My Life as an Author Part 19

_To the South_.

"The world has misjudged you, mistrusted, maligned you, And should be quick to make honest amends; Let me then speak of you just as I find you, Humbly and heartily, cousins and friends!

Let us remember your wrongs and your trials, Slander'd and plunder'd and crush'd to the dust, Draining adversity's bitterest vials, Patient in courage and strong in good trust.

"You fought for Liberty, rather than Slavery!

Well might you wish to be quit of that ill, But you were sold by political knavery, Meshed in diplomacy's spider-like skill: And you rejoice to see Slavery banished, While the free servant works well as before, Confident, though many fortunes have vanished, Soon to recover all--rich as before!

"Doubtless, there had been some hards.h.i.+ps and cruelties, Cases exceptional, evil and rare, But to tell truth--and truly _the_ jewel 'tis-- Kindliness ruled, as a rule, everywhere!

Servants, if slaves, were your wealth and inheritance, Born with your children, and grown on your ground, And it was quite as much interest as merit hence Still to make friends of dependents all round.

"Yes, it is slander to say you oppressed them; Does a man squander the price of his pelf?

Was it not often that he who possessed them Rather was owned by his servants himself?

Caring for all, as in health so in sicknesses, He was their father, their patriarch chief; Age's infirmities, infancy's weaknesses Leaning on him for repose and relief.

"When you went forth in your pluck and your bravery, Selling for freedom both fortunes and lives, Where was that prophesied outburst of slavery Wreaking revenge on your children and wives?

Nowhere! you left all to servile safe keeping, And this was faithful and true to your trust; Master and servant thus mutually reaping Double reward of the good and the just?

"Generous Southerners! I who address you Shared with too many belief in your sins; But I recant it,--thus, let me confess you, Knowledge is victor and every way wins: For I have seen, I have heard, and am sure of it, You have been slandered and suffering long, Paying all Slavery's cost, and the cure of it,-- And the great world shall repent of its wrong."

I need not say what a riot that honest bit of verse raised among the enthusiasts on both sides. I spoke from what I saw, and soon had reason to corroborate my judgment: for I next paid a visit on my old Brook Green school-friend, Middleton, at his burnt and ruined mansion near Summerville: once a wealthy and benevolent patriarch, surrounded by a negro population who adored him, all being children of the soil, and not one slave having been sold by him or his ancestors for 200 years.

According to him, that violent emanc.i.p.ation was ruin all round: in his own case a great farm of happy dependants was destroyed, the inhabitants all dead through disease and starvation, a vast estate once well tilled reverted to marsh and jungle, and himself and his reduced to utter poverty,--all mainly because Mrs. Beecher Stowe had exaggerated isolated facts as if they were general, and because North and South quarrelled about politics and protection. Mrs. Stowe, I hear, has learnt wisdom, as I did,--and now like me does justice to both sides. There is no end to extracts from my journals, if I choose to make them; but I think I will transcribe four stanzas which I gave to Williams Middleton in February 1877, on my departure, as they bring together past and present:--

"Ancient schoolmate at Brook Green Half a century ago (Nay, the years that roll between Count some fifty-eight or so),-- Oh, the scenes 'twixt Now and Then, Life in all its grief and joys,-- Meeting Now as aged men Since the Then that saw us boys!

"There's a charm, a magic strange, Thus to recognise once more, Changeless in the midst of change Mind and spirit as of yore; Even face and form discerned Easily and greeted well, While our hearts together burned At school-tales we had to tell.

"Mostly dead, forgotten, gone,-- Few old Railtonites of fame (Here and there we noted one), Yet we find ourselves the same!

Sons of either hemisphere We can never stand apart, With to me Columbia dear And my England in your heart.

"You, of good old English stock,-- I--some kindred of mine own Pound themselves on Plymouth Rock, Five times fifty years agone; So, I come at sixty-six, All across the Atlantic main, With my kith and kin to mix, And to greet you once again!"

I may here record that, accompanied by Middleton, I watched at an alligator's hole with a rifle, but the beast would not come out, perhaps luckily for me, if I missed a stomach shot; that I was prevented from bringing down a carrion vulture, it being illegal to kill those useful scavengers; that I caught some dear little green tree frogs; that I noted how the rice-fields had become a poisonous marsh; that I noticed the extensive strata of guano and fossil bone pits, securing some large dragon's teeth, and with them sundry flint arrow-heads, suggestive of man's antiquity; that I lamented over the desolation of my friend's mansion and estate, and in particular to have seen how outrageously the Federals had destroyed his family-mausoleum, scattering the sacred relics of his ancestors all round and about. This was simply because he had been a Confederate magnate, and had owned patriarchally a mult.i.tude of slaves, born on the spot through two centuries. He and his kind brother, the Admiral,--my friendly host at Was.h.i.+ngton,--have joined the majority elsewhere; but I heard from him and others down South the truth about American slavery.

