Books: Our Old Home
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Nathaniel Hawthorne >> Our Old Home
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No doubt, the novelty of the Doctor's reversed position, thus standing up
to receive such a fulmination as the clergy have heretofore arrogated the
exclusive right of inflicting, might give additional weight and sting to
the words which I found utterance for. But there was another reason
(which, had I in the least suspected it, would have closed my lips at
once) for his feeling morbidly sensitive to the cruel rebuke that I
administered. The unfortunate man had come to me, laboring under one of
the consequences of his riotous outbreak, in the shape of delirium
tremens; he bore a hell within the compass of his own breast, all the
torments of which blazed up with tenfold inveteracy when I thus took upon
myself the Devil's office of stirring up the red-hot embers. His
emotions, as well as the external movement and expression of them by
voice, countenance, and gesture, were terribly exaggerated by the
tremendous vibration of nerves resulting from the disease. It was the
deepest tragedy I ever witnessed. I know sufficiently, from that one
experience, how a condemned soul would manifest its agonies; and for the
future, if I have anything to do with sinners, I mean to operate upon
them through sympathy, and not rebuke. What had I to do with rebuking
him? The disease, long latent in his heart, had shown itself in a
frightful eruption on the surface of his life. That was all! Is it a
thing to scold the sufferer for?
To conclude this wretched story, the poor Doctor of Divinity, having been
robbed of all his money in this little airing beyond the limits of
propriety, was easily persuaded to give up the intended tour and return
to his bereaved flock, who, very probably, were thereafter conscious of
an increased unction in his soul-stirring eloquence, without suspecting
the awful depths into which their pastor had dived in quest of it. His
voice is now silent. I leave it to members of his own profession to
decide whether it was better for him thus to sin outright, and so to be
let into the miserable secret what manner of man he was, or to have gone
through life outwardly unspotted, making the first discovery of his
latent evil at the judgment-seat. It has occurred to me that his dire
calamity, as both he and I regarded it, might have been the only method
by which precisely such a man as himself, and so situated, could be
redeemed. He has learned, ere now, how that matter stood.
For a man, with a natural tendency to meddle with other people's
business, there could not possibly be a more congenial sphere than the
Liverpool Consulate. For myself, I had never been in the habit of
feeling that I could sufficiently comprehend any particular conjunction
of circumstances with human character, to justify me in thrusting in my
awkward agency among the intricate and unintelligible machinery of
Providence. I have always hated to give advice, especially when there is
a prospect of its being taken. It is only one-eyed people who love to
advise, or have any spontaneous promptitude of action. When a man opens
both his eyes, he generally sees about as many reasons for acting in any
one way as in any other, and quite as many for acting in neither; and is
therefore likely to leave his friends to regulate their own conduct, and
also to remain quiet as regards his especial affairs till necessity shall
prick him onward. Nevertheless, the world and individuals flourish upon
a constant succession of blunders. The secret of English practical
success lies in their characteristic faculty of shutting one eye, whereby
they get so distinct and decided a view of what immediately concerns them
that they go stumbling towards it over a hundred insurmountable
obstacles, and achieve a magnificent triumph without ever being aware of
half its difficulties. If General McClellan could but have shut his left
eye, the right one would long ago have guided us into Richmond.
Meanwhile, I have strayed far away from the Consulate, where, as I was
about to say, I was compelled, in spite of my disinclination, to impart
both advice and assistance in multifarious affairs that did not
personally concern me, and presume that I effected about as little
mischief as other men in similar contingencies. The duties of the office
carried me to prisons, police-courts, hospitals, lunatic asylums,
coroner's inquests, death-beds, funerals, and brought me in contact with
insane people, criminals, ruined speculators, wild adventurers,
diplomatists, brother-consuls, and all manner of simpletons and
unfortunates, in greater number and variety than I had ever dreamed of as
pertaining to America; in addition to whom there was an equivalent
multitude of English rogues, dexterously counterfeiting the genuine
Yankee article. It required great discrimination not to be taken in by
these last-mentioned scoundrels; for they knew how to imitate our
national traits, had been at great pains to instruct themselves as
regarded American localities, and were not readily to be caught by a
cross-examination as to the topographical features, public institutions,
or prominent inhabitants of the places where they pretended to belong.
