Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 44, June, 1861», страница 10
Then we ought to try to fix it in our mind, that, in all matters into which taste enters at all, the most honest and the most able men may hopelessly, diametrically, differ: original idiosyncrasy has so much to say here; and training has also so much. One cultivated and honest man has an enthusiastic and most real love and enjoyment of Gothic architecture, and an absolute hatred for that of the classic revival; another man, equally cultivated and honest, has tastes which are the logical contradictory of these. No one can doubt the ability of Byron, or of Sheridan; yet each of them thought very little of Shakspeare. The question is, What suits you? You may have the strongest conviction that you ought to like an author; you may be ashamed to confess that you don't like him; and yet you may feel that you detest him. For myself, I confess with shame, and I know the reason is in myself, I cannot for my life see anything to admire in the writings of Mr. Carlyle. His style, both of thought and language, is to me insufferably irritating. I tried to read the "Sartor Resartus," and could not do it. So if all people who have learned to read English were like me, Mr. Carlyle would have no readers. Happily, the majority, in most cases, possesses the normal taste. At least there is no further appeal than to the deliberate judgment of the majority of educated men. I confess, further, that I would rather read Mr. Helps than Milton: I do not say that I think Mr. Helps the greater man, but that I feel he suits me better. I value the "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table" more highly than all the writings of Shelley put together. It is a curious thing to read various reviews of the same book,—particularly if it be one of those books which, if you like at all, you will like very much, and which, if you don't like, you will absolutely hate. It is curious to find opinions flatly contradictory of one another set forth in those reviews by very able, cultivated, and unprejudiced men. There is no newspaper published in Britain which contains abler writing than the "Edinburgh Scotsman." And of course no one need say anything as to the literary merits of the "Times." Well, one day within the last few months, the "Times" and the "Scotsman" each published a somewhat elaborate review of a certain book. The reviews were flatly opposed to one another; they had no common ground at all; one said the book was extremely good, and the other that it was extremely bad. You must just make up your mind that in matters of taste there can be no unvarying standard of truth. In aesthetic matters, truth is quite relative. What is bad to you is good to me, perhaps. And indeed, if one might adduce the saddest of all possible proofs how even the loftiest and most splendid genius fails to commend itself to every cultivated mind, it may suffice to say, that that brilliant "Scotsman" has on several occasions found fault with the works of A.K.H.B.!
If you, my reader, are a wise and kind-hearted person, (as I have no doubt whatever but you are,) I think you would like very much to meet and converse with any person who has formed a bad opinion of you. You would take great pleasure in overcoming such a one's prejudice against you; and if the person were an honest and worthy person, you would be almost certain to do so. Very few folk are able to retain any bitter feeling towards a man they have actually talked with, unless the bitter feeling be one which is just. And a very great proportion of all the unfavorable opinions which men entertain of their fellow-men found on some misconception. You take up somehow an impression that such a one is a conceited, stuck-up person: you come to know him, and you find he is the frankest and most unaffected of men. You had a belief that such another was a cynical, heartless being, till you met him one day coming down a long black stair, in a poor part of the town, from a bare chamber in which is a little sick child, with two large tears running down his face; and when you enter the poor apartment, you learn certain facts as to his quiet benevolence which compel you suddenly to construct a new theory of that man's character. It is only people who are radically and essentially bad whom you can really dislike after you come to know them. And the human beings who are thus essentially bad are very few. Something of the original Image lingers yet in almost every human soul: and in many a homely, commonplace person, what with vestiges of the old, and a blessed planting-in of something new, there is a vast deal of it. And every human being, conscious of honest intention and of a kind heart, may well wish that the man who dislikes and abuses him could just know him.
