Other
countrymen
look slight and
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Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 - Rab to Rus
His scholarship is singularly conscientious and painstaking. He
has consulted a vast number of sources, giving special attention to
the utterances of the press; thus recognizing the truth that news-
papers, being obliged to say what the public wishes them to say, are
as fair indices as may be found of the popular temper. He has veri-
fied his statements step by step, with a diligence worthy of Teutonic
scholarship; yet his work is in the best sense popular. It is clear,
straightforward, and inspiriting. The quality of inspiration is most
clearly manifest in his portraits of such men as Daniel Webster and
Henry Clay. His sympathies in every case are not partisan but
human. His history, while of great value to his own generation, will
fulfill perhaps its greatest mission in revealing to later generations
the living spirit of a time farther and farther removed from their
comprehension and their sympathy.
DANIEL WEBSTER
TWO
From History of the United States. ' Copyright 1892, by James Ford Rhodes
wo of the great senatorial triumvirate had spoken; the Senate
and the country had yet to hear the greatest of them all.
Daniel Webster spoke on the compromise resolutions the 7th
of March. In the course of this work, whenever possible, his
precise words have been used, in narration and illustration; for
in intellectual endowment Webster surpassed all of our public.
men. No one understood the fundamental principles of our polity
better; no one approached his wonderful power of expression. It
seemed that the language of the constitutional lawyer who laid
down principles of law that the profound legal mind of Marshall
fixed in an immutable judicial decision, and who at the same
time could make clear abstruse points and carry conviction to the
understanding of men who were untrained in logic or in law,
## p. 12209 (#251) ##########################################
JAMES FORD RHODES
12209
was best fitted to guide us through the maze of constitutional
interpretation in which our history abounds. Indeed, the politi-
cal history of the country for twenty-seven years preceding 1850
might be written as well and fully from the speeches, State
papers, and letters of Webster, as the story of the latter days of
the Roman republic from the like material of Cicero which has
come down to us.
As an orator, Webster has been compared in simplicity to
Demosthenes and in profundity to Burke. This is the highest
praise. The wonderful effect of his oratory is strikingly told by
George Ticknor, who, fresh from a long intercourse with the
most distinguished men in England and on the Continent, went
to hear Webster deliver his Plymouth oration. Ticknor writes:
"I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life.
Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the
gush of blood;" and though from his youth an intimate friend of
Webster's, he was so impressed that "when I came out I was
almost afraid to come near him. It seemed to me as if he was
like the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with
fire. " Thomas Marshall, of Kentucky, heard the reply to Hayne;
and when Webster came to the peroration he "listened as to
one inspired, and finally thought he could see a halo around the
orator's head like what one sees in the old pictures of saints and
martyrs. "
He was
The diction of Webster was formed by a grateful study of
Shakespeare and Milton: through his communion with these.
masters, his whole soul was thoroughly attuned to the highest
thinking and purest harmonies of our literature. He is one of
the few orators whose speeches are read as literature.
our greatest lawyer, yet in a bad cause he was not a good
advocate, for he had not the flexibility of mind which made the
worse appear the better reason; but in cases apparently hopeless,
with the right on his side, he won imposing triumphs. He was
our greatest Secretary of State. He had, said Sumner, "by the
successful and masterly negotiation of the treaty of Washington,"
earned the title of "Defender of Peace. "
The Graces presided at his birth. His growth developed the
strong physical constitution with which nature had endowed him,
equally with a massive brain. His was a sound mind in a sound
body. His physical structure was magnificent, his face hand-
some; he had the front of Jove himself. "He is," said Carlyle,
XXI-764
## p. 12210 (#252) ##########################################
12210
JAMES FORD RHODES
"a magnificent specimen.
As a logic-fencer, or parlia-
mentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight
against all the extant world. ” "Webster," said Henry Hallam,
"approaches as nearly to the beau ideal of a Republican Senator
as any man that I have ever seen in the course of my life. "
Josiah Quincy speaks of him as a "figure cast in heroic mold,
and which represented the ideal of American manhood. " He
was well described by the bard he loved so well: "How noble
in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in appre-
hension how like a god! " On the basis of this extraordinary
natural ability was built the superstructure of a systematic
education. His devoted father mortgaged the New Hampshire
farm to send him to college, and three years of laborious study
of law followed the regular course at Dartmouth. Years after-
wards he repaid his Alma Mater for her gifts when he pleaded,
and not in vain, for her chartered rights in invincible logic before
the most solemn tribunal of the country. Intellectually, Webster
was a man of slow growth. The zenith of his power was not
reached until he made the celebrated reply to Hayne, and he
was then forty-eight years old.
In union with this grand intellect were social qualities of a
high order. His manners were charming, his nature was gen-
ial, and he had a quick sense of seemly humor. Carlyle speaks
of him as «< a dignified, perfectly bred man. " Harriet Martineau
says "he would illuminate an evening by telling stories, cracking
jokes, or smoothly discoursing to the perfect felicity of the logi-
cal part of one's constitution. " Ticknor, who was so impressed
with the majestic delivery of the orator, speaks of his being
«< as gay and playful as a kitten. " The social intercourse between
Webster and Lord Ashburton, while they were at work on the
Washington treaty, is one of those international amenities that
grace the history of diplomacy. This treaty, by which we gained
substantial advantages and England made honorable concessions,
was not negotiated through stately protocols, but was concluded
through a friendly correspondence, and during the interchange of
refined social civilities. During this transaction, Ashburton was
impressed with "the upright and honorable character » of Web-
ster. As late as 1845, there might be seen engravings which were
an indication of the popular notion that honesty was his cardinal
virtue.
