rosy color, its almond perfume, its promise of luscious fruit,—and
the roughness of all that man can do, even at his best.
THE FASCINATION OF THE REMOTE
From the Life of J. M. W. Turner'
T HAS been remarked before, that whereas with most men the
maturing of the faculties leads from imagination to reason,
from poetry to prose, this was not the case with Turner, who
became more and more poetical as he advanced in life; and this
might in some measure account for his ever-increasing tendency
to desert the foreground, where objects are too near to have
much enchantment about them, in order to dream, and make
others dream, of distances which seem hardly of this world.
## p. 6880 (#260) ###########################################
6880
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
The fascination of the remote, for minds which have any
imaginative faculty at all, is so universal and so unfailing that it
must be due to some cause in the depths of man's spiritual
nature. It may be due to a religious instinct, which makes him
forget the meanness and triviality of common life in this world,
to look as far beyond it as he can to a mysterious infinity of
glory, where earth itself seems to pass easily into heaven.
It
may be due to a progressive instinct, which draws men to the
future and the unknown, leading them ever to fix their gaze on
the far horizon, like mariners looking for some visionary Atlantis
across the spaces of the wearisome sea. Be this as it may, the
enchantments of landscape distances are certainly due far more
to the imagination of the beholder than to any tangible or expli-
cable beauty of their own. It is probable that minds of a com-
mon order, which see with the bodily eyes only and have no
imaginative perception, receive no impressions of the kind which
affected Turner; but the conditions of modern life have devel-
oped a great sensitiveness to such impressions in minds of a
higher class. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to name
any important imaginative work in literature, produced during
the present century, in which there is not some expression prov-
ing the author's sensitiveness to the poetry of distance. I will
not weary the reader with quotations, but here is just one from
Shelley, which owes most of its effect upon the mind to his per-
ception of two elements of sublimity-distance and height; in
which perception, as in many other mental gifts, he strikingly
resembled Turner. The stanza is in the 'Revolt of Islam':
"Upon that rock a mighty column stood,
Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky,
Which to the wanderers o'er the solitude
Of distant seas, from ages long gone by,
Had made a landmark; o'er its height to fly,
Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast
Has power; and when the shades of evening lie
On earth and ocean, its carved summits cast
The sunken daylight far through the aerial waste. "
-----
This was written in 1817, just about the time when Turner
was passing from his early manner to the sublimities of his ma-
turity; and there is ample evidence, of which more may be said
later, that Turner and Shelley were as much in sympathy as two
## p. 6881 (#261) ###########################################
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
6881
men can be, when one is cultivated almost exclusively by means
of literature and the other by graphic art. But however great
may have been the similarity of their minds, whatever suscepti-
bility to certain impressions they may have had in common, the
two arts which they pursued differed widely in technical condi-
tions. It may, or it may not, be as easy to write verses as to
paint, when both are to be supremely well done; but it is certain
that poetic description requires less realization than pictorial, so
that less accurate observation will suffice for it, and an inferior
gift of memory. In the whole range of the difficulties which
painters endeavor to overcome, there is not one which tries their
powers more severely than the representation of distant effects.
in landscape. They can never be studied from nature, for they
come and go so rapidly as to permit nothing but the most inade-
quate memoranda; they can never be really imitated, being usu-
ally in such a high key of light and color as to go beyond the
resources of the palette; and the finest of them are so mysteri-
ous that the most piercing eyesight is baffled, perceiving at the
utmost but little of all that they contain. The interpretation
of such effects, however able and intelligent it may be, always
requires a great deal of good-will on the part of the spectator,
who must be content if he can read the painter's work as a sort
of shorthand, without finding in it any of the amusement which
may be derived from the imitation of what is really imitable.
For all these reasons it would be a sufficiently rash enterprise
for an artist to stake his prospects on the painting of distances;
but there is another objection even yet more serious. Such
painting requires not only much good-will in the spectator, but
also great knowledge, freedom from vulgar prejudices, and some
degree of faith in the painter himself. When people see a noble
effect in nature, there is one stock observation which they almost
invariably make; they always say, or nearly always, "Now, if
we were to see that effect in a picture we should not believe it
to be possible. " One would think that after such a reflection on
their own tendency to unbelief in art and to astonishment in the
presence of nature, people would be forewarned against their
own injustice; but it is not so. They will make that observa-
tion every time they see a fine sunset or a remarkable cloud in
the natural world, and remain as unjust as ever to the art which
represents phenomena of the same order. Turner had to contend
against this disposition to deny the truth of everything that is
XII-431
## p. 6882 (#262) ###########################################
6882
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
not commonplace. He was too proud and courageous to allow
it to arrest his development, and would not submit to dictation
from any one as to the subjects of his larger pictures. He knew
the value of money, and would work very hard to earn it, but
no money consideration whatever was permitted to interfere
between him and the higher manifestations of his art.
TREES IN ART
From 'Landscape >
T MAY, however, not be absolutely safe to conclude that the
Greeks had no landscape painting, because we find only con-
ventional and decorative representations of trees on vases.
