Part 9 (1/2)

ECCENTRICITY (1863)

KNOWLEDGE of hu and end of political education, but several years of arduous study in the neighborhood of Westlish huland In Paris, such a habit stood in one's way; in America, it roused all the instincts of native jealousy The English mind was one-sided, eccentric, systeical The less one knew of it, the better

This heresy, which scarcely would have been allowed to penetrate a Boston mind--it would, indeed, have been shut out by instinct as a rather foolish exaggeration--rested on an experience which Henry Adaht to think conclusive--for him That it should be conclusive for any one else never occurred to hi anybody else For hiot, the better!

For several years, under the keenest incitelish mind in contact with itself and other minds Especially with the A because the limits and defects of the American mind were one of the favorite topics of the European From the old-world point of view, the A-machine which could work only on a fixed line The Aht exasperate a pine forest The English onistic, unreasonable, perhaps hostile, but recognized it as at least a thought The Aht at all; it was a convention, superficial, narrow, and ignorant; ainstrulish themselves hardly conceived that their mind was either economical, sharp, or direct; but the defect that most struck an American was its enormous waste in eccentricity Ay, and applied it with close econolish society was eccentric by law and for sake of the eccentricity itself

The colish club or dinner-table was that So-and-So ”is quite uished him from his fellows; and when applied to a public man, like Gladstone, it was qualified by epithets eneral as to becolish society as well as its chief terror

The Ahted in Thackeray as a satirist, but Thackeray quite justly maintained that he was not a satirist at all, and that his pictures of English society were exact and good-natured

The American, who could not believe it, fell back on dickens, who, at all events, had the vice of exaggeration to extravagance, but dickens's English audience thought the exaggeration rather in manner or style, than in types Mr Gladstone hihed till his face was distorted--not because Dundreary was exaggerated, but because he was ridiculously like the types that Gladstone had seen--or ht have seen--in any club in Pall Mall

Society swarerated characters; it contained little else

Often this eccentricity bore all the th; perhaps it was actual exuberance of force, a birthht so The Bostonian called it national character--native vigor--robustness--honesty--courage He respected and feared it

British self-assertion, bluff, brutal, blunt as it was, see than the acuteness of the Yankee or the polish of the Parisian Perhaps he was right

These questions of taste, of feeling, of inheritance, need no settlement Every one carries his own inch-rule of taste, and a it, triuht, the cleverest Englishmen held that the national eccentricity needed correction, and were beginning to correct it The savage satires of dickens and the gentler ridicule of Matthew Arnold against the British middle class were but a part of the rebellion, for the hbors in the eyes of an American in 1863; they were even a very little better in the sense that one could appeal to their interests, while a university u American afford to borrow ideas

The private secretary, like every other Bostonian, began by regarding British eccentricity as a force Contact with it, in the shape of Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone, made him hesitate; he saw his own national type--his father, Weed, Evarts, for instance--deal with the British, and show itself certainly not the weaker; certainly soh he were, he could hardly be biassed to such a degree as to mistake the effects of force on others, and while--labor as he ht--Earl Russell and his state papers seemed weak to a secretary, he could not see that they seeht be dishonest or he ht be brutal or , in either case, it was not, nor did it seelishmen

Eccentricity was not always a force; A whether it was always a weakness Evidently, on the hustings or in Parlia eccentricities, eccentricity was at home; but in private society the question was not easy to answer That English society was infinitelybecause of its eccentricities, no one denied Barring the atrocious insolence and brutality which Englishlishwoners--English society was much more easy and tolerant than American One must expect to be treated with exquisite courtesy this week and be totally forgotten the next, but this was the way of the world, and education consisted in learning to turn one's back on others with the sa the ti man about toho had little vanity to smart, and who, in his own country, would have found hi to complain of No one was ever brutal to him On the contrary, he was much better treated than ever he was likely to be in Boston--let alone New York or Washi+ngton--and if his reception varied inconceivably between extrelect, it , at horiefs or disappointments did he labor over this part of the social problelish, and the further it went, the less it promised

