Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

To this miserable tissue of sophistry and misrepresentation the only
reply we have to make is, that Burr's statements were the unmitigated
falsehoods which Henry Clay believed them to be. For at that very time
stores were collected on Blennerhassett's Island; other persons were
bringing arms for Burr's service and with his knowledge; the winter
previous he had offered commissions to Eaton and Truxton; and a month
before this statement was made, his agent had arrived at Wilkinson's
camp with the direct proposition to that officer, that he should attack
the Spaniards, hurry his country into a war, and enter upon a career of
conquest which was to result in dismembering the Union. And yet Burr
solemnly declared upon his honor that he was engaged in no design
"contrary to the laws and peace of the country," and that "his
views were such as every man of honor and every good citizen must
approve,"--and Parton says these averments were true. We have no wish
to deal harshly with this writer; but such an impudent defence of a
palpable falsehood is a disgrace to American letters.

Every well-informed person knows the miserable issue of this
ill-contrived conspiracy. The only emotion which it now excites in the
student is wonder that the thought of it could ever have entered a sane
mind. A wilder or more chimerical scheme never disturbed the dreams of
a schoolboy; yet no one has ever pressed a reasonable undertaking with
more earnestness and confidence than Burr his visionary purpose. He
exhibited, throughout, an infatuation and a degree of incompetency for
great achievements, which would cover the enterprise with ridicule, were
it not for the misfortunes which it brought upon himself and others.

We do not desire to linger over the last period of Burr's life. His
deadliest foe could not have wished for him so terrible a punishment as
that which afflicted his long and ignominious old age.

In 1808 he went to Europe to obtain aid for his Mexican expedition.
While in England, he made another display of his adroitness and boldness
in falsehood. The English government became suspicious of him; whereupon
he had the hardihood to claim, that, although he had borne arms against
Great Britain and had held office in an independent state, he was still
a British subject. Mr. Parton says, that this "was an amusing instance
of Burr's lawyerlike audacity." Less partial judges will probably find a
harsher term to apply to it.

After his return to this country, Burr resumed his profession in New
York, but never regained his former position at the bar. The standard
of legal acquirements was higher than it had been in his youth, and
the obloquy which rested upon him excluded him from the respectable
departments of practice. During all this time, by far the longest period
of his professional life, he never displayed any signal ability. His
society was shunned,--or sought only by a few personal admirers, or by
the profligate and the curious. When seventy-eight years of age, he
wheedled Madame Jumel, an eccentric and wealthy widow, into a marriage.
On the bridal trip he obtained possession of some of her property, and
squandered it in an idle speculation. A continuance of such practices
led to a separation, and his wife afterwards made application for a
divorce, upon a charge which Mr. Parton says is now known to have been
false, but which we have reason to believe was true, and which was so
disgusting that we cannot even hint at it.

It is our duty to notice one chapter in this book, which, more than
anything else it contains, has given it notoriety. We refer to
its defence of, or, to speak more mildly, its apology for, Burr's
libertinism. All the faults of the author which we have had occasion
to notice, examples of which are scattered through the volume, are
concentrated in these few pages,--his inconsistency, his inaccuracy,
his disposition to draw inferences from facts which they directly
contradict, and to rely on evidence which has nothing to do with the
case in hand. He argues at great length upon the assumption, that Burr's
correspondence with women was unfit for publication, and then, in
contradiction to Burr's own positive declaration, asserts that there
were "no letters necessarily criminating ladies." To prove this, he
publishes two letters, one of which is an apology, written by Burr
in his seventy-fourth year, for having addressed a young woman in an
improper manner, and the other is a letter from a female, couched in
language much warmer than an innocent woman could use. Mr. Parton
attacks Davis because that writer stated that Burr left his
correspondence to be disposed of by him, and eulogizes his hero because
he ordered that the letters should be burned. To establish this
position, he quotes Burr's will, which directed Davis "to destroy, or
to deliver to all persons interested, such letters, as may, _in his
estimation_, be calculated to affect injuriously the feelings of
individuals against whom I have no complaint,"--thus giving Mr. Davis
all the discretionary power with which he claims to have been invested,
and making him the judge as to what letters should be destroyed. We
have no more space to expose Mr. Parton's blunders and sophistry. The
evidence of Burr's debauchery, of his heartless vanity, of his utter
disregard of the considerations which usually govern even the worst of
men, does not rest upon the admissions of Davis alone. Those who are
familiar with a scandalous book called the "Secret History of St.
Domingo," which consists of a series of letters addressed to Col. Burr
by Madame D'Auvergne, will need no further illustration of his influence
over women, nor of the character of those with whom he was most
intimately associated. The night before his duel with Hamilton, he
committed all the letters of his female correspondents to the care and
perusal of Theodosia, saying that she would "find in them something to
amuse, much to instruct, and more to forgive." When in Europe, he kept a
journal in which he recorded his various amorous adventures. This book,
as published, is one which no gentleman would place in the hands of a
lady, and the editor tells us that the most improper portions of the
diary have been expurgated; yet this journal was written, not to amuse
a scandal-loving public, not for purposes of gain, but for the private
perusal of Theodosia. What can be said of a man who could expose
the lascivious expressions of abandoned females and retail his own
debaucheries to a gentle and innocent woman, and that woman his own
daughter? The mere statement beggars invective. It shows a mind so
depraved as to be unconscious of its depravity.

