Could we go back—not quite a hundred years—a little off the direct route to Plymouth, on a site overlooking the broad marshes of Green Harbor and the sea, where there now stands a boulder erected in 1914 by the Boston University Law School Association, we would find a comfortable, rambling house, distinguished among its New England neighbors by an easy and delightful hospitality—the kind of hospitality we call "Southern." There are many people in the house, on the veranda and lawns: a hostess of gentle mien and manners; children attractive in the spontaneity of those who continually and happily associate with their elders; several house guests (yonder is Audubon the great naturalist, here is an office-seeker from Boston, and that chap over there, so very much at home, can be no other than Peter Harvey, Webster's fond biographer). Callers there are, also, as is shown by the line of chaises and saddle horses waiting outside, and old Captain Thomas and his wife, from whom the place was bought, and who still retain their original quarters, move in and out like people who consider themselves part of the family. It is a heterogeneous collection, yet by no means an awkward one, and every one is chatting with every one else with great amiability. It is late afternoon: the master of the house has been away all day, and now his guests and his family are glancing in the direction from which he may be expected. For although every one is comfortable and properly entertained, yet the absence of the host creates an inexpressible emptiness; it is as if everything were quiescent—hardly breathing—merely waiting until he comes. Suddenly the atmosphere changes; it is charged with a strong vibrant quality; everything—all eyes, all interest—is instantly focused on the figure which has appeared among them. He is in fisherman's clothes—this newcomer—attired with a brave eye for the picturesque, in soft hat and flowing tie; but there are no fisherman's clothes, no, nor any other cloakings which can conceal the resilient dignity of his bearing, his impressive build, and magnificent, kingly head. Sydney Smith called Webster a cathedral; and surely there must have been something in those enormous, burning eyes, that craglike brow, that smote even the most superficial observer into an admiration which was almost awe.
Many men—perhaps even the majority—whatever their genius in the outer world, in their own houses are either relegated to—or choose—the inconspicuous rôle of mere masculine appendages. But here we have a man who is superbly the host: he knows and welcomes every guest and caller; he personally supervises the disposal of their baggage and the selection of their chambers; he himself has ordered the dinner—mutton which he has raised, fish which he has caught—and it is being cooked by Monica, the Southern slave whose freedom he purchased for her. He carves at table, priding himself on his dispatch and nicety, and keeps an eye on the needs of every one at the long board. Everything, every one in the house is irresistibly drawn about this magnetic center which dominates by its innate power of personality more than by any deliberate intention. His children worship him; his wife idolizes him; each man and woman on the place regards him with admiring affection. And in such congenial atmosphere he expands, is genial, kindly, delightful. But devoted as he is to his home, his family, and his friends, and charming as he shows himself with them, yet it is not until we see him striding over the farm which he has bought that we see the Daniel Webster who is destined to live most graphically in the memories of those who like to think of great men in those intimate moments which are most personally characteristic of them.
We must rise early in the morning if we would accompany him on his day's round. He himself is up at sunrise, for the sunrise is to him signal to new life. As he once wrote: "Among all our good people not one in a thousand sees the sun rise once a year. They know nothing of the morning. Their idea of it is that part of the day which comes along after a cup of coffee and a beefsteak or a piece of toast. With them morning is not a new issuing of light, a new bursting forth of the sun, a new waking up of all that has life from a sort of temporary death, to behold again the works of God, the heavens and the earth.... The first faint streak of light, the earliest purpling of the east which the lark springs up to greet, and the deeper and deeper coloring into orange and red, till at length the 'glorious sun is seen, regent of the day'—this they never enjoy, for they never see it."
So four o'clock finds Webster up and dressed and bound for the little study in his garden (the only building spared by the fire which destroyed the house in 1878) and beginning his correspondence. If he has no secretary he writes himself, and by time breakfast is announced twenty letters, all franked and sealed, are ready to be posted.
"Now," he says, smiling benignantly down the long breakfast table of family and friends, "my day's work is done—I have nothing to do but fish."
Although this is, indeed, his favorite sport, and there is hardly a brook or lake or pond within a radius of twenty miles which does not bear the charmed legend of having been one of his favorite fishing grounds, he does not spend his days in amusement, like the typical country gentleman. Farming to him, the son of a yeoman, is no mere possession of a fine estate, but the actual participation in ploughing, planting, and haying. His full animal spirits find relief in such labor. We cannot think of any similar example of such prodigious mental and physical energy. Macaulay was a great parliamentary orator, but he was the most conventional of city men; Burke and Chatham had no strength for such strenuousness after their professional toil. But Webster loved to know and to put his hand to every detail of farming and stock-raising. When he first came to Marshfield the soil was thin and sandy. It was he who instituted scientific farming in the region, teaching the natives how to fertilize with kelp which was easily obtainable from the sea, and also with the plentiful small herring or menhaden. He taught them the proper care of the soil, and the rotation of crops. This passionate love of the earth was an integral part of the man. As the force of his mind drew its power, not from mere rhetorical facility, but from fundamental principles, so his magnificent body, like that of the fabled Antæus, seemed to draw perennial potency from contact with the earth. To acquire land—he owned nearly eighteen hundred acres at the time of his death—and to cultivate it to the highest possible degree of productiveness was his intense delight. The farm which he purchased from Captain Thomas grew to an estate of two or three dozen buildings, outhouses, tenant houses, a dairyman's cottage, fisherman's house, agricultural offices, and several large barns. We can imagine that he shows us all of these things—explaining every detail with enthusiasm and accuracy, occasionally digressing upon the habits of birds or fish, the influence of tides and currents, the changes of sky and wind. All natural laws are fascinating to him—inspiring his imagination and uplifting his spirit—and it is these things, never politics or business, which he discusses in his hours of freedom. He himself supervises the planting and harvesting and slaughtering here and on his other farm at Franklin—the family homestead—even when obliged to be absent, or even when temporarily residing in Washington and hard pressed with the cares of his office as Secretary of State.
Those painters who include a parrot in the portrait of some fine frivolous lady do so to heighten their interpretation of character. We all betray our natures, by the creatures we instinctively gather about us. One might know that Jefferson at Monticello would select high-bred saddle horses as his companions; that Cardinal Richelieu would find no pet so soothing, so alluring, as a soft-stepping cat; that Charles I would select the long-haired spaniel. So it is entirely in the picture that of all the beasts brought under human yoke, that great oxen, slow, solemn, strong, would appeal to the man whose searching eyes were never at rest except when they swept a wide horizon; whose mind found its deepest satisfaction in noble languages, the giant monuments of literature and art, and whose soul best stretched its wings beside the limitless sea and under the limitless sky. Webster was fond of all animal life; he felt himself part of its free movement. Guinea hens, peacocks, ducks, flocks of tamed wild geese, dogs, horses—these were all part of the Marshfield place, but there was within the breast of the owner a special responsiveness to great herds of cattle, and especially fine oxen, the embodiment of massive power. So fond was he of these favorite beasts of his, that often on his arrival home he would fling his bag into the hall without even entering the house, and hasten to the barn to see that they were properly tied up for the night. As he once said to his little son, as they both stood by the stalls and he was feeding the oxen with ears of corn from an unhusked pile lying on the barn floor: "I would rather be here than in the Senate," adding, with his famous smile, "I think it is better company." So we may be sure as we walk in our retrospect about the farm with him—he never speaks of it as an "estate" but always as a farm—he will linger longest where the Devon oxen, the Alderneys, Herefordshire, and Ayrshire are grazing, and that the eyes which Carlyle likened to anthracite furnaces will glow and soften. Twenty years from now he will gaze out upon his oxen once again from the window before which he has asked to be carried, as he lies waiting for death. Weariness, disease, and disappointment have weakened the elasticity of his spirit, and as they pass—his beloved oxen, slowly, solemnly—what procession of the years passes with them! Years of full living, of generous living; of deep emotions; of glory; years of ambition; of bereavement; of grief. It is all to pass—these happy days at Marshfield; the wife he so fondly cared for; the children he so deeply cherished. Sycophants are to fill, in a measure, the place of friends, the money which now flows in so freely is to entangle and ensnare him; the lofty aspiration which now inspires him is to degenerate into a presidential ambition which will eat into his soul. But to-day let us, as long as we may, see him as he is in the height of his powers. Let us walk with him under the trees which he planted. Those large elms, gracefully silhouetted against the house, were placed there with his own hands at the birth of his son Edward and his daughter Julia, and he always refers to them gently as "brother" and "sister." To plant a tree to mark an event was one of his picturesque customs—an unconscious desire, perhaps, to project himself into the future. I am quite sure, as we accompany him, he will expatiate on the improvement in the soil which he has effected; that he will point out eagerly not only the domestic but the wild animals about the place; and that he will stand for a few moments on the high bluff overlooking the sea and the marshes and let the wind blow through his dark hair. He is carefully dressed—he always dresses to fit the occasion—and to-day, as he stands in his long boots reaching to the knee and adorned with a tassel, his bell-crowned beaver hat in his hand, and in his tight pantaloons and well-cut coat—a magnificent specimen of virile manhood—the words of Lanier, although written at a later date, and about marshes far more lush than these New England ones, beat upon our ears:
