Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 66, April, 1863», страница 13

"Has he done anything?"

"No."

"Then he is only fit to be a courier."

Buckle is not a university-man, although both his father and grandfather were educated at Cambridge.

He has long since abandoned the practice of writing at night, and now does not put pen to paper after three o'clock in the afternoon. When at home, in London, he walks every day, for about an hour and a half, at noon; frequently dines out and reads perhaps an hour after coming home. He goes exclusively to dinner-parties, because they take less time than others. When he is engaged in composition, he walks about the room, sometimes excitedly, his mind engrossed with his subject, until he has composed an entire paragraph, when he sits down and writes it, never retouching, nor composing sentence by sentence, which he thinks has a tendency to give an abrupt and jerky effect to what is written. Traces of this, he thinks, may be found in Macaulay's style.

Mr. Thayer showed him the little stock of books he happened to have with him at Cairo. Mr. Buckle looked them over with interest, expressing his opinions upon them. One of them, Mr. Bayle St. John's little book on the Turkish question, he borrowed, although he said that he denied himself all reading on this journey, undertaken for mental rest, and had brought no books with him. We got upon the inevitable subject of international copyright, which he discussed in a spirit of remarkable candor. His own experience was this: that the Messrs. Appleton reprinted his first volume without compensation, asking him to furnish materials for a prefatory memoir, of which request he took no notice; afterwards, when the second volume was published, they sent him something, I believe fifty pounds. In due course of time, receiving a request from Theodore Parker to that effect, he wrote a letter to aid him in the preparation of a memoir for the Messrs. Appleton's Cyclopaedia.¹¹

I pointed out to Mr. Buckle the very important distinction between copyright for the British author and monopoly for the British publisher. I told him that the American people and their representatives in Congress would not have the least objection to paying a trifling addition to the cost of books, which would make, upon the immense editions sold of the popular books, a handsome compensation to the foreign authors,—but that they have very decided objections to the English system of enormously high prices for books. I instanced to him several books which can be bought in the United States for a quarter or half a dollar, while in England they cannot be purchased for less than a guinea and a half, that is, for seven or eight dollars,—although the author gains very little by these high prices, which, indeed, would be absolutely prohibitory of the circulation of the books in the United States. And since the great literary market of the United States has been created at the public expense, by the maintenance of the system of universal education, it is perhaps not unreasonable that our legislators should insist upon preserving, by the competition among publishers, the advantages of low prices of books, in pursuance of a policy which looks to a wide circulation. In Great Britain the publishers follow a different policy and insist on selling books at high prices to a comparatively small circle of readers.

Mr. Buckle was kind enough to listen attentively to this sort of reasoning and had the candor to admit that it is entitled to some degree of weight. Indeed, he said at once that he had earnestly wished to bring out a cheap edition of his own book in England, omitting the notes and references, for the use of the working-classes, of whose appreciation, as I have previously mentioned, he had received many gratifying proofs; he had made his arrangements for this purpose, but was prevented from carrying them out by the opposition of his publishers, who objected that such an edition would injure their interest in the more costly edition. But Mr. Buckle freely declared that he would, in his circumstances, rather forego the profit on the sale of his book than restrict its circulation.

I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention that another English author related to me his home experience, precisely to the same effect, in which the vested interests of his publishers thwarted him in his wish to publish an edition of his writings at a low price for general circulation. It is quite certain that the British public must themselves be disenthralled from the tyranny of high prices with which they are now burdened, before they can ask to bring another land under the dominion of their exclusive system in literature.

This conversation led to a description of the reading public in America,—of the intelligence and independence of our working-people,—of their habits of life and of thought,—about which Buckle manifested great interest, asking many intelligent questions.

Mr. Buckle is in easy circumstances, and attends personally to the management of his money. He finds no difficulty in letting it upon first-class mortgages, at five per cent., and does not expect a higher rate of interest.

February 13th. To-night there was a religious celebration, including an illumination, in the mosque at the Citadel. We had expected to go and see it; and Mr. T. had invited Mr. B. and his party, as well as Mr. Buckle, and the two lads by whom he is accompanied in his journeyings, to go with us. These young gentlemen are sons of a dear friend of Mr. Buckle's, no longer living.

But at the last moment before dinner the advice was strongly given on all sides that we should not go, lest some bigoted Mussulmans should take offence, and there might be a disturbance. Not long ago, a party of Englishmen behaved very badly in the mosque on a similar occasion, from which has resulted a disturbed state of feeling. It of course cannot be pleasant to people of any religious belief to have their ceremonies made a spectacle for curiosity; and although the moudier (mayor of the city) promised ample protection, the plan was given up, and the company being gathered, we had a pleasant evening together. The presence of the ladies of Mr. B.'s party gave the opportunity to see Mr. Buckle again under the inspiration of ladies' society, which he especially enjoys, and in the lighter conversation suited to which he shines with not less distinction than when conversing upon abstruse topics.

In the course of the evening, in the midst of conversation in which he was taking an animated part, Mr. Buckle exhibited symptoms of faintness. Fresh air was at once admitted to the room, which was full of cigar-smoke; water and more powerful restoratives were brought, but these he declined. After a few minutes' repose upon the divan, he declared that he was perfectly recovered, and half an hour afterwards took his leave with the boys. We were quite anxious until we heard that he had safely reached his boat, in which he is still living.

February 14th. Returning from the Turkish bath, I found a valentine in the shape of a telegraphic despatch only thirteen days from Boston,—thirty-six hours from Liverpool. It was dated at Boston the 1st, forwarded from Liverpool at 10 A.M. of the 13th, and reached Alexandria at 11.55 A.M. of the 14th, whence it was transmitted to Cairo without delay. This is almost equal to the Arabian Nights. The distance travelled by the despatch is about six thousand miles.

February 15th. This day we had an excursion to the Petrified Forest. It was got up partly to give us all a taste of camel-riding, and it was originally expected that everybody would go on camels; then it was agreed that half should go on camels, and "ride-and-tie." In this view, one camel and one donkey were ordered for T. and myself. But Mr. B. was subsequently persuaded that with four horses he could have a carriage dragged through the desert to the forest, which would be more comfortable for the ladies; and he made that arrangement in his own and their behalf. Freddy B. is a first-rate horseman, and an Arab steed was ordered for him. Mr. Buckle was determined to go in a thing called a mazetta, a sort of huge bedstead with curtains, borne on the back of a camel, big enough to carry a small family, in which he expected to find room for himself and the two boys travelling with him. Besides these, the party included the Reverend Mr. Lansing, the excellent head of the American mission here, the Honorable W.S., a young Englishman, and his tutor, the Reverend Mr. S., whose agreeable company had been bespoken when the camel-project was in full strength.

On looking down from the balcony at the transportation-train marshalled for the occasion, amid the admiring gaze of all the idlers of Cairo, I was at first a little chagrined to find, as the final result of the various arrangements, that, besides the camels, the mazetta, the carriage-and-four, and the proud-stepping horse, there appeared but one donkey, that selected for me. But I was, in truth, very well off. To begin with, it was not thought prudent that Mr. Buckle should use the mazetta until the procession had got beyond the narrow streets of Cairo, lest the camel bearing it should take fright and knock the whole thing to pieces against the wall of a house. Accordingly, he and his charges took donkeys, and I rode off with them, at the head of the column. By-and-by Mr. Buckle changed to the conveyance originally proposed, but a very short experiment (literally, I suspect) sickened him of the mazetta, whose motion is precisely that of a ship in a storm, and he sent back to the town for donkeys. At the next halt the ladies took him into the carriage, where he found himself, as he said, "in clover," and that was the end of his greatness in camel-riding. This remark, by the way, suggested a name ("Clover") for our boat in our voyage up the Nile just afterwards; but patriotism prevailed, and we named her "Union." It pretty soon appeared that the camel which T. was riding was young and frisky; the animal was accordingly pronounced unsafe, and T. changed to a donkey which had fortunately been brought along for a reserve. The Honorable W.S.'s camel, from the saddle becoming unfastened, pitched rider and saddle to the ground, a fall of five or six feet: fortunately no harm was done, and he bravely mounted again. The saddle upon the camel which the Reverend Mr. S. rode split in two, and the seat must have been a torture; but he bore it like a martyr, never flinching. But camel-stock had so far depreciated, and donkeys gone up, that I was able to try as much as I liked of camel-riding now and then, at the same time obliging a friend by the use of my donkey meanwhile. Riding a camel at a walk is the same sort of thing as riding a very hard-trotting horse without stirrups, and with no chance to grasp the animal fairly to hold your seat. When the camel trots, you may imagine yourself on a treadmill.