By natural affinity the social eccentrics colish n--and it felt particular confidence in the Southern Confederacy because of its colish blood--which came nearer ideal eccentricity than could be reached by Poles, Hungarians, Italians or Frenchlish eccentrics rushed into the ranks of rebel sy few but well-balanced minds to attach thelish leaders on the Northern side were marked eccentrics William E Forster was a practical, hard-headed Yorkshi+re arrange the one-sided conditions of his life, was reer in his expressions than either of them, but with all his self-assertion he stuck to his point, and his point was practical He did not, like Gladstone, box the coht; ”furiously earnest,” as Monckton Milnes said, ”on both sides of every question”; he was rather, on the whole, a consistent conservative of the old Commonwealth type, and seldom had to defend inconsistencies Monckton Milnes hiarded as an eccentric, chiefly by those who did not know him, but his fancies and hobbies were only ideas a little in advance of the time; his manner was eccentric, but not his e of his poetry None of theation was troubled very little, if at all, by indiscretions, extravagances, or contradictions aely judicious, practical, well considered, and almost too cautious The ”cranks” were all rebels, and the list was portentous Perhaps it ham, who had the audacity to appear at a July 4th reception at the Legation, led by Joe Parkes, and claim his old credit as ”Attorney General to Mr Madison” The Church was rebel, but the dissenters were mostly with the Union The universities were rebel, but the university men who enjoyed e Cornewall Lewis, Lord Stanley, Sir George Grey--took infinite pains to be neutral for fear of being thought eccentric ToPost, and the Standard, a vast lish people seemed to follow the professional eccentrics; even the emotional philanthropists took that direction; Lord Shaftesbury and Carlyle, Fowell Buxton, and Gladstone, threw their sympathies on the side which they should naturally have opposed, and did so for no reason except their eccentricity; but the ”canny” Scots and Yorkshi+reth The proof of it was the ement of the rebel interests No doubt the first cause of this trouble lay in the Richmond Government itself No one understood why Jefferson Davis chose Mr Mason as his agent for London at the saood a choice as Mr Slidell for Paris The Confederacy had plenty of excellent men to send to London, but feere less fitted than Mason Possibly Mason had a certain a else, and in London society he counted reat opportunity; he ured as a new Benjaht have roared as lion of the season and made the social path of the American Minister almost impassable; but Mr Adams had his usual luck in enemies, ere always his most valuable allies if his friends only let thereatest diplomatic triumph He had his collision with Palmerston; he drove Russell off the field; he swept the board before cockburn; he overbore Slidell; but he never lifted a finger against Mason, who became his bulwark of defence

Possibly Jefferson Davis and Mr Mason shared two defects in coht have led them into this serious e of the world, and both must have been unconscious of humor Yet at the same time with Mason, President Davis sent out Slidell to France and Mr La search for the education he never found, Adaton with Larown to be one of the calmest, most reasonable and most amiable Union men in the United States, and quite unusual in social charm In 1860 he passed for the worst of Southern fire-eaters, but he was an eccentric by environment, not by nature; above all his Southern eccentricities, he had tact and humor; and perhaps this was a reason why Mr Davis sent him abroad with the others, on a futileHe would have done better in London, in place of Mason London society would have delighted in him; his stories would have won success; his manners would have made him loved; his oratory would have swept every audience; even Monckton Milnes could never have resisted the te him to breakfast between Lord Shaftesbury and the Bishop of Oxford

Lamar liked to talk of his brief career in diplomacy, but he never spoke of Mason He never alluded to Confederate ement or criticised Jefferson Davis's adlish allies At that land were full of confidence, and felt strong enough to challenge the Aation to a show of power

They knew better than the Legation what they could depend upon: that the law officers and commissioners of customs at Liverpool dared not prosecute the ironclad shi+ps; that Palnize the Confederacy; that the Emperor Napoleon would offer them every inducement to do it In a manner they owned Liverpool and especially the fir their shi+ps The political member of the Laird firm was Lindsay, about who--rams, cruisers, munitions, and Confederate loan; social introductions and parlianity, clailand's navy; and public opinion, in the summer of 1863, still inclined towards them

Never was there a moment when eccentricity, if it were a force, should have had ers ht so, for they adopted or accepted as their champion an eccentric of eccentrics; a type of 1820; a sort of Broughament and worse temper Mr Roebuck had been a tribune of the people, and, like tribunes of rown fatuous He was regarded by the friends of the Union as rather a coh at--with a bitter tongue and a mind enfeebled even otisland they could have found no opponent better fitted to give away his own case No American man of business would have paid him attention; yet

the Lairds, who certainly knew their own affairs best, let Roebuck represent thee of their interests

With Roebuck's doings, the private secretary had no concern except that the Minister sent him down to the House of Commons on June 30, 1863, to report the result of Roebuck's ation felt no anxiety, having Vicksburg already in its pocket, and Bright and Forster to say so; but the private secretary went down and was adreat content, while John Bright, with astonishi+ng force, caught and shook and tossed Roebuck, as a big mastiff shakes a wiry, ill-conditioned, toothless, bad-tempered Yorkshi+re terrier The private secretary felt an artistic sympathy with Roebuck, for, froht in a friendly as apt to shake him too, and he kneas done The manner counted for , but the result was not in doubt

All the more sharply he was excited, near the year 1879, in Washi+ngton, by hearing Lain a story after dinner, which, little by little, beca the scene in the House of Coan with La at all, and his consequent detention in Paris waiting instructions The nize the Confederacy was about to be made, and, in prospect of the debate, Mr Lindsay collected a party at his villa on the Thaents into relations with Roebuck Laeneral sort, such as is the usual object or resource of the English Sunday, finding hi interest, bethought hiht and asked Roebuck whether he expected Bright to take part in the debate: ”No, sir!” said Roebuck sententiously; ”Bright and I have met before It was the old story--the story of the sword-fish and the whale! NO, sir! Mr

Bright will not cross swords with ain!”

Thus assured, Lamar ith the , and was placed under the gallery, on the right, where he listened to Roebuck and followed the debate with such enjoyment as an experienced debater feels in these contests, until, as he said, he becaRoebuck thehe ever witnessed, ”until at last,”

concluded La the worst of it”

Laainst hiainst Roebuck; but such jokes must have been unpleasantly coents They were surrounded by cranks of the worst English species, who distorted their natural eccentricities and perverted their judgment Roebuck may have been an extree, yet this did not prevent the Lairds fro hiland, to extreme confidence; sometimes it seemed a recommendation; and unless it caused financial loss, it rather helped popularity