The character of Burr is not difficult to analyze. His life was
consistent, and at the beginning a wise man might have foretold the
end. Our author complains that Burr's reputation has suffered from
the disposition to exaggerate his faults. This may be true; but it is
likewise true that he has been benefited by the same disposition to
exaggeration. A character is more dramatic which unites great talents
with great vices, and therefore he has been represented both as a worse
and a greater man than he really was. Burr cannot be called great in
any sense. His successes, such as they were, never appear to have been
obtained by high mental effort. He has left not a single measure, no
speech, no written discussion of the various important subjects that
came before him, to which one can point as an exhibition of superior
talents. A certain description of ability cannot be denied to him. He
did well whatever could be done by address, courage, and industry,
joined to moderate talents. His chief power lay in the fascination of
personal intercourse. His countenance was pleasing, and illuminated
by eyes of singular beauty and vivacity; his bearing was lofty; his
self-possession could not be disturbed; he had the tact of a woman, and
an intellect which was active and equal to all ordinary occasions. But
even in society his range was a narrow one, and he seems to have been
successful mainly because he avoided positive effort. It is usual to
speak of him as a remarkable conversationalist; but if by that term we
mean to describe, a person who is distinguished for his eloquence, grace
of expression, information, force and originality of thought, Burr was
not a good converser. A distinguished gentleman, who, while young,
was much noticed by Burr, being asked in what his personal attraction
consisted, replied, "In his manner of listening to you. He seemed to
give your thought so much value by the air with which he received it,
and to find so much more meaning in your words than you had intended.
No flattery was equal to it." We think that this anecdote reveals the
entire power of the man. He was strong through the weakness of others,
rather than in his own strength. Therefore he was most attractive to
young or inferior people. He was not on terms of intimacy with any
leading man of his time, unless it was Jeremy Bentham, and the precise
nature of their relations is not understood. The philosopher, who could
not then boast many disciples, was favorably disposed toward Burr,
because the latter had ordered a London bookseller to send him Bentham's
works as fast as they were published. Upon acquaintance, he must have
been pleased with a gentleman with whom he could have had no cause for
dispute, who could supply him with information as to new and interesting
forms of society and government, and whose adventurous and romantic
career differed so widely from his own life of study and thought.

Burr's conduct in his various public situations affords a perfect
measure of his abilities. As a soldier, he was brave, a good
disciplinarian, watchful of details, and an excellent executive officer.
At the head of a brigade he would have been useful; but he did not
possess the foresight, the breadth of mental vision, nor the magnetism
of nature awakening the enthusiasm of armies, which are necessary to a
great commander. He was an adroit lawyer, an adept in the fence of his
profession, skilful to avail himself of the errors of an opponent, and
to play upon the foibles of judge or jury; but he had not the faculty
for generalization and analysis, nor the nice discrimination in the
application of general principles to particular instances, which must be
combined in a great lawyer. He cannot by any figure of speech be called
a statesman. As a politician, he was one of the first to discover and
one of the most skilful in the use of those unworthy arts which have
brought the pursuit of politics into disrepute; but we doubt whether
he could have succeeded upon the broader field of the present day.
Perfectly competent to manage a single city, he would have failed in an
attempt to govern a party. His talents were well defined by Jefferson,
who spoke of him as a great man in little things, and a small man in
great things.

