CHAPTER XIX VISITS TO ENGLAND [1860, 1868, 1871]
I was born within a mile of the spot where the War of the Revolution began. My ancestors and other kindred on both sides took an active and prominent part in the struggle with England. I am descended from the early Puritans of Massachusetts in every line of descent. So it will readily be believed that all my feeling and sympathy have been on the side of my country in the great controversy with England, which began with the exile of the Pilgrims in 1620 and continued, with little interruption, until our last great quarrel with her, which ended with the arbitration at Geneva. Yet I am a passionate lover of England. Before I ever went abroad, I longed to visit the places famous in her history, as a child longs to go home to his birthplace.
I have visited Europe six times. On each occasion I devoted the largest part of my time to Great Britain. The desire to see England again has increased with every visit. Certainly there is nothing like England, and there never has been anything like England in the world. Her wonderful history, her wonderful literature, the beauty of her architecture, the historic and poetic associations which cluster about every street and river and mountain and valley, her vigorous life, the sweetness and beauty of her women, the superb manhood of her men, her navy, her gracious hospitality, her courage and her lofty pride—although some single race of people may have excelled here in a single particular—make up a combination never equalled in the world. I am, of course, not to be understood to bring my own country into the comparison.
The first time I went abroad was in 1860. I had for a companion my friend from infancy, George M. Brooks, of Concord. We travelled like a couple of Bohemians, never riding where we could walk; lunching or dining where he happened to find ourselves when we were hungry; taking second or third class carriages on the railroads, and getting into conversation with anybody who would talk to us. I doubt whether I shall ever have in this world, or in another, a sensation more delicious than that I had when the old steamer, "America," steamed up the Channel toward the mouth of the Mersey, with the green shores of Ireland on one side and England on the other. I am afraid if I were to relate the story of that journey, it would be only to please myself by reviving its recollections, and not for the delight of my readers, so many of whom have a similar memory of their own.
We heard John Bright and Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston in a great debate in the House of Commons on the paper duties, and saw Lord Brougham walking backward and forward on the terrace by Brougham Castle, near Penrith. We saw Edinburgh and the Trosachs, and Abbotsford and Stirling. I had been a loving reader of Scott from my childhood, and was almost as much at home in Scotland as if I had been born in the Canongate or the Saltmarket. I had had a special fancy for reading and studying topographical books on London, and found myself, pretty soon, so much at home there that I think I could have made a very decent living as a guide.
We spent a month in Switzerland. I made the journey over the mountain passes on foot, keeping up with my companion, who had a horse or a mule. I could walk twenty-five or thirty miles a day without great fatigue.
Augustus Flagg of the famous book-selling firm of Little & Brown, with whom I had dealt a great deal, was on the ship when I went out. He went abroad to purchase books for his house. In those days the book-stalls in London were mines of rare treasures. They had not been much examined by collectors or dealers, and the men who kept them did not know the value of books that were almost priceless in the eyes of virtuosos. Mr. Flagg and I spent together a good many days in ransacking the old book-stalls and shops, some of them in out-of-the- way places in the old city, even below the Tower. I could not afford to buy a great many books then. But I knew something about them, and the experience was like having in my hands the costliest rubies or diamonds.
The journey each way, which now takes six or seven days, then took fourteen. The Cunard steamer, whose successor, with its bilge keel and its vastly greater size, is as comfortable, even in very rough weather, as the first class city hotel, was as disagreeable in rough weather, to a man unaccustomed to the ocean, as a fishing smack. But the passengers got well acquainted with one another. There was agreeable society on board, and the days passed pleasantly.
Among the passengers was Joseph Coolidge of Boston, father of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, late Minister to France. Mr. Coolidge had been a great traveller in his day; had had some commercial occupations in the East, and was very pleasant company. His wife was a granddaughter of Mr. Jefferson. He told me that two of Mr. Jefferson's daughters—or granddaughters, I am not now absolutely sure which—had kept school and earned money, which they had applied to the payment of Mr. Jefferson's debts. The story was highly creditable to these Virginia ladies, who might well have thought that their illustrious ancestor's service might excuse his family from making sacrifices in discharge of such an obligation, if his countrymen at large did not feel its force.
I went over pretty much the same ground in 1868 with three ladies. I made both these journeys as an ordinary sightseer. I took few letters of introduction. I did not deliver those, except in one or two cases to American gentlemen living abroad.
One experience in this latter journey, however, it may be worth while to tell. I had a very pleasant friendship with Henry T. Parker, a Boston man and a graduate of Harvard, who had a comfortable property and had married an English lady and had settled in London. He found an occupation, congenial to his own taste, in buying books, as agent of some of the great libraries in the United States, including the Harvard Library and the Boston City Library. He was an intimate friend of Mr. Cox, the accomplished Librarian of the Bodleian, to whom he gave us letters.