## p. 12211 (#253) ##########################################
JAMES FORD RHODES
12211
He had strong domestic feelings. He honored his father,
loved his brother, and was devoted to his wife and children; his
affection for his many friends was pure and disinterested. He
had during his life a large share of domestic affliction; and his
deep and sincere grief shows that he had a large heart as well
as a great head. He had a constant belief in revealed as well as
natural religion.
His healthy disposition was displayed even in his recreations.
He was a true disciple of Izaak Walton, and he also delighted in
the chase. Few men have loved nature more. Those grand peri-
ods that will never cease to delight lovers of oratory were many
of them conned at his Marshfield retreat, where he worshiped
the sea and did reverence to the rising sun. After a winter of
severe work in his declining years, he gets to Marshfield in May,
and writes: "I grow strong every hour. The giants grew strong
again by touching the earth: the same effect is produced on me
by touching the salt sea shore »
The distinctive virtue of Webster was his patriotism. He
loved his country as few men have loved it; he had a profound
reverence for the Constitution and its makers. He spoke truly
when he said, "I am an American, and I know no locality but
America; that is my country;" and he was deeply in earnest
when he gave utterance to the sentiment, "I was bred, indeed I
might almost say I was born, in admiration of our political insti-
tutions. " Webster's great work was to inspire the country with a
strong and enduring national feeling; and he impressed upon the
people everywhere, except in the cotton States, a sacred love for
the Union. How well his life work was done, was seen less than
nine years after he died, in the zealous appeal to arms for the
defense of the nation. In the sleepless nights before his death,
no sight was so welcome to his eyes as the lantern he saw through
the windows, placed at the mast-head of the little shallop, in
order that he might discern, fluttering at the mast, the national
flag, the emblem of that Union to which he had consecrated the
best thoughts and purest efforts of his life.
During the last twenty years of his career, Webster had a
great desire to be President. Three times he was exceedingly
anxious for the Whig nomination, and thought his chances were
good for getting it; but the nomination even never came to
him. Indeed, he always overrated the probabilities of his success.
He was of that class of statesmen who were stronger before the
## p. 12212 (#254) ##########################################
12212
JAMES FORD RHODES
country than before the political convention. Had he ever been
named as his party's choice, he would unquestionably have been
a strong candidate; but he never had the knack of arousing the
enthusiasm of the party, which Clay possessed in so eminent
degree. Nor did his frequent action independent of political
considerations commend him to the men who shaped the action
of the party convention. George Ticknor said in 1831, Webster
"belongs to no party; but he has uniformly contended for the
great and essential principles of our government on all occas-
ions:" and this was to a large extent true of him during his
whole life. His tendency to break away from party trammels
was shown more than once during his long career.
In 1833,
as we have seen, he supported with enthusiasm the Democratic
President, and would not assent to the compromise devised by
the leader of his party. But the crowning act of independence
was when he remained in the cabinet of President Tyler, when
all his colleagues resigned. The motive for this action was the
desire to complete the negotiation of the Ashburton treaty; for
Webster felt that he of all men was best fitted for that work,
and his heart was earnestly enlisted in the effort to remove the
difficulties in the way of a peaceful settlement, and to avert
a war between England and the United States.
His course,
although eminently patriotic, was certain to interfere with his
political advancement. For he resisted the imperious dictation
of Clay, he breasted the popular clamor of his party, and he
pursued his own ideas of right despite the fact that he had to
encounter the tyranny of public opinion which De Tocqueville
has so well described.
The French, who make excuses for men of genius, as the
Athenians were wont to do, have a proverb, "It belongs to great
men to have great defects. " Webster exemplified this maxim.
He was fond of wine and brandy, and at times drank deep; he
was not scrupulous in observing the seventh commandment.
Though born and reared in poverty, he had little idea of the
value of money and of the sacredness of money obligations. He
had no conception of the duty of living within his means, and
he was habitually careless in regard to the payment of his debts.
His friends more than once discharged his obligations; besides
such assistance, he accepted from them at other times presents
of money, but he would have rejected their bounty with scorn
had there gone with it an expectation of influencing his public
## p. 12213 (#255) ##########################################
JAMES FORD RHODES
12213
action. This failing was the cause of serious charges being pre-
ferred against him. He was accused of being in the pay of the
United States Bank, but this was not true; and he was charged
with a corrupt misuse of the secret-service fund while Secretary
of State under Tyler, but from this accusation he was fully and
fairly exonerated.
Considering that it was only by strenuous effort that the son
of the New Hampshire farmer obtained the highest rank in
political and social life, it is hard to believe that he was consti-
tutionally indolent, as one of his biographers states. When sixty-
seven years old, it was his practice to study from five to eleven
in the morning; he was in the Supreme Court from eleven to
three, and the rest of the day in the Senate until ten in the
evening. When he had the time to devote himself to his legal
practice, his professional income was large.
Such, in the main, if Daniel Webster had died on the morn-
ing of the seventh of March, 1850, would have been the estimate
of his character that would have come down to this generation.
But his speech in the Senate on that day placed a wide gulf
between him and most of the men who were best fitted to trans-
mit his name to posterity. Partisan malignity has magnified his
vices, depreciated his virtues, and distorted his motives.
