It is the mountain to the sea
That makes a messenger of me:
And, lest I loiter on the way
And lose what I am sent to say,
He sets his reverie to song
And bids me sing it all day long.
John B. Tabb
June Twenty-Fourth
AN AMUSING COMMENTARY ON THE MAKING OF SOME HISTORIES
I have here a small volume entitled, “John Randolph, by Henry Adams.” It is one of a series called “American Statesmen,” and emanates from the thin air of Boston. The series is edited by Mr. J. T. Morse, Jr. By what law of selection he has been governed in allotting to particular authors the preparation of respective biographies it is impossible to divine. It is quite clear, however, that he has not followed any rule of qualification or congeniality hitherto recognized by men or angels. For example, a foreigner, Dr. Von Holtz, who, in an emphatically European and un-American treatise on the Federal Constitution, had already denounced Calhoun as a kind of Lucifer, is appointed his biographer; Henry Clay, the father of Protection (as it is called), is assigned to Carl Schurz, who, I understand, is an ardent advocate of Free Trade; while John Randolph is turned over to the tender mercies of a descendant of the first Vice-President, and the grandson of John Quincy Adams!
Had this unique law of selection prevailed hitherto, we might have had a biography of Luther by Leo the Tenth; a life of St. Thomas Aquinas by Thomas Payne; while Pontius Pilate, or more likely the devil himself, would have been selected to chronicle the divine career of Jesus Christ.
Daniel B. Lucas
John Randolph dies, 1833
June Twenty-Fifth