But there are human beings whom, if you are wise, you would not wish to know you too well: I mean the human beings (if such there should be) who think very highly of you,—who imagine you very clever and very amiable. Keep out of the way of such! Let them see as little of you as possible. For, when they come to know you well, they are quite sure to be disenchanted. The enthusiastic ideal which young people form of any one they admire is smashed by the rude presence of facts. I have got somewhat beyond the stage of feeling enthusiastic admiration, yet there are two or three living men whom I should be sorry to see: I know I should never admire them so much any more. I never saw Mr. Dickens: I don't want to see him. Let us leave Yarrow unvisited: our sweet ideal is fairer than the fairest fact. No hero is a hero to his valet: and it may be questioned whether any clergyman is a saint to his beadle. Yet the hero may be a true hero, and the clergyman a very excellent man: but no human being can bear too close inspection. I remember hearing a clever and enthusiastic young lady complain of what she had suffered, on meeting a certain great bishop at dinner. No doubt he was dignified, pleasant, clever; but the mysterious halo was no longer round his Lead. Here is a sad circumstance in the lot of a very great man: I mean such a man as Mr. Tennyson or Professor Longfellow. As an elephant walks through a field, crushing the crop at every step, so do these men advance through life, smashing, every time they dine out, the enthusiastic fancies of several romantic young people.
This was to have been a short essay. But you see it is already long; and I have treated only two of the four Things Slowly Learnt which I had noted down. After much consideration I discern several courses which are open to me:—
1. To ask the editor to allow me forty or fifty pages of the magazine for my essay.
2. To stop at once, and allow it to remain forever a secret what the two remaining things are.
3. To stop now, and continue my subject in a future number of the magazine.
4. To state briefly what the two things are, and get rid of the subject at once.
The fundamental notion of Course No. 1 is manifestly vain. The editor is doubtless well aware that about sixteen pages is the utmost length of essay which his readers can stand. Nos. 2 and 3, for reasons too numerous to state, cannot be adopted. And thus I am in a manner compelled to adopt Course No. 4.
The first of the two things is a practical lesson. It is this: to allow for human folly, laziness, carelessness, and the like, just as you allow for the properties of matter, such as weight, friction, and the like, without being surprised or angry at them. You know, that, if a man is lifting a piece of lead, he does not think of getting into a rage because it is heavy; or if a man is dragging a tree along the ground, he does not get into a rage because it ploughs deeply into the earth as it comes. He is not surprised at these things. They are nothing new. It is just what he counted on. But you will find that the same man, if his servants are lazy, careless, and forgetful, or if his friends are petted, wrong-headed, and impracticable, will not only get quite angry, but will get freshly angry at each new action which proves that his friends or servants possess these characteristics. Would it not be better to make up your mind that such things are characteristic of humanity, and so that you must look for them in dealing with human beings? And would it not be better, too, to regard each new proof of laziness, not as a new thing to be angry with, but merely as a piece of the one great fact that your servant is lazy, with which you get angry once for all, and have done with it? If your servant makes twenty blunders a day, do not regard them as twenty separate facts at which to get angry twenty several times: regard them just as twenty proofs of the one fact that your servant is a blunderer; and be angry just once, and no more. Or if some one you know gives twenty indications in a day that he or she (let us say she) is of a petted temper, regard these merely as twenty proofs of one lamentable fact, and not as twenty different facts to be separately lamented. You accept the fact that the person is petted and ill-tempered: you regret it and blame it once for all. And after this once you take as of course all new manifestations of pettedness and ill-temper. And you are no more surprised at them, or angry with them, than you are at lead for being heavy, or at down for being light. It is their nature, and you calculate on it, and allow for it.