For remainder rapid notice. Paul Hayne the poet is remembered well; and the fine old great-grandmother with eighty-six descendants of my name; and thereafter came the inauguration of President Hayes, an account whereof I wrote to the English papers; and hospitalities at the White House, and records of plenty more Readings and receptions; and all about Edgar Poe at Baltimore, and my acquaintance with Henry Ward Beecher, and my final New York hospitalities, and my pamphlet "America Revisited,"

written on board the return steamer the _Batavia_,--and so an end hurriedly.

This was my last farewell to my million friends, published in Bryant's paper;--

_Valete!_

"A last Farewell--O many friends!

I leave your love with saddened heart; And so my grateful spirit sends This answering love before we part: I thank you tenderly each one, I praise your goodness, dear to tell, And, well-remembered when I'm gone, Alike will yearn on you as well.

"A last Farewell--O my few foes!

I fear'd you not, by mouth or pen, But to the battle bravely rose, A man to fight his fight with men: And though the gauntlet I have run You shall not say he fail'd or fell, Truly recording when I'm gone, He fought and won his victories well.

"My last Farewell--O brothers both!

No foes at all, but friends all round; Albeit now homeward, little loth, To dear old England I am bound-- Accept this short and simple prayer (A cheerful verse, no parting knell), To every one and everywhere My thankful blessing, and Farewell!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

ENGLISH AND SCOTCH READINGS.

I have another vast volume before me, recounting my English and Scotch Reading Tours, with full details of innumerable home kindnesses and hospitalities, from Ventnor in the South to Peterhead in the North, which I need not particularise. I gave twenty-one "Readings from my own Works" southward, in a dozen towns with a regular _entrepreneur_, who was my _avant courier_ everywhere, making all arrangements, placarding, advertising, hiring halls, engaging reporters, and the like; when all was ready, I used to come forward, as the General does at a review,--and then succeeded the sham-fight and division of the spoils of war--if any; for, to say truth, our partners.h.i.+p did not prove lucrative, so we parted with mutual esteem, and I resolved to accomplish all the rest of my projected tour alone; a great effort and a successful one, for I "orated" all through Scotland, from Ayr to Peterhead (far north of Aberdeen), often to very large audiences (as at Glasgow, where the number was said to be three thousand) and always to fair ones, the Scotch being much more given to literature than the West of England. I could give innumerable anecdotes of the splendid as well as kindly welcome I received from great and small,--for as I now had no attending agent I was all the more eagerly treated as a solitary guest,--and I found myself handed on from one rich host to another all through the land, with numerous book friends everywhere ready and willing to make all arrangements freely at each town and city. So the tour paid better every way, albeit the toil and excitement of being always to the front, either on platforms or at dinner-parties, was excessive though not exhausting. It is astonis.h.i.+ng what one can do if one tries, and if the sympathy of friends and a really good success are at hand to cheer one.

I wish there was s.p.a.ce here to say more about all this; but the great book before me would print up into several volumes. I will only, add, as below, an interesting extract from this diary, just before I had parted with my worthy agent aforesaid:--"He has told me some curious anecdotes about eminent _artistes_ whom he has chaperoned, _e.g._ Thackeray came to Clifton to give four readings on the Georges; the first reading had only three auditors, the second not one; so Thackeray went away. Bellew is uncertain; sometimes having empty benches, sometimes overflowing ones, according to the programme, whether serious or laughable. Tom Hood gave a lecture on Humour, which was so dull that the audience left him.

Miss Glyn Dallas often reads 'Cleopatra,' magnificently too, to empty benches. Sims Reeves draws a vast audience, but sometimes at the last moment refuses to sing (probably paying forfeit) because he is always afraid of something giving way in his throat. d.i.c.kens, though with crowded audiences, was not liked, nor nearly so good as Mr.---- expected: he carried about with him a sort of show-box, set round with lights and covered with purple cloth, in the midst of which he appeared in full evening costume with bouquet in b.u.t.ton-hole, and, as Mr.---- said, 'very stiff.' Mr.---- has just engaged Madame Lemmens Sherrington and six others for sixty-three concerts at a cost of 4000, for he says that good music--after low humour--is the best thing to pay. May his spirited speculation prosper!" Thus much for my quotation of Mr.---- 's experiences.

