It was, after all, a man of letters and not a journalist who was engaged on these weekly diatribes, and Lowell showed his instinctive sense of literary art not only in the abundance of allusion and in the use of such special forms as irony, but even now and then in the very structure of his essays, for essays they were rather than editorial articles, for the most part. Thus, taking his suggestion in topic from an attempt at running away slaves from the District of Columbia, he composes an Imaginary Conversation between Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Foote, and General Cass. There is an amusing, faint reflection of Landor in the manner of the piece, and the three personages are decidedly more discriminated in character than his old men of straw, Philip and John, so that the reader really seems to hear these worthies discoursing together, and not struggling against the betrayal of the master of the show, who is shifting his voice from one to the other. To be sure, no one would mistake the delicious irony of Lowell’s Mr. Foote for the grave and pious language of the real Mr. Foote, but the imitation is given with an air of seriousness. “It is a sentiment of the Bible,” Mr. Foote is made to say, “that riches have the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. But the South labors under this greater misfortune, that her property is endowed with legs of a kind of brute instinct (understanding I will not call it) to use them in a northerly direction. It is a crowning mercy that God has taken away the wings from our wealth. The elder patriarchs were doubtless deemed unworthy of this providential interference. It was reserved for Christians and Democrats. The legs we can generally manage, but it would have been inconvenient to be continually clipping the wings, not to mention possible damage to the stock. For these and other comforts make us duly thankful!
“MR. CASS.
“My friend Louis Philippe—ah, I had forgotten: I should have said my late friend.
“MR. CALHOUN.
“The unfortunate are never the friends of the wise man.
“MR. CASS.
“I was about to say that the Count de Neuilly has often remarked to me that we were fortunate in having so conservative an element as ‘persons held to service or labor’ (I believe I do not venture beyond safe Constitutional ground) mingled in a just proportion with our otherwise too rapidly progressive institutions. There is no duty of a good statesman, he said, at once so difficult and so necessary as that of keeping steadily behind his age. But, however much satisfaction a sound politician who adheres to this theory may reap in the purity of his own conscience, he will find that the dust incident to such a position will sometimes so choke him as to prevent his giving an intelligible answer to the often perplexing questions of his constituents. Yet I know not whether in such exigencies a cough be not the safest, as it is the readiest reply. It is an oracle susceptible of any retrospective interpretation.
“MR. CALHOUN.
“A politician who renders himself intelligible has put a rope round his own neck, and it would be strange indeed if his opponents should be unable to find a suitable tree. The present Revolutionary Government of France has taken many long strides towards the edge of that precipice which overhangs social and political chaos, but none longer than in bringing Government face to face with the people. That government is the most stable which is the most complicated and the most expensive. Men admire most what they do not understand, and cling tightest to what they have paid or are paying most for. They love to see money spent liberally by other people, and have no idea that every time Uncle Sam unbuttons his pocket, he has previously put his hand into their own. I have great fears for France. The Provisional Government talks too much and too well,—above all things it talks too clearly. In that wild enthusiasm generated by the turmoil of great and sudden social changes, and by contact with the magnetism of excited masses of men, sentiments are often uttered, which, however striking and beautiful they might be if their application were restricted to the Utopias of poetry, are dangerous in their tendencies and results if once brought into contact with the realities of life. Despotisms profited more than the Catholic Church by shutting up Christ in the sepulchre of a dead language. A prudent and far-seeing man will confine his more inspired thoughts to the solitude of his closet. If once let loose, it is impossible to recall these winged messengers to the safer perch of his finger. He may keep an aviary of angels if he will, but he must be careful not to leave the door open. They have an unaccountable predilection for entering the hut of the slave, and for seating themselves beside the hearth of the laborer. Mr. Jefferson,[62] by embodying some hasty expressions in the Declaration of Independence, introduced explosive matter into our system.”
And so the conversation goes on touching upon current topics, all having some bearing on the great underlying theme. One sees the three men moving over the ice, cautiously, and not daring to try its firmness by stamping on it, Mr. Calhoun alone maintaining a rigidity of posture as if he had satisfied himself that his theory of the probable thickness of the ice was irrefutable.