"The green trees whispered low and mild;
It was a sound of joy!
They were my playmates when a child,
And rocked me in their arms so wild;
Still they looked at me and smiled,
As if I were a boy!"
Such, readers as are young men will understand what has already been said as to the bitter indignation with which the writer, some years ago, listened to self-conceited elderly persons who put aside the arguments and the doings of younger men with the remark that these younger men were boys. There are few terms of reproach which I have heard uttered with looks of such deadly ferocity. And there are not many which excite feelings of greater wrath in the souls of clever young men. I remember how in those days I determined to write an essay which should scorch up and finally destroy all these carping and malicious critics. It was to be called "A Chapter on Boys." After an introduction of a sarcastic and magnificent character, setting out views substantially the same as those contained in the speech of Lord Chatham in reply to Walpole, which boys are taught to recite at school, that essay was to go on to show that a great part of English literature was written by very young men. Unfortunately, on proceeding to investigate the matter carefully, it appeared that the best part of English literature, even in the range of poetry, was in fact written by men of even more than middle age. So the essay was never finished, though a good deal of it was sketched out. Yesterday I took out the old manuscript; and after reading a bit of it, it appeared so remarkably Vealy, that I put it with indignation into the fire. Still I observed various facts of interest as to great things done by young men, and some by young men who never lived to be old. Beaumont the dramatist died at twenty-nine. Christopher Marlowe wrote "Faustus" at twenty-five, and died at thirty. Sir Philip Sidney wrote his "Arcadia" at twenty-six. Otway wrote "The Orphan" at twenty-eight, and "Venice Preserved" at thirty. Thomson wrote the "Seasons" at twenty-seven. Bishop Berkeley had devised his Ideal System at twenty-nine; and Clarke at the same age published his great work on "The Being and Attributes of God." Then there is Pitt, of course. But these cases are exceptional; and besides, men at twenty-eight and thirty are not in any way to be regarded as boys. What I wanted was proof of the great things that had been done by young fellows about two-and-twenty; and such proof was not to be found. A man is simply a boy grown up to his best; and of course what is done by men must be better than what is done by boys. Unless in very peculiar cases, a man at thirty will be every way superior to what he was at twenty; and at forty to what he was at thirty. Not, indeed, physically,—let that be granted; not always morally; but surely intellectually and aesthetically.
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Yes, my readers, we have all been Calves. A great part of all our doings has been, what the writer, in figurative language, has described as Veal. We have not said, written, or done very much on which we can now look back with entire approval; and we have said, written, and done a very great deal on which we cannot look back but with burning shame and confusion. Very many things, which, when we did them, we thought remarkably good, and much better than the doings of ordinary men, we now discern, on calmly looking back, to have been extremely bad. That time, you know, my friend, when you talked in a very fluent and animated manner after dinner at a certain house, and thought you were making a great impression on the assembled guests, most of them entire strangers, you are now fully aware that you were only making a fool of yourself. And let this hint of one public manifestation of Vealiness suffice to suggest to each of us scores of similar cases. But though we feel, in our secret souls, what Calves we have been, and though it is well for us that we should feel it deeply, and thus learn humility and caution, we do not like to be reminded of it by anybody else. Some people have a wonderful memory for the Vealy sayings and doings of their friends. They may be very bad hands at remembering anything else; but they never forget the silly speeches and actions on which one would like to shut down the leaf. You may find people a great part of whose conversation consists of repeating and exaggerating their neighbors' Veal; and though that Veal may be immature enough and silly enough, it will go hard but your friend Mr. Snarling will represent it as a good deal worse than the fact. You will find men, who while at college were students of large ambition, but slender abilities, revenging themselves in this fashion upon the clever men who beat them. It is easy, very easy, to remember foolish things that were said and done even by the senior wrangler or the man who took a double first-class; and candid folk will think that such foolish things were not fair samples of the men,—and will remember, too, that the men have grown out of these, have grown mature and wise, and for many a year past would not have said or done such things. But if you were to judge from the conversation of Mr. Limejuice, (who wrote many prize essays, but, through the malice and stupidity of the judges, never got any prizes,) you would conclude that every word uttered by his successful rivals was one that stamped them as essential fools, and calves which would never grow into oxen. I do not think it is a pleasing or magnanimous feature in any man's character, that he is ever eager to rake up these early follies. I would not be ready to throw in the teeth of a pretty butterfly that it was an ugly caterpillar once, unless I understood that the butterfly liked to remember the fact. I would not suggest to this fair sheet of paper on which I am writing, that not long ago it was dusty rags and afterwards dirty pulp. You cannot be an ox without previously having been a calf; you acquire taste and sense gradually, and in acquiring them you pass through stages in which you have very little of either. It is a poor burden for the memory, to collect and shovel into it the silly sayings and doings in youth of people who have become great and eminent. I read with much disgust a biography of Mr. Disraeli which recorded, no doubt accurately, all the sore points in that statesman's history. I remember with great approval what Lord John Manners said in Parliament in reply to Mr. Bright, who had quoted a well-known and very silly passage from Lord John's early poetry. "I would rather," said Lord John, "have been the man who in his youth wrote those silly verses than the man who in mature years would rake them up." And with even greater indignation I regard the individual who, when a man is doing creditably and Christianly the work of life, is ever ready to relate and aggravate the moral delinquencies of his school-boy and student days, long since repented of and corrected. "Remember not," said a man who knew human nature well, "the sins of my youth." But there are men whose nature has a peculiar affinity for anything petty, mean, and bad. They fly upon it as a vulture on carrion. Their memory is of that cast, that you have only to make inquiry of them concerning any of their friends, to hear of something not at all to the friends' advantage. There are individuals, after listening to whom you think it would be a refreshing novelty, almost startling from its strangeness, to hear them say a word in favor of any human being whatsoever.
