Cambridge Sketches

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The education of Laura has rare value as a psychological study; for it
proves incontestably that mind is a thing in itself, and not merely a
combination of material forces, as the philosophers of our time would
have us believe. Laura Bridgman's mind was there, though wholly unable to
express itself, and so soon as the magic key was turned, she developed as
rapidly and intelligently as other girls of her age. She soon became much
more intelligent than the best trained dog who has all his senses in an
acute condition; and she developed a sensibility toward those about her
such as Indian or Hottentot girls of the same age would not have done at
all. She soon began to indicate that sense of order which is the first
step on the stairway of civilization. If these qualities had not been in
her they never could have come out.

Why is it that so many superior women remain unmarried, and why do men of
superior intellect and exceptional character so often mate themselves
with weak or narrow-minded women? That a diffident man, with a taste for
playing on the flute, should be captured by a virago, is not so
remarkable,--that is his natural weakness; but it is also true that the
worthiest man often chooses indifferently. This thing they call matrimony
is in fact like diving for pearls: you bring up the oyster, but what it
contains does not appear until afterward. A friend of Sumner, who
imagined his wife had a beautiful nature because she was fond of wild-
flowers, discovered too late that she cared more for botany than for her
husband.

Chevalier Howe met with better fortune. He waited long and to good
purpose. It was fitting that such a man should marry a poetess; and he
found her, not in her rose-garden or some romantic sylvan retreat, but in
the city of New York. Miss Julia Ward was the daughter, as she once
styled herself, of the Bank of Commerce, but her mind was not bent on
money or a fashionable life. She was graceful, witty and charming in the
drawing-room; but there was also a serious vein in her nature which could
only be satisfied by earnest thought and study. She went from one book to
another through the whole range of critical scholarship, disdaining
everything that was not of the best quality. She soon knew so much that
the young men became afraid of her, but she cared less for their
admiration than for her favorite authors. Above all, the deep religious
vein in her nature, which never left her, served as a balance to her
romantic disposition. Her first admirer is said to have been an eloquent
preacher who came to New York while Miss Ward was in her teens.

Another man might have crossed Julia Ward's path and only have remembered
her as a Sumner friend. Doctor Howe recognized the opportunity, and had
no intention of letting it slip. His reputation and exceptional character
attracted her; and he wooed and won her with the same courage that he
fought the Greeks. Her sister married Crawford, the best sculptor of his
time, whom Sumner helped to fame and fortune.

Doctor Howe's wedding journey, which included a complete tour of Europe,
seems to have been the first rest that he had taken in twenty years. Such
wedding journeys are frequent enough now, but it is a rare bride that
finds the doors of distinguished houses opened to her husband from
Edinburgh to Athens. Was it not a sufficient reward for any man's service
to humanity?

For that matter Doctor Howe's lifelong work received comparatively slight
recognition or reward. A few medals were sent to him from Europe,--a gold
one from the King of Prussia,--and he was always looked upon in Boston
as a distinguished citizen; but his vocation at the Blind Asylum withdrew
him from the public eye, and the public soon forgets what happened
yesterday. What a blaze of enthusiasm there was for Admiral Dewey in
1899, and how coldly his name was received as a presidential candidate
one year later!

Doctor Howe was once nominated for Congress as a forlorn hope, and his
name was thrice urged unavailingly for foreign appointments. He certainly
deserved to be made Minister to Greece, but President Johnson looked upon
him as a very "ultra man",--the real objection being no doubt that he was
a friend of Sumner, and the second attempt made by Sumner himself was
defeated by Hamilton Fish. Doctor Howe was fully qualified at any time to
be Minister to France, and as well qualified as James Russell Lowell for
the English Mission; but the appointment of such men as Lowell and Howe
has proved to be a happy accident rather than according to the natural
order of events. What reward did Doctor Morton ever obtain, until twenty-
five years after his death his name was emblazoned in memorial hall of
Boston State House! It is an old story.

