CHAPTER XVIII GEORGE BANCROFT
One of the most delightful friendships of my life was with George Bancroft, the famous historian. I never knew him until I went to Washington in 1877. But we established at once, as a matter of course, the relation of an intimate friendship. He was born in Worcester, to which he was much attached, though he had spent little of his life there after he had left college. Mrs. Bancroft had known my oldest brother and sister intimately, when she lived in Boston. I had learned from Mr. Emerson, who rarely gave his praise lightly, as well as from my own study, to value Mr. Bancroft very highly as a historian, which he soon found out.
I almost always found him waiting for me on the doorstep of my dwelling when I came from church the first Sunday after I reached Washington, at the beginning of a session. I have enjoyed many hours at his table, rendered delightful by the conversation of the eminent guests whom he gathered there, but by no conversation more delightful than his own.
Mr. Bancroft had two enthusiasms which made him a great historian— an enthusiasm for truth which spared no labor and left no stores of information unsearched, and an enthusiastic love of country. He believed that the great emotions and motives which move a free people are the noble, not the mean motives. He has written and interpreted the history of the United States in that faith. I believe his work will endure so long as the love of liberty shall endure. I gave my estimate of him at a meeting of the American Antiquarian Society, of which we were both chosen Vice-Presidents, in October, 1880, just after the completion of his eightieth year and of his "History of the United States," as follows:
"It is not usual to discuss the report of the committee to propose a list of officers. But one of the names reported gives special interest to the occasion. On the third of this month of October, our honored associate Mr. Bancroft completed his eightieth year. At the same time he completed his 'History of the United States' to the formation of the Federal Constitution.
"This Society, while it is national and continental in the scope of its investigations, strikes down its roots into the soil of this locality, where its founder dwelt, and where its collections are kept.
"For both these reasons we cherish our relations to Mr. Bancroft. He was born within a few rods of this spot. He is descended by the mother's side from an old Worcester County family who were conspicuous in the administration of its public affairs long before the Revolution. His father was one of the six persons who petitioned for the act of incorporation of this Society, and one of its first members. His brother by marriage, Governor Davis, was your predecessor in the President' chair.
"These reasons would be enough to induce us to value our relation. But he has filled a highly honorable and conspicuous place in public life. He is, I believe, the senior person living who has been a member of the Cabinet. He is the senior among living persons who have filled important diplomatic stations. He has represented the United States at Berlin and at St. James.
"His history is, and doubtless will be, the great standard authority upon the important period which it covers. He is the only person living whose judgment would change the place in public estimation held by any of the great statesmen of the Revolutionary times. He has had the rare good fortune among men of letters, to have proposed to himself a great task, requiring a lifetime for its accomplishment, the successful achievement of which is enough to make any life illustrious, and to have lived to complete it with powers of body and mind undiminished. It is his fate to know, while alive, the estimate in which he will be held by posterity. In his case, that knowledge can be only a source of pleasure and satisfaction.
"In this Mr. Bancroft resembles Gibbon. We all remember Gibbon's delightful account of the completion of his great work.
"In another thing, alone among great historians, Mr. Bancroft resembles Gibbon. As an artist he has accomplished that most difficult task of composing a history made up of many separate threads, which must keep on side by side, yet all be subordinate to one main and predominant stream. But his narrative never loses its constant and fascinating interest. No other historian, I believe, except Gibbon, has attempted this without becoming insufferably dull.
"Mr. Bancroft tells the story of thirteen States, separate, yet blending into one National life. It is one of the most wonderful things in our history, that the separate States having so much in common, have preserved so completely, even to the present time, their original and individual characteristics. Rhode Island, held in the hollow of the hand of Massachusetts; Connecticut, so placed that one would think it would become a province of New York; Delaware, whose chief city is but twenty-five miles from Philadelphia, yet preserve their distinctive characteristics as if they were states of the continent of Europe, whose people speak a different language. This shows how perfectly state rights and state freedom are preserved in spite of our National union, how little the power at the centre interferes with the important things that affect the character of a people. Why is it that little Delaware remains Delaware in spite of Pennsylvania, and little Rhode Island remains Rhode Island notwithstanding her neighbor Massachusetts?
What makes the meadow flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its roots, and in that freedom bold.
And so the grandeur of the forest tree
Comes, not from casting in a formal mould,
But from its own divine vitality.
"But Mr. Bancroft is more fortunate than Gibbon. Gibbon wrote of decline, of decay, of dissolution, and death; of the days, to use his own words, 'when giants were becoming pigmies.' Bancroft tells the story of birth, and growth, and youth, and life. His name is to be inseparably associated with a great and interesting period in the world's history; with what in the proud imagination of his countrymen must ever be the greatest and most interesting of all periods, when pigmy villages were becoming giant States. I am sure that it is a delight to this assembly of distinguished scholars, assembled near his birthplace, to send him, at the completion of his great work, and of his eightieth year, their cordial salutation."
I went to see Mr. Bancroft on the evening of the last Sunday in December, 1890. He was sitting in his library up stairs. He received me in his usual emphatic manner, taking both my hands and saying, "My dear friend, how glad I am to see you!" He was alone. He evidently knew me when I went in, and inquired about Worcester, as he commonly did, and expressed his amazement at its remarkable growth.
I stayed with him about twenty or thirty minutes. The topics of our conversation were, I believe, suggested by me, and the whole conversation was one which gave evidence of full understanding on his part of what we were talking about. It was not merely an old man's memory of the past, but the fresh and vigorous thought on new topics which were suggested to him in the course of the conversation. I think he exhibited a quickness and vigor of thought and intelligence and spoke with a beauty of diction that no man I know could have surpassed.
I asked him if he could account for the interest in historical study among the older Harvard graduates, and mentioned the fact that the principal historians of this country, including himself, Prescott, Sparks, Motley, Palfrey and Parkman, were all Harvard men and were eminent at a time when there were scarcely any other eminent historical scholars in America. He did not directly answer this question, but said that his own inclination toward history, he thought, was due very much to the influence of his father. He said his father would have been a very eminent historian, if he had had material at his command, and that he had a remarkably judicious mind.
He spoke of some clergymen, especially the Unitarian clergymen, so many of whom belonged to Harvard at his time. He said he had little sympathy for the Unitarianism of his day, "for its theology, no; for its spirituality, yes."
He asked me about the Election Bill pending in the Senate. I spoke of the great storm of abuse I had had to encounter for advocating it, but said I thought on the whole the feeling between the different sections of the country and different political parties was better than it ever had been before in this country, and much better than that which now existed between different political parties in foreign countries. He cordially agreed to this, and made some observations which I do not now recall, but which were interesting and bright.
After we had talked together for some time, he said: "My memory is very poor: I cannot remember your first name." I said: "It is the same as yours, Mr. Bancroft—George." He paused a moment with an amused and puzzled look, and said: "What is your last name?" He had evidently known me very well during most of the preceding part of the interview.
I told his son about this conversation the day after Mr. Bancroft's death. He said that the presence of a visitor acted in this way as a stimulant, but that he had not lately shown much intelligence in the family, seeming lost and feeble.