The journey to the forest, about ten miles, was safely accomplished. We found the petrifactions duly wonderful. An excellent luncheon was laid out, after which we had an hour and a half of very entertaining conversation, in which Mr. Buckle and Rev. Mr. S. held the leading parts,—all around us as desolate and silent as one could imagine. It was interesting to observe the manner in which Buckle estimated eminent names, grouping them in some instances by threes, a favorite conceit with him. John Stuart Mill, of all living men, he considers as possessing the greatest mind in the world. Aristotle, Newton, and Shakspeare are the greatest the world has produced in past times. Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare are the only three great poets. Johnson, Gibbon, and Parr are the three writers who have done the greatest harm to the English language. Of Hallam he has a strong admiration. He spoke of Sydney Smith as the greatest English wit, and of Selwyn as next to him, and described Macaulay's memory as unequalled in conversation.

For the return-trip, the donkeys generally were preferred. Miss B., with spirit, tried camel-riding for a while, and so did Master F. We stopped to look at the tombs of the Caliphs, and reached the hotel at nightfall, somewhat fatigued, but satisfied with the day's expedition.

February 16th. The morning was gratefully devoted to rest. In the afternoon, attended service at the Mission, where Rev. Mr. S. preached an interesting discourse from John xv. 1-4. On the way home met Mr. Buckle, who came in, and was persuaded to stay to dinner. In speaking of religion, he said that there is no doctrine or truth in Christianity that had not been announced before, but that Christianity is by far the noblest religion in existence. The chief point of its superiority is the prominence it gives to the humane and philanthropic element; and in giving this prominence lies its originality. He believes in a Great First Cause, but does not arrive at his belief by any process of reasoning satisfactory to himself. Paley's argument, from the evidence of design, he regards as futile: if the beauty of this world indicates a creating cause, the beauty of that great cause would suggest another, and so on. He believes in a future state, and declared most impressively that life would be insupportable to him, if he thought he were forever to be separated from one person,—alluding, it is probable, to his mother, to whose memory he dedicates the second volume of his book.¹² He has no doubt that in the future state we shall recognize one another; whether we shall have the same bodies he has no opinion, although he regards matter as indestructible. He declares himself unable to form any judgment as to the mode of future existence. Religion, he says, is on the increase in the world, but theology is declining.

Mr. Buckle characterized as the sublimest passage in Shakspeare the lines in the "Merchant of Venice,"—

 
      "Look how the floor of heaven
  Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!
  There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
  But in his motion like an angel sings,
  Still quiring to the young-eyed cherabims:
  Such harmony is in immortal souls!
  But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
  Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."
 

Mr. Thayer suggested the similarity between the closing part of this passage, about our deafness to the music of the stars, owing to the "muddy vesture," and the sonnet of Blanco White which speaks of the starry splendors to which our eyes are blinded by the light of day:—

 
  "Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
  Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,
  Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
  This glorious canopy of light and blue?
  Yet 'neath the curtain of translucent dew,
  Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
  Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
  And lo! creation widened in man's view.
  Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
  Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find,
  Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
  That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
  Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife?
  If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?"
 

Mr. Buckle seemed to be struck by the comparison. He proceeded to speak of Blanco White's memoirs as painfully interesting, and said that he had always liked Archbishop Whately for adhering to White after the desertion of the latter by old friends on account of his change of belief.