Yet Doctor Howe may well be considered one of the most fortunate
Americans of his time. Lack of public appreciation is the least evil that
can befall a man of truly great spirit,--unless indeed it impairs the
usefulness of his work, and Edward Everett, who had sympathized so
cordially with Doctor Howe's efforts in behalf of the Greeks, could also
have told him sympathetically that domestic happiness was fully as
valuable as public honor. Fortunate is the man who has wandered much over
the earth and seen great sights, only the better to appreciate the quiet
and repose of his own hearth-stone! The storm and stress period of Doctor
Howe's life was over, and henceforth it was to be all blue sky and smooth
sailing.

Sumner expressed a kind of regret at Doctor Howe's marriage,--a regret
for his own loneliness; but he found afterwards that instead of losing
one friend he had made another. His visits to South Boston were as
frequent as ever, and he often brought distinguished guests with him,--
English, French, and German. There was no lady in Boston whom he liked to
converse with so well as Mrs. Howe; and if he met her on the street he
would almost invariably stop to speak with her a few minutes. He
sometimes suffered from the keen sallies of her wit, but he accepted this
as part of the entertainment, and once informed her that if she were
president of the Senate it would be much better for the procedure of the
public business.

George Sumner also came; like his brother, a man much above the average
in general ability, and considered quite equal to the Delivery of a
Fourth of July oration. He was the more entertaining talker of the two,
and in other respects very much like Tom Appleton,--better known on the
Paris boulevards than in his native country. Instead of being witty like
Appleton he was brilliantly encyclopaedic; and they both carried their
statements to the verge of credibility.

Doctor Howe organized the blind asylum so that it almost ran itself
without his oversight, and as always happens in such cases he was
idolized by those who were under his direction. There was something
exceedingly kind in his tone of voice,--a voice accustomed to command and
yet much subdued. His manner towards children was particularly charming
and attractive. He exemplified the lines in Emerson's "Wood-notes":

"Grave, chaste, contented though retired,
And of all other men desired,"

applied to Doctor Howe more completely than to the person for whom they
were originally intended; for Thoreau's bachelor habits and isolated mode
of life prevented him from being an attractive person to the generality
of mankind.

It was said of James G. Blaine that he left every man he met with
the impression that he was his best friend. This may have been well
intended, but it has the effect of insincerity, for the thing is
practically impossible. The true gentleman has always a kind manner, but
he does not treat the man whom he has just been introduced to as a
friend; he waits for that until he shall know him better. It is said of
Americans generally that they are generous and philanthropic, but that
they do not make good friends,--that their idea of friendship depends too
much on association and the influence of mutual interests, instead of the
underlying sense of spiritual relationship. When they cease to have
mutual interests the friendship is at an end, or only continues to exist
on paper. Doctor Howe was as warm-hearted as he was firm-hearted, but he
never gave his full confidence to any one until he had read him through
to the backbone. His friends were so fond of him that they would go any
distance to see him. His idea of friendship seemed to be like that of the
friends in the sacred band of Thebes, whose motto was either to avenge
their comrades on the field of battle or to die with them.

He did not like a hypocritical morality, which he said too often resulted
in the hypocritical sort. He complained of this in Emerson's teaching,
which he thought led his readers to scrutinize themselves too closely as
well as to be too censorious of others; and he respected Emerson more for
his manly attitude on the Kansas question than for anything he wrote.

He always continued to be the chevalier. He was like Hawthorne's gray-
haired champion, who always came to the front in a public emergency, and
then disappeared, no one knew whither. When the Bond Street riot took
place in 1837, there was Doctor Howe succoring the oppressed; in 1844 he
joined the Conscience Whigs and was one of the foremost among them; he
helped materially toward the election of Sumner in 1851, and for years
afterwards was a leader in the vigilance committee organized to resist
the Fugitive Slave law. He stood shoulder to shoulder with George L.
Stearns in organizing resistance to the invasions of Kansas by the
Missourians; and again in 1862 when Harvard University made its last
desperate political effort in opposition to Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation; but when his friends and his party came into power Howe
neither asked nor hinted at any reward for his brilliant services.

Edward L. Pierce, the biographer of Sumner, was not above exhibiting his
prejudices as to certain members of the Bird Club, both by what he has
written and what he neglected to write. He says of the Chevalier: "Dr.
Howe, who had a passion for revolutions and civil disturbances of all
kinds, and had no respect for the restrictions of international law or
comity, was vexed with Sumner for not promoting the intervention of the
United States in behalf of the insurgent Cubans."