WEBSTER'S DEATH
From 'History of the United States. Copyright 1892, by James Ford Rhodes
THE
HE election of 1852 gave the death-blow to the Whig party:
it never entered another Presidential contest. Webster, as
well as Clay, died before his party received this crushing
defeat, which indeed he had predicted. His physical frame worn
out, he went, early in September, home to Marshfield to die.
The story of his last days, as told in loving detail by his friend
and biographer, is of intense interest to the hero-worshiper; and
has likewise pointed the moral of many a Christian sermon. The
conversations of great minds that, unimpaired, deliver themselves
at the approach of death to introspection, are, like the most
famous of all, the discourse of Socrates in the Phædo,' a boon
to human-kind. The mind of Webster was perfectly clear; and
when all earthly striving was over, his true nature shone out
## p. 12214 (#256) ##########################################
12214
JAMES FORD RHODES
•
in the expression of thoughts that filled his soul. Speaking of
the love of nature growing stronger with time, he said: "The
man who has not abandoned himself to sensuality feels, as years
advance and old age comes on, a greater love of Mother Earth,
a greater willingness and even desire to return to her bosom,
and mingle with this universal frame of things from which he
sprang. " Two weeks before he died, he wrote that he wished
inscribed on his monument: "Philosophical argument, especially
that drawn from the vastness of the universe in comparison with
the apparent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken.
my reason for the faith that is within me; but my heart has as-
sured and reassured me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be
a Divine reality. " The day before his death, he said with perfect
calmness to his physician, "Doctor, you have carried me through
the night, I think you will get me through to-day; I shall die
to-night. " The doctor honestly replied, "You are right, sir. "
His family, friends, and servants having assembled in his
room, he spoke to them "in a strong, full voice, and with his
usual modulation and emphasis: 'No man who is not a brute
can say that he is not afraid of death. No man can come back
from that bourn; no man can comprehend the will or works of
God. That there is a God, all must acknowledge. I see him in
all these wondrous works, himself how wondrous! >»
Eloquent in life, Webster was sublime in death. He took
leave of his household one by one, addressing to each fitting
words of consolation. He wanted to know the gradual steps
towards dissolution; and calmly discussed them with his physi-
cian. At one time, awaking from a partial stupor which pre-
ceded death, he heard repeated the words of the psalm which has
smoothed the death pillow of many a Christian: "Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. " The dying statesman exclaimed, "Yes, 'thy rod-thy staff,'
-but the fact, the fact I want;"
for he was not certain
whether the words that had been repeated to him were intended
as an intimation that he was already in the dark valley. Wak-
ing up again past midnight, and conscious that he was living,
he uttered the well-known words, "I still live. " Later he said
something about poetry, and his son repeated one of the verses
of Gray's Elegy. ' He heard it, and smiled. In the early morn-
ing Webster's soul went out with the tide.
## p. 12215 (#257) ##########################################
JAMES FORD RHODES
12215
It was a beautiful Sunday morning of an Indian Summer's day
when the sad tidings reached Boston, which came home to nearly
all of her citizens as a personal sorrow. In all the cities of the
land, mourning emblems were displayed and minute-guns were
fired. New York City and Washington grieved for him as for a
friend. During the week there were the usual manifestations of
mourning by the government at Washington; the various depart-
ments were closed, and the public buildings were draped with
emblems of woe. Festal scenes and celebrations were postponed;
and on the day of his funeral, business was suspended in nearly
all the cities during the hours when he was borne to his last
resting-place. "From east to west," said Edward Everett, “and
from north to south, a voice of lamentation has already gone
forth, such as has not echoed through the land since the death of
him who was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts
of his countrymen. "
By Webster's own request, he had a modest country funeral.
The services were conducted in his Marshfield home. The coffin
was borne to the tomb by six of the neighboring farmers; and
the multitude followed slowly and reverently. To the Marshfield
farmers and Green Harbor fishermen, Webster was a companion
and a friend; by them he was mourned sincerely as one of their
own fellowship. It could not be said of him that a prophet is
not without honor save in his own country. One man in a plain
and rustic garb paid the most eloquent of all tributes to the
mighty dead: "Daniel Webster, the world without you will seem
lonesome. " A Massachusetts orator of our day has truly said:
"Massachusetts smote and broke the heart of Webster, her idol,
and then broke her own above his grave. "
IMPROVEMENT IN AMERICAN HEALTH
From History of the United States. Copyright 1895, by James Ford
Rhodes
E
NGLISH travelers, with hardly an exception, were struck with
the lack of health of Americans. "An Englishman," wrote
Lyell, “is usually recognized at once in a party by a more
robust look, and greater clearness and ruddiness of complexion. "
He also noted a careworn expression in the countenances of the
## p. 12216 (#258) ##########################################
12216
JAMES FORD RHODES
«<
New-Englanders. " Harriet Martineau said we were distinguished
for "spare forms and pallid complexions"; and that "the feeling
of vigorous health" was almost unknown. Thackeray wrote from
New York, "Most of the ladies are as lean as greyhounds. " Our
shortcomings in this respect were fully appreciated by ourselves.