* * * * *

The next few days were occupied in preparations for the voyage up the Nile in company with my New York friends. Mr. Buckle had very kindly taken great interest in our plans, and had earnestly advised me to go. "You will do very wrong indeed," he said, "if you do not go." On the 19th of February we embarked; and as we saluted his boat, lying just below us in the Nile, while our own shoved off, I little thought that I should never see him again,—that his brilliant career was so shortly to come to an untimely end. The serious conversation just recorded was the last in which I took part with him.

Mr. Buckle remained in Cairo until the beginning of March, when he set out with the two boys, and Mr. J.S. Stuart Glennie, across the Desert, for Sinai and Petra. Greatly improved in health by the six weeks in the Desert, (according to Mr. Glennie's letter,) he undertook the more fatiguing travelling on horseback through Palestine. He fell ill on the 27th of April, but recovered his health, as it seemed, to such an extent that Mr. Glennie parted from him on the 21st of May. On the 29th of May, at Damascus, Mr. Buckle died. Among the incoherent utterances of his illness, it was possible to distinguish the exclamation, "Oh, my book, my book, I shall never finish my book!"

And beyond the grief felt in the loss of the kind friend and agreeable companion, our plaint, in common with the whole world, ever must be, that he did not live to finish his book.

CAVALRY SONG

 
  The squadron is forming, the war-bugles play.
  To saddle, brave comrades, stout hearts for a fray!
  Our captain is mounted,—strike spurs, and away!
 
 
  No breeze shakes the blossoms or tosses the grain;
  But the wind of our speed floats the galloper's mane,
  As he feels the bold rider's firm hand on the rein.
 
 
  Lo, dim in the starlight their white tents appear!
  Ride softly! ride slowly! the onset is near!
  More slowly! more softly! the sentry may hear!
 
 
  Now fall on the Rebel—a tempest of flame!
  Strike down the false banner whose triumph were shame!
  Strike, strike for the true flag, for freedom and fame!
 
 
  Hurrah! sheathe your swords! the carnage is done.
  All red with our valor, we welcome the sun.
  Up, up with the stars! we have won! we have won!
 

NO FAILURE FOR THE NORTH

We have reached a point in the history of our national troubles where it seems desirable to examine our present position, and to consider whether we ought to surrender ourselves to despair, or congratulate ourselves on decided success,—whether we should abandon all attempts to restore the Union, assert the dignity of the Constitution, and punish treason, or nerve ourselves to new effort, and determine to persevere in a righteous cause so long as a single able-bodied man remains or a dollar of available property is unexpended.

It may be, it must be, conceded that we commenced the contest with very crude and inadequate notions of what war really is. We proposed to decide the issue by appealing to the census and the tax-list,—tribunals naturally enough occurring to a mercantile and manufacturing community,—but how if the enemy prefer cannon and cold steel? Our first campaign was in the field of statistics, and we found the results highly satisfactory. Our great numerical superiority, aided by our immense material resources, gave us an early and an easy victory. We outnumbered the enemy everywhere, defeated them in every pitched battle, starved them by a vigilant blockade, secured meanwhile the sympathy and support of the whole civilized world by the holiness of our cause, and commanded its respect by the display of our material power and our military capacity,—and in a few short months crushed the Rebellion, restored the Union, vindicated the Constitution, hung the arch-traitors, and saw peace in all our borders. This was our campaign—on paper. But war is something more than a sum in arithmetic. A campaign cannot be decided by the rule of three. No finite power can control every contingency, and have all the chances in its favor.

A Moorish legend, given to us in the graceful narrative of Washington Irving, relates, that an Arabian astrologer constructed for the pacific Aben Hafuz, King of Granada, a magical mode of repulsing all invaders without risking the lives of his subjects or diminishing the contents of the royal treasury. He caused a tower to be built, in the upper part of which was a circular hall with windows looking towards every point of the compass, and before each window a table supporting a mimic army of horse and foot. On the top of the tower was a bronze figure of a Moorish horseman, fixed on a pivot, with elevated lance. Whenever a foe was at hand, the figure would turn in that direction, and level his lance as if for action. No sooner was it reported to the vigilant monarch that the magic horseman indicated the approach of an enemy, than His Majesty hastened to the circular hall, selected the table at the point of the compass indicated by the horseman's spear, touched with the point of a magic lance some of the pigmy effigies before him, and belabored others with the butt-end. A scene of confusion at once ensued in the mimic army. Part fell dead, and the rest, turning their weapons upon each other, fought with the utmost fury. The same scene was repeated in the ranks of the advancing enemy. Each renewed attempt at invasion was foiled by this easy and economical expedient, until the King enjoyed rest even from rumors of wars.