Then the second of the two remaining things is this,—that you have no right to complain, if you are postponed to greater people, or if you are treated with less consideration than you would be, if you were a greater person. Uneducated people are very slow to learn this most obvious lesson. I remember hearing of a proud old lady who was proprietor of a small landed estate in Scotland. She had many relations,—some greater, some less. The greater she much affected, the less she wholly ignored. But they did not ignore her; and one morning an individual arrived at her mansion-house, bearing a large box on his back. He was a travelling peddler; and he sent up word to the old lady that he was her cousin, and hoped she would buy something from him. The old lady indignantly refused to see him, and sent orders that he should forthwith quit the house. The peddler went; but, on reaching the courtyard, he turned to the inhospitable dwelling, and in a loud voice exclaimed, in the ears of every mortal in the house, "Ay, if I had come in my carriage-and-four, ye wad have been proud to have ta'en me in!" The peddler fancied that he was hurling at his relative a scathing sarcasm: he did not see that he was simply stating a perfectly unquestionable fact. No doubt earthly, if he had come in a carriage-and-four, he would have got a hearty welcome, and he would have found his claim of kindred eagerly allowed. But he thought he was saying a bitter and cutting thing, and (strange to say) the old lady fancied she was listening to a bitter and cutting thing. He was merely expressing a certain and innocuous truth. But though all mortals know that in this world big people meet greater respect than small, (and quite right too,) most mortals seem to find the principle a very unpleasant one, when it comes home to themselves. And we learn but slowly to acquiesce in seeing ourselves plainly subordinated to other people. Poor Oliver Goldsmith was very angry, when at the club one night he was stopped in the middle of a story by a Dutchman, who had noticed that the Great Bear was rolling about in preparation for speaking, and who exclaimed to Goldsmith, "Stop, stop! Toctor Shonson is going to speak!" Once I arrived at a certain railway station. Two old ladies were waiting to go by the same train. I knew them well, and they expressed their delight that we were going the same way. "Let us go in the same carriage," said the younger, in earnest tones; "and will you be so very kind as to see about our luggage?" After a few minutes of the lively talk of the period and district, the train came up. I feel the tremor of the platform yet. I handed my friends into a carriage, and then saw their baggage placed in the van. It was a station at which trains stop for a few minutes for refreshments. So I went to the door of the carriage into which I had put them, and waited a little before taking my seat. I expected that my friends would proceed with the conversation which had been interrupted; but to my astonishment I found that I had become wholly invisible to them. They did not see me and speak to me at all. In the carriage with them was a living peer, of wide estates and great rank, whom they knew. And so thoroughly did he engross their eyes and thoughts and words, that they had become unaware of my presence, or even my existence. The stronger sensation rendered them unconscious of the weaker. Do you think I felt angry? No, I did not. I felt very much amused. I recognized a slight manifestation of a grand principle. It was a straw showing how a current sets, but for which Britain would not be the country it is. I took my seat in another carriage, and placidly read my "Times." There was one lady in that carriage. I think she inferred, from the smiles which occasionally for the first few miles overspread my countenance without apparent cause, that my mind was slightly disordered.
These are the two things already mentioned. But you cannot understand, friendly reader, what an effort it has cost me to treat them so briefly, The experienced critic will discern at a glance that the author could easily have made sixteen pages out of the material you have here in two. The author takes his stand upon this,—that there are few people who can beat out thought so thin, or say so little in such a great number of words. But I remember how a very great prelate (who could compress all I have said into a page and a half) once comforted me by telling me that for the consumption of many minds it was desirable that thought should be very greatly diluted; that quantity as well as quality is needful in the dietetics both of the body and the mind. With this soothing reflection I close the present essay.
AMERICAN NAVIGATION:
ITS CHECKS, ITS PROGRESS, ITS DANGERS.—THE BIRTH OF THE NAVY.—THE EMBARGO
In these palmy days of Commerce it is difficult to conceive the distress which attended the Embargo. To form some idea of its effects at a period when the nation engrossed most of the carrying trade of the world, let us imagine a message from Washington announcing that Congress, after a few midnight-sessions, has suddenly resolved to withdraw our ships from the ocean, and to export nothing from New York, or any other seaport; that it requires the merchant to dismantle his ships and leave them to decay at the wharves; that it calls upon two hundred thousand masters and mariners, who now plough the main, to seek their bread ashore; that it forbids even the fisherman to launch his chebacco-boat or follow his gigantic prey upon the deep; that it subjects the whole coastwise trade to onerous bonds and the surveillance of custom-house officers; that it interdicts all exports by land to Canada, New Brunswick, or Mexico.