It may interest a reader if I give, quite at haphazard, a list of one of my readings: "Welcome; Adventure; Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow; All's for the Best; Energy; Success; Warmth; Be True; Of Love; The Lost Arctic; The Way of the World; Cheerfulness." All these may be found in my Miscellaneous Poems and "Proverbial Philosophy." I varied the programme--of about an hour and a half each (sometimes two)--frequently through my fifty readings on this side of the Atlantic, as well as through my hundred over there. How strange that the stammerer should have so become the orator!--I thank G.o.d for this.

Before a final end to this brief record of my home-readings, I will add another page of short extracts from this diary: "Though I continually read for nearly two hours at a stretch (and that sometimes twice a day too) I take no intervals, and hardly anything but a sip of water. Energy and electrical effort are stimulants enough." "I always exert myself quite as much for few as for many; perhaps more so." "No one ever can read well or hold his audience if he doesn't feel what he reads." "Some of the clergy are no great friends of mine; one told me to-day that 'perpetual dearly beloved brethren had spoilt him for eloquence, and he didn't care to hear mine.'" This was at Salisbury, in a coffee-room.

"Cathedral towns are always dullest and least sympathetic with lecturing laymen; for example, at Bristol, Salisbury, Worcester, Gloster, and the like. Are the clerics jealous of lay spouters?

Dissenting ministers and Presbyterians seem far more genial." "I travelled about fifteen hundred miles by rail, besides coaches and carriages. My aggregate of paying hearers was about sixteen thousand, the bulk being old book-likers. The gain was nearly four times as much as the cost, good hospitality having been the rule." "I read publicly (private readings additional, as often asked after dinners, &c.) twenty-nine proverbial essays and thirty-eight poems; repeated according to popularity by request to two hundred." I only do not name some of my generous Scotch and English hosts for fear of seeming to have forgotten others by omission; and the list is too lengthy for full insertion; as also is the long story of my adventures and experiences in the hospitable North.

Miscellaneous Poems.

Before dismissing thus curtly, my great Scottish exploit (which, by the way, antic.i.p.ated by three years my second American visit, but I would not disjoin that from my first) I ought to give some account of the publication of my Miscellaneous Poems by Gall & Inglis at Edinburgh, and of some few of the hospitalities connected therewith, though not revealing domesticities, as against my wholesome rule.

An odd thing happened to me at Mr. Inglis's dinner-table, where I met several literary celebrities. I had just read, and was loud in my praises of a then anonymous work, "Primeval Man Unveiled," and I asked my neighbour, an aged man, if he knew that extraordinary book?

Whereupon the whole table saluted the questioner with a loud guffaw; for I was speaking to its author, whom I had innocently so bepraised.

However, my mistake was easily forgiven, as may be imagined. I found that the said author was Mr. Inglis's near relative, Mr. Gall,--so my new publisher and I were immediately _en rapport_.

There are two simultaneous editions of this book of my poetry--one called the Redlined and the other the Landscape; the first on thick paper, and with eight steel engravings, the latter having every page decorated in colours with beautiful borderings of scenery. The volume contains about one-half or less of all the ma.s.s of lyrics I have written, some of the pieces having been in earlier books of my poetry, as Ballads and Poems, Cithara, Lyrics of the Heart and Mind, Hactenus, A Thousand Lines, &c. &c.; and they date, though not printed in systematic order, from my fifteenth year to beyond my sixtieth. Fly-leaf lyrics have been continually growing ever since now to my seventy-sixth.

Here are a few further random, extracts from my Scotch diary:--"Arbroath, _Sunday, Nov. 2, 1873_.--What a comfort it is for once to feel utterly unknown; for even my luggage has only a monogram, and here at the White Hart I am No. 15, and a commercial gent to all appearance: really, it is quite a relief to be some one else than Martin Tupper."