One of the qualities most frequently attributed to Burr is fortitude;
upon this characteristic his biographer frequently dwells. And
indeed, when one reads of the misfortunes which came upon him,--the
disappointments which he encountered,--his poverty abroad,--his terrible
afflictions, and dreary old age,--and how gallantly he bore up under
all,--unblenching, unmurmuring, struggling cheerfully and patiently to
the end,--one cannot repress a feeling of admiration for the courage
which endured so much misery, and of pity for the faults which brought
that misery upon him. Such a feeling would be justified, if we could
believe that fortitude was a positive trait in his character. That is
to say, if he had been properly sensible of the odium which covered
his name, and had really felt the sorrows which visited him,--if these
things had moved him as they do others, and he had still gone on calmly
and bravely to the end, hiding the wounds which tortured him, and giving
no sign of pain,--he would, indeed, have been worthy of admiration;
he would have been a hero. But we think it will appear, upon a closer
examination, that his fortitude was a negative, not a positive quality;
it was insensibility, not courage. He did not suffer, because he did not
feel. The emotional part of our nature he did not possess; at least, it
did not show itself in any of the forms which it usually takes,--in love
of country, or of kindred,--in the opinions which he professed, or in
the subjects which occupied his thoughts. The first act of his manhood
was to join in the resistance of his countrymen to foreign oppression.
But it was no love of liberty that urged him to arms. He went to the
camp at Cambridge from the mere love of adventure. The sacred spirit
which gave nobility to so many,--which transformed mechanics,
tradesmen, village lawyers, and plain country-gentlemen into statesmen,
philosophers, diplomatists, and great captains,--which united the
children of many races into one nation, and roused a simple people to
deeds of lofty heroism,--awakened no enthusiasm in him. He was in the
very flush of youth, yet to his most intimate friends he did not breathe
a word of even moderate interest in the cause for which he had drawn his
sword. His political life was passed during the first twenty years of
our national existence, when men's minds were exercised in the effort to
adapt one government to the various and apparently conflicting interests
of many communities widely separated by distance, climate, and ancient
differences; but these complicated and momentous subjects, so absorbing
to all thoughtful men, never weighed upon his mind. He was in Europe
when Napoleon was at the height of his power, when his armies swept
from the Danube to the Guadalquivir; but that strange story, which the
giddiest school-girl cannot read with divided attention, drew no remark
from his lips. It is said that he was fond of his daughter;--it was a
fondness of the head, not of the heart. He admired her because she was
beautiful and intelligent;--had she been plain and dull, he would not
have cared for her. He made no return for the affection, warm and
generous, which her noble heart lavished upon him, liberal as the
sunlight. Had that earnest love touched, for a single instant, a
responsive chord in his heart, he could never have written those foul,
foul words to make her blush at the record of her father's shame.
Nowhere does he express regret for the misfortunes which he brought
upon others,--the bereaved family of Hamilton,--the ruin of
Blennerhassett,--the victims of his passions and his ambition. He spoke
freely, as if they were indifferent matters, of things which most men
would have concealed. He laughed at his trial,--alluded to Hamilton as
"my friend Hamilton, whom I shot,"--and used to repeat some doggerel
lines upon the duel, which he had seen in a strolling exhibition. It is
said that he was courteous and amiable, and that he did many kind and
generous acts. His courtesy and amiability did not restrain him from
perfidy and debauchery; neither did he ever do a kind act when an unkind
one would have served his purposes better.