If it is true that the mural paintings at Herculaneum and Pom-
peii were not always essentially modern at the time when they
were painted upon the wall, but rather in many cases copies and
reminiscences of uch more ancient art, it would seem possible
that the painters of antiquity may have at least gone so far in the
direction of true landscape painting as to have attained the notion
of mass in foliage. Some of the Pompeian pictures give large-
leaved shrubs seen near the figures, with much of the liberty and
naturalness in this disposal of the leaves that were afterwards
fully attained by the Venetians; whilst many of the landscapes
really show foliage in mass, not so learnedly as in modern land-
scape painting, but quite with the knowledge that masses had a
light side, and a dark side, and a roundness that might be painted
without insisting on the form of each leaf. The same observa-
tion of mass is to be seen in the Campanian interpretation of
mountains, which, though extremely simple and primitive, and
without any of the refinements of mountain form that are per-
ceptible to ourselves, exhibit nevertheless the important truth that
the facets of a mountain catch the light.
In mediæval landscape painting, trees were of great import-
ance from the first, on account of the free decorative inventive-
ness of the mediæval mind, that exercised itself in illumination
and tapestry and in patterns for dress, for all of which leaves
and flowers were the best natural materials or suggestions. The
history of tree drawing in the Middle Ages is very like its history
in Greece. As Apollo and Semele were placed on each side the
laurel, of which the leaves were few and distinctly individualized,
## p. 6883 (#263) ###########################################
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
6883
so Adam and Eve were placed on each side the apple-tree, which
was often represented as a bare thin stem branching into a sort
of flat oval at the top that was filled with distinct leaves and
fruit, and sometimes even surrounded by a line. In other draw-
ings or paintings the tree was allowed to develop itself more
freely; but the artist still attended to the individual leaves, and
the tree was usually kept small, like the young trees in our
gardens. Even in hunting scenes where a forest is represented,
as in the manuscript of the hunting-book by Gaston Phoebus,*
the trees have short bare trunks and a few leaves, and are about
the height of a man on horseback, often not so high. They an-
swer, in short, to the trees in boxes of toys for children, except
that they are more prettily designed.
The nearest approach to foliage attained by the mediæval
love of the distinct leaf is in the backgrounds to tapestries, and
decorative paintings designed on the same principles, where the
leaves, although individually perfect, are so multiplied that the
mere numbers make them appear innumerable.
In this way
the distinct designers of the Middle Ages attained a sort of infin-
ity, though it is not the same as the real infinity of nature where
details cannot be counted. One of the best examples of this is
the background to Orcagna's fresco of the Dream of Life' in
the Campo Santo of Pisa, where the orange-trees stand behind the
figures and fill the upper part of the picture from side to side
with their dense foliage studded with fruit, and between their
thin stems every inch of space is filled with a diaper of flat green
leaves to represent the close shrubbery or underwood in the gar-
den. This is still quite mediæval in spirit, because the leaves
are distinctly drawn, and all are countable, however numerous;
they are also decorative, as primitive art was sure to be.
It is difficult to fix with precision the date when the idea of
mass in foliage began to acquire importance, and I know that if
I give a date, some earlier examples may be found which would
seem to throw it farther back in art history; but occasional pre-
cursors do not invalidate the rights of a century in which an
idea first takes effectual root. There is a very remarkable land-
scape background by Giovanni Bellini in his picture of The
Death of Peter Martyr' in our National Gallery, the most elabo-
rate example of tree painting among our older pictures. The
*The book is entitled 'Des Deduitz de la Chasse des Bestes Sauvages,'
and is in the National Library at Paris.
## p. 6884 (#264) ###########################################
6884
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
idea is to show trees in a wood, with stems crossing each other
and supporting an immense quantity of highly wrought foliage.
Well, in this picture the foliage is not flat; there is a sense of
mass; and yet to a modern eye it is easily visible that Bellini
was still hampered by the mediæval interest in the leaf, and
driven by that to bestow prodigious pains upon the individual
leaves that he portrayed by thousands. In the same fifteenth cen-
tury a manuscript of the Epistles of Ovid, now in the National
Library of Paris, was illuminated with subjects that have land-
scape backgrounds of a very advanced kind; and here the foliage
is completely massed, with considerable breadth of shaded parts
and only touches for the lights.
We may remember, then, that classical tree painting began
with the stem and a reduced number of distinct leaves, but
attained masses of foliage in the Campanian paintings or earlier,
and that mediæval painting began in the same way with the leaf
and the stem, but led to masses about the fifteenth century, after
passing through an intermediate stage in which there was a great
multiplicity of distinctly painted leaves.
THE NOBLE BOHEMIANISM
From Human Intercourse ›
A
MONGST the common injustices of the world, there have been
few more complete than its reprobation of the state of
mind and manner of life that have been called Bohemian-
ism; and so closely is that reprobation attached to the word, that
I would gladly have substituted some other term for the better
Bohemianism, had the English language provided me with one.