The best shibboleth I ever hit upon lay in the pronunciation of the word
"been," which the English invariably make to rhyme with "green," and we
Northerners, at least (in accordance, I think, with the custom of
Shakespeare's time), universally pronounce "bin."
All the matters that I have been treating of, however, were merely
incidental, and quite distinct from the real business of the office. A
great part of the wear and tear of mind and temper resulted from the bad
relations between the seamen and officers of American ships. Scarcely a
morning passed, but that some sailor came to show the marks of his
ill-usage on shipboard. Often, it was a whole crew of them, each with
his broken head or livid bruise, and all testifying with one voice to a
constant series of savage outrages during the voyage; or, it might be,
they laid an accusation of actual murder, perpetrated by the first or
second officers with many blows of steel-knuckles, a rope's end, or a
marline-spike, or by the captain, in the twinkling of an eye, with a shot
of his pistol. Taking the seamen's view of the case, you would suppose
that the gibbet was hungry for the murderers. Listening to the captain's
defence, you would seem to discover that he and his officers were the
humanest of mortals, but were driven to a wholesome severity by the
mutinous conduct of the crew, who, moreover, had themselves slain their
comrade in the drunken riot and confusion of the first day or two after
they were shipped. Looked at judicially, there appeared to be no right
side to the matter, nor any right side possible in so thoroughly vicious
a system as that of the American mercantile marine. The Consul could do
little, except to take depositions, hold forth the greasy Testament to be
profaned anew with perjured kisses, and, in a few instances of murder or
manslaughter, carry the case before an English magistrate, who generally
decided that the evidence was too contradictory to authorize the
transmission of the accused for trial in America. The newspapers all
over England contained paragraphs, inveighing against the cruelties of
American shipmasters. The British Parliament took up the matter (for
nobody is so humane as John Bull, when his benevolent propensities are to
be gratified by finding fault with his neighbor), and caused Lord John
Russell to remonstrate with our government on the outrages for which it
was responsible before the world, and which it failed to prevent or
punish. The American Secretary of State, old General Cass, responded,
with perfectly astounding ignorance of the subject, to the effect that
the statements of outrages had probably been exaggerated, that the
present laws of the United States were quite adequate to deal with them,
and that the interference of the British Minister was uncalled for.
The truth is, that the state of affairs was really very horrible, and
could be met by no laws at that time (or I presume now) in existence. I
once thought of writing a pamphlet on the subject, but quitted the
Consulate before finding time to effect my purpose; and all that phase of
my life immediately assumed so dreamlike a consistency that I despaired
of making it seem solid or tangible to the public. And now it looks
distant and dim, like troubles of a century ago. The origin of the evil
lay in the character of the seamen, scarcely any of whom were American,
but the offscourings and refuse of all the seaports of the world, such
stuff as piracy is made of, together with a considerable intermixture of
returning emigrants, and a sprinkling of absolutely kidnapped American
citizens. Even with such material, the ships were very inadequately
manned. The shipmaster found himself upon the deep, with a vast
responsibility of property and human life upon his hands, and no means of
salvation except by compelling his inefficient and demoralized crew to
heavier exertions than could reasonably be required of the same number of
able seamen. By law he had been intrusted with no discretion of
judicious punishment, he therefore habitually left the whole matter of
discipline to his irresponsible mates, men often of scarcely a superior
quality to the crew. Hence ensued a great mass of petty outrages,
unjustifiable assaults, shameful indignities, and nameless cruelty,
demoralizing alike to the perpetrators and the sufferers; these
enormities fell into the ocean between the two countries, and could be
punished in neither. Many miserable stories come back upon my memory as
I write; wrongs that were immense, but for which nobody could be held
responsible, and which, indeed, the closer you looked into them, the more
they lost the aspect of wilful misdoing and assumed that of an inevitable
calamity. It was the fault of a system, the misfortune of an individual.
Be that as it may, however, there will be no possibility of dealing
effectually with these troubles as long as we deem it inconsistent with
our national dignity or interests to allow the English courts, under such
restrictions as may seem fit, a jurisdiction over offences perpetrated on
board our vessels in mid-ocean.
In such a life as this, the American shipmaster develops himself into a
man of iron energies, dauntless courage, and inexhaustible resource, at
the expense, it must be acknowledged, of some of the higher and gentler
traits which might do him excellent service in maintaining his authority.