The Atlantic Monthly pointed out that in the appearance of
health and in bodily vigor we compared very unfavorably with
English men and women. George William Curtis spoke of the
typical American as "sharp-faced, thought-furrowed, hard-handed,"
with anxious eye and sallow complexion, nervous motion, and
concentrated expression "; and he averred that we were "lantern-
jawed, lean, sickly, and serious of aspect. " Emerson mentioned
"that depression of spirits, that furrow of care, said to mark
every American brow"; and on another occasion he referred to
"the invalid habits of this country"; when in England in 1847
he wrote home: "When I see my muscular neighbors day by
day, I say, Had I been born in England, with but one chip of
English oak in my willowy constitution! " The Atlantic Monthly
declared that, "in truth, we are a nation of health-hunters,
betraying the want by the search. " It was admitted that the
young men were coming up badly. Holmes wrote: "I am sat-
isfied that such a set of black-coated, stiff-jointed, soft-muscled,
paste-complexioned youth as we can boast in our Atlantic cities
never before sprang from loins of Anglo-Saxon lineage. " In
the "Easy Chair" Curtis observed, "In the proportion that
the physique of Young America diminishes, its clothes enlarge. "
The students in the colleges were no better than the young
men of the cities. The women sadly lacked physical tone. Dr.
Holmes spoke of the "American female constitution, which col-
lapses just in the middle third of life; and comes out vulcanized
india-rubber if it happen to live through the period when health
and strength are most wanted. "
Curiously enough, we advertised our ailments. The hearty
English salutation of "good-morning" had given way to an
inquiry about one's health, which, instead of being conventional,
like that of the French and Germans, was a question requiring
an answer about one's physical feelings and condition. Pleas of
ill-health in the national Senate and the House of Representatives
were not infrequent.
Our physical degeneracy was attributed to the climate. Yet it
is difficult to reconcile this opinion with the enthusiasm of many
## p. 12217 (#259) ##########################################
JAMES FORD RHODES
12217
European travelers over certain aspects of nature in America.
The bright sunshine, the blue sky, the golden, Oriental sunsets,
the exhilarating air, were an astonishment and delight. "The
climate of the Union," wrote De Tocqueville, "is upon the whole
preferable to that of Europe. " We have now come to recognize
the fact that a climate to be salubrious need not be moist; that
between the dryness of Colorado and the humidity of England,
there may be a mean such as is found in the larger part of
the Northern States-better adapted to health than either; and
that the greater amount of sunshine compensates for the wider
variations in temperature.
But without begging the question of American ill-health by
ascribing it to climate, it may unquestionably be found to be due
to bad diet, bad cooking, fast eating, and insufficient exercise in
the open air. The appetizing forms in which the genius of New
England cookery displayed itself, provoked an inordinate con-
sumption of sweets, hot breads, and cakes. With what surprise
does this generation read that our greatest philosopher always ate
pie for breakfast! The use of the frying-pan in the West and
the South pointed well the quaint remark that "God sends meat,
and the Devil sends cooks. " Men ate too much animal food, and
especially too much pork. The cooking and the service at hotels
and other public places made dinner "the seed-time of dyspep-
sia. " A fashionable tendency prevailing in the cities to live in
hotels and large boarding-houses, promoted unwholesome liv-
ing. The use of wine at table was rare, the drinking of drams
before dinner habitual. Tobacco was used to excess, and chewing
was as common as smoking.
Boys at schools and colleges, young men who were clerks and
salesmen in the cities, and the sons of rich parents, alike formed
these bad habits. Neither men nor women took exercise in the
open air.
No one walked when he could ride. The trotting-
buggy took the place of the horse's back. The Americans were
gregarious, and loved town life, having no taste for healthful
country recreations. Their idea of the country was the veranda
of a large caravansary at Saratoga or Newport. Athletics were
almost unknown. "There is no lack," said Edward Everett in
1856, "of a few tasteless and soulless dissipations which are
called amusements; but noble athletic sports, manly outdoor ex-
ercises, which strengthen the mind by strengthening the body,
and bring man into a generous and exhilarating communion
-
## p. 12218 (#260) ##########################################
12218
JAMES FORD RHODES
with nature, are too little cultivated in town or country. " "We
have a few good boatmen," wrote Holmes in 1858; "no good
horsemen that I hear of; -I cannot speak for cricketing, but as
for any great athletic feat performed by a gentleman in these
latitudes, society would drop a man who should run round the
Common in five minutes. " Athletics were not a prominent feat-
ure even of college life.
The improvement in these respects since the decade of 1850-
60 is marked: and despite the large element of truth in the pre-
cise observations of Emerson, Everett, Holmes, and Curtis, they
do not embrace with scientific breadth the whole subject, for the
experience of our Civil War gave little indication of physical
degeneracy in the Northern people; signs of improvement were
already manifest before this period closed. The gospel of physi-
cal culture had been preached with effect, and "muscular Christ-
ianity" was set up as an ideal worth striving to realize. "Health
is the condition of wisdom," declared Emerson in 1858; and not
long after, the world of fashion, discarding the Parisian model of
life and beginning the imitation of the English, shortened the
city season, acquired a love for the country, for outdoor exer-
cise, and athletic sports. But the French cuisine, almost the
sole outward trace left of the period of French domination, was
a potent and enduring influence. Any one who considers the
difference between the cooking and the service of a dinner at a
hotel or restaurant before the War and now, will appreciate what
a practical apostle of health and decent living has been Delmon-
ico, who deserves canonization in the American calendar. With
better digestion and more robust bodies, the use of stimulants
has decreased. While wine at table is more common, tippling
at bars has come to be frowned upon; lager beer and native
wines have to a considerable extent taken the place of spirituous
liquors; hard drinkers are less numerous, total abstainers are
probably on the increase, and tobacco-chewing is dying out. The
duration of life is now at least as long in America as it is in
Europe.
