February 11th. To my pleasure, the train from Alexandria yesterday afternoon brought Mr. B., of New York, and his very agreeable family, with whom I crossed the Atlantic in the Persia last October. They went at first to another hotel, but to-day they have determined to come to that at which we are staying. I called upon them on their arrival, and asked the gentlemen to join us at dinner, and afterwards in going, in company with Mr. Buckle, whom Mr. Thayer had previously invited, to attend a fantasia, or exhibition of singing and dancing, by Arab professionals, at the house of Mr. Savallan, a wealthy French banker, who has lived a long time in the Levant and has in some degree adopted Oriental customs. He has lately sold to the Viceroy a tooth-brush, comb, and hair-brush, for the handsome price of fourteen thousand dollars. They were doubtless richly set with jewels; but the profit on these transactions is immense. Mr. B. accepted the invitation for dinner, and Mr. W. joined us afterwards.
At dinner I was seated next to Mr. Buckle, and thus had an opportunity for private conversation. He asked about American books, and told me his opinion of those he had read. He said that Quincy's History of Harvard University was the latest book on America he received before leaving England. He preferred Kent's exposition of the United States Constitution to Story's, although this also he had consulted and used. He had not seen Mr. Charles Francis Adams's complete edition of the works of his grandfather, nor Parton's Life of Jackson, both of which I begged him to read, particularly the chapters in the former in which are traced the steps in the progress of making the American Constitutions. He told me about his library in London, which is surpassed (among private libraries) only by that belonging to Mr. Van de Weyer, the Belgian Minister, whose wife is the daughter of our Bostonian Mr. Bates, of Barings. Buckle has twenty-two thousand volumes, all selected by himself; and he takes great pleasure in them. He spends eight or nine hundred pounds a year upon his library. He owns copies of all the books referred to in his History; some of them are very old and rare. He also possesses a considerable collection, made likewise by himself, of curiosities in natural history; he has added largely to it in Egypt, where, in fact, he has been buying with open hands. He said he could not be perfectly happy in leaving the country, if obliged to go away without a crocodile's egg, a trophy which as yet he has been unable to obtain.
He told me his plan of travel in America. He will not set out until our domestic troubles are composed, for he desires to see the practical working of our institutions in their normal state, not confused and disturbed by the excitements of war. He would go first to Boston and New York, the intellectual and commercial heads (as he said) of the republic,—and to Washington, the political capital. He would then like to pass from the Northern into the Southern States, but asked if he could travel safely in the latter, in view of his extreme opinions in detestation of slavery. I assured him that nobody would dare to molest one so well known, even if our war did not abate forever the nuisance of lynching, to say nothing of its probable effect in promoting the extinction of slavery. From the Southern States he said he would wish to pass into Mexico, thence to Peru and to Chili; then to cross the Pacific Ocean to Japan, to China, to India, and so back by the overland route to England. This magnificent scheme he has seriously resolved upon, and proposes to devote to it two or three years. He undertakes it partly for information and partly for relaxation of his mental faculties, which he has injured by overwork, and which imperatively demand repose. He asked many questions with regard to matters of detail,—whether he would find conveyance by steamers in the Pacific, and of what sort would be the accommodations in them and in sailing-vessels. He asked at what season he had best arrive in the United States, and whether he had better land at New York or at Boston. Boston he said he regarded as "the intellectual head of the country, and New York, you know, for trade." I answered his questions as well as I could, and told him he must not omit seeing our Western country, and some of the new cities, like Chicago. He asked me if I knew "a Mrs. Child," who had written him a letter and sent him her book about the history of religion. I knew of course that he meant "The Progress of Religious Ideas," by Mrs. L. Maria Child. He had been pleased with the letter, and with the book.
The conversation becoming general, Mr. B., of New York, told a story of an old Congressional debate in which John Randolph derisively compared Edward Everett to Richelieu: Buckle at once said he should regard it as a compliment of the very highest kind to be compared to Richelieu. You will smile, perhaps, if I tell you that I could not resist asking Buckle if he had read Dumas's historical novels, and he said he had not, although he had felt an inclination to do so. He asked one or two questions about them, and gave a rapid generalization of the history of France at that time.
This conversation at the dinner-table of course was by far the pleasantest part of the evening, for the fantasia did not amount to much, although the house was a fine one, the host most cordial, and the novelty of the entertainment was enjoyable.
February 12th. Mr. Buckle called upon T. and myself in the afternoon, and sat talking between two and three hours. I wish I could give you a full report of all that he said. He told us of the only lecture he ever delivered; it was before the Royal Institution, March 19, 1858, and was printed in "Fraser's Magazine" for April, just afterwards. It may be found reprinted in America in "Littell's Living Age," No. 734. The subject was "The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge." Murchison, Owen, and Faraday told him afterwards, separately, that they were perfectly satisfied with it, which is certainly a strong combination of authority. He told us all about his education, which is interesting, for he has been most truly self-taught. When he was a boy, he was so delicate that it was thought he could not live; the celebrated Dr. Abernethy, who was a particular friend of his father, saw how important it was to keep him from mental excitement, and begged that he might not be troubled by lessons. Accordingly, he was never sent to school at any time, except for a brief period to a clergyman who had directions not to make him study; and he was never regularly taught anything. Until eight years of age he hardly knew his letters. At the age of fifteen he found out Shakespeare and read it with great zest. At seventeen he conceived the plan of his book, and resolved to do two things to make himself fit to write it: first, he resolved to devote four hours a day to the study of physical science, in order that he might be able fully to understand and to unfold its relations with history; secondly, he resolved to devote an equal portion of each day to the study of English composition and practice in writing, in order that he might be able to set forth his opinions with force and perspicuity. To these resolutions he adhered for twelve years. Every day, after breakfast, he shut himself up for four hours with his experiments and his investigations; and afterwards devoted four hours to analyzing the style of the best English authors, inquiring (as he said) "where it was that I wrote worse than they." He studied not only in England, but in Germany and other European countries. He learned all the languages which he knows (and he knows nearly all I ever heard of) without the aid of a master in any, excepting German, in which he began with a master, but soon dismissed him, because he hindered more than he helped. He read Hebrew with a Jewish rabbi, but that was after he had learned the language. He considers the knowledge of languages valuable only as the stepping-stone to other learning, and spoke with contempt of a person in Egypt who was mentioned to him as speaking eight languages familiarly.
"Has he done anything?"
"No."
"Then he is only fit to be a courier."
Buckle is not a university-man, although both his father and grandfather were educated at Cambridge.