It may, however, be a gain to justice itself that we should be
compelled to use the same expression, qualified only by an ad-
jective, for two states of existence that are the good and the bad
conditions of the same; as it will tend to make us more charita-
ble to those whom we must always blame, and yet may blame
with a more or less perfect understanding of the causes that led
them into error.
The lower forms of Bohemianism are associated with several
kinds of vice, and are therefore justly disliked by people who
know the value of a well-regulated life, and when at the worst,
regarded by them with feelings of positive abhorrence. The vices
## p. 6885 (#265) ###########################################
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
6885
connected with these forms of Bohemianism are idleness, irregu-
larity, extravagance, drunkenness, and immorality; and besides
these vices, the worst Bohemianism is associated with many re-
pulsive faults that may not be exactly vices, and yet are almost
as much disliked by decent people. These faults are slovenli-
ness, dirt, a degree of carelessness in matters of business often
scarcely to be distinguished from dishonesty, and habitual neg-
lect of the decorous observances that are inseparable from a high
state of civilization.
After such an account of the worst Bohemianism, in which,
as the reader perceives, I have extenuated nothing, it may seem
almost an act of temerity to advance the theory that this is only
the bad side of a state of mind and feeling that has its good and
perfectly respectable side also. If this seems difficult to believe,
the reader has only to consider how certain other instincts of
humanity have also their good and bad developments. The
religious and the sexual instincts, in their best action, are on
the side of national and domestic order; but in their worst action
they produce sanguinary quarrels, ferocious persecutions, and the
excesses of the most degrading sensuality.
Again, before going to the raison d'être of Bohemianism, let
me point to one consideration of great importance to us if
we desire to think quite justly. It is, and has always been, a
characteristic of Bohemianism to be extremely careless of appear-
ances, and to live outside the shelter of hypocrisy; so its vices
are far more visible than the same vices when practiced by men
of the world, and incomparably more offensive to persons with a
strong sense of what is called "propriety. " At the time when
the worst form of Bohemianism was more common than it is
now, its most serious vices were also the vices of the best
society. If the Bohemian drank to excess, so did the nobility and
gentry; if the Bohemian had a mistress, so had the most exalted
personages. The Bohemian was not so much blamed for being a
sepulchre as for being an ill-kept sepulchre, and not a whited.
sepulchre like the rest. It was far more his slovenliness and
poverty than his graver vices that made him offensive to a cor-
rupt society with fine clothes and ceremonious manners.
Bohemianism and Philistinism are the terms by which, for
want of better, we designate two opposite ways of estimating.
wealth and culture. There are two categories of advantages
in wealth, the intellectual and the material. The intellectual
――
## p. 6886 (#266) ###########################################
6886
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
advantages are leisure to think and read, travel, and intelligent
conversation. The material advantages are large and comfortable
houses, tables well served and abundant, good coats, clean linen,
fine dresses and diamonds, horses, carriages, servants, hot-houses,
wine cellars, shootings. Evidently the most perfect condition of
wealth would unite both classes of advantages; but this is not
always, or often, possible, and it so happens that in most situa-
tions a choice has to be made between them. The Bohemian is
the man who with small means desires and contrives to obtain
the intellectual advantages of wealth, which he considers to be
leisure to think and read, travel, and intelligent conversation.
The Philistine is the man who, whether his means are small or
large, devotes himself wholly to the attainment of the other set
of advantages, a large house, good food and wine, clothes,
horses, and servants.
-
The intelligent Bohemian does not despise them; on the con-
trary, when he can afford it, he encourages them and often sur-
rounds himself with beautiful things; but he will not barter his
mental liberty in exchange for them, as the Philistine does so
readily. If the Bohemian simply prefers sordid idleness to the
comfort which is the reward of industry, he has no part in the
higher Bohemianism, but combines the Philistine fault of intel-
lectual apathy with the Bohemian fault of standing aloof from
industrial civilization. If a man abstains from furthering the
industrial civilization of his country, he is only excusable if he
pursues some object of at least equal importance. Intellectual
civilization really is such an object, and the noble Bohemianism
is excusable for serving it rather than that other civilization of
arts and manufactures which has such numerous servants of its
own. If the Bohemian does not redeem his negligence of mate-
rial things by superior intellectual brightness, he is half a Philis-
tine; he is destitute of what is best in Bohemianism (I had nearly
written of all that is worth having in it); and his contempt for
material perfection has no longer any charm, because it is not the
sacrifice of a lower merit to a higher, but the blank absence of
the lower merit not compensated or condoned by the presence of
anything nobler or better.
I have said that the intelligent Bohemian is generally a man.
of small or moderate means, whose object is to enjoy the best
advantages (not the most visible) of riches. In his view these
advantages are leisure, travel, reading, and conversation.