As we have seen, Mr. Parton has described Aaron Burr as suited to many
very incongruous conditions in life. If we were to select an epoch in
history and a form of society for which he was best adapted, we should
place him in France daring the Regency and the reign of Louis XV. There,
where a successful _bon-mot_ established a claim to office, and a
well-turned leg did more for a man than the best mind in Europe, Burr
would have risen to distinction. He might have shone in the literary
circles at Sceaux, and in the _petits soupers_ at the Palais Royal.
Among the wits, the _litterateurs_, the fashionable men and women of
the time, he would have found society congenial to his tastes, and
sufficient employment for his talents. He would have exhibited in his
own life and character their vices and their superficial virtues, their
extravagance, libertinism, and impiety, their politeness, courage,
and wit. He might have borne a distinguished part in the petty
statesmanship, the intriguing diplomacy, and the wild speculations of
that period. But here, among the stern rebels of the Revolution and the
practical statesmen of the early Republic, this trickster and shallow
politician, this visionary adventurer and boaster of ladies' favors, was
out of place. He has given to his country nothing except a pernicious
example. The full light, which shows us that his vices may have
been exaggerated, shows likewise that his talents have surely been
overestimated. The contrast which gave fascination to his career is
destroyed; and for a partial vindication of his character he will pay
the penalty which he would most have dreaded, that of being forgotten.

* * * * *

THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.

A lyric conception--my friend, the Poet, said--hits me like a bullet in
the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my cheeks when it
struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. Then comes a creeping
as of centipedes running down the spine,--then a gasp and a great jump
of the heart,--then a sudden flush and a beating in the vessels of the
head,--then a long sigh,--and the poem is written.

It is an impromptu, I suppose, then, if you write it so suddenly,--I
replied.

No,--said he,--far from it. I said written, but I did not say _copied_.
Every such poem has a soul and a body, and it is the body of it, or the
copy, that men read and publishers pay for. The soul of it is born in an
instant in the poet's soul. It comes to him a thought, tangled in the
meshes of a few sweet words,--words that have loved each other from the
cradle of the language, but have never been wedded until now. Whether it
will ever fully embody itself in a bridal train of a dozen stanzas or
not is uncertain; but it exists potentially from the instant that the
poet turns pale with it. It is enough to stun and scare anybody, to have
a hot thought come crashing into his brain, and ploughing up those
parallel ruts where the wagon trains of common ideas were jogging along
in their regular sequences of association. No wonder the ancients made
the poetical impulse wholly external. [Greek: Maenin aeide, Thea],
Goddess,--Muse,--divine afflatus,--something outside always. _I_ never
wrote any verses worth reading. I can't. I am too stupid. If I ever
copied any that were worth reading, I was only a medium.

[I was talking all this time to our boarders, you understand,--telling
them what this poet told me. The company listened rather attentively, I
thought, considering the literary character of the remarks.]

The old gentleman opposite all at once asked me if I ever read anything
better than Pope's "Essay on Man"? Had I ever perused McFingal? He was
fond of poetry when he was a boy,--his mother taught him to say many
little pieces,--he remembered one beautiful hymn;--and the old gentleman
began, in a clear, loud voice, for his years,--

"The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens,"----

He stopped, as if startled by our silence, and a faint flush ran up
beneath the thin white hairs that fell upon his cheek. As I looked
round, I was reminded of a show I once saw at the Museum,--the Sleeping
Beauty, I think they called it. The old man's sudden breaking out in
this way turned every face towards him, and each kept his posture as if
changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or Biddy, is not a foolish fat
scullion to burst out crying for a sentiment. She is of the serviceable,
red-handed, broad-and-high-shouldered type; one of those imported female
servants who are known in public by their amorphous style of person,
their stoop forwards, and a headlong and as it were precipitous
walk,--the waist plunging downwards into the rocking pelvis at every
heavy footfall. Bridget, constituted for action, not for emotion, was
about to deposit a plate heaped with something upon the table, when I
saw the coarse arm stretched by my shoulder arrested,--motionless as the
arm of a terra-cotta caryatid; she couldn't set the plate down while the
old gentleman was speaking!

He was quite silent after this, still wearing the slight flush on his
cheek. Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man because his
forehead is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him when his hand
trembles! If they ever _were_ there, they _are_ there still!

By and by we got talking again.--Does a poet love the verses written
through him, do you think, Sir?--said the divinity-student.

So long as they are warm from his mind, carry any of his animal heat
about them, _I know_ he loves them,--I answered. When they have had time
to cool, he is more indifferent.

