VIII. 1847-1849. AEt. 33-35.
JOSEPH LEWIS STACKPOLE, THE FRIEND OF MOTLEY. HIS SUDDEN DEATH.—MOTLEY IN THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.—SECOND NOVEL, “MERRY-MOUNT, A ROMANCE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY.”
The intimate friendships of early manhood are not very often kept up among our people. The eager pursuit of fortune, position, office, separates young friends, and the indoor home life imprisons them in the domestic circle so generally that it is quite exceptional to find two grown men who are like brothers,—or rather unlike most brothers, in being constantly found together. An exceptional instance of such a more than fraternal relation was seen in the friendship of Mr. Motley and Mr. Joseph Lewis Stackpole. Mr. William Amory, who knew them both well, has kindly furnished me with some recollections, which I cannot improve by changing his own language.
“Their intimacy began in Europe, and they returned to this country
in 1835. In 1837 they married sisters, and this cemented their
intimacy, which continued to Stackpole's death in 1847. The
contrast in the temperament of the two friends—the one sensitive
and irritable, and the other always cool and good-natured—only
increased their mutual attachment to each other, and Motley's
dependence upon Stackpole. Never were two friends more constantly
together or more affectionately fond of each other. As Stackpole
was about eight years older than Motley, and much less impulsive and
more discreet, his death was to his friend irreparable, and at the
time an overwhelming blow.”
Mr. Stackpole was a man of great intelligence, of remarkable personal attractions, and amiable character. His death was a loss to Motley even greater than he knew, for he needed just such a friend, older, calmer, more experienced in the ways of the world, and above all capable of thoroughly understanding him and exercising a wholesome influence over his excitable nature without the seeming of a Mentor preaching to a Telemachus. Mr. Stackpole was killed by a railroad accident on the 20th of July, 1847.
In the same letter Mr. Amory refers to a very different experience in Mr. Motley's life,—his one year of service as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1849.
“In respect to the one term during which he was a member of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives, I can recall only one thing,
to which he often and laughingly alluded. Motley, as the Chairman
of the Committee on Education, made, as he thought, a most masterly
report. It was very elaborate, and, as he supposed, unanswerable;
but Boutwell, then a young man from some country town [Groton,
Mass.], rose, and as Motley always said, demolished the report, so
that he was unable to defend it against the attack. You can imagine
his disgust, after the pains he had taken to render it unassailable,
to find himself, as he expressed it, 'on his own dunghill,'
ignominiously beaten. While the result exalted his opinion of the
speech-making faculty of a Representative of a common school
education, it at the same time cured him of any ambition for
political promotion in Massachusetts.”
To my letter of inquiry about this matter, Hon. George S. Boutwell courteously returned the following answer:—
BOSTON, October 14, 1878.
MY DEAR SIR,—As my memory serves me, Mr. Motley was a member of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives in the year 1847 1849. It
may be well to consult the manual for that year. I recollect the
controversy over the report from the Committee on Education.
His failure was not due to his want of faculty or to the vigor of
his opponents.
In truth he espoused the weak side of the question and the unpopular
one also. His proposition was to endow the colleges at the expense
of the fund for the support of the common schools. Failure was
inevitable. Neither Webster nor Choate could have carried the bill.
Very truly,
GEO. S. BOUTWELL.