Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 by Various

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The life and labors of a man like Mr. Choate present many points on
which it would be easy to dwell with more or less of fulness, but we
can only touch upon one or two. We have always thought him especially
remarkable for the felicity with which the elements in him were so
mingled that the bright gift was not accompanied by the usually
attendant shadow. All would admit, for instance, that his temperament
was the temperament of genius. The strings of an Aeolian harp are not
more responsive to the caressing wind than were the fibres of his frame
sensitive to the influence of beauty. His organization was delicate,
nervous, and impassioned. The grandeur and loveliness of Nature, fine
poetry, stirring eloquence, music under certain forms and conditions,
affected him to an extent to which men are rarely susceptible. And yet
with all these "robes and singing garlands" of genius about him, he was
entirely free from the irritability which usually accompanies genius.
His temper was as sweet as his organization was sensitive. The life of a
lawyer in great practice is very trying to the spirit, but no one ever
saw Mr. Choate discomposed or ruffled, and the sharp contentions of the
most protracted and hotly contested trial never extorted from him a
testy remark, a peevish exclamation, a wounding reflection. He never
wasted any of his nervous energy in scolding, fretting, or worrying.
Such invincible and inevitable sweetness of temper would have made the
most commonplace man attractive: we need not say what a charm it gave to
such powers and accomplishments as those of Mr. Choate.

So, too, there is the old, traditionary commonplace about genius
being one thing and application another, and their being in necessary
antagonism to each other. But Mr. Choate was a man of genius, at least
in its popular and generally received sense. The glance of his mind was
as rapid as the lightning; he learned almost by intuition; his fancy was
brilliant, discursive, and untiring; his perceptions were both quick
and correct: if there ever were a man who could have dispensed with the
painful acquisitions of labor, and been content with the spontaneous
growth of an uncultivated soil, that man was Mr. Choate. And yet who
ever worked harder than he? what plodding chronicler, what prosaic
Dryasdust ever went through a greater amount of drudgery than he? His
very industry had the intense and impassioned character which belonged
to his whole temperament and organization. He toiled with a fiery
earnestness and a concentration of purpose which burned into the very
heart of the subject he was investigating. The audience that hung with
delight upon one of his addresses to the jury, at the close of a long
and exciting trial, in which the wit and eloquence and poetry seemed to
be the inspiration of the moment,--electric sparks which the mind's own
rapid motion generated,--thought as little of the patient industry
with which all had been elaborated as they who admire an exquisite
ball-dress, that seems a part of the lovely form which it adorns, think
of the pale weaver's loom and the poor seamstress's needle. We have
known brilliant men; we have known laborious men; but we have never
known any man in whom the two elements were met in such combination as
Mr. Choate.

But we must pause. We are insensibly going beyond our limits. We are
forgetting the biography and recalling Mr. Choate himself, a theme too
fruitful for a literary notice. We conclude, then, with an expression of
thanks to Professor Brown for the entirely satisfactory manner in which
he has performed a task of no common difficulty. The friends of Mr.
Choate will find in these volumes not only ample, but new matter, to
justify the admiration which he awakened; and to those who did not know
him they will show how just was his title to their admiration.

_The Story of the Guard, a Chronicle of the War._ By JESSIE BENTON
FREMONT. 16mo. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

The subject, the authorship, and the style of this book combine to
secure for it the immediate attention of American readers. In our own
case, this attention has deepened into hearty interest and sympathy; and
we are so confident that such will be the result in every mind, that we
the more cheerfully resign ourselves to the necessity which renders a
full and fair review of this little book an impossible thing for us. Let
us briefly call to notice some of its peculiar excellences, and indicate
the line of thought which we think its sympathetic critic will follow.

Certainly no worthier subject could be chosen than the deeds of that
brave young Guard, which was at first the target for so many slanders,
and at last the centre of heartiest love and pride to all the North. Its
short and brilliant career lacks nothing which chivalry find romance
could lend, to render it the brightest passage in the history of the
war. It is but a few days since Fremont's Virginia Body-Guard--now that
of General Sigel--made a bold dash into Fredericksburg, rivalling
the glory of their predecessors; but, though every one of Fremont's
campaigns should boast a Body-Guard, and every Guard immortalize a new
Springfield, the crown of crowns will always rest on the gallant little
major and his dauntless few whose high enthusiasm broke the spell of
universal disaster, sounding the bugle-notes of victory through the
dreary silence of national despair.

General Fremont's practice in the West was invariably to educate his raw
troops in the presence of an enemy. Whether this was of choice or of
necessity we do not pretend to say; but the fact remains, that the tide
of war was turned back upon our enemies by an army composed of men who
had but just taken up their weapons. We once had the pleasure of hearing
General Fremont explain the system which he pursued with this army; and
we remember being struck with the fact that he laid great stress on
_constant skirmishing_, as the means of acquiring a habit of victory.
We cannot enlarge here upon this interesting topic. We design only to
adduce the circumstance, that the charge at Springfield concluded a
series of five fights within a single week, every one of which resulted
in triumph to our arms with the exception of that at Fredericktown. They
were slight affairs; but, as Fremont so well says, "Little victories
form a habit of victory."

