Mr. Motley's Correspondence

THERE is a profound observation, which we have ourselves made more than once, that the day of leisurely letter-writing went out with the advent of the post-card, emblem of the brevity and no-nonsense of modern social exchange. There are few pleasures greater than having one’s profound observations collapse, after they have been said by somebody else, and the two generous volumes containing the correspondence of Mr. Motley ¹ give the he handsomely to our epigrammatic wisdom. To be sure, the literal philosopher may quote the date of the introduction of cards and confront us with an anachronism ; but we are too eager to be rid of our profound observation to mind that, for we have another to take its place, namely, that unofficial letter-writing in a public man or a man of letters is a measure of the generosity and spontaneity of his mind. Look at Walter Scott, whose hearty correspondence was enough to serve for an ordinary being’s occupation ; at Lamb, who gave forth his keenest wit and most acute criticism in letters to friends, some of whom were quite outside the range of literary folk ; at Henry Taylor, who always seemed a person of abundant leisure when he was writing friendly letters, yet was known as an industrious under-secretary whose very business was letter-writing ; and now at Motley, who, to judge from these two liberal volumes, threw off his great histories in his leisure moments, but was occupied for the most part in long, delightful letters, or in a round of breakfasts, luncheons, and dinners.

Whatever may be said of letter-writing as a test, the reader of Motley’s correspondence cannot fail to draw thence a conviction of the richness of Motley’s nature. The eager boy who writes home from school for books, books, more books, and whose letters when he first visits Europe have a headlong rush, as of one who plunged into study and intercourse with men impetuously and in a spirit of noble self-confidence, is the same person as that paralytic who fumbles with his pen at the end of the second volume, and after writing an account of his condition to his lifelong friend Dr. Holmes, strength stolen from the right arm, vigor gone from thought, clearness from vision, adds: " Do not consider me an egotist for these details, for you will find them curious, I am sure. Do not believe me inclined to complain, or to pass what remains of life in feeble lamentations. When I think of all the blessings I have had, and of the measure of this world’s goods, infinitely beyond my deservings, that have been heaped upon me, I should despise myself if I should not find strength enough to bear the sorrows which the Omnipotent has now chosen to send.” The greater part of his life was spent in Europe : he was early in diplomatic service, and in the maturity of his power was minister successively at Vienna and London ; he had familiar friends at these courts as well as at the Hague ; he was a companion of Bismarck in their student days, and his chosen friend when after a lapse of years they were thrown together again ; his daughters married Englishmen ; he himself spent his last days in England and was buried there ; he was cruelly treated by two successive administrations in the United States, yet this man, whose studies took him into the sixteenth century and whose daily life was among the most cultivated men and women of modern society, was, as his correspondence shows, passionate in his devotion to the land of his birth and to the political principles for which it stood.

Mr. Curtis has passed over the miserable McCracken incident almost in silence. He gives us only a glimpse of Motley’s scorn, but he provides the reader with a noble reply to the base insinuations made by a sneak and shamefully listened to by a great secretary. The letters of Motley written before, during, and after the war for the Union are an overwhelming attestation of Motley s lofty patriotism. His father was opposed to the war, and the son, strong in his filial affection, could not bear either to he silent or to drag his father into controversy. Therefore he poured out his mind to his mother in letters which leave no uncertainty as to his sentiments.

“No one,” he writes to his mother after his father’s death in 1804, “ appreciated more than I did the excellent qualities of mind and character which distinguished my father. I always thoroughly respected and honored his perfect integrity, his vigorous and uncommon powers of mind, his remarkable vem of wit and native humor, with which all who knew him were familiar, his large experience, his honorable prudence, his practical sagacity, and his singular tenderness of heart. I can say to you now, what it was difficult to write before, that it has always been a cause of sincere pain, at times almost of distress, that I could find no sympathy with him in my political sentiments. In this great revolutionary war now going on in our country, in which the deepest principles of morality and public virtue are at stake, and in which the most intense emotions of every heart are stirred, it would have been an exquisite satisfaction to me could I have felt myself in harmony with him whom as my father I truly honored, whose character and mind I sincerely respected, but whose opinions I could not share.