His
## p. 6887 (#267) ###########################################
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
6887
estimate is different from that of the Philistine, who sets his
heart on the lower advantages of riches, sacrificing leisure, travel,
reading, and conversation, in order to have a larger house and
more servants. But how, without riches, is the Bohemian to
secure the advantages that he desires? for they also belong to
riches. There lies the difficulty, and the Bohemian's way of
overcoming it constitutes the romance of his existence. In abso-
lute destitution the intelligent Bohemian life is not possible. A
little money is necessary for it; and the art and craft of Bohemi-
anism is get for that small amount of money such an amount
of leisure, reading, travel, and good conversation as may suffice
to make life interesting. The way in which an old-fashioned
Bohemian usually set about it was this: he treated material com-
fort and outward appearances as matters of no consequence,
accepting them when they came in his way, but enduring the pri-
vation of them gayly. He learned the art of living on a little.
He spent the little that he had, first for what was really neces-
sary, and next for what really gave him pleasure; but he spent
hardly anything in deference to the usages of society. In this
way he got what he wanted. His books were second-hand and
ill bound, but he had books and read them; his clothes were
shabby, yet still kept him warm; he traveled in all sorts of
cheap ways, and frequently on foot; he lived a good deal in some
unfashionable quarters in a capital city, and saw much of art,
nature, and humanity.
To exemplify the true theory of Bohemianism, let me describe
from memory two rooms; one of them inhabited by an English
lady not at all Bohemian, the other by a German of the coarser
sex who was essentially and thoroughly Bohemian. The lady's
room was not a drawing-room, being a reasonable sort of sitting-
room without any exasperating inutilities; but it was extremely,
excessively comfortable. Half hidden amongst its material com-
forts might be found a little rosewood bookcase containing a
number of pretty volumes in purple morocco, that were seldom
if ever opened. My German Bohemian was a steady reader in
six languages; and if he had seen such a room as that, he would
probably have criticized it as follows. He would have said:-
"It is rich in superfluities, but has not what is necessary. The
carpet is superfluous; plain boards are quite comfortable enough.
One or two cheap chairs and tables might replace this costly
furniture. That pretty rosewood bookcase holds the smallest
## p. 6888 (#268) ###########################################
6888
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
number of books at the greatest cost, and is therefore contrary
to true economy; give me rather a sufficiency of long deal
shelves all innocent of paint. What is the use of fine bindings
and gilt edges?
This little library is miserably poor. It is all
in one language, and does not represent even English literature
adequately: there are a few novels, books of poems, and travels,
but I find neither science nor philosophy. Such a room as that,
with all its comfort, would seem to me like a prison. My mind
needs wider pastures. " I remember his own room, a place to
make a rich Englishman shudder. One climbed up to it by a
stone corkscrew-stair, half ruinous, in an old mediæval house. It
was a large room, with a bed in one corner, and it was wholly
destitute of anything resembling a carpet or a curtain. The
remaining furniture consisted of two or three rush-bottomed
chairs, one large cheap lounging-chair, and two large plain
There were plenty of shelves (common deal, unpainted),
and on them an immense litter of books in different languages,
most of them in paper covers, and bought second-hand, but in
readable editions. In the way of material luxury there was a
pot of tobacco; and if a friend dropped in for an evening, a jug
of ale would make its appearance. My Bohemian was shabby in
his dress, and unfashionable; but he had seen more, read more,
and passed more hours in intelligent conversation than many
who considered themselves his superiors. The entire material
side of life had been systematically neglected, in his case, in
order that the intellectual side might flourish. It is hardly neces-
sary to observe that any attempt at luxury or visible comfort,
any conformity to fashion, would have been incompatible, on
small means, with the intellectual existence that this German
scholar enjoyed.
The class in which the higher Bohemianism has most steadily
flourished is the artistic and literary class, and here it is visible
and recognizable because there is often poverty enough to com-
pel the choice between the objects of the intelligent Bohemian
and those of ordinary men. The early life of Goldsmith, for
example, was that of a genuine Bohemian. He had scarcely
any money, and yet he contrived to get for himself what the
intelligent Bohemian always desires; namely, leisure to read and
think, travel, and interesting conversation. When penniless and
unknown, he lounged about the world thinking and observing; he
traveled in Holland, France, Switzerland, and Italy, not as people
## p. 6889 (#269) ###########################################
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
6889
do in railway carriages, but in leisurely intercourse with the
inhabitants. Notwithstanding his poverty he was received by the
learned in different European cities; and, notably, heard Voltaire
and Diderot talk till three o'clock in the morning. So long as
he remained faithful to the true principles of Bohemianism he
was happy in his own strange and eccentric way; and all the
anxieties, all the slavery of his later years were due to his apos-
tasy from those principles. He no longer estimated leisure at its
true value, when he allowed himself to be placed in such a situa-
tion that he was compelled to toil like a slave in order to clear
off work that had been already paid for, such advances having
been rendered necessary by expenditure on Philistine luxuries.