The charge of the Guard we shall not eulogize. It is beyond the praise
of words. It is wonderful that Major Zagonyi should have been able in so
few days to bring into such splendid discipline a body of new recruits.
The Prairie Scouts (who seem to have been a band of brave men under a
dashing young leader) had not the perfect training which carried the
Guard through a murderous fire, to form and charge in the very camp
of the enemy. They plunged into the woods, and commenced a straggling
bush-fight, as they were skilled to do. Worthy of praise in themselves,
(and they have earned it often and received it freely,) the Scouts on
this occasion serve to heighten the effect of that grand combination of
impulse and obedience which makes the perfect soldier.

We cannot but add a word or two (leaving many points of interest
untouched) upon the manner in which Mrs. Fremont has treated her
subject. It is novel, but not ineffective. Zagonyi tells much of the
story in his own words; and we are sure that it loses nothing of
vividness from his terse and vigorous, though not always strictly
grammatical language. "Zagonyi's English," says some one who has heard
it, "is like wood-carving."

The letters of the General himself form one of the most interesting
features of the book. We would only remark, in this connection, the
wide difference between the General's style and that of his wife. Mrs.
Fremont is a true woman, and has written a true woman's book. The
General is a true man, and his words are manly words. Her style is full,
free, vivid, with plenty of dashes and postscripts,--the vehicle of much
genius and many noble thoughts; but in itself no style, or a careless
and imperfect one. The Pathfinder writes as good English prose as any
man living. We cannot be mistaken. The hand that penned the "Story of
the Guard" could not hold the pen of the Proclamation or the
Farewell Address, or the narrative of the Rocky-Mountain Expedition.
Nevertheless, it has done well. Let its work lie on our tables and dwell
in our hearts with the "Idyls of the King,"--the Aeolian memories of a
chivalry departed blending with the voices of the nobler knighthood of
our time.

_Seven Little People and their Friends_. New York: A.F. Randolph.

This is a charming book for the holidays. Not that it requires such
a temporary occasion to give it interest, elevated as it is by its
inherent excellence above that class of books which may be said almost
entirely to depend upon such factitious accidents for whatever of
success they may reasonably hope to obtain. It is, irrespective of time
or occasion, a genuine story-book, adapted particularly to children
between the ages of six and sixteen years, yet not, as is usually the
case in books for children, confined to these narrow limits in either
direction; since there is somewhat for any child that can be supposed to
have an interest in narrative, and a great deal for every man who
has genius, according to Coleridge's well-known definition of
genius,--namely, that it is the power of childhood carried forward into
the developments of manhood. This is saying, indeed, quite as much as
could be said for the general features of the book, and more than could
be said for any other child's book, excepting alone Hans Andersen's
inimitable stories.

Speaking of the book as compared with the works of Hans Andersen, it is
more consciously a work of art, in an intellectual sense; it is more
complicated in incident, or rather, we should say, in the working-up
of the incident, whether that be an advantage for it or not. In almost
every instance, Hans Andersen's stories could be told apart from the
book,--indeed, it is true that many of them were thus told to children,
whom the Danish storyteller casually met, before they were committed to
writing; and they were written, we imagine, very much as they were told.
The seven stories of which this book is made up, on the other hand,
could none of them be told naturally, and yet preserve every artistic
feature which belongs to them, as they are written. As there is more of
intellectual consciousness in their development, giving them more finish
and greater multiformity as products of art, so also there is more depth
of idea in their design. The writer is evidently not satisfied with
simple narrative; the _movement_ of his stories is more important in his
eye than _incident_, and to the former there must have been considerable
sacrifice of the latter,--that is, much of the incident which might have
been given in a simple narrative has been left out, because it would mar
the formal design.

From what has been said it will be evident that the book is not one
of those designed to affect the reader mainly through a scrupulous
conscience, or indeed distinctively through conscience at all. It
appeals to the imagination preeminently, and through that to the will.
It is the greatest merit of the book, that it is designed for the
culture and development of the imagination in children,--a faculty
almost entirely neglected, or, what is worse, oftentimes despotically
crushed and thwarted in children.

In "The Three Wishes" is developed for the child the mystery of work
and of worship; but it is all accomplished through incidents
appealing wholly to imagination, and with beautiful art. "The Little
Castaways"--really a deliberate farce, "taking off," the stories of
similar incident written for older folk--is yet, in itself, for the
child much more than that which is thus "taken off" ever could be for
the older and more romantic reader. "The Rock-Elephant" is full of humor
and imaginative pathos. "A Faery Surprise-Party" is as delicate as are
Jack Frost's pencillings, through which all the events of the story
curiously move. "New-Year's Day in the Garden" has equal delicacy, and
even greater beauty.

In all the stories there is a humanizing of all elements introduced,
even the most material. We are assured that the author's efforts will
meet with success. Children, certainly, and all those especially
interested in children, will hail the book with delight. It is finely
illustrated by F.A. Chapman, who, it is evident, has spared no pains to
render it attractive. The engravings, be it said in their favor, are
not too directly suggestive, as is generally the case, but, from their
delicate insinuations, particularly beautiful.

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