Now this is a pleasing fiction, and highly creditable to the light and airy fancy of the Moors. It almost makes one sigh that an astrologer so fertile in resources is not still extant. It is difficult to conceive, indeed, of a more felicitous arrangement for a monarch devoted to his ease, and proof against all temptations to military glory, or for a people wedded to peaceful pursuits, and ambitious only of material prosperity. But no such fascinating substitute for fields of carnage is available in our degenerate days,—"C'est charmant, mais ce n'est pas la guerre."

Nor yet is any useful example furnished by the warlike qualities of the army raised by Peter Stuyvesant for the reduction of Fort Casimir: not even when we remember that it included "the Van Higginbottoms, a race of schoolmasters, armed with ferules and birchen rods,—the Van Bummels, renowned for feats of the trenches,—the Van Bunschotens, who were the first that did kick with the left foot,"—with many other warriors equally fierce and formidable. We must, however reluctantly, leave such romantic legends and facetious chronicles, and learn more practical lessons from the sober and instructive page of history. We shall there find that war means alternate success and defeat, alternate hope and disappointment, great suffering in the field, many vacant chairs at many firesides, immense expenditures with little apparent result, "the best-laid schemes" foiled by a thousand unexpected contingencies, lamentable indecision in the cabinet, glaring blunders in the field, stagnation of industry, and heavy taxation.

 
  "War is a game, which, were the nations wise,
  Kings would not play at."
 

But nations are not always wise, and war often becomes a necessity. When, then, the necessity arises, it should be met manfully. The question once deliberately decided that peace is no longer consistent with national honor or national safety, the dread alternative must be accepted with all its hazards and all its horrors. To organize only in anticipation of certain and speedy success, to despise and underrate the enemy, to inquire with how small an army and how limited an expenditure the war can be carried on, is as unstatesmanlike as it is in flat defiance of all historical teaching. But if we carry our folly still farther in the same direction,—if we fail to take into grave account the most obvious and inevitable incidents of actual warfare,—if in our overweening confidence we neglect discipline, underrate the prime importance of promptness and decision in action, certainty and celerity in movement, and energy and activity in pursuit,—if, in a word, we expect that the defences of the enemy are to fall into our hands by means as unwarlike as those that decided the fate of Jericho, or dream that because our cause is just every precedent in history and every principle in human nature will be overruled in our favor,—then we deserve to be outgeneralled, and are fortunate, if we escape final and disastrous defeat.

Now has not this been precisely our cardinal and capital error, and are we not to-day suffering its natural consequences? To the blind and unreasoning confidence with which we began this war has succeeded a reaction running into the very opposite extreme. We are given over to a despondency quite as unwarrantable as the extravagance of our early hopes. We demanded and expected impossibilities. Forgetting that the age of miracles has passed, many are now bitterly complaining that nothing has been accomplished, and predicting that all future efforts will terminate in similar failure. Two years have not elapsed since the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter; and yet we are amazed and mortified that our forces have not overrun the whole South, that victory has not crowned our arms in every battle, and that our flag does not float triumphant over every acre of every State once called Confederate. Whether this most desirable result could have been accomplished, if this or that policy had been adopted at the outset, is one of those problems that will never be solved; nor is the inquiry at present pertinent or profitable. Let us rather ask whether, in view of the means actually employed, our discontent with the existing condition of affairs is not unmanly and unreasonable. We are to measure results, not by the efforts that we ought to have put forth, nor by those which we should put forth, if, with our dear-bought experience, we were called upon once more to undertake such a gigantic enterprise. We must recall the aspect of affairs when we first embarked on this perilous sea. We must remember how ignorant we were of all the danger before us, how imperfect was the chart by which our course was to be determined, how many shoals and sunken rocks and crosscurrents we were to encounter, as yet unknown to any pilot on board our noble ship of state, how little we knew of navigation in such angry waters, under so stormy a sky.