It is not a thing peculiar to immaturity; yet it may be remarked, that, though it is an unpleasant thing to look back and see that you have said or done something very foolish, it is a still more unpleasant thing to be well aware at the time that you are saying or doing something very foolish. If a man be a fool at all, it is much to be desired that he should be a very great fool; for then he will not know when he is making a fool of himself. But it is painful not to have sense enough to know what you should do in order to be right, but to have sense enough to know that you are doing wrong. To know that you are talking like an ass, yet to feel that you cannot help it,—that you must say something, and can think of nothing better to say,—this is a suffering that comes with advanced civilization. This is a phenomenon frequently to be seen at public dinners in country towns, also at the entertainment which succeeds a wedding. Men at other times rational seem to be stricken into idiocy when they rise to their feet on such occasions; and the painful fact is, that it is conscious idiocy. The man's words are asinine, and he knows they are asinine. His wits have entirely abandoned him: he is an idiot for the time. Have you sat next a man unused to speaking at a public dinner? have you seen him nervously rise and utter an incoherent, ungrammatical, and unintelligible sentence or two, and then sit down with a ghastly smile? Have you heard him say to his friend on the other side, in bitterness, "I have made a fool of myself"? And have you seen him sit moodily through the remainder of the feast, evidently ruminating on what he said, seeing now what he ought to have said, and trying to persuade himself that what he said was not so bad after all? Would you do a kindness to that miserable man? You have just heard his friend on the other side cordially agreeing with what he had said as to the badness of the appearance made by him. Enter into conversation with him; talk of his speech; congratulate him upon it; tell him you were extremely struck by the freshness and naturalness of what he said,—that there is something delightful in hearing an unhackneyed speaker,—that to speak with entire fluency looks professional,—it is like a barrister or a clergyman. Thus you may lighten the mortification of a disappointed man; and what you say will receive considerable credence. It is wonderful how readily people believe anything they would like to be true.
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I was walking this afternoon along a certain street, coming home from visiting certain sick persons, and wondering how I should conclude this essay, when, standing on the pavement on one side of the street, I saw a little boy four years old crying in great distress. Various individuals, who appeared to be Priests and Levites, looked, as they passed, at the child's distress, and passed on without doing anything to relieve it. I spoke to the little man, who was in great fear at being spoken to, but told me he had come away from his home and lost himself, and could not find his way back. I told him I would take him home, if he could tell me where he lived; but he was frightened into utter helplessness, and could only tell that his name was Tom, and that he lived at the top of a stair. It was a poor neighborhood, in which many people live at the top of stairs, and the description was vague. I spoke to two humble decent-looking women who were passing, thinking they might gain the little thing's confidence better than I; but the poor little man's great wish was just to get away from us,—though, when he got two yards off, he could but stand and cry. You may be sure he was not left in his trouble, but that he was put safely into his father's hands. And as I was coming home, I thought that here was an illustration of something I have been thinking of all this afternoon. I thought I saw in the poor little child's desire to get away from those who wanted to help him, though not knowing where to go when left to himself, something analogous to what the immature human being is always disposed to. The whole teaching of our life is leading us away from our early delusions and follies, from all those things about us which have been spoken of under the similitude which need not be again repeated. Yet we push away the hand that would conduct us to soberer and better things, though, when left alone, we can but stand and vaguely gaze about us; and we speak hardly of the growing experience which makes us wiser, and which ought to make us happier too. Let us not forget that the teaching which takes something of the gloss from life is an instrument in the kindest Hand of all; and let us be humbly content, if that kindest Hand shall lead us, even by rough means, to calm and enduring wisdom,—wisdom by no means inconsistent with youthful freshness of feeling, and not necessarily fatal even to youthful gayety of mood,—and at last to that Happy Place where worn men regain the little child's heart, and old and young are blest together.
REMINISCENCES OF STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
I do not propose to enter upon a discussion of the question that now agitates the entire population of Brandon township, Vermont,—namely, whether Douglas was born in the Pomeroy or the Hyatt mansion. It is enough for our purpose to record the fact that he was born, and apparently well born,—as, from the statement of Ann De Forrest, his nurse, he first appeared a stalwart babe of fourteen pounds weight.
He lived a life of sensations; and that he commenced early is clearly shown by the fact that he was a subject of newspaper comment when but two months old. At that age he had the misfortune to lose his father, who, holding the baby boy in his arms, fell back in his chair and died, while Stephen, dropping from his embrace, was caught from the fire, and thus from early death, by a neighbor, John Conant, who opportunely entered the room at the moment. And here let me say, that for generations back the ancestors of Douglas were sturdy men, of physical strength and mental ability. His grandfather was noted for his strong practical common sense, which, rightly applied, with industry, made him in middle life the possessor of wealth, and the finest farm on Otter Creek. This, however, in later years was gradually taken from him, by means which had better, perhaps, remain unmentioned. The father of Stephen was a physician of more than ordinary talent and of much culture. He had attained but to early manhood, when a sudden attack of heart-disease removed him from life, and compelled his widow, with her infant boy, to face the world alone.