“ You may believe that it was a great pain that I could never exchange written or spoken words with him on the great subject of the age and of the world, and I therefore formed the resolution of always addressing my letters to you, in order that I might not seem to say to him what might cause controversy between us. I supposed that he would probably read or not, as he chose, what I wrote to you, and that he could not he annoyed by my speaking without restraint on such occasions. As to concealing my opinions, that neither he nor you would have wished me to do. And as to doubting whether I am right or not in the feelings which I have all my life entertained as to the loathsome institution which has at last brought this tremendous series of calamities upon our land, I should as soon think of doubting the existence of God. Therefore I was obliged to be silent to him, and I have often expressed the regret which that silence caused me. I could easily understand, however, that his age and the different point of view from which he regarded political subjects made it not unnatural that he should hold with tenacity to opinions which he had formed with deliberation, and acted upon intelligently during a long lifetime.”

It may be said of Motley’s political creed that it was one of large principles, and not of petty policies ; his historical studies were indicative of the interest of his mind in great movements for human freedom, and educative also in leading him to see the struggle going on both in America and Europe, under his eyes, as a conflict of forces of right and wrong, not mere adventitious fights of factions. It is this habit of looking below the surface for underlying principles which renders his observations so interesting. One feels that one is listening to a generous rather than to a subtle man ; that this eager student of affairs takes counsel of a robust, sympathetic human nature, and has not learnt his lesson from the cautious weavers of diplomatic webs.

“ Throughout this great war of principle,” he writes in 1864, “ I have been sustained by one great faith,—my belief in democracy. . . . The democratic principle is potent even in Europe, where it only exists in hidden and mutually neutralizing combinations with Other elements. In America it is omnipotent, and I have always felt that the slave power has undertaken a task which is not difficult, but impossible. I don’t use this as a figure of speech. I firmly believe that the democratic principle is as immovable and absolute a fact upon our soil (not to change its appearance until after some long processes of cause and effect, the beginnings of which for centuries to come cannot even he imagined) as any of its most marked geological and geographical features, and that [it] is as much a necessary historical and philosophical result as they are.

“ For one, I like democracy. I don’t say that it is pretty, or genteel, or jolly. But it has a reason for existing, and is a fact in America, and is founded on the immutable principle of reason and justice. Aristocracy certainly presents more brilliant social phenomena, more luxurious social enjoyments. Such a system is very cheerful for a few thousand select specimens out of the few hundred millions of the human race. It has been my lot and yours to see how much splendor, how much intellectual and physical refinement, how much enjoyment of the highest character, has been created by the English aristocracy; but what a price is paid for it ! Think of a human being working all day long, from six in the morning to seven at night, for fifteen or twenty kreutzers a day, in Moravia or Bohemia, Ireland or Yorkshire, for forty or fifty years, to die in the work-house at last! This is the lot of the great majority all over Europe, and yet they are of the same flesh and blood, the natural equals in every way of the Howards and Stanleys, Esterhazys and Lichtensteins.”

The ardent faith in democracy which Motley expresses was a part of his character. The buoyant hopefulness of his nature was fed by his study and observation. His was not a cautious, hesitating mind, and above all it was not a self-centred one. He threw himself into his pursuits, and he gave himself loyally and heartily to his friends and to his country. After the great success of the Dutch Republic he was flattered by the men and women whose praise was most worth having, but there is little direct exhibition of this in his letters. Except to his wife, he scarcely ever recounted his triumphs; and when he mentioned them to her it was with an uneasy air, as if even she might fancy he overvalued them.