He no longer enjoyed humble travel; but on his later tour in
France with Mrs. Horneck and her two beautiful daughters, in-
stead of enjoying the country in his own old simple innocent
way, he allowed his mind to be poisoned with Philistine ideas, and
constantly complained of the want of physical comfort, though he
lived far more expensively than in his youth. The new apart-
ments, taken on the success of the 'Good-natured Man,' con-
sisted, says Irving, "of three rooms, which he furnished with
mahogany sofas, card tables, and bookcases; with curtains, mir-
rors, and Wilton carpets. " At the same time he went even
beyond the precept of Polonius, for his garments were costlier
than his purse could buy, and his entertainments were so extrav-
agant as to give pain to his acquaintances. All this is a deser-
tion of real Bohemian principles. Goldsmith ought to have
protected his own leisure, which from the Bohemian point of
view was incomparably more precious to himself than Wilton
carpets and coats "of Tyrian bloom. "
Corot, the French landscape painter, was a model of consistent
Bohemianism, of the best kind. When his father said, "You
shall have £80 a year, your plate at my table, and be a painter;
or you shall have £4,000 to start with if you will be a shop-
keeper," his choice was made at once. He remained always
faithful to true Bohemian principles, fully understanding the
value of leisure, and protecting his artistic independence by the
extreme simplicity of his living. He never gave way to the
modern rage for luxuries; but in his latter years, when enriched
by tardy professional success and hereditary fortune, he employed
his money in acts of fraternal generosity to enable others to lead
the intelligent Bohemian life.
## p. 6890 (#270) ###########################################
6890
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
Wordsworth had in him a very strong element of Bohemian-
ism. His long pedestrian rambles, his interest in humble life
and familiar intercourse with the poor, his passion for wild nature
and preference of natural beauty to fine society, his simple.
and economical habits, are enough to reveal the tendency. His
"plain living and high thinking" is a thoroughly Bohemian idea,
in striking opposition to the Philistine passion for rich living and
low thinking. There is a story that he was seen at a breakfast-
table to cut open a new volume with a greasy butter-knife. To
every lover of books this must seem horribly barbarous; yet at
the same time it was Bohemian, in that Wordsworth valued the
thought only and cared nothing for the material condition of the
volume. I have observed a like indifference to the material con-
dition of books in other Bohemians who took the most lively
interest in their contents. I have also seen "bibliophiles" who
had beautiful libraries in excellent preservation, and who loved
to fondle fine copies of books that they never read. That is
Philistine, it is the preference of material perfection to intel-
lectual values.
Some practical experience of the higher Bohemianism is a
valuable part of education. It enables us to estimate things at
their true worth, and to extract happiness from situations in
which the Philistine is both dull and miserable. A true Bohe-
mian of the best kind knows the value of mere shelter, of food
enough to satisfy hunger, of plain clothes that will keep him.
sufficiently warm; and in the things of the mind he values the
liberty to use his own faculties as a kind of happiness in itself.
His philosophy leads him to take an interest in talking with
human beings of all sorts and conditions, and in different coun-
tries. He does not despise the poor; for whether poor or rich
in his own person, he understands simplicity of life, and if the
poor man lives in a small cottage, he too has probably been
lodged less spaciously still in some small hut or tent. He has
lived often, in rough travel, as the poor live every day. main-
tain that such tastes and experiences are valuable both in pros-
perity and in adversity. If we are prosperous they enhance our
appreciation of the things around us, and yet at the same time
make us really know that they are not indispensable, as so many
believe them to be; if we fall into adversity they prepare us to
accept lightly and cheerfully what would be depressing privations
to others.
## p. 6890 (#271) ###########################################
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## p. 6891 (#275) ###########################################
6891
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
(1757-1804)
BY DANIEL C. GILMAN
Η
AMILTON'S distinction among the founders of the government
of the United States is everywhere acknowledged. Wash-
ington stands alone. Next him, in the rank with Adams,
Jefferson, Madison, Jay, and Sherman, Alexander Hamilton is placed.
Among these illustrious men, no claim could surpass Hamilton's.
