Chapter III: Preface (3)

The student who reads Gibbon will doubtless be influenced by his many tributes to Tacitus and will master the Roman historian. I shall let Macaulay furnish the warrant for a close study of Thucydides. "This day," Macaulay said, when in his thirty-fifth year, "I finished Thucydides after reading him with inexpressible interest and admiration. He is the greatest historian that ever lived." Again during the same year he wrote: "What are all the Roman historians to the great Athenian? I do assure you there is no prose composition in the world, not even the oration on the Crown, which I place so high as the seventh book of Thucydides. It is the _ne plus ultra_ of human art. I was delighted to find in Gray's letters the other day this query to Wharton: 'The retreat from Syracuse--is or is it not the finest thing you ever read in your life?' ... Most people read all the Greek they ever read before they are five and twenty. They never find time for such studies afterwards until they are in the decline of life; and then their knowledge of the language is in great measure lost, and cannot easily be recovered. Accordingly, almost all the ideas that people have of Greek literature are ideas formed while they were still very young. A young man, whatever his genius may be, is no judge of such a writer as Thucydides. I had no high opinion of him ten years ago. I have now been reading him with a mind accustomed to historical researches and to political affairs and I am astonished at my own former blindness and at his greatness."[19]

I have borrowed John Morley's words, speaking of Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle as "three great born men of letters." Our student cannot therefore afford to miss a knowledge of Macaulay's History, but the Essays, except perhaps three or four of the latest ones, need not be read. In a preface to the authorized edition of the Essays, Macaulay wrote that he was "sensible of their defects," deemed them "imperfect pieces," and did not think that they were "worthy of a permanent place in English literature." For instance, his essay on Milton contained scarcely a paragraph which his matured judgment approved. Macaulay's peculiar faults are emphasized in his Essays and much of the harsh criticism which he has received comes from the glaring defects of these earlier productions. His history, however, is a great book, shows extensive research, a sane method and an excellent power of narration; and when he is a partisan, he is so honest and transparent that the effect of his partiality is neither enduring nor mischievous.

I must say further to the student: read either Carlyle's "French Revolution" or his "Frederick the Great," I care not which, although it is well worth one's while to read both. If your friends who maintain that history is a science convince you that the "French Revolution" is not history, as perhaps they may, read it as a narrative poem. Truly Carlyle spoke rather like a poet than a historian when he wrote to his wife (in his forty-first year): "A hundred pages more and this cursed book is flung out of me. I mean to write with force of fire till that consummation; above all with the speed of fire.... It all stands pretty fair in my head, nor do I mean to investigate much more about it, but to splash down what I know in large masses of colors, that it may look like a smoke-and-flame conflagration in the distance, which it is."[20] It was Carlyle's custom to work all of the morning and take a solitary walk in Hyde Park in the afternoon, when looking upon the gay scene, the display of wealth and fashion, "seeing," as he said, "all the carriages dash hither and thither and so many human bipeds cheerily hurrying along," he said to himself: "There you go, brothers, in your gilt carriages and prosperities, better or worse, and make an extreme bother and confusion, the devil very largely in it.... Not one of you could do what I am doing, and it concerns you too, if you did but know it."[21] When the book was done he wrote to his brother, "It is a wild, savage book, itself a kind of French Revolution."[22] From its somewhat obscure style it requires a slow perusal and careful study, but this serves all the more to fix it in the memory causing it to remain an abiding influence.

There are eight volumes of "Frederick the Great," containing, according to Barrett Wendell's computation, over one million words; and this eighteenth-century tale, with its large number of great and little characters, its "mass of living facts" impressed Wendell chiefly with its unity. "Whatever else Carlyle was," he wrote, "the unity of this enormous book proves him, when he chose to be, a Titanic artist."[23] Only those who have striven for unity in a narrative can appreciate the tribute contained in these words. It was a struggle, too, for Carlyle. Fifty-six years old when he conceived the idea of Frederick, his nervousness and irritability were a constant torment to himself and his devoted wife. Many entries in his journal tell of his "dismal continual wrestle with Friedrich,"[24] perhaps the most characteristic of which is this: "My Frederick looks as if it would never take shape in me; in fact the problem is to burn away the immense dungheap of the eighteenth century, with its ghastly cants, foul, blind sensualities, cruelties, and _inanity_ now fallen _putrid_, rotting inevitably towards annihilation; to destroy and extinguish all that, having got to know it, and to know that it must be rejected for evermore; after which the perennial portion, pretty much Friedrich and Voltaire so far as I can see, may remain conspicuous and capable of being delineated."[25]

The student, who has become acquainted with the works of Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle, will wish to know something of the men themselves and this curiosity may be easily and delightfully gratified. The autobiographies of Gibbon, the Life of Macaulay by Sir George Trevelyan, the History of Carlyle's Life by Froude, present the personality of these historians in a vivid manner. Gibbon has himself told of all his own faults and Froude has omitted none of Carlyle's, so that these two books are useful aids in a study of human nature, in which respect they are real adjuncts of Boswell's Johnson. Gibbon, Carlyle, and Macaulay had an insatiable love of reading; in their solitary hours they were seldom without books in their hands. Valuable instruction may be derived from a study of their lives from their suggestions of books, helpful in the development of a historian. They knew how to employ their odd moments, and Gibbon and Macaulay were adepts in the art of desultory reading. Sainte-Beuve makes a plea for desultory reading in instancing Tocqueville's lack of it, so that he failