ANOMALIES AND ABERRATIONS.
And as genius grows with experience, so grew his determination with the errors he so frequently fell into. He was not a happy man, nor was he always a pleasant companion. In his delusions he was self-satisfied; in the loss of himself self-possessed. He endeavored to be prudent and thought himself worldly wise; but, like many self-flatterers wrapped in their own fancies he was easily imposed upon, even by the sovereigns, with whom he aimed to be exceedingly shrewd. His contact with man did not deepen his humanity, but seemed rather to harden his heart, and drive his affections all the more from earth to heaven. His mind was of that gloomy cast which made even his successes sorrowful. We have seen among his practical virtues integrity of a high conventional order, single-mindedness, courage, and indomitable perseverance; and in other characteristics which were not so pleasing—pride displaying itself, as it often does, in religious humility; a melancholy temper; a selfish ambition, which with one grasp would secure to himself and his family the uttermost that man and God could give; with all his devout piety and heavenly zeal a painful and often ludicrous tenacity in clutching at high-sounding titles and hollow honors—there were even in the most unlovable parts of him something to respect, and in his selfishness a self-sacrificing nobleness, a lofty abandonment of self to the idea, which we can but admire. It was not for himself, although it was always most zealously and jealously for himself; the ships, the new lands, the new peoples, his fortunes and his life, all were consecrate; should the adventure prove successful, the gain would be heaven's; if a failure, the loss would fall on him. Surely the Almighty must smile on terms so favorable to himself. And that he did not finally make good his promises with regard to rescuing the holy sepulchre, and building temples, and converting nations, was for the same reason that he did not finally satisfy his worldly pretensions, and secure himself in his rulership. He had not the time. In all his worldly and heavenly ambitions, the glory of God and the glory of himself were blended with the happy consummation of his grand idea. And never did morbid broodings over the unsubstantial and shadowless produce grander results than these incubations of alternate exaltation and despondency that hatched a continent. And in all that was then transpiring, there are few intelligent readers of history who cannot see an overshadowing, all-controlling destiny shaping events throughout the world, so that this then unknown continent should be prepared to fill the grand purpose which even then appeared to be marked out for it.
While, therefore, in the study of this remarkable character, whose description is but a succession of paradoxes, we see everywhere falsehood leading up to truth and truth to falsehood; while we see spring out of the ideal the real, results the most substantial and success the most signal come from conceptions the most fantastical, we can but observe, not only that penetrative vision which in the mind of genius sees through the symbol the divine significance, but that they have not been always or altogether fruitless of good, those spectral fancies which riot in absurdities, building celestial cities, and peopling pandemoniums, even in the absence of genius, symbol, or significance.[IV-26]
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Probably not one of the many accounts of Columbus which have been published is presented with such fulness of detail, commanding vivid interest from first to last, as that of Mr Washington Irving, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus; to which are added those of His Companions, 3 vols., New York, 1869. The first editions, one in London, in 4 vols., and one in New York, appeared in 1828; since which time there have been many issues, in English and other languages. The author was born in New York, in 1783, and died at Sunnyside, near Tarrytown, on the Hudson River, in 1859. A strong literary taste was early displayed, specially manifested in 1802 in a series of articles contributed to the Morning Chronicle. In 1804 he visited Europe for his health, returning in 1807. Then appeared the serial Salmagundi, and in 1809 A History of New York. Again in 1815 he went to Europe, and after engaging for a time in mercantile pursuits, abandoned them and gave himself up to letters. The publication of the Sketch Book was begun in numbers in 1818, and was followed by Bracebridge Hall in 1822, and Tales of a Traveller in 1824. Then came Columbus, the material for which he obtained from Navarrete in Spain. See [chapter iii. note 9, this volume]. After serving as secretary of the American Legation in London from 1829 to 1832, he returned to New York and published The Alhambra; then Crayon Miscellany in 1835; Astoria in 1836; Captain Bonneville in 1837; and Wolfert's Roost in 1855. From 1842 to 1846 he was American Minister to Spain. His later works were Goldsmith, 1849; Mahomet, 1850; and Washington, 1855-9. Mr Irving has been most praised for his genial manner, his gentleness of thought, and his charming style, which carries the reader almost unconsciously along over details in other hands dry and profitless. Among these is found his highest merit; and yet one would sometimes wish the author not quite so meritorious. Elegance and grace eternal tire by their very faultlessness. In handling the rough realities of life one relishes now and then a rough thought roughly expressed. Neither is Irving remarkable for historical accuracy, or exact thinking. An early criticism on Columbus complains of that without which the works of Irving never would have attained great popularity. He was pronounced too wordy, his details too long drawn. If this was the case fifty years ago, it is much more so now. And yet how fascinating is every page! And who but Irving could make thrilling such trivial events? Permit him the use of words, and howsoever isolated the ideas, or commonplace the events, the result was brilliant; but force him within narrow compass, not only would the charm be lost, but the work would be almost worthless.
The highest delight of a healthy mind, of a mind not diseased either by education or affection, is in receiving the truth. The greatest charm in expression, to a writer who may properly be placed in the category of healthful, is in telling the truth. It is only when truth is dearer to us than tradition, or pride of opinion, that we are ready to learn; it is only when truth is dearer to us than praise or profit that we are fit to teach. If the mind be intelligent as well as healthy, it knows itself to be composed of truth and prejudice, the latter engendered of ignorance and environment, holding it in iron fetters, and with which it knows it must forever struggle in vain wholly to be free. Thus keenly alive as well to the difficulties as to the importance of right thinking and exact forms of expression, it nevertheless has its keenest pleasure in striving toward concrete truth. It is truthfulness to nature in all her beauties and deformities, rather than the construction of some more beautiful than natural ideal, that alone satisfies art, whether in the domain of painting, oratory, or literature. We of to-day, while holding in high esteem works of the imagination, are becoming somewhat captious in regard to our facts. The age is essentially informal and real; even our ideal literature must be rigidly true to nature, while whatever pretends to be real must be presented in all simplicity, without circumlocution or disguisement.
Half a century ago it was deemed necessary, particularly by writers of selected epochs of history, in order to clothe their narrative with dramatic effect equal to fiction, to intensify characters and events. The good qualities of good men were made to stand out in bold relief, not against their own bad qualities, but against the bad qualities of bad men, whose wickedness was portrayed in such black colors as to overshadow whatever of good they might possess. Thus historical episodes were endowed, so far as possible without too great discoloration of truth, like a theatrical performance, each with a perfected hero and a finished villain. Of this class of writers were Macaulay and Motley, Froude, Freeman, Prescott, and Irving, whose works are wonderful in their way, not only as art-creations, but as the truest as well as most vivid pictures of their several periods yet presented, and which for generations will be read with that deep and wholesome interest with which they deserve to be regarded. For, although their facts are sometimes highly varnished, their most brilliant creations are always built upon a substantial skeleton of truth. I say that these, the foremost writers of their day, are none of them free from the habit of exaggeration, deception. Indeed, with a wasteful extravagance in the use of superlatives it is almost impossible to draw character strongly without in some parts of it exaggerating. But in these days of rational reflection wherein romance and reality are fairly separated, celestial fiction and mundane fact being made to pass under the same experimentum crucis; mind becoming so mechanical that it introverts and analyzes not only its own mechanism but the mechanism of its maker; iconoclasm becoming spiritualized, and the doctrine revived of the old Adamic serpent, that the knowledge of good and evil is not death but life and immortality, this knowledge being king of kings, vying with nature's forces and oftentimes defying them—I say, in days like these mature manhood becomes impatient of the Santa Claus, or other fictitious imagery, from which the infant mind derives much comfort, and prefers, if necessary, the torments of truth to the elysium of fable. It is no longer valid logic that if the hero stoops to trickery, his biographer should stoop to trickery to cover it. For once undertake to shape the stiff clay of material facts into the artistic forms of fiction, and the result is neither history nor romance.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
Proud as I am of the names of Prescott and Irving, at whose shrines none worship with profounder admiration than myself; thankless as may be the task of criticising their classic pages, whose very defects shine with a steadier lustre than I dare hope for my brightest consummations; still, forced by my subject, in some instances, into fields partially traversed by them, I can neither pass them by nor wholly praise them. In justice to my theme, in justice to myself, in justice to the age in which I live, I must speak, and that according to the light and the perceptions given me.