Imagine for a moment five million tons of shipping detained, thousands of seamen reduced to want, the trades of the ship-builder, joiner, rigger, and sail-maker stopped, the masses of produce now seeking the coast for shipment arrested on their way by the entire cessation of demand, the banker and insurer idle, the commissioners of bankruptcy, the sheriff, and the jailer busy. Imagine the whole country, in the midst of a prosperous commerce, thus suddenly brought to a stand. Imagine the navigation, the produce, and the merchandise of the nation thus suddenly embargoed by one great seizure, upon the plea that they might possibly be seized abroad, and some faint idea may be formed of the alarm, distress, and indignant feeling which pervaded the entire seaboard under the Embargo of 1807. At the period in question the distressed seamen and ruined merchants had no railways, scarcely an ordinary road to the West. Manufactures were almost unknown, the mechanic arts were undeveloped, and consequently the exclusion from the sea was felt with double force.
Why, urged the merchant and the mariner, should our property perish and our children go supperless to bed, when we can insure our ships and still make large profits? Would the planter reconcile himself to a law which forbade him to harness his teams or use the hoe or the plough, and bade him lie down and die of hunger beside fruitful fields? Does the Constitution of the Union, which empowers Congress to regulate commerce, authorize its destruction? And if it is the intent of Government merely to protect our ships abroad, why are foreign vessels forbidden to purchase or export our perishing fish and provisions? and why is our property to be confiscated and heavy fines to be imposed, if we send it across the Canada line, where there is no risk of seizure?—And when, in the progress of events, it became apparent that France approved of our Embargo, and that England, opening new marts for her trade and new sources of supplies in Russia, Spain, India, and Spanish America, was without a rival on the ocean, monopolizing the trade and becoming the carrier of the world, it was impossible to reconcile the Eastern States to this general interdict.
Many a rich man was ruined, many a prosperous town was utterly prostrated by the shock. Property, real and personal, fell from thirty to sixty per cent., affecting by its fall all classes of society. A spirit of hostility to the party in power was engendered, which outlasted the war with England, and continued to glow until Monroe had adopted the great Federal measures of a navy, a military academy, and an enlarged system of coast-defence.
Half a century has now elapsed since the signal failure of the Embargo. The theorists who planned it, the cabinet that adopted it, the politicians who blindly sustained it have passed from the stage. Angry feelings have subsided. The measure itself has become a part of the history of the country; but now that our commerce has again expanded, now that our navigation, for at least a quarter of a century, has continued to progress until it has outstripped that of Great Britain in speed, despatch, and capacity to carry, now that it knows no superior either in ancient or modern times, it is a fitting moment to investigate the causes and effects of the measure which once arrested its progress. Its history is replete with lessons; and if our late President has failed in other particulars, he at least cautioned us, in his inaugural address, "that our commerce and navigation are again exceeding the means provided for their defence," and recommended "an increase of a navy now inadequate to the protection of our vast tonnage afloat," greater than that of any other nation, "as well as to the defence of our extended sea-coast." To ascertain and appreciate the true causes of the Embargo, we must ascend to the origin of our commerce and trace it downward.
The Pilgrims who sought freedom in New England were enterprising men. The country in which they landed kindled a commercial spirit. Natural ports and havens, vast forests of pine and oak suitable for spars and timber, abundance of fish and whales, and the occasional failure of their crops, all invited them to the deep. Under the rule of Governor Winthrop, the shallop Blessing of the Bay was built at his Ten Hills farm, and made a voyage to Virginia. Boats, soon followed by sloops, engaged in the fisheries; brigs and ships were built for the trade with England. Boston became noted for ship-building, and Portsmouth supplied the royal navy with spars. The fleet which took Port Royal in 1710 was composed principally of American ships. The New England volunteers who in 1745 captured the fortress of Louisburg from the veteran troops of France were conveyed by ten American ships of war.