Mr. Cox treated us with special courtesy and showed us many treasures of the Library, especially some wonderful illuminated manuscripts. One of them, the Duc de Monpensier, who had been at Oxford shortly before and who was an authority in such matters, felt confident was illustrated by Raphael. Mr. Cox had discovered, just before I was there, in some crypt where it had lain unknown for two hundred years, a touching letter from Clarendon, who was Chancellor of the University, which I think will move the heart of every man who loves the college where he was educated. The letter was written by Lord Clarendon just after he had landed at Calais, a hopeless exile, on his last flight from the country to which he was never again to return. The great orator, statesman, historian, lawyer, judge,—counsellor, companion and ancestor of monarchs,— flying for his life, in his old age, into a foreign land, from the court of which, for a generation, he had been the ornament and head, soon as his feet touch a place of safety, thinks of his University. See the noble heart through the simple and stately rhetoric:
GOOD MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR;
Having found it necessary to transport myselfe out of England, and not knowing when it shall please God that I shall returne againe, it becomes me to take care that the University may not be without the service of a person better able to be of use to them than I am like to be, and I doe therefore hereby surrender the office of chancellor into the hand of said University, to the end that they may make choyce of some other person better qualified to assist and protect them, than I am. I am sure he can never be more affectionate to it. I desire you as the last suite I am likely to make to you, to believe that I doe not fly my country for guilt, and how passionately soever I am pursued, that I have not done anything to make the University ashamed of me, or to repent the good opinion they had once of me, and though I must have no mention in your publique devotions, (which I have always exceedingly valued,) I hope I shall always be remembered in your private prayers, as
Good Mr. Vice-Chancellor,
Your affectionate servant,
CLARENDON.
CALAIS, this 7-17 Dec., 1667.
In 1871 I went abroad alone. I spent the whole time in England, except for a brief visit to Scotland. My purpose in going away was to get a vacation. I meant to do some studying in the British Museum, especially to make a thorough study of the conditions and economic principles affecting the strife between capital and labor, which then threatened both this country and England. I got a collection of the authorities and the references. But I did not find that I got a great deal of light from anything that had been written or said so far. I made a few very agreeable acquaintances. I had a letter to Thomas Hughes, and visited at his house. I found George W. Smalley, who had been a pupil in my office, established in a delightful house near London. He seemed to be on terms of intimacy with the famous Englishmen who were the leaders of both political parties, and with many eminent men of letters. I spent a delightful evening with Mr. Hughes at a club which I think was called the European Club, or something like that, where the members smoked clay pipes and drank beer. There seemed to be no other provision for the refreshment of the body or soul. But the conversation was very pleasant. The members sat together about a table, and the conversation was quite general and very bright. The talk turned, during the evening, on Scotsmen. The Englishmen present seemed to have something left of the old prejudice about Scotland with which Dr. Johnson was possessed. They imputed to the modern Scotsmen the same thrifty habit and capacity for looking after himself that prevailed a hundred years before, when Dr. Johnson and John Wilkes, who quarrelled about everything else, became reconciled when they united in abuse of their Northern neighbors. Sir Frederick Pollock cited a marginal note from the report of some old criminal case, to the following effect: "Possession of property in Scotland evidence of stealing in England."
I was guilty of one piece of stupid folly. Mr. Hughes kindly proposed to take me to see Carlyle. This was not very long after our war, when our people were full of indignation at Carlyle's bitter and contemptuous speech about us, especially his "American Iliad in a Nutshell." I was a little doubtful about what sort of a reception I should get, and declined the invitation. I have bitterly regretted this ever since. My brother visited Carlyle about 1846, bearing with him a letter from Emerson. Carlyle was very civil to him, and liked him very much, as appears by a letter from him to Mr. Emerson.
During the visit I heard a great debate between Gladstone and Disraeli. A brief account of it will be found in the chapter on "Some Famous Orators I have Heard."
A friend in Worcester gave me a letter to Mr. Wornum, the Director of the National Gallery, with whom he had been a fellow-pupil at Kensington. Mr. Wornum received me with great cordiality. He asked me to come to the Gallery the next day, when it would be closed to the public. He said he would be glad to show it to me then, when we would be free of interruption. He was the author of what I understand to be an excellent history of painting, and was regarded as the most competent judge in Europe of the value and merit of paintings. I suppose Parliament would at any time, on his sole recommendation, have given ten or twenty or perhaps fifty thousand guineas for a masterpiece. I shall never forget the delight of that day. He told me the history of the great paintings in the National Gallery, some of which had belonged to monarchs, popes, noblemen or famous merchants of almost all the countries in Europe. He said that while there were many larger galleries, the National Gallery was the best in the world as affording the best and most characteristic examples of every school of painting. I cannot remember much that was said in that long day, interrupted only by a pleasant lunch together. But it was a day full of romance. It was as if I had had in my hand the crown jewels of every potentate in the world, and somebody had told me the history of each gem. For this picture Francis the First, or Charles V., or Henry VIII. had been bidders. This had belonged to Lorenzo de Medici, or Pope Leo X. This had come from the famous collection of Charles I., scattered through Europe on his death; and this had belonged to some nobleman whose name was greater than that of monarchs.
Mr. Wornum spoke of his treasures with an enthusiasm which no worshipper at the throne of any Saint or Divinity could surpass. That day was among the few chiefest delights of my life.