first visit to new england-第19章
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years in a vigilance for Confederate privateers which none of them ever
surprised。 I had asked for the consulate at Munich; where I hoped to
steep myself yet longer in German poetry; but when my appointment came;
I found it was for Rome。 I was very glad to get Rome even; but the
income of the office was in fees; and I thought I had better go on to
Washington and find out how much the fees amounted to。 People in
Columbus who had been abroad said that on five hundred dollars you could
live in Rome like a prince; but I doubted this; and when I learned at the
State Department that the fees of the Roman consulate came to only three
hundred; I perceived that I could not live better than a baron; probably;
and I despaired。 The kindly chief of the consular bureau said that the
President's secretaries; Mr。 John Nicolay and Mr。 John Hay; were
interested in my appointment; and he advised my going over to the White
House and seeing them。 I lost no time in doing that; and I learned that
as young Western men they were interested in me because I was a young
Western man who had done something in literature; and they were willing
to help me for that reason; and for no other that I ever knew。 They
proposed my going to Venice; the salary was then seven hundred and fifty;
but they thought they could get it put up to a thousand。 In the end they
got it put up to fifteen hundred; and so I went to Venice; where if I did
not live like a prince on that income; I lived a good deal more like a
prince than I could have done at Rome on a fifth of it。
If the appointment was not present fortune; it was the beginning of the
best luck I have had in the world; and I am glad to owe it all to those
friends of my verse; who could have been no otherwise friends of me。
They were then beginning very early careers of distinction which have not
been wholly divided。 Mr。 Nicolay could have been about twenty…five; and
Mr。 Hay nineteen or twenty。 No one dreamed as yet of the opportunity
opening to them in being so constantly near the man whose life they have
written; and with whose fame they have imperishably interwrought their
names。 I remember the sobered dignity of the one; and the humorous
gaiety of the other; and how we had some young men's joking and laughing
together; in the anteroom where they received me; with the great soul
entering upon its travail beyond the closed door。 They asked me if I had
ever seen the President; and I said that I had seen him at Columbus; the
year before; but I could not say how much I should like to see him again;
and thank him for the favor which I had no claim to at his hands; except
such as the slight campaign biography I had written could be thought to
have given me。 That day or another; as I left my friends; I met him in
the corridor without; and he looked at the space I was part of with his
ineffably melancholy eyes; without knowing that I was the
indistinguishable person in whose 〃integrity and abilities he had reposed
such special confidence〃 as to have appointed him consul for Venice and
the ports of the Lombardo…Venetian Kingdom; though he might have
recognized the terms of my commission if I had reminded him of them。
I faltered a moment in my longing to address him; and then I decided that
every one who forebore to speak needlessly to him; or to shake his hand;
did him a kindness; and I wish I could be as sure of the wisdom of all my
past behavior as I am of that piece of it。 He walked up to the
watercooler that stood in the corner; and drew himself a full goblet from
it; which he poured down his throat with a backward tilt of his head; and
then went wearily within doors。 The whole affair; so simple; has always
remained one of a certain pathos in my memory; and I would rather have
seen Lincoln in that unconscious moment than on some statelier occasion。
V。
I went home to Ohio; and sent on the bond I was to file in the Treasury
Department; but it was mislaid there; and to prevent another chance of
that kind I carried on the duplicate myself。 It was on my second visit
that I met the generous young Irishman William D。 O'Connor; at the house
of my friend Piatt; and heard his ardent talk。 He was one of the
promising men of that day; and he had written an anti…slavery novel in
the heroic mood of Victor Hugo; which greatly took my fancy; and I
believe he wrote poems too。 He had not yet risen to be the chief of Walt
Whitman's champions outside of the Saturday Press; but he had already
espoused the theory of Bacon's authorship of Shakespeare; then newly
exploited by the poor lady of Bacon's name; who died constant to it in an
insane asylum。 He used to speak of the reputed dramatist as 〃the fat
peasant of Stratford;〃 and he was otherwise picturesque of speech in a
measure that consoled; if it did not convince。 The great war was then
full upon us; and when in the silences of our literary talk its awful
breath was heard; and its shadow fell upon the hearth where we gathered
round the first fires of autumn; O'Connor would lift his beautiful head
with a fine effect of prophecy; and say; 〃Friends; I feel a sense of
victory in the air。〃 He was not wrong; only the victory was for the
other aide。
Who beside O'Connor shared in these saddened symposiums I cannot tell
now; but probably other young journalists and office…holders; intending
litterateurs; since more or less extinct。 I make certain only of the
young Boston publisher who issued a very handsome edition of 'Leaves of
Grass'; and then failed promptly if not consequently。 But I had already
met; in my first sojourn at the capital; a young journalist who had given
hostages to poetry; and whom I was very glad to see and proud to know。
Mr。 Stedman and I were talking over that meeting the other day; and I can
be surer than I might have been without his memory; that I found him at a
friend's house; where he was nursing himself for some slight sickness;
and that I sat by his bed while our souls launched together into the
joyful realms of hope and praise。 In him I found the quality of Boston;
the honor and passion of literature; and not a mere pose of the literary
life; and the world knows without my telling how true he has been to his
ideal of it。 His earthly mission then was to write letters from
Washington for the New York World; which started in life as a good young
evening paper; with a decided religious tone; so that the Saturday Press
could call it the Night…blooming Serious。 I think Mr。 Stedman wrote for
its editorial page at times; and his relation to it as a Washington
correspondent had an authority which is wanting to the function in these
days of perfected telegraphing。 He had not yet achieved that seat in the
Stock Exchange whose possession has justified his recourse to business;
and has helped him to mean something more single in literature than many
more singly devoted to it。 I used sometimes to speak about that with
another eager young author in certain middle years when we were chafing
in editorial harness; and we always decided that Stedman had the best of
it in being able to earn his living in a sort so alien to literature that
he could come to it unjaded; and with a gust unspoiled by kindred savors。
But no man shapes his own life; and I dare say that Stedman may have been
all the time envying us our tripods from his high place in the Stock
Exchange。 What is certain is that he has come to stand for literature
and to embody New York in it as no one else does。 In a community which
seems never to have had a conscious relation to letters; he has kept the
faith with dignity and fought the fight with constant courage。 Scholar
and poet at once; he has spoken to his generation with authority which we
can forget only in the charm which makes us forget everything else。
But his fame was still before him when we met; and I could bring to him
an admiration for work which had not yet made itself known to so many;
but any admirer was welcome。 We talked of what we had done; and each
said how much he liked certain thing of the other's; I even seized my
advantage of his helplessness to read him a poem of mine which I had in
my pocket; he advised