G. P. R. James, Esq.,
The Shrubbery,
Walmer.
Donald G. Mitchell, describing the little red cottage of Hawthorne, in the Berkshire hills, reminds us that among those who used to come a-visiting the great American romancer, was “G. P. R. James, that kindly master of knights ‘in gay caparison’;” and elsewhere says that at the Cooper Memorial meeting in Metropolitan Hall, on February 25, 1852, where Webster, Bryant and Hawks paid their tribute to the author of the Leatherstocking tales, “Mr. G. P. R. James—then chancing to be a visitor in New York,—lent a little of his rambling heroics to the interest of the occasion.”[[55]] I have before me the Memorial, printed by Putnam in 1852, containing a full report of the meeting, including the remarks of James, and I do not find anything which may fairly be called “heroics”, rambling or otherwise. The speech was manifestly extemporaneous. He began by expressing his pride in being an Englishman, a romance writer, and a man of the people, and his pleasure in paying an humble tribute to an American romance writer and a man of the people. He praised the addresses of those who preceded him, corrected a trifling error of Bryant’s in regard to a Mr. James, a surgeon, and declared that the proposed statue to Cooper was not merely to a novelist, but to a genius—to truth—to truth, genius and patriotism combined. He closed by urging all present to use every exertion to procure contributions for the purpose of erecting such a statue. To any unprejudiced mind, what James said was appropriate and dignified; well suited to the occasion; wholly natural and unaffected; and compared favorably, to say the least, with the dull and ponderous commonplaces of Daniel Webster who had the chair and who was singularly unfitted to preside over such a meeting. Of Webster’s platitudes, Professor Lounsbury is quite contemptuous, remarking that the distinguished orator “had nothing to say and said it wretchedly.”[[56]] I believe that the projected statue was never built. James was evidently a favorite dinner-speaker. It is pleasant to know that he spoke at a ‘printer’s banquet’ in New York in the latter part of 1850, and that he paid a well-merited tribute to a man destined to become a distinguished figure in literature. Bayard Taylor, writing to his friend George H. Boker, on January 1, 1851, says: “By the bye, James paid me a very elegant compliment, in his speech at the ‘printer’s banquet’ the other night, referring to me as the best landscape painter in words that he had ever known. This is something from an Englishman.”[[57]] He always said kind and appreciative words about his fellow-authors, if they were deserving.
Returning to the Hawthorne cottage, Julian Hawthorne gives a brief account of one of the visits of James, who, it appears, was living near by during the summer of 1851. As the narrator was five years old at the time of this visit, his estimate of the visitors must have been founded upon something other than his personal observation. He says:
“James was a commonplace, meritorious person, with much blameless and intelligent conversation, but the only thing that recalls him personally to my memory is the fact of his being associated with a furious thunderstorm.”
He relates how the storm raged and how the door burst open,—his father and he were alone in the cottage—
“and behold! of all persons in the world—to be heralded by such circumstances—G. P. R. James! Not he only, but close upon his heels his entire family, numerous, orthodox, admirable, and infinitely undesirable to two secluded gentlemen without a wife and mother to help them out.*** They dripped on the carpet, they were conventional and courteous; we made conversation between us but whenever the thunder rolled, Mrs. James became ghastly pale. Mr. James explained that this was his birthday, and that they were on a pleasure excursion. He conciliated me by anecdotes of a pet magpie, or raven, who stole spoons. At last the thunderstorm and the G. P. R. Jameses passed off together.[[58]]
It is not uninteresting to compare this rather patronizing and supercilious narration of a trivial incident with that which is given in his own Journal by the father of this precocious young gentleman of five years; and it is probably the fact that the story was related by the son not from his own memory but from the record of the Journal, reproduced in “Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife,” by Julian Hawthorne.[[59]] Nathaniel Hawthorne evidently liked James. Under date of July 30, 1851, he says:
“We walked to the village for the mail, and on our way back we met a wagon in which sat Mr. G. P. R. James, his wife and daughter, who had just left their cards at our house. Here ensued a talk, quite pleasant and friendly. He is certainly an excellent man; and his wife is a plain, good, friendly, kind-hearted woman, and his daughter a nice girl. Mr. James spoke of ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ and of ‘Twice-Told Tales,’ and then branched off upon English literature generally.”[[60]] The acquaintance between the two authors must have been deemed to be of advantage to both, for the supercilious Master Julian takes care to present in full a note of invitation addressed by James to the elder Hawthorne asking the latter ‘with his two young people’ to visit him, saying: “We are going to have a little haymaking after the olden fashion, and a syllabub under the cow; hoping not to be disturbed by any of your grim old Puritans, as were the poor folks of Merrymount. By the way, you do not do yourself justice at all in your preface to the ‘Twice-Told Tales,’—but more on that subject anon.”[[61]]