He was a gallant soldier, an eloquent orator, a persuasive writer, a
skillful financier, a successful administrator, and a political philoso-
pher practical as well as wise. He is worthy to be compared in politi-
cal debate with Pitt, Burke, Fox, and Webster; in organization with
Cavour and Bismarck; in finance with Sully, Colbert, Robert Morris,
and Gladstone. "My three friends," said Guizot to a young Ameri-
can many years ago, pointing to three portraits which hung upon the
walls of his library,- Aberdeen, Hamilton, and Washington. Even his
opponents acknowledged his powers. Thus, Jefferson called Hamil-
ton "the Colossus of the Federalists," and Ambrose Spencer said he
was "the greatest man this country ever produced. " James Kent, an
admirer, used terms of more discriminating praise. Allibone has col-
lected similar tributes from Talleyrand, Guizot, and Gouverneur Mor-
ris, Story, and Webster. Yet Hamilton was severely criticized during
his life by his political enemies, and he encountered attacks from the
newspapers as severe as those which befall any of our contempo-
raries. Lodge says of him that he was "pre-eminently a leader of
leaders; he could do the thinking of his time. " No single sentence
could express more completely the distinction of his genius: "He
could do the thinking of his time. " Fortunately, a good deal of the
"thinking of his time" is now irrevocably fixed in the Constitution,
the laws, the administration, and the institutions of this country, and
the name of Hamilton now stands above reproach "among the im-
mortals. "
His public life began precociously and ended prematurely. Before
he was of age, his powers were acknowledged and his reputation was
established. Before he was fifty, all was over. Born in Nevis, one of
the smallest of the West Indies, the son of a Scotch merchant and a
French mother, he was sent to this country for his education; and
## p. 6892 (#276) ###########################################
6892
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
unprotected by family ties, with small pecuniary resources, he entered
Columbia College, Nev York, in 1774. From that time onward for
thirty years he was pushed forward to one influential station after
another, and he was adequate to the highest of them all. Beginning
his military service as a captain of artillery, he was soon afterwards
aide-de-camp and secretary to General Washington, with the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. At a much later period of his life (1797) he was
commissioned as a major-general, and served two years as inspector-
general at the head of the United States army. In political life he
was always prominent, first as a receiver of Continental taxes, then,
successively, as a member of the Continental Congress (1782), the
New York Legislature (1786), the Annapolis Convention (1786), and
finally of the Constitutional Convention and of the ratifying conven-
tion in New York. Equal but hardly greater service was rendered to
the country by this extraordinary patriot in the Treasury Department
of the United States, of which he was Secretary for five years, under
Washington, from 1789 to 1794.
The memoirs of Hamilton have been edited by several hands.
Shortly after his death, three volumes of his works were printed.
Subsequently, John C. Hamilton the son published a memoir in two
volumes; and many years later he wrote in seven volumes a 'His-
tory of the United States, as it may be read in the writings of
Alexander Hamilton. ' A complete edition of Hamilton's works was
edited by Henry Cabot Lodge in nine octavo volumes. In addition
to the memoir just referred to, by J. C. Hamilton, there are several
biographies, of which the most recent and valuable are those by John
T. Morse, Jr. (2 vols. , 1876); Henry Cabot Lodge (American States-
men Series, 1882); and George Shea (second edition, 1880). All the
standard histories of the United States - Bancroft, Hildreth, Schouler,
Von Holst, Curtis, Fisk, etc. -may be consulted advantageously.
It is easy to form an image of the person of Hamilton, for there
several portraits in oil and a bust in marble by Giuseppe
Cerrachi, besides the "Talleyrand miniature. " All these have been
frequently engraved. But as valuable in another way is the descrip-
tion by Judge Shea of Hamilton's personal appearance, as it was
remembered "by some that knew and one that loved him. " This
sketch is so good that it would be a pity to abridge it.
are
"He was," says Judge Shea, "a small, lithe figure, instinct with life; erect
and steady in gait: a military presence, without the intolerable accuracy of a
martinet; and his general address was graceful and nervous, indicating the
beauty, energy, and activity of his mind. A bright, ruddy complexion; light-
colored hair; a mouth infinite in expression, its sweet smile being most observ-
able and most spoken of; eyes lustrous with meaning and reflection, or glancing
with quick canny pleasantry, and the whole countenance decidedly Scottish in
## p. 6893 (#277) ###########################################
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
6893
form and expression. He was, as may be inferred, the welcome guest and
cheery companion in all relations of civil and social life. His political enemies
frankly spoke of his manner and conversation, and regretted its irresistible
charm. He certainly had a correct sense of that which is appropriate to the
occasion and its object: the attribute which we call good taste. His manner,
with a natural change, became very calm and grave when 'deliberation and
public care' claimed his whole attention. At the time of which we now speak
particularly (1787), he was continually brooding over the State Convention then
at hand; moods of engrossing thought came upon him even as he trod the
crowded streets, and then his pace would become slower, his head be slightly
bent downward, and with hands joined together behind, he wended his way,
his lips moving in concert with the thoughts forming in his mind. This habit
of thinking, and this attitude, became involuntary with him as he grew in
years. »
But without these portraits, it would be easy to discover in the
incidents of Hamilton's life the characteristics of a gallant, inde-
pendent, high-spirited man, who never shrunk from danger and who
placed the public interests above all private considerations. At times
he was rash and unexpected, but his rashness was the result of swift
and accurate reasoning and of unswerving will. His integrity was
faultless, and bore the severest scrutiny, sometimes under circum-
stances of stress. We can easily imagine that such a brave and hon-
est knight would have been welcomed to a seat at the Round Table
of King Arthur.
Recall his career; a mere boy, he leaves his West India home to
get a college education in this country. Princeton for technical
reasons would not receive him, and he proceeds at once, and not in
vain, to the halls of King's College, now known as Columbia. Just
after entering college he goes to a mass meeting of the citizens "in
the open fields" near the city of New York, and not quite satisfied
with the arguments there set forth, he mounts the platform and
after a slight hesitation carries with him the entire assembly. When
the Revolutionary War begins he enlists at once, and takes part in
the battle of Long Island, the consequent retreat to White Plains,
and the contests at Trenton and Princeton. He makes a brilliant
assault upon the enemy's redoubts at Yorktown. While on the staff
of Washington, a reproof from the General cuts him to the quick,
and on the instant he says, "We part," and so retires from military
service. His standing at the bar of New York is that of a leader.