During the last forty years the American physique has un-
questionably improved. A philosopher now, contrasting English-
men and ourselves, would not make the comparison to our so
great disadvantage as did Emerson from his observations in 1848,
when he wrote: "The English, at the present day, have great
vigor of body and endurance.
Other countrymen look slight and
## p. 12219 (#261) ##########################################
JAMES FORD RHODES
12219
undersized beside them, and invalids. They are bigger men than
the Americans. I suppose a hundred English, taken at random.
out of the street, would weigh a fourth more than so many
Americans. Yet I am told the skeleton is not larger. " "I used
to think myself," said Edward Atkinson, "only an average man
in size, height, and weight at home; but when I made my first
visit to England (in 1877), I was rather surprised to find myself
a tall and large man by comparison with those whom I passed
in the streets. " The American schoolboy and college student
are to-day equal in physical development to the English youth.
This is due in some degree to the growth of athletics. But a
superiority in physique of American to English students was
observed as early as 1877.
AMERICAN MANNERS IN 1850
From History of the United States. Copyright 1895, by James Ford Rhodes
WHE
HEN we come to consider society in the narrower sense
given to the word, we find we must study it as something
distinct from the great throbbing life of the American
people of 1850-60. New York, whose "Upper Ten Thousand »
have been described by N. P. Willis and Charles Astor Bristed,
furnishes the example. Bristed introduces us into what is a
curious world, when we reflect that he writes of the United
States of 1850-52. While his sketches show a touch of caricature,
they represent well enough the life of a fashionable set of New
York City. We see men working hard to get money for their
personal enjoyment; idlers who have come into a fortune; pretty
and stylish girls; women who preside gracefully at table and
converse with wit and intelligence. Bristed takes us among men
whose sole aim in life seemed to be to make a luck hit in
stock speculation; to compound a sherry cobbler; to be apt in
bar-room repartee; to drink the best brands of claret and cham-
pagne, and to expatiate on them in a knowing manner; to drive
a fast horse; to dance well, and to dress in the latest fashion.
We assist at a wedding "above Bleecker Street"; we are taken
to a country-house, and see a family dinner served at four o'clock,
where, although the only guest is a gentleman just from England,
and the viands are not remarkable, " champagne decanted and
## p. 12220 (#262) ##########################################
12220
JAMES FORD RHODES
a
iced to the freezing-point" followed Manzanilla sherry, and “
prime bottle of Latour and a swelling slender-necked decanter
of the old Vanderlyn Madeira" succeeded the champagne.
ted describes the fashionable life at "Oldport Springs," a dis-
guise for Saratoga. He speaks of a huge caravansary, a profuse
American breakfast, a promenade on the wide porticos, cigars
and ten-pins, the bar-room and billiards, lounging and gossip, a
bad dinner at three which the ladies dressed for, a drive after
dinner, dancing until two in the morning for men and women,
and gambling the rest of the night for the men.
The Upper Ten Thousand of 1850-60 lend themselves to
delineation somewhat better than the same class of our own
time. Those who did not go to Europe passed the summer at
Saratoga, Newport, or Sharon; and their watering-place life was
open to the public gaze. N. P. Willis's chapter on Manners at
Watering-Places' would read oddly enough if set forth by a
similar adviser of the fashionable world of our time. People of
reserve, who wished for no other than their city acquaintances,
were termed "absolute exclusives," and counseled to have a sum-
mer resort of their own; for the very purpose of most, in going
to Saratoga and Newport in the gay season, was to make new
acquaintances. Yet care should be taken to avoid too great pro-
miscuity in social intercourse. While young men who happened
to be strangers to the reigning set could of course become ac-
quainted with some of the "dandies" during "a game at billiards
or a chance fraternization over juleps in the bar-room," those
whose pleasure was not found in games or in drink might find
it difficult to get properly introduced; and young ladies who
were strangers would encounter the same obstacle. Therefore, in
order that desirable acquaintances might be easily made, Willis,
an authority whom society held in respect, proposed that a
"committee of introduction" should be named by the landlord of
each large hotel. These should act under a «< code of etiquette,"
which Willis proceeded to outline. Such action, he declared,
would delightfully harmonize and enliven our summer resorts.
It is hardly probable that the plan proposed by the literary
social leader of the day was systematically adopted. There was
little need of it, for entrance into watering-place society was not
difficult. Respectability and fairly good manners were of course
requisite; but these being presupposed, the important qualifica-
tion was wealth. "Wealth," wrote George William Curtis, "will
## p. 12221 (#263) ##########################################
JAMES FORD RHODES
12221
socially befriend a man at Newport or Saratoga better than at
any similar spot in the world. " Yet all was not garish. At
Newport, the votary of fashion could not be insensible to nature's
charm. At Saratoga, "youth, health, and beauty" reigned; "we
discriminate," the Lotus-Eater said, "the Arctic and Antarctic.
Bostonians, fair, still, and stately, with a vein of scorn in their
Saratoga enjoyment; and the languid, cordial, and careless South-
erners, far from precise in dress or style, but balmy in man-
ner as a bland Southern morning. We mark the crisp courtesy
of the New-Yorker, elegant in dress, exclusive in association, a
pallid ghost of Paris. " After the sectional excitement of 1850,
however, fewer Southerners came North. The repeal of the slave
sojournment laws of Pennsylvania and New York made the
bringing of their slaves with them as body-servants inconvenient.