The warmth of his feeling, joined to that active imagination which enabled him to see vividly the objects of his interest, made him a generous rather than an acute critic. He was always on the right side, but he lacked that healthy spirit of criticism which makes one skeptical of the near while confident in the remote good. Thus his prophecies during the war were constantly falsified, but he continued to make them with assurance, because his faith in the ultimate triumph of the Union was firm. There is a humorous pleasure which one takes in reading these prophecies, they recall in so lively a way the experience of many like him who passed through the same period. Scott rises to view at the beginning of the war in those gigantic proportions which gave such comfort to many. “ Don’t be affected,” he writes to his wife, “ by any sneers or insinuations of slowness against Scott. I believe him to be a magnificent soldier, thoroughly equal to his work, and I trust that the country and the world will one day acknowledge that he has played a noble and winning game with consummate skill.” Later he pins his faith to McClellan, whose military capacity he believes to be, on the whole, equal to that of any of his opponents; and when Grant’s star is in the ascendant, he thanks Heaven that the coming man seems really to have come. “ So far as I can understand the subject,” he says, “ Ulysses Grant is at least equal to any general now living in any part of the world, and by far the first that our war has produced on either side.” Like others who brought no captious criticism for a test, he read the promise in Lincoln early. He was in Washington in June, 1861, and his comments on the men then at the fore are those of an ardent American determined to be pleased, and ready to see beforehand all the military ability and statesmanship that were needed in them. He read the signs of the times no better than others when he wrote to his wife, who was in Europe: “ Don’t be cast down, either, if you hear of a few reverses at first. I don’t expect them, but whether we experience them or not, nothing can prevent our ultimate triumph and a complete restoration of the Union. Of this I feel very confident. I don’t like to prophesy,— a man always makes an ass of himself by affecting to read the future. — yet I will venture one prediction : that before eighteen months have passed away the uprising of a great Union party in the South will take the world as much by surprise as did so recently the unanimous rising of the North.” When Bull Run swept away the pleasing illusions he had cherished, he was as frank in his momentary despondency as he had been in his cheerful prophecies. Up to July 22d he had been writing to his wife of the succession of petty victories, closing, “And, in short, you have here from an unimpeachable witness evidence that even in Eastern Virginia, the very hothed of secession, the rebellion is not overpopular, and that the stars and stripes are hailed, by some of the inhabitants at least, as the symbols of deliverance from a reign of terror. I shall leave my letter open in order to add a P. S. to-morrow.” To-morrow he writes his P. S., beginning, " Read this sheet first. I have had half a dozen minds about sending you the foregoing pages. Since they were written the terrible defeat of Sunday evening has occurred. We are for the moment overwhelmed with gloom. I pity you and my children inexpressibly to be alone there. ... I don’t feel now as if I could come into England again.”But the head hung so low was soon lifted, and five days later he was able to write, “ Don’t be too much cast down about Bull’s Run,” and to show how, though the defeat was most unfortunate, the country was more determined than ever.

We are very glad that Mr. Curtis did not think it necessary to protect Mr. Motley’s character as a man of judgment by omitting or slurring over these very interesting expressions of his momentary belief. They are reflections of the minds of thousands of Americans who were as devoid of experience as Mr. Motley, and they bring back with great freshness the emotions of those stirring days. Besides, they help us to a better knowledge of the lovable man who poured himself out in these unrestrained letters. Mr. Motley speaks somewhere with impatience of the system which permits the communications of foreign ministers to become the public property of the nation instead of serving the ends of the administration, and makes an unfavorable comparison with the system in operation in the Venetian republic, which resulted in the masterly letters of the ambassadors to England and other countries. But private correspondence like his own is of great value to the historian who would recall the impressions made on men’s minds when the great movements of the war had not yet thrown light backward upon the beginnings of the conflict.

We have dwelt at length upon the letters which relate to the war, because they seem to us the most valuable portion of the book, and because they illustrate so abundantly the temper of Motley’s mind. Most of us draw our knowledge of Netherlands history from Motley’s own writings, and have no criterion by which to judge of the probable truth of his presentation of the subject. We do know something of American history and society, and thus can apply tests to Motley’s judgment of home affairs. In the light thrown by this means on a brilliant historian we are able to see both his strong characteristics and the limitations of his mind.