When the Constitutional Convention assembles, he takes part in its
deliberations; and though not entirely satisfied with the conclusions
reached, he accepts them, and becomes with Jay and Madison one of
the chief exponents and defenders of the new Constitution. Under
Washington as President he is placed in charge of the national
## p. 6894 (#278) ###########################################
6894
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
finances, and soon establishes the public credit on the basis which
has never since been shaken. Low creatures endeavor to blackmail
him, and circulate scandalous stories respecting his financial manage-
ment: he bravely tells the whole truth, and stands absolutely acquit-
ted of the least suspicion of official malfeasance. In 1799, when war
with France is imminent, Washington, again selected as commander-
in-chief, selects him as the first of three major-generals on whom he
must depend. Finally, when Aaron Burr challenges him he accepts
the challenge; he makes his will, meets his enemy, and falls with a
mortal wound.
The news of his death sent a thrill of horror through the country,
not unlike that which followed the assassination of Lincoln and Gar-
field. The story of the duel has often been told, but nowhere so
vividly as in the diary of Gouverneur Morris, recently published.
His countrymen mourned the death of Hamilton as they had mourned
for no other statesman except Washington. Morris's speech at the
funeral, under circumstances of great popular excitement, brings to
mind the speech of Brutus over the body of Cæsar. Unless there
had been great restraint on the part of the orator, the passions of
the multitude would have been inflamed against the rival who fired
the fatal shot.
It is time to pass from that which is transient in Hamilton's life
to that which will endure as long as this government shall last,—
to the ideas suggested and embodied by the framers of the Constitu-
tion in fundamental measures. The distinction of Hamilton does not
depend upon the stations that he held, however exalted they may
appear, in either the political or the military service of his country.
It was his "thinking" that made him famous; his (( thinking" that
perpetuated his influence as well as his fame, through the nine dec-
ades that have followed since his death. Even now, when his per-
sonality is obscurely remembered, his political doctrines are more
firmly established than ever before. The adjustment of the demo-
cratic principles of which Jefferson was the exponent and the national
principles which Hamilton advocated still prevails; but as Morse saga-
ciously says, "the democratic system of Jefferson is administered in
the form and on the principles of Hamilton. "
In the anxious days of the Confederation,- when the old govern-
ment had been thrown off, and when men were groping with conflict-
ing motives after a new government which should secure union with
independence, national or Continental authority with the preservation
of State rights,- Hamilton was one of the earliest to perceive the true
solution of the problem. He bore his part in the debates, always in-
clining toward a strong federal government. The conclusions which
were reached by the Convention did not meet his unqualified assent;
## p. 6895 (#279) ###########################################
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
6895
but he accepted them as the best results that could then be secured.
He became their expounder and their defender. The essays which
he wrote, with those of his two colleagues Jay and Madison, were col-
lected in a volume known as 'The Federalist,'— a volume which is of
the first importance in the interpretation of the Constitution of the
United States. Successive generations of judges, senators, statesmen,
and publicists, recur to its pages as to a commentary of the highest
value. The opinion of Mr. Curtis, the historian of the Constitution,
will not be questioned. "These essays," he says, "gave birth to
American constitutional law, which was thus placed above arbitrary
construction and brought into the domain of legal truth. "
"They
made it a science, and so long as the Constitution shall exist, they
will continue to be resorted to as the most important source of con-
temporaneous interpretation which the annals of the country afford. ”
Hamilton's confidence in the power of the press to enlighten and
guide the public was balanced by grave apprehensions as to the fate
of the Constitution. "A nation," he said, "without a national govern-
ment is an awful spectacle. The establishment of a Constitution, in
a time of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole peo-
ple, is a prodigy to the completion of which I look forward with
trembling anxiety. " We who have lived to see the end of a century
of constitutional government, in the course of which appeal has been
made to the sword, we who live secure in the unique advantages of
our dual governments, find it hard even to imagine the rocks
through which the ship of State was steered by the framers of the
Constitution.
As a financier, not less than as a statesman, Hamilton showed
exceptional ability. He had the rare qualities of intellect which
enabled him to perceive the legitimate sources of revenue, the proper
conditions of national credit, and the best method of distributing
over a term of years the payment required by the emergencies of
the State. Commerce and trade were palsied; currency was wanting;
confidence was shaken; counsels were conflicting. These difficulties
were like a stimulant to the mind of Hamilton. He mastered the
situation, he proposed remedies, he secured support, he restored credit.
From his time to the present, in peace and war, notwithstanding
temporary embarrassments and occasional panics, the finances of the
government have been sound, and its obligations accepted wherever
offered. In the long line of honest and able secretaries who have
administered the treasury, Hamilton stands as the first and greatest
financier.
His ability was not alone that of a reasoner upon the principles
of political economy. He was ingenious and wise in devising methods
by which principles may be reduced to practice. The Treasury
## p. 6896 (#280) ###########################################
6896
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
Department was to be organized. Hamilton became the organizer.