The class has deteriorated of late years on account of the narrower field
of selection, owing chiefly to the diminution of that excellent body of
respectably educated New England seamen, from the flower of whom the
officers used to be recruited. Yet I found them, in many cases, very
agreeable and intelligent companions, with less nonsense about them than
landsmen usually have, eschewers of fine-spun theories, delighting in
square and tangible ideas, but occasionally infested with prejudices that
stuck to their brains like barnacles to a ship's bottom. I never could
flatter myself that I was a general favorite with them. One or two,
perhaps, even now, would scarcely meet me on amicable terms. Endowed
universally with a great pertinacity of will, they especially disliked
the interference of a consul with their management on shipboard;
notwithstanding which I thrust in my very limited authority at every
available opening, and did the utmost that lay in my power, though with
lamentably small effect, towards enforcing a better kind of discipline.
They thought, no doubt (and on plausible grounds enough, but scarcely
appreciating just that one little grain of hard New England sense, oddly
thrown in among the flimsier composition of the Consul's character), that
he, a landsman, a bookman, and, as people said of him, a fanciful
recluse, could not possibly understand anything of the difficulties or
the necessities of a shipmaster's position. But their cold regards were
rather acceptable than otherwise, for it is exceedingly awkward to assume
a judicial austerity in the morning towards a man with whom you have been
hobnobbing over night.
With the technical details of the business of that great Consulate (for
great it then was, though now, I fear, wofully fallen off, and perhaps
never to be revived in anything like its former extent), I did not much
interfere. They could safely be left to the treatment of two as
faithful, upright, and competent subordinates, both Englishmen, as ever a
man was fortunate enough to meet with, in a line of life altogether new
and strange to him. I had come over with instructions to supply both
their places with Americans, but, possessing a happy faculty of knowing
my own interest and the public's, I quietly kept hold of them, being
little inclined to open the consular doors to a spy of the State
Department or an intriguer for my own office. The venerable Vice-Consul,
Mr. Pearce, had witnessed the successive arrivals of a score of newly
appointed Consuls, shadowy and short-lived dignitaries, and carried his
reminiscences back to the epoch of Consul Maury, who was appointed by
Washington, and has acquired almost the grandeur of a mythical personage
in the annals of the Consulate. The principal clerk, Mr. Wilding, who
has since succeeded to the Vice-Consulship, was a man of English
integrity,--not that the English are more honest than ourselves, but only
there is a certain sturdy reliableness common among them, which we do not
quite so invariably manifest in just these subordinate positions,--of
English integrity, combined with American acuteness of intellect,
quick-wittedness, and diversity of talent. It seemed an immense pity
that he should wear out his life at a desk, without a step in advance
from year's end to year's end, when, had it been his luck to be born on
our side of the water, his bright faculties and clear probity would have
insured him eminent success in whatever path he night adopt. Meanwhile,
it would have been a sore mischance to me, had any better fortune on his
part deprived me of Mr. Wilding's services.
A fair amount of common-sense, some acquaintance with the United States
Statutes, an insight into character, a tact of management, a general
knowledge of the world, and a reasonable but not too inveterately decided
preference for his own will and judgment over those of interested
people,--these natural attributes and moderate acquirements will enable a
consul to perform many of his duties respectably, but not to dispense
with a great variety of other qualifications, only attainable by long
experience. Yet, I think, few consuls are so well accomplished. An
appointment of whatever grade, in the diplomatic or consular service of
America, is too often what the English call a "job"; that is to say, it
is made on private and personal grounds, without a paramount eye to the
public good or the gentleman's especial fitness for the position. It is
not too much to say (of course allowing for a brilliant exception here
and there), that an American never is thoroughly qualified for a foreign
post, nor has time to make himself so, before the revolution of the
political wheel discards him from his office. Our country wrongs itself
by permitting such a system of unsuitable appointments, and, still more,
of removals for no cause, just when the incumbent might be beginning to
ripen into usefulness. Mere ignorance of official detail is of
comparatively small moment; though it is considered indispensable, I
presume, that a man in any private capacity shall be thoroughly
acquainted with the machinery and operation of his business, and shall
not necessarily lose his position on having attained such knowledge. But
there are so many more important things to be thought of, in the
qualifications of a foreign resident, that his technical dexterity or
clumsiness is hardly worth mentioning.