The excitement about the Fugitive Slave Act, and the passage
of the Personal Liberty Laws, involved the risk of losing their
negroes; and after the most powerful Northern party made, in
1856, a political shibboleth of the declaration that slavery was
a relic of barbarism, it was still more disagreeable for South-
ern gentlemen accompanied by their servants to travel at the
North.
Newport, the leading watering-place in the country, was, in
the opinion of Curtis, the vantage-ground to study the fashionable
world. There he found wealth the touchstone; but he saw money
spent without taste and in vulgar display. We Americans, he
declared, had the money-getting, but not the "money-spending
genius. " If high society was "but the genial intercourse of the
highest intelligences with which we converse-the festival of Wit
and Beauty and Wisdom" — he saw none at Newport. "Fine
society," he moralizes, "is a fruit that ripens slowly. We Ameri-
cans fancy we can buy it. " The peripatetic observer was glad to
get to Nahant.
There he wrote: "You find no village, no dust,
no commotion. You encounter no crowds of carriages or of curi-
ous and gossiping people. No fast men in velvet coats are trot-
ting fast horses;" and in the evenings "there are no balls, no
hops, no concerts, no congregating under any pretense in hotel
parlors. " But by the early part of the decade of 1850-60 the
life in Newport had begun to change. Originally a Southern
resort, New-Yorkers commenced to divide their favors between it
and Saratoga. Cottages became the fashion. The hotel season
declined.
## p. 12222 (#264) ##########################################
12222
JAMES FORD RHODES
The fashionable people of New York generally went to
Europe. When De Tocqueville wrote his last volume on Amer-
ica, the rich American in Europe was characteristic; and between
1850 and 1860 crowds went over the sea for the summer. To
writers of books and writers for the magazines, there seemed
in the high American society much that was meretricious, and
certainly no real enjoyment. The "uncommon splendatiousness"
annoyed Thackeray. That Mammon had become the national
saint, and that as a consequence, dullness and gloom charac-
terized the elegant people, was undeniable. This led a witty
Frenchman to record that "the most cheerful place he could find
in one of the metropolitan cities was the public cemetery. " One
of our stanch admirers found our society "sometimes fatiguing ";
and another, who went frequently to dinner parties in, New York,
thought they were very stupid. Men talked of trade, and women
talked about dress, each other, and their troubles with servants.
Yet the people Lady Wortley met on the streets in New York
reminded her of Paris. The Americans were said to resemble
the French more than the English. The ladies in New York,
Thackeray wrote, "dress prodigiously fine,- taking for their
models the French actresses, I think, of the Boulevard theatres. "
He thought Boston, New York, and Philadelphia "not so civil-
ized as our London, but more so than Manchester and Liver-
pool. "
Bristed noted that only makeshift liveries could be seen in
the American metropolis. When liveries were first introduced,
there was a great outcry against them, which resulted in their
being adopted in a half-way manner. "They were hooted out
of Boston. " None but the greatest dandies at Saratoga put their
coachmen in uniform. In March 1853, however, the New York
Herald complained of the "alarming spread of flunkeyism," as
evidenced from the rich people setting up liveries for their
coachmen and their footmen. The dress of gentlemen in the
decade we are studying would in these days appear peculiar;
that of the ladies, grotesque. In Washington, where society
retained the tone imparted to it by President Madison and his
wife, Senators went to the Senate and Representatives to the
House, as late as 1853, dressed as if they were going to a party.
A reference to some of the topics on which Willis discourses
will afford us a glimpse of the life of the people to whom he
addressed himself. He complains of the "want of married belles
## p. 12223 (#265) ##########################################
JAMES FORD RHODES
12223
in American society," and decries the public opinion that obliges
a woman to give up "all active participation in society after the
birth of her first child. " He devotes a chapter to the considera-
tion of the question, "Should married ladies go into society with
their daughters? " In dilating upon The Usages of Society,' he
asks, "Ought young girls to be left by mothers to themselves?
Should those who have incomes of $5,000 vie with those who
have $25,000? In a business country, should socialities com-
mence near midnight and end near morning? Should very
young children be dressed as expensively as their mothers? "
To the Upper Ten Thousand of to-day-or if hi
or if high society
has increased proportionately to the growth of population, it must
be more nearly the upper thirty thousand-the highest social
class of 1850-60 would seem crude and garish. Extraordinary
has been the development of taste, the growth of refinement, the
improvement in manners since that time. When we take a
broader view, and consider the whole Northern people, limiting
our inquiry to men and women of American birth, we see simi-
lar betterment in their personal bearing. The testimony of for-
eign travelers regarding American manners differs; but whether
we rely on the favorable, the unfavorable, or the impartial opin-
ions, we arrive alike at the conclusion that there has been a
gain. Omitting a comparison regarding certain personal habits
and uncouth behavior, that disgusted many Europeans and made
the burden of much comment, we see in one particular an
improvement, denoting a rising out of provincialism. "For fifty
years," wrote De Tocqueville, "it has been impressed upon the
inhabitants of the United States that they form the only reli-
gious, enlightened, and free people. They see that with them,
up to the present, democratic institutions prosper, while meeting
with failure in the rest of the world: they have then an immense
opinion of themselves, and they are not far from believing that
they form a species apart from the human race. " Ampère notes
of Americans their "perpetual glorification" of their country;
and he cannot keep from thinking that it is a mortification for
them "not to be able to pretend that an American discovered
America. " But when we come to our own time, Bryce observes
that one finds nowadays from European travelers the "general
admission that the Americans are as pleasant to one another and
to strangers, as are the French or the Germans or the English.