Turn back the pages of history for two short years, and dwell a moment on the picture presented to our eyes. A nation, enjoying to the utmost the substantial benefits belonging to fifty years of profound peace and unexampled prosperity, enervated by those habits of luxury which wealth easily accumulated always fosters, with a standing army hardly large enough to protect our Western frontier from the incursions of hostile Indians, and a navy ludicrously small in proportion to the extent of our sea-coast and the value of our commerce, is suddenly plunged into a war covering such an extent of territory and calling for such an array of power by sea and land as to dwarf into insignificance all modern wars, hardly excepting the military operations of Napoleon I.

And it must be remembered that education and habit had trained us to an implicit reliance on the sufficiency of our laws and the competency of our Constitution to meet and decide every issue that could possibly be presented. We could conceive of no public wrongs which could not be redressed by an appeal to the ballot-box, and of no private injuries for which our statutes did not provide a suitable remedy.

We were not only a law-abiding, but a peace-loving people. The report of the revolver was not heard in our streets, nor was the glitter of the bowie-knife seen in our bar-rooms. We deprecated mob-violence, and disliked the summary proceedings of Judge Lynch. We took no pains to conceal our horror of unnecessary bloodshed, and shared the views of civilized Christendom about duelling. Now and then, to be sure, a Southerner in one of his sportive moods would stab an inattentive waiter in some Northern hotel, or a chivalrous son of South Carolina, elegantly idling away a few years in a New-England university, would shoot some base-born tutor, or, as an episode in Congressional proceedings, the member from Arkansas would threaten to pull the nose, spit in the face, and gouge out the eyes of the (profane participled) sneaking Yankee,—meaning thereby a quiet, inoffensive member from Massachusetts. But these incidents of Southern civilization were not frequent enough to become fashionable. We still clung to our plebeian prejudices against lawless violence, and persisted in believing that a swaggering bully could not be an ornament to cultivated and refined society. In fact, some excellent individuals at the North went so far as to seek to disseminate these old-fashioned notions among their Southern brethren, and made annual subscriptions to what was known (alas, that we must use the historic tense!) as the "Southern Aid Society," having for its praiseworthy object the support of ministers who should preach the gospel to our ardent and impulsive neighbors. What a sad and significant commentary is it upon the ingratitude of depraved human nature, that the condescending clergyman who whilom consented to collect the offerings of these discriminating philanthropists is now a chaplain in the Confederate army, and is invoking the most signal judgments of Heaven upon his former friends and fellow-laborers!

This, then, was our condition, and these were our habits, when we were rudely awakened from our dreams of peace by the roar of cannon and the clash of arms. What wonder that the startling summons found us all unready for such a crisis? What wonder that our early preparations to confront the issue thus forced upon us without note of warning were hasty, incomplete, and quite inadequate to the emergency? Is it discreditable to us that we were slow to appreciate the bitterness and intensity of that hatred, which, long smouldering under the surface of Southern society, burst forth at once into a wide-spread conflagration, severing like flax all the ties of kindred, and all the bonds of individual friendship and national intercourse which had united us for half a century? Here was a section of our Union which had always enjoyed equal rights with us under the Constitution, and had known the Government only by its blessings,—nay, more, had actually, by the confession of its own statesmen, controlled the internal administration and dictated the foreign policy of the country since the adoption of the Constitution; which had no substantial grievance to complain of, and no fanciful injury which could not be readily redressed by legal and constitutional methods. Are we to be blamed because we could not easily bring ourselves to believe that an integral part of our nation, with such a history, could, under a pretence so bald as to insult the common sense of Christendom, rush headlong into a war which must close all its avenues of commerce, paralyze all its industry, threaten the existence of its cherished and peculiar institution,—in a word, whether successful or unsuccessful, inevitably result in its political suicide? At this very moment, accustomed as we have been for many sad and weary months to the daily development of Southern folly and madness, it is difficult, when we withdraw our minds from the present, to realize that the whole war is not a hideous nightmare.