The result certaimy is in a heartier admiration of the man himself, and a confidence in the moral quality of his enthusiasm.

This confidence is heightened by a great variety of his comments on men and affairs in Europe, and we learn besides to appreciate how much more important in his eyes were principles of human conduct and general movements of society than were individual forces. There is a great deal of picturesque observation on the persons whom he meets, but surprisingly little of patient analysis. He grasped wholes, and saw pictures of the world rather than expended his strength in finespun and subtle discriminations. The comments which he makes on the Prussian-Austrian war, which took place while he was minister at Vienna, are very striking for their grouping of historic phases; but though he knew Bismarck intimately, he has little to say which would denote a penetrating discernment of the quality of Bismarck’s greatness. Bismarck’s own letters to Motley, of which a number are given, afford a most interesting glimpse of his character on a side not always shown to the public.

For picturesque setting forth of men there is nothing better in these volumes than the several sketches which Motley gives of Brougham, who interested and amused him greatly. The chancellor seemed to fascinate him, and he returns again and again to his portraiture. Motley and he received the degree of D. C. L. at Oxford at the same time, and in writing to his mother Motley says : " Nothing could be more absurd than old Brougham’s figure, long and gaunt, with snow-white hair under the great black porringer, and with his wonderful nose wagging lithely from side to side as he hitched up his red petticoats and stalked through the mud.” There certainly never was a great statesman and author,” he says elsewhere, “ who so irresistibly suggested the man who does the comic business at a small theatre as Brougham. You are compelled to laugh when you see him as much as at Keeley or Warren. Yet there is absolutely nothing comic in his mind. On the contrary, he is always earnest, vigorous, impressive, but there is no resisting his nose. It is not merely the configuration of that wonderful feature which surprises you, but its mobility. It has the litheness and almost the length of the elephant’s proboscis, and I have no doubt he can pick up pins or scratch his back with it as easily as he could take a pinch of snuff. He is always twisting it about in quite a fabulous manner.”

The two volumes abound in clever, often witty, but more often genial observations, which help the reader to understand why Motley was such an evident favorite in society. How suggestive, for instance, is such a remark as this touching the war for the Union ! “It is not a war ; it is not exactly a revolution ; it is the sanguinary development of great political and social problems, which it was the will of the Great Ruler of the Universe should be reserved as the work of the generation now on the stage and their immediate successors.” And here is a bright little picture of the singing of the children at St. Paul’s on Holy Thursday : ” The spectacle is certainly very touching and impressive. There are about four thousand children, mostly under the age of ten or eleven. Arranged in long rows, rising tier upon tier above each other, and all dressed in dark stuff gowns, with white kerchiefs and aprons and mittens, with quaint Old World starched caps about their young fresh faces, they have a very unique aspect. Particularly when they all rose and seated themselves as by a single impulse, the flutter of these thousands of white wings all through the church, with the devout, innocent look of the thousands of child faces and the piping of their baby voices, suggested the choir of the angels in Paradise. I do not know much to say of the charity. It is merely a collection of all the children, some of whom are fed, clothed, and educated by various schools, which are variously endowed. But as an artistic exhibition it is certainly most effective. Thackeray, who was with me in the pew, said, ’It is the finest thing in the world, — finer than the Declaration of Independence.’ ”

The book is rightly named Correspondence, for though of course Motley wrote the great bulk of the letters, there are many delightful ones to which his are replies, and the reader is treated to foretastes of what he may reasonably hope some day to receive in fuller form; letters, that is, from Dr. Holmes, who was Motley’s most faithful correspondent. Bismarck, also, as we have intimated, writes some juicy letters, and Bright, J. S. Mill, Hawthorne, are represented. Mr. Curtis has done his task with admirable taste. If we had asked anything more, it would have been some slight looping together of the letters by means of a sketch of Motley’s doings and movements ; but Dr. Holmes’s brief monograph supplies what the reader actually requires. We trust these two volumes will send many readers to the earlier book, because that contains so just a statement of Motley’s diplomatic career.