"Read J.S. Mill's autobiography; poor wretch! from his cradle brought up as an atheist by a renegade father, he can have been hardly more responsible for his no faith than a born idiot. However, in these infidel last times, and with our very broad-church and no-church teachings, a man has only to be utterly G.o.dless (so he be moral) to make himself a name for pure reason. I'd sooner be the most unenlightened Christian than such a false philosopher. Let a Goldsmith say of me, 'No very great wit, he believed in a G.o.d,' for I refuse to deny one, like the Psalmist's fool." "I throw myself so into my readings, that I almost forget my audience, till their cheering, as it were, wakes me up,--and I feel every word I say: if I didn't, that word would fall dead. There is a magnetism in earnestness,--an electric power; I am in a way full of it when reciting, and I am aware of it flowing through the ma.s.s of my audience." "It was a touching thing to me to hear the aged Mr. B---- conduct his family wors.h.i.+p, singing like an old Covenanter the harmonious Puritan dirgy hymn, reading the Bible most devoutly, and praying (as only Presbyterians can pray) from the heart and not from a formal liturgy, earnestly and eloquently; he prayed also for me and mine, and I thank G.o.d and him for it." "My host at Ayr drove me in his waggonette to see the mausoleum at Hamilton Palace, with its wonderful bronze doors after Ghiberti, and its inlaid marble floor, much of which is of real verd antique in small pieces. Then we went down among the dead men, and inspected the coffins of nearly all the Dukes of Hamilton. It is an outrage to have expended so much (100,000) on this senseless mausoleum, and to have left close by and within sight of the great Grecian palace those filthy crowded streets of poverty and disease--the wretched town of Hamilton--as a contrast to profuse extravagance. The last Duke, the very Lord Douglas who was in the same cla.s.s with me at Christ Church, and is supposed to have personated me in Tom Quad, has a very graceful temple of Vesta all to himself, with his bust in the middle: his father lies, of all heathenish absurdities, in a real antique Egyptian sarcophagus, into which it is said he was fitted by internal scoopings, the Duke being taller than its former tenant, the Pharaoh. All this done, we drove through some rugged parts of the High Park, to see magnificent oaks, much like some at Albury, in hopes of coming upon the famous wild cattle, grey, with black feet, ears, tail, and nose, and stated to be untameable. To our great satisfaction we did see a herd of thirty-four feeding quietly enough; had we been walking instead of driving we might have fared poorly as hunted ones: though I confess I saw at first no fierceness in the lot of them; but when the herd sighted us, and began ominously to commence encircling our gig, under the guidance of a terrible bull, we turned and fled, as the discreeter part of wisdom; Captain Hamilton, my host, telling me that if they charged us we must jump out and swarm up a tree! I was glad to be out of such a fearful escapade as that." "As to diversities in the Scotch Church, after seeing many clerical specimens of each kind, I judge that (generally) the Established Scotch gives itself the superior airs of the Established English; the Frees are the most intellectual; the U.P.s most pious; the Scottish Episcopal getting excessively high; and some other varieties growing far too broad and pantheistic. I don't wonder to hear Papists say that Protestantism is breaking up; no two parsons are agreed on all points, some on none."

As for social hospitalities, I found them either splendid or kindly--or both--everywhere; and will only name Captain Hamilton of Rozelle, Sir Michael Shaw Stewart of Ardgowan, Mr. Boyd of Glasgow, Mr. Gall and Mr.

Nelson of Edinburgh, Mr. Arthur of Paisley, and such other millionaire hosts as James Baird, William d.i.c.kson, and the like, as among my wealthiest and kindest welcomers.

Of course, when a guest for a week at Rozelle, I paid due homage to Burns in his own territory; visiting his natal cottage, his funeral cenotaph, Alloway Kirk, the Auld Brig, &c. &c.--all these in company with the millionaire iron-master and most enthusiastic admirer of Tam-o'-Shanter, Mr. James Baird. When he took me to his magnificent castle hard by, he said to me "Ye're vera welcome to ma hoose,"--and I entered to inspect his gallery of pictures: among them I noticed, with surprise at such an incongruous subject for a painting, an ugly red factory in course of building, and a man on a ladder leaning against it, with a hod on his shoulder. To my inquiry about this, he replied, "Yon's mysel',--I'm proud to say; that's what I was, and this is what I am." He had made, while yet a workman, some discovery about cold blast or hot blast (I don't know which) and gained enormous wealth thereby. He is the man who gave half a million of money to the Scotch Established Church.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

ELECTRICS.

I have something of interest to say about the first laying of the electric telegraph across the Atlantic. Sir Culling Eardley invited a number of savants, among them Wheatstone and Morse, and others, both English and American, to a great feast inaugurating the completion of the cable: and I, amongst other outsiders, had the honour of being asked. I had written, and after dinner I read, the verses following, which had the good and great effect of originating the first message (see the seventh stanza) which was adopted by acclamation and sent off at once; being only preceded, for courtesy-sake, by a short friendly greeting from Queen to President, and President to Queen. The heading runs in my book as "The Atlantic Telegraph."

"World! what a wonder is this, Grandly and simply sublime,-- All the Atlantic abyss Leapt in a nothing of time!

Even the steeds of the sun Half a day panting behind, In the flat race that is run, Won by a flash of the mind!