One great part of a consul's duty, for example, should consist in
building up for himself a recognized position in the society where he
resides, so that his local influence might be felt in behalf of his own
country, and, so far as they are compatible (as they generally are to the
utmost extent), for the interests of both nations. The foreign city
should know that it has a permanent inhabitant and a hearty well-wisher
in him. There are many conjunctures (and one of them is now upon us)
where a long-established, honored, and trusted American citizen, holding
a public position under our government in such a town as Liverpool, might
go far towards swaying and directing the sympathies of the inhabitants.
He might throw his own weight into the balance against mischief makers;
he might have set his foot on the first little spark of malignant
purpose, which the next wind may blow into a national war. But we
wilfully give up all advantages of this kind. The position is totally
beyond the attainment of an American; there to-day, bristling all over
with the porcupine quills of our Republic, and gone to-morrow, just as he
is becoming sensible of the broader and more generous patriotism which
might almost amalgamate with that of England, without losing an atom of
its native force and flavor. In the changes that appear to await us, and
some of which, at least, can hardly fail to be for good, let us hope for
a reform in this matter.
For myself, as the gentle reader would spare me the trouble of saying, I
was not at all the kind of man to grow into such an ideal Consul as I
have here suggested. I never in my life desired to be burdened with
public influence. I disliked my office from the first, and never came
into any good accordance with it. Its dignity, so far as it had any, was
an encumbrance; the attentions it drew upon me (such as invitations to
Mayor's banquets and public celebrations of all kinds, where, to my
horror, I found myself expected to stand up and speak) were--as I may say
without incivility or ingratitude, because there is nothing personal in
that sort of hospitality--a bore. The official business was irksome, and
often painful. There was nothing pleasant about the whole affair, except
the emoluments; and even those, never too bountifully reaped, were
diminished by more than half in the second or third year of my
incumbency. All this being true, I was quite prepared, in advance of the
inauguration of Mr. Buchanan, to send in my resignation. When my
successor arrived, I drew the long, delightful breath which first made me
thoroughly sensible what an unnatural life I had been leading, and
compelled me to admire myself for having battled with it so sturdily.
The newcomer proved to be a very genial and agreeable gentleman, an
F. F. V., and, as he pleasantly acknowledged, a Southern Fire Eater,
--an announcement to which I responded, with similar good-humor and
self-complacency, by parading my descent from an ancient line of
Massachusetts Puritans. Since our brief acquaintanceship, my fire-eating
friend has had ample opportunities to banquet on his favorite diet, hot
and hot, in the Confederate service. For myself, as soon as I was out of
office, the retrospect began to look unreal. I could scarcely believe
that it was I,--that figure whom they called a Consul,--but a sort of
Double Ganger, who had been permitted to assume my aspect, under which he
went through his shadowy duties with a tolerable show of efficiency,
while my real self had lain, as regarded my proper mode of being and
acting, in a state of suspended animation.
The same sense of illusion still pursues me. There is some mistake in
this matter. I have been writing about another man's consular
experiences, with which, through some mysterious medium of transmitted
ideas, I find myself intimately acquainted, but in which I cannot
possibly have had a personal interest. Is it not a dream altogether?
The figure of that poor Doctor of Divinity looks wonderfully lifelike; so
do those of the Oriental adventurer with the visionary coronet above his
brow, and the moonstruck visitor of the Queen, and the poor old wanderer,
seeking his native country through English highways and by-ways for
almost thirty years; and so would a hundred others that I might summon up
with similar distinctness. But were they more than shadows? Surely, I
think not. Nor are these present pages a bit of intrusive autobiography.
Let not the reader wrong me by supposing it. I never should have written
with half such unreserve, had it been a portion of this life congenial
with my nature, which I am living now, instead of a series of incidents
and characters entirely apart from my own concerns, and on which the
qualities personally proper to me could have had no bearing. Almost the
only real incidents, as I see them now, were the visits of a young
English friend, a scholar and a literary amateur, between whom and myself
there sprung up an affectionate, and, I trust, not transitory regard. He
used to come and sit or stand by my fireside, talking vivaciously and
eloquently with me about literature and life, his own national
characteristics and mine, with such kindly endurance of the many rough
republicanisms wherewith I assailed him, and such frank and amiable
assertion of all sorts of English prejudices and mistakes, that I
understood his countrymen infinitely the better for him, and was almost
prepared to love the intensest Englishman of them all, for his sake. It
would gratify my cherished remembrance of this dear friend, if I could
manage, without offending him, or letting the public know it, to
introduce his name upon my page. Bright was the illumination of my dusky
little apartment, as often as he made his appearance there!