As early as 1765, six hundred sail from Massachusetts were engaged in the fisheries, and many American vessels pursued the trade to England, Spain, and the West Indies. The towns of Salem, Marblehead, and Gloucester were almost surrounded by fish-flakes. Fish, lumber, and provisions were the great basis of trade. Ships were built and laden with timber, and sold with their lading in English ports. Cargoes were made up of fish, live stock, and boards, for the West India Islands. The returns were shipped to Spain and Portugal, and there exchanged for silk, iron, fruit, wines, and bills on England. Occasionally ships joined the Jamaica fleet, or adventured on bolder voyages to the French islands; but the admiralty courts at Tortola and New Providence, often supposed to be in league with English admirals, repressed the spirit of adventure, and annually condemned American ships on the most frivolous pretences. The fame of American whalers had already reached England. Burke, in his celebrated speech on America, alludes to their enterprise. "We find them," he says, "in the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay, and again beneath the frozen serpent of the South…..What sea is not vexed by their fisheries? what climate is not witness to their toils?"
No record is to be found of the shipping of the Colonies prior to the Revolution, but there is reason to suppose that it must have exceeded two hundred thousand tons. During the Revolution the merchantmen went generally to decay or were captured. Some were equipped as privateers. But after seven years a ship is in its dotage. New vessels were built and armed. The models which figure in old pictures, with high sterns and bows, proved too clumsy for war, and modern forms were adopted. At least five hundred armed vessels were fitted out in the commercial States, and among them one hundred and fifty-eight from the single port of Salem. Some of these vessels mounted twenty guns; they captured large numbers of English vessels, and performed feats on the ocean as brilliant as any upon the land. At the close of the war, our shipping, although it included many prizes, was undoubtedly reduced; but it had changed its character. Our ships had improved in size and speed, and were manned by officers and seamen who had measured their strength with Englishmen, and acknowledged no superiors. From the Peace of 1783 to the Embargo of 1807, a period of twenty-four years, is a remarkable epoch in the history of American navigation.
At the close of the war, the country was exhausted by its long and protracted struggle with the colossal power of England. The Eastern States, which furnished most of the shipping, had made great sacrifices, and had contributed more than their share in men, money, and ships to the common defence. They were creditor States, and their means were locked up in "final settlements." Their remaining capital was insufficient to equip their vessels and give them full cargoes. The country was impoverished, too, by the suits of foreign creditors, to whom our merchants had become deeply indebted before the war. Under these circumstances, commerce was slowly resumed. For several years our exports did not exceed ten millions. But our merchants were not disheartened; they gradually enlarged their trade and extended their field of adventure; privateers were put into the India trade, and entered into successful rivalry with the more cumbrous ships of the East India Companies. The new Constitution was adopted, the public debt funded, and duties imposed to meet the interest. The war-worn officer, the patriotic merchant, and the humble capitalist, who had relied on the honor and justice of the country, were paid in public stocks which found favor abroad. Old capital was resuscitated and became the basis of commerce.
In 1793 our tonnage had risen to 488,000 tons; and in 1799 it had grown to 939,488 tons, and was still increasing. The aggressions of France in 1798 and 1799 were met with a bold spirit and proved of brief continuance, a proper chastisement was inflicted on the corsairs of Africa, the honor of the flag was maintained, our commerce moved onward until the close of 1807, and by the official report of that year our tonnage had increased to 1,208,735 tons, or at least five hundred per cent. in the first twenty-four years after the close of the war. The revenue had risen to fifteen millions, and the official report of the Treasurer showed a balance in the Treasury of eighteen millions in bonds and money; it stated, also, that twenty-six millions of the public debt had been extinguished in the seven years preceding. Our ships, too, had become the great carriers of the deep; our exports for 1807 were $108,343,750, of which $59,622,558 were of foreign origin; our ports, remote from the seat of war, had become the depots of goods; and our commerce, whitening the surface of every ocean, had begun to tempt the cupidity of contending nations. In 1807, the United States, in addition to its domestic produce, which went principally to English ports, exported of foreign goods, in round numbers, to
Holland, . . . . . . . . $14,000,000
French ports, . . . . . . 13,000,000
Spanish " . . . . . . 14,000,000
Italian " . . . . . . 5,500,000
Danish " . . . . . . 2,500,000
English and other ports,. 10,000,000
In those prosperous days of navigation, during the first period of twenty-four years after the Peace of 1783, the merchants of our country were accumulating riches; but a check was given to their prosperity by the Embargo, closely followed by acts of non-intercourse, by war, and by sixteen years of debility which ensued. In 1814, our tonnage was diminished to 1,159,288 tons, a point actually below that of 1807; and at the close of the second epoch of twenty-four years, in 1831, during which our population had doubled, the tonnage remained at 1,267,846 tons, having virtually made no progress in the second epoch of twenty-four years, commencing with the Embargo.