This reminds one of Boswell's treatment of Doctor Johnson's friends. Like
John Adams and Hampden, Doctor Howe was a revolutionary character,--and
so were Sumner and Lincoln,--but he was a man in all matters prudent,
discreet and practical. He was as much opposed to inflammatory harangues
and French socialistic notions as he was to the hide-bound conservatism
against which he had battled all his life. Like Hampden and Adams his
revolutionary strokes were well timed and right to the point. Experience
has proved them to be effective and salutary. It was the essential merit
of Sumner and his friends that they recognized the true character of the
times in which they lived and adapted themselves to it. Thousands of
well-educated men lived through the anti-slavery and civil war period
without being aware that they were taking part in one of the great
revolutionary epochs of history. That Doctor Howe and Senator Sumner
differed in regard to the Cuban rebellion is a matter of small moment.
Howe considered the interests of the Cubans; Sumner the interests of
republicanism in Spain and in Europe generally. Both were right from
their respective standpoints.

At the beginning of the war he was sixty years of age,--too old to take
an active part in it. This cannot be doubted, however, that if he had
been thirty years younger he would either have won distinction as a
commander or have fallen on the, field of honor. The best contribution
from the Howe family to the war was Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the
Republic." The war was a grand moral struggle, a conflict of historical
forces; and neither Lowell, Emerson, nor Whittier expressed this so fully
and with such depth of feeling as Mrs. Howe. There are occasions when
woman rises superior to man, and this was one of them. It was evidently
inspired by the John Brown song, that simple martial melody; but it rises
above the personal and temporal into the universal and eternal. Its
measure has the swing of the Greek tragic chorus, extended to embrace the
wider scope of Christian faith, and its diction is of an equally classic
purity and vigor. The last stanza runs:

"In the beauty of the lily Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me.
As he died to make men holy let us die to make men free;
As we go marching on."

This was the fine fruit of Mrs. Howe's early religious faith. It welled
up in her nature from a deep undercurrent, which few would have suspected
who only met her at Sam G. Ward's dinner parties and other fashionable
entertainments. Yet, there was always a quiet reserve in her laughter,
and her wittiest remarks were always followed by a corresponding
seriousness of expression. Although she studied Spinoza, admired Emerson,
and attended meetings of the Radical Club on Chestnut Street, she never
separated herself from the Church, and always expressed her dissent from
any opinion that seemed to show a lack of reverence.

On a certain occasion when a member of the club spoke of newspapers as
likely to supersede the pulpit, Mrs. Howe replied to him: "God forbid
that should happen. God forbid we should do without the pulpit. It is the
old fable of the hare and the tortoise. We need the hare for light
running, but the slow, steady tortoise wins the goal at last." Religious
subjects, however, were not so much discussed at the Radical Club as
philosophy and politics,--and in these Mrs. Howe felt herself very much
at home.

On another occasion, when a member of the club said that he was prepared,
like Emerson, to accept the universe, Mrs. Howe interposed with the
remark that it was Margaret Fuller who accepted the universe; she "was
not aware that the universe had been offered to Emerson." She said this
because Margaret Fuller was a woman.

Once, when writing for the newspapers was under discussion, Mrs. Howe
remarked that in that kind of composition one felt prescribed like St.
Simeon Stylites by the limitations of the column.

One of the best of her witty poems describes Boston on a rainy day, and
is called "Expluvior," an innocent parody on Longfellow's "Excelsior,"
which, by the way, ought to have been called Excelsius.

"The butcher came a walking flood,
Drenching the kitchen where he stood.
'Deucalion, is your name?' I pray.
'Moses,' he choked and slid away.
_Expluvior_,"

is one of the most characteristic verses; but in the last stanza she
wishes to construct a dam at the foot of Beacon Hill and cause a flood
that would sweep the rebel sympathizers out of Boston.