A good deal as it is with buckwheat cakes,--said the young fellow whom
they call John.

The last words, only, reached the ear of the economically organized
female in black bombazine.--Buckwheat is skerce and high,--she remarked.
[Must be a poor relation sponging on our landlady,--pays nothing,--so
she must stand by the guns and be ready to repel boarders.]

I liked the turn the conversation had taken, for I had some things I
wanted to say, and so, after waiting a minute, I began again.--I don't
think the poems I read you sometimes can be fairly appreciated, given to
you as they are in the green state.

----You don't know what I mean by the _green state?_ Well, then, I will
tell you. Certain things are good for nothing until they have been kept
a long while; and some are good for nothing until they have been long
kept and _used_. Of the first, wine is the illustrious and immortal
example. Of those which must be kept and used, I will name
three,--meerschaum pipes, violins, and poems. The meerschaum is but
a poor affair until it has burned a thousand offerings to the
cloud-compelling deities. It comes to us without complexion or flavor,
born of the sea-foam, like Aphrodite, but colorless as _pallida Mors_
herself. The fire is lighted in its central shrine, and gradually the
juices which the broad leaves of the Great Vegetable had sucked up from
an acre and curdled into a drachm are diffused through its thirsting
pores. First a discoloration, then a stain, and at last a rich, glowing,
umber tint spreading over the whole surface. Nature true to her old
brown autumnal hue, you see,--as true in the fire of the meerschaum
as in the sunshine of October! And then the cumulative wealth of its
fragrant reminiscences! he who inhales its vapors takes a thousand
whiffs in a single breath; and one cannot touch it without awakening
the old joys that hang around it, as the smell of flowers clings to the
dresses of the daughters of the house of Farina!

[Don't think I use a meerschaum myself, for _I do not_, though I have
owned a calumet since my childhood, which from a naked Pict (of the
Mohawk species) my grandsire won, together with a tomahawk and beaded
knife-sheath; paying for the lot with a bullet-mark on his right
cheek. On the maternal side I inherit the loveliest silver-mounted
tobacco-stopper you ever saw. It is a little box-wood Triton, carved
with charming liveliness and truth; I have often compared it to a figure
in Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea." It came to me in an ancient shagreen
case,--how old it is I do not know,--but it must have been made since
Sir Walter Raleigh's time. If you are curious, you shall see it any
day. Neither will I pretend that I am so unused to the more perishable
smoking contrivance, that a few whiffs would make me feel as if I lay
in a groundswell on the Bay of Biscay. I am not unacquainted with
that fusiform, spiral-wound bundle of chopped stems and miscellaneous
incombustibles, the cigar, so called, of the shops,--which to "draw"
asks the suction-power of a nursling infant Hercules, and to relish, the
leathery palate of an old Silenus. I do not advise you, young man, even
if my illustration strikes your fancy, to consecrate the flower of your
life to painting the bowl of a pipe, for, let me assure you, the stain
of a reverie-breeding narcotic may strike deeper than you think for. I
have seen the green leaf of early promise grow brown before its time
under such Nicotian regimen, and thought the umbered meerschaum was
dearly bought at the cost of a brain enfeebled and a will enslaved.]

Violins, too,--the sweet old Amati!--the divine Straduarius! Played on
by ancient maestros until the bow-hand lost its power and the flying
fingers stiffened. Bequeathed to the passionate young enthusiast, who
made it whisper his hidden love, and cry his inarticulate longings, and
scream his untold agonies, and wail his monotonous despair. Passed from
his dying hand to the cold _virtuoso_, who let it slumber in its case
for a generation, till, when his hoard was broken up, it came forth once
more and rode the stormy symphonies of royal orchestras, beneath
the rushing bow of their lord and leader. Into lonely prisons with
improvident artists; into convents from which arose, day and night, the
holy hymns with which its tones were blended; and back again to orgies
in which it learned to howl and laugh as if a legion of devils were shut
up in it; then again to the gentle _dilettante_ who calmed it down with
easy melodies until it answered him softly as in the days of the old
_maestros_. And so given into our hands, its pores all full of music;
stained, like the meerschaum, through and through, with the concentrated
hue and sweetness of all the harmonies that have kindled and faded on
its strings.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19