We now enter upon the third epoch of equal length, from 1831 to 1855, which stands out in bold relief a striking contrast to the gloomy period which it followed, and bears some resemblance to the epoch which preceded the Embargo, showing the recuperative power of a commerce destined to float after the most disastrous shipwreck.
Peace had continued down to 1831; the debt incurred during the war was at length reduced; new breeds of sheep were imported, and manufactures, aided by new inventions, were established on a permanent basis; our new fabrics began to demand more raw material; the culture of cotton was thus extended; railways were constructed; England, relaxing her commercial code, opened her marts to our breadstuffs; the great discovery of gold followed. Each of these causes gave an impulse to navigation, and at the close of the third epoch of twenty-four years, in 1855, our tonnage had outstripped that of England both in amount and effective power, and had risen by the official report to 5,212,000 tons, exhibiting a gain of more than three hundred per cent. The ratio of its advance may be inferred from the following table:—
Tonnage of ships built in 1818 55,856 do. do. 1831 85,962 do. do. 1832 144,539 do. do. 1848 318,072 do. do. 1855 583,451
Let us contrast these three epochs we have named. During the first, our navigation sprang from infancy to manhood, surmounting all obstacles and bidding defiance to all foes. In the second, in the vigor of manhood, it was withdrawn by a mysterious and pusillanimous policy from the ocean. This very timidity invited aggression, seizures and war followed, and the growth was checked for nearly the fourth of a century. In the third epoch it resumed its onward march, stimulating improvement, and thereby accelerating its own progress, until at length the offspring has surpassed the parent and taken the lead in navigation. Mark the contrast: the three epochs were of equal length: the first witnessed a growth of five hundred per cent.; in the second there was an entire paralysis; in the third, renewed progress of more than three hundred per cent.
What were the causes that confined the young giant to a Procrustean bed for a quarter of a century?
The subject has become history, and we can now calmly investigate it by the light of the past and the present. May not this investigation illumine the path of the future? Let us examine the maritime policy of our nation during each period.
At the close of the Revolution there was no navy, and few ships to be protected. Our private armed vessels were converted into merchantmen, our solitary ship of the line was presented to France, and we had no frigates worth preserving.
The first great effort of the country was to form a constitution; the second, to provide for the creditors who had sustained the nation; the third, to provide a revenue to meet expenses and interest. And these were all successful. As commerce advanced, the Federal party under Washington revived the idea of a navy, and on March 11th, 1794, against the opposition of Madison, they carried a bill through Congress for the construction of six frigates. Under this bill, the Constitution, Constellation, and United States, all since identified with the fame of our country, were commenced, but they were not launched until the accession of John Adams in 1797.
Washington, in his Farewell Address, gave the sanction of his name to a navy, as well as to the West Point Academy, and to a system of harbor-defence. He thus marked out the great outlines; but the founder of the navy was John Adams. Nurtured among the hardy sons of Massachusetts, familiar with their exploits upon the ocean during the war both in private and public service, he felt assured of their ability to cope with the Mistress of the Seas. When France seized our ships and undertook to involve us in European wars, Adams renounced her alliance and called for the creation of a navy. In his annual message in 1797, he spoke of "a navy as next to the militia the natural defence of the United States." In 1798 the three frigates above-mentioned were finished and sent to sea, and soon after the Constellation captured the Insurgent. During the same year Congress voted to construct six more frigates, twelve sloops-of-war, and six smaller vessels, and appropriated a million for the frames of six ships of the line, two millions for timber, and fifty thousand dollars for two dock-yards. At the same time, in response to a vote of Congress authorizing the acceptance of additional ships, $711,700 were subscribed, and the frigates Essex, Connecticut, Merrimack, and other vessels, constructed and turned over to the Government by the merchants of Salem, Newburyport, Hartford, and other seaports.