The office of the Blind Asylum was formerly near the middle of Bromfield
Street on the southern side. This is now historic ground. Between 1850
and 1870 some of the most important national councils were held there in
Dr. Howe's private office. It was the first place that Sumner went to in
the morning and the last place that Governor Andrew stopped before
returning to his home at night. There Dr. Howe and George L. Stearns
consulted with John Brown concerning measures for the defence of Kansas;
and there Howe, Stearns, and Bird concerted plans for the election of
Andrew in 1860, and for the re-election of Sumner in 1862. It was a
quiet, retired spot in the midst of a hustling city, where a celebrated
man could go without attracting public attention.

Chevalier Howe outlived Sumner just one year, and Wilson followed him not
long after.

THE WAR GOVERNOR.

Sebago is one of the most beautiful of the New England lakes, and has
been celebrated in Longfellow's verse for its curiously winding river
between the upper and the lower portion, as well as for the Indian
traditions connected with it. John A. Andrew's grandfather, like
Hawthorne's father, lived in Salem and both families emigrated to Sebago,
the former locating himself in the small town of Windham. At the time
when Hawthorne was sailing his little boat on the lake, at the age of
fourteen, John Andrew was in his nurse's arms,--born May 31, 1818. Like
Hawthorne and Longfellow he went to Bowdoin College, but did not
distinguish himself there as a scholar,--had no honors at commencement.
We are still in ignorance concerning his college life, what his interests
were, and how he spent his time; but Andrew never cared much for anything
which had not an immediate and practical value. Greek and Latin, merely
for their own sake as ancient languages, did not appeal to him; nor did
the desiccated history and cramping philosophy of those days attract him
more strongly. Yet he ultimately developed one of the finest of American
intellects.

[Illustration: JOHN A. ANDREW]

He was admitted to the Suffolk bar at the age of twenty-two. He had
already formed decided opinions on the slavery question. The practitioner
with whom he studied was precisely the opposite of Andrew,--a brilliant
scholar, but formal and unsympathetic. Although a young man of fine
promise he was soon excelled by his less learned but more energetic
pupil. At the age of twenty-six we find Andrew presiding at a convention
of Free-soilers, the same which nominated Dr. S. G. Howe for Congress.
Why he did not appear in politics between 1844 and 1859 is something of a
mystery, which may be explained either by his devotion to his profession
or his unwillingness to make politics a profession. He was in constant
communication with Charles Francis Adams, Frank W. Bird, and other
leading independents, and played a part in the election of Sumner as well
as at various nominating conventions; but he apparently neither sought
office nor was sought for it. It may have been a modest conscientiousness
of his own value, which prevented the acceptance of public honors until
he was prepared to claim the best; but the fact is difficult to account
for on any supposition.

Neither was his success at the bar remarkable. He never earned a large
income, and died comparatively poor. There were few who cared to meet him
in debate, yet his legal scholarship was not exceptional, and his
political opinions may have proved an impediment to him in a city which
was still devoted to Webster and Winthrop. Moreover, his kindness of
heart prompted him to undertake a large number of cases for which he
received little or no remuneration. As late as 1856 he was known as the
poor man's lawyer rather than as a distinguished pleader. One cannot help
reflecting what might have been John A. Andrew's fortune if he had been
born in Ohio or Illinois. In the latter State he would have proved a most
important political factor; for he was fully as able a speaker as
Douglas, and he combined with this a large proportion of those estimable
qualities which we all admire in Abraham Lincoln. He had not the wit of
Lincoln, nor his immense fund of anecdote, which helped so much to make
him popular, but the cordial manners and manly frankness of Andrew were
very captivating. He would have told Douglas to his face that he was a
demagogue, as Mirabeau did to Robespierre, and would have carried the
audience with him. It certainly seems as if he would have risen to
distinction there more rapidly than in old-fashioned, conventional
Boston.

Governor Andrew was an inch shorter than the average height of man, and
much resembled Professor Child in personal appearance. He was a larger
man than Professor Child, and his hair was darker, but he had the same
round, good-humored face, with keen penetrating eyes beneath a brow as
finely sculptured as that of a Greek statue, and closely curling hair
above it. He was broad-shouldered, remarkably so, and had a strong figure
but not a strong constitution. His hands were soft and as white as a
woman's; and though his step was quick and elastic he disliked to walk
long distances, and was averse to physical exercise generally.