The least agreeable feature to the visitors of former years, an
## p. 12224 (#266) ##########################################
12224
JAMES FORD RHODES
incessant vaunting of their own country and disparagement of
others, has disappeared; and the tinge of self-assertion which
the sense of equality used to give is now but faintly noticeable. "
With improvement in this respect, there is no longer evident,
as formerly, such extreme sensitiveness to the opinions of Euro-
peans, and especially of the English. Harriet Martineau thought
that the veneration in New England for Old England was greater
"than any one people ought to feel for any other. " It is unde-
niable that, mingled with the unrestrained curiosity with which
the American people ran headlong after the Prince of Wales on
the occasion of his visit to the United States in 1860, there was
a genuine enthusiasm and a kindly feeling for the country and
the sovereign that he represented.
With all our improvement, have we grown more interesting?
De Tocqueville was just when he wrote: "In the long run, how-
ever, the view of that society, so agitated, appears monotonous;
and after having contemplated for a while this ever-changing
picture, the spectator becomes weary. " Somewhere about 1870,
Lowell asked: "Did it never occur to you that somehow we are
not interesting except as a phenomenon? "
The people of the decade we are studying did not lack for
public amusements. In music, the era began with Jenny Lind
and ended with Adelina Patti. The impression made by the
Swedish Nightingale still remains fresh. On her arrival at New
York she was received like a queen. Triumphal arches of 'flow-
ers and evergreens were erected on the pier, where an enthusias-
tic crowd greeted her. The flag of Norway and Sweden floated
over her hotel. Barnum, her manager, kept up the interest in
the songstress by all sorts of clever advertising until the day of
the sale of the tickets for the first concert, when fabulous prices
were paid for seats. She sang at Castle Garden; and the
accounts of the pressing crowd that gathered outside on the
occasion of her first appearance, call to mind a national party
convention rather than a host assembled to do homage to the
greatest interpreter of the art of song. Her singing of operatic
selections struck lovers of music with amazement and delight;
but when she burst forth in one of her national airs, the great
audience was thrilled, and their hearts vibrated with emotions
that took them for the moment away from earth.
## p. 12225 (#267) ##########################################
12225
.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
(1689-1761)
T IS a remarkable fact that the writer who may fairly be
called the father of the modern analytic novel of society,
wrote his first and most famous book with a utilitarian
object in view, with no thought of making a novel,-and moreover,
was over fifty years of age when this story of 'Pamela' was penned.
By producing this piece of fiction, Richardson founded a school, and
gave a new impulse and direction to modern fiction.
Samuel Richardson was born in a Derbyshire village in 1689, and
got his only education at the local school. His father was a joiner.
When seventeen he was apprenticed to a
London printer, serving his seven years
faithfully. This employment was followed
by six years more of hard work as journey-
man. In 1719 he set up a Fleet Street
printing-office of his own, and wrote pref-
aces and dedications to the works of oth-
ers. It was in this way that 'Pamela' had
its origin; for Richardson in 1739 composed
a series of 'Familiar Letters,' to help those
too illiterate to write for themselves,- a
sort of Servant-Girl's Guide, and the novel
was a result.
Richardson was always a diligent worker,
a man of thrift and character, whose rise in
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
his profession was well earned. He widened the circle of his friends,
and married the daughter of his former employer. He extended his
business connections by printing the Daily Journal, the Daily Gazet-
teer, and the Briton. His friendship with the Duke of Wharton
was influential in his advancement. In 1754 he was appointed to the
important post of Master of the Stationers' Company. During his last
years he was an invalid, and passed much of his time at his country-
seat, reading from his own work to a circle of female admirers. Few
men have received more adulation of this sort than Richardson; and
while he had his share of amiable vanity, it is to his credit that he
remained in character unsophisticated, kind, and generous. He died
in his home July 4th, 1761.
XXI-765
## p. 12226 (#268) ##########################################
12226
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
As a boy at school Richardson amused his schoolmates by making
up extemporaneous romances; and when but thirteen years old, such
was his talent as a letter-writer that the village girls employed him
to write their love epistles. This is described amusingly in his
autobiography.
"As a bashful and not forward boy, I was an early favorite with all the
young women of taste and reading in the neighborhood. Half a dozen of
them, when met to work with their needles, used when they got a book they
liked, and thought I should, to borrow me to read to them; their mothers
sometimes with them: and both mothers and daughters used to be pleased
with the observations they put me upon making. I was not more than
thirteen when three of these young women, having a high opinion of my taci-
turnity, revealed to me their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them
copies to write after or correct, for answers to their lovers' letters; nor did
any of them ever know that I was the secretary of the others. I have been
directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offense was either taken or
given, at the very time that the heart of the chider or repulser was open
before me, overflowing with esteem and affection, and the fair repulser, dread-
ing to be taken at her word, directing this word or that expression to be
softened or changed. One, highly gratified with her lover's fervor and vows
of everlasting love, has said when I have asked her direction: 'I cannot
tell you what to write, but'- her heart on her lips-'you cannot write too
kindly. All her fear was only lest she should incur slight for her kindness. »
Excellent training this, it will be seen, for the future novelist and
portrayer of the soul feminine. 'Pamela,' which appeared in 1742,
can be recognized as the child of this youthful employ, and similar
experiences in maturity. It narrates the trials of a serving-maid of
that name, whose virtue is assailed by the son of the lady who em-
ploys her. Through a long series of temptations and efforts, includ-
ing an abduction, she refuses to yield; until finally, finding he can
get her in no other way, the quasi-hero condescends to marry her,
and is naïvely lauded by Richardson for the act. The novel's sub-
title, 'Virtue Rewarded,' expresses the author's feeling. Pamela's
hard-headed, practical valuation of her character as a purchasable
commodity, as well as the elegant rascality of the lover, give the
present-day reader a keen sense of the comparatively low state of
social morals in eighteenth-century England. But the story is full
of human interest; and one follows the long-suffering, and be it con-
fessed, long-winded Pamela, with genuine sympathy.