The English sketches which I have been offering to the public comprise a
few of the more external and therefore more readily manageable things
that I took note of, in many escapes from the imprisonment of my consular
servitude. Liverpool, though not very delightful as a place of
residence, is a most convenient and admirable point to get away from.
London is only five hours off by the fast train. Chester, the most
curious town in England, with its encompassing wall, its ancient rows,
and its venerable cathedral, is close at hand. North Wales, with all its
hills and ponds, its noble sea-scenery, its multitude of gray castles and
strange old villages, may be glanced at in a summer day or two. The
lakes and mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland may be reached before
dinner-time. The haunted and legendary Isle of Man, a little kingdom by
itself, lies within the scope of an afternoon's voyage. Edinburgh or
Glasgow are attainable over night, and Loch Lomond betimes in the
morning. Visiting these famous localities, and a great many others, I
hope that I do not compromise my American patriotism by acknowledging
that I was often conscious of a fervent hereditary attachment to the
native soil of our forefathers, and felt it to be our own Old Home.
LEAMINGTON SPA.
In the course of several visits and stays of considerable length we
acquired a homelike feeling towards Leamington, and came back thither
again and again, chiefly because we had been there before. Wandering and
wayside people, such as we had long since become, retain a few of the
instincts that belong to a more settled way of life, and often prefer
familiar and commonplace objects (for the very reason that they are so)
to the dreary strangeness of scenes that might be thought much better
worth the seeing. There is a small nest of a place in Leamington--at
No. 10, Lansdowne Circus--upon which, to this day, my reminiscences are
apt to settle as one of the coziest nooks in England or in the world; not
that it had any special charm of its own, but only that we stayed long
enough to know it well, and even to grow a little tired of it. In my
opinion, the very tediousness of home and friends makes a part of what we
love them for; if it be not mixed in sufficiently with the other elements
of life, there may be mad enjoyment, but no happiness.
The modest abode to which I have alluded forms one of a circular range of
pretty, moderate-sized, two-story houses, all built on nearly the same
plan, and each provided with its little grass-plot, its flowers, its
tufts of box trimmed into globes and other fantastic shapes, and its
verdant hedges shutting the house in from the common drive and dividing
it from its equally cosey neighbors. Coming out of the door, and taking
a turn round the circle of sister-dwellings, it is difficult to find your
way back by any distinguishing individuality of your own habitation. In
the centre of the Circus is a space fenced in with iron railing, a small
play-place and sylvan retreat for the children of the precinct, permeated
by brief paths through the fresh English grass, and shadowed by various
shrubbery; amid which, if you like, you may fancy yourself in a deep
seclusion, though probably the mark of eye-shot from the windows of all
the surrounding houses. But, in truth, with regard to the rest of the
town and the world at large, all abode here is a genuine seclusion; for
the ordinary stream of life does not run through this little, quiet pool,
and few or none of the inhabitants seem to be troubled with any business
or outside activities. I used to set them down as half-pay officers,
dowagers of narrow income, elderly maiden ladies, and other people of
respectability, but small account, such as hang on the world's skirts
rather than actually belong to it. The quiet of the place was seldom
disturbed, except by the grocer and butcher, who came to receive orders,
or by the cabs, hackney-coaches, and Bath-chairs, in which the ladies
took an infrequent airing, or the livery-steed which the retired captain
sometimes bestrode for a morning ride, or by the red-coated postman who
went his rounds twice a day to deliver letters, and again in the evening,
ringing a hand-bell, to take letters for the mail. In merely mentioning
these slight interruptions of its sluggish stillness, I seem to myself to
disturb too much the atmosphere of quiet that brooded over the spot;
whereas its impression upon me was, that the world had never found the
way hither, or had forgotten it, and that the fortunate inhabitants were
the only ones who possessed the spell-word of admittance. Nothing could
have suited me better, at the time; for I had been holding a position of
public servitude, which imposed upon me (among a great many lighter
duties) the ponderous necessity of being universally civil and sociable.
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