He also resembled Professor Child in character,--frank without bluntness;
sincere both formally and intellectually,--full to the brim of moral
courage. He was not only kind-hearted, but very tender-hearted, so that
his lips would quiver on occasions and his eyes fill with tears,--what
doctors improperly call a lachrymose nature; but in regard to a question
of principle or public necessity he was as firm as Plymouth Rock. Neither
did he deceive himself, as kindly persons are too apt to do, in regard to
the true conditions of the case in hand. He would interrogate an
applicant for assistance in as judicious a manner as he would a witness
in a court room. He never degenerated into the professed philanthropist,
who makes a disagreeable and pernicious habit of one of the noblest
attributes of man. "A mechanical virtue," he would say, "is no virtue at
all."

The impressions of youth are much stronger and more enduring than those
of middle life, and I still remember Andrew as he appeared presiding at
the meeting for the benefit of John Brown's wife and daughters in
November, 1859. This was his first notable appearance before the public,
and nothing could have been more daring or more likely to make him
unpopular; and yet within twelve months he was elected Governor. His
attitude and his whole appearance was resolute and intrepid. He had set
his foot down, and no power on earth could induce him to withdraw it. A
clergyman who had been invited to speak at the meeting had at first
accepted, but being informed by some of his parishioners that the thing
would not do, declined with the excuse that he had supposed there would
be two sides to the question. "As if," said Andrew, "there could be two
sides to the question whether John Brown's wife and daughters should be
permitted to starve." Thomas Russell, Judge of the Superior Court, sat
close under the platform, clapping his hands like pistol shots.

John A. Andrew's testimony before the Harper's Ferry investigating
committee has a historical value which Hay and Nicolay, Wilson, and
Von Holst would have done well to have taken into consideration; but the
definitive history of the war period is yet to be written. There was no
reason why Andrew should have been summoned. He had never met John Brown
but once--at a lady's house in Boston--and had given him twenty-five
dollars without knowing what was to be done with it. Jefferson Davis and
the other Southern members of the committee evidently sent for him to
make capital against the Republican party, but the result was different
from what they anticipated. Andrew told them squarely that the Harper's
Ferry invasion was the inevitable consequence of their attempt to force
slavery on Kansas against the will of its inhabitants, and that the
Pottawatomie massacre, whether John Brown was connected with it or not,
was not so bad in its moral effect as the assault on Sumner. It was what
they might expect from attempting to tyrannize over frontier farmers. It
is not to be supposed that such men will be governed by the nice sense of
justice of an eastern law court.

His testimony in regard to the personal magnetism of John Brown is of
great value; but he also admitted that there was something about the old
man which he could not quite understand,--a mental peculiarity which may
have resulted from his hard, barren life, or the fixedness of his
purpose.

Andrew had already been elected to the Legislature, and had taken his
seat there in January, 1860. Almost in an instant he became the leader of
his party in the House. Always ready to seize the right moment, he united
the two essential qualities of a debater, a good set speech and a
pertinent reply. Perfectly fearless and independent, he was exactly the
man to guide his party through a critical period. There were few in the
house who cared to interfere with him.

Andrew was chairman of the Massachusetts delegation at the Chicago
Convention in May, and although he voted for Seward he was directly
instrumental in the nomination of Lincoln. It is said to have been at his
suggestion that the Massachusetts delegation called together the
delegations of those States that defeated Fremont in 1856, and inquired
of them which of the candidates would be most certain to carry their
constituencies; and with one accord they all answered Lincoln. Thus
Lincoln's nomination was practically assured before the voting began.

It has been repeatedly asserted that the nomination of Andrew for
Governor was the result of a general popular movement; but this was
simply impossible. He was chiefly known to the voters of the State at
that time as the presiding officer of a John Brown meeting, and that was
quite as likely to retard as to advance his interests. He had, however,
become a popular leader in the Legislature, and the fact that Governor
Banks was opposed to him and cast his influence in favor of a Pittsfield
candidate, left a sort of political vacuum in the more populous portion
of the State, which Frank W. Bird and Henry L. Pierce took advantage of
to bring his name forward. Sumner and Wilson threw their weight into the
scales, and Andrew was easily nominated; but he owed this to Frank W.
Bird more than to any other supporter.

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