Having depicted the servant-girl type in his first story, Richardson
essayed in his second-'Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady,'
which appeared half a dozen years later, in 1748-to draw with equal
accuracy the young woman of gentility, also in sore straits through
the love-passion. Clarissa is seduced and ruined by Lovelace — who
## p. 12227 (#269) ##########################################
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
12227
has given his name to the genus fine-gentleman profligate. Here
again, with certain allowances for the change in times and customs,
Richardson has succeeded in making a powerful tale, though a very
slow-moving one to the modern taste. The lachrymose dénouement
is an eighteenth-century prototype of a whole train of latter-day fic-
tion after it became fashionable to end a novel ill. In his final story,
'The History of Sir Charles Grandison' (1753), he turns from painting
heroines in order to limn a hero, with whom he most egregiously
fails. Sir Charles is an impossible prig and pattern-plate; the reader
cannot accept him as true, nor stomach him as in any wise admi-
rable. Surrounded by an adoring bevy of women, he struts about
like a turkey-cock, and is twice as ridiculous. In George Meredith's
'The Egoist,' Willoughby is Grandison, with the significant difference
that the later story-teller consciously satirizes the character, while
Richardson takes him in full seriousness. Of these three main works,
then, two are masterpieces when viewed in relation to their time
and the prior poor estate of English fiction. The third is a compara-
tive failure. All of them, it should be understood, are cast in the
epistolary form. Novels in the shape of letters have bred fast since,
and the device is now pretty well outworn; but in the middle of the
last century this way of telling a story had the charm of novelty.
It is a method lending itself well to Richardson's leisurely, at times
tedious, gait.
Richardson's popularity with the fair sex was immense after the
appearance of his novels; nor was this confined to one class. That
brilliant worldling, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, testifies that the
chambermaids of all nations wept over Pamela; while ladies of
quality knelt sobbing at Richardson's feet, begging him to spare
Clarissa. The situation is not without humor for us to-day; and
indeed the modern reader can afford to smile at the mawkish senti-
mentality and utilitarian morals of a book like 'Pamela. ' But the
story is epoch-making in English fiction. It does a new thing. A
girl of the lower class is painted at full length, as if she were worth
attention-painted sympathetically; and in this and the subsequent
stories the interest is made to depend upon the development of
character, rather than upon objective incident as in the case of De
Foe's 'Robinson Crusoe,' which came some twenty years earlier. In
this Richardson struck the modern note, and started the analytic
tendency, which has unceasingly dominated the modern novel since
his day. Hence Richardson's important place in the evolution of
fiction of our speech.
Again, it was in the spirit of parody and satire that Fielding,
his greater fellow novelist, began his career by writing 'Joseph An-
drews'; so that Richardson, in a sense, may be regarded as inspiring
## p. 12228 (#270) ##########################################
12228
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
the author of Tom Jones. ' The former's influence was felt largely
in foreign fiction, particularly in that of Germany and France.
Richardson's 'Life and Correspondence,' with a Memoir by Mrs. Bar-
bauld, appeared in 1804.
PAMELA IMMURED BY HER LOVER
From Pamela'
THURSDAY.
TH
HIS Completes a terrible week since my setting out, as I hoped.
to see you, my dear father and mother.
My impatience was great to walk in the garden, to see
if anything had offered answerable to my hopes; but this wicked
Mrs. Jewkes would not let me go without her, and said she
was not at leisure. We had a great many words about it: I told
her it was very hard I could not be trusted to walk by myself
in the garden for a little air, but must be dogged and watched
worse than a thief.
"I remember," said she, "your asking Mr. Williams if there
were any gentry in the neighborhood. This make me suspect
you want to go away to them, to tell your dismal story, as you
call it. "
«<
"Why," said I, are you afraid I should confederate with
them to commit a robbery upon my master? "
«< Maybe I am," said she; "for to rob him of yourself would
be the worst that could happen to him, in his opinion. "
"And pray," said I, walking on, "how came I to be his prop-
erty? what right has he to me, but such as a thief may plead to
stolen goods? "
>>>
"Why, was ever the like heard!
says she.
"This is down-
right rebellion, I protest! Well, well, lambkin" (which the fool-
ish woman often calls me), "if I was in his place, he should not
have his property in you so long questionable. »
"Why, what would you do," said I, "if you were he? »
"Not stand shill-I shall-I, as he does, but put you and him-
self both out of pain. "
"Why, Jezebel," said I (I could not help it), "would you ruin
me by force ? »
Upon this she gave me a deadly slap upon the shoulder.
"Take that," said she: "whom do you call Jezebel? "
## p. 12229 (#271) ##########################################
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
12229
I was so surprised (for you never beat me, my dear father and
mother, in your lives), that I was like one thunder-struck, and
looked round as if I wanted somebody to help me; but alas, I
had nobody! and said, rubbing my shoulder, "Is this also in
your instructions?