While Congress imposed upon him the duty of preparing far-reaching
plans for the creation of revenue, which he produced with promptness
and sagacity, he also found time to devise the complex machinery
that was requisite, and the system of accounts. "So well were these
tasks performed," says Morse, "that the plans still subsist, developing
and growing with the nation, but at bottom the original arrangements
of Hamilton. "
This administrative ability was shown on a large scale the second
time, but in another field. When it became necessary, in view of a
foreign war that seemed impending, to organize an army, it was
Washington who called to this service his former comrade in arms,
the man who had organized the Treasury at the beginning of his
first administration. Here, as before, Hamilton's abilities were em-
ployed successfully.
The limits of this article preclude the enumeration of Hamilton's
services in many subordinate ways,-for example, his influence in
securing the acceptance of the treaty with England. It is enough in
conclusion to repeat the words of two great thinkers. Daniel Web-
ster spoke as follows in 1831:—
"He was made Secretary of the Treasury; and how he fulfilled the duties
of such a place, at such a time, the whole country perceived with delight and
the whole world saw with admiration. He smote the rock of the national
resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the
dead corpse
of the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The fabled
birth of Minerva from the brain of Jove was hardly more sudden or more
perfect than the financial system of the United States, as it burst forth from
the conceptions of Alexander Hamilton. »
And Francis Lieber, in his 'Civil Liberty and Self-Government,'
wrote thus in 1853-
"The framers of our Constitution boldly conceived a federal republic, or
the application of the representative principle, with its two houses, to a con-
federacy. It was the first instance in history. The Netherlands, which served
our forefathers as models in many respects, even in the name bestowed on
our confederacy, furnished them with no example for this great conception.
It is the chief American contribution to the common treasures of political
civilization. It is that by which America will influence other parts of the
world, more than by any other political institution or principle. . . I con-
sider the mixture of wisdom and daring shown in the framing of our Consti-
tution as one of the most remarkable facts in all history. "
медитат
## p. 6897 (#281) ###########################################
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
6897
FROM THE FEDERALIST'
DEFENSE OF HIS VIEWS OF THE CONSTITUTION
HUS have I, fellow-citizens, executed the task I had assigned to
myself; with what success, your conduct must determine.
I trust at least you will admit that I have not failed, in the
assurance I gave you respecting the spirit with which my en-
deavors should be conducted. I have addressed myself purely
to your judgments, and have studiously avoided those asperities
which are too apt to disgrace political disputants of all parties,
and which have been not a little provoked by the language and
conduct of the opponents of the Constitution. The charge of a
conspiracy against the liberties of the people, which has been
indiscriminately brought against the advocates of the plan, has
something in it too wanton and too malignant not to excite the
indignation of every man who feels in his own bosom a refuta-
tion of the calumny. The perpetual changes which have been
rung upon the wealthy, the well-born, and the great, have been
such as to inspire the disgust of all sensible men; and the
unwarrantable concealments and misrepresentations which have
been in various ways practiced to keep the truth from the public
eye, have been of a nature to demand the reprobation of all
honest men. It is not impossible that these circumstances may
have occasionally betrayed me into intemperances of expression
which I did not intend: it is certain that I have frequently felt a
struggle between sensibility and moderation; and if the former
has in some instances prevailed, it must be my excuse that it has
been neither often nor much.
THE WISDOM OF BRIEF PRESIDENTIAL TERMS OF OFFICE
T MAY perhaps be asked, how the shortness of the duration in
office can affect the independence of the executive on the legis-
lature, unless the one were possessed of the power of appoint-
ing or displacing the other. One answer to this inquiry may be
drawn from the principle already remarked; that is, from the
slender interest a man is apt to take in a short-lived advantage,
and the little inducement it affords him to expose himself, on
account of it, to any considerable inconvenience or hazard. An-
other answer, perhaps more obvious though not more conclusive,
XII-432
## p. 6898 (#282) ###########################################
6898
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
will result from the consideration of the influence of the legisla-
tive body over the people; which might be employed to prevent
the re-election of a man who, by an upright resistance to any
sinister project of that body, should have made himself obnoxious
to its resentment.
It may be asked also whether a duration of four years would
answer the end proposed; and if it would not, whether a less
period, which would at least be recommended by greater security
against ambitious designs, would not for that reason be prefera-
ble to a longer period, which was at the same time too short for
the purpose of inspiring the desired firmness and independence of
the magistrate.
It cannot be affirmed that a duration of four years, or any
other limited duration, would completely answer the end pro-
posed; but it would contribute toward it in a degree which would
have a material influence upon the spirit and character of the
government. Between the commencement and termination of
such a period there would always be a considerable interval, in
which the prospect of annihilation would be sufficiently remote
not to have an improper effect upon the conduct of a man
indued with a tolerable portion of fortitude; and in which he
might reasonably promise himself that there would be time.
enough before it arrived, to make the community sensible of the
propriety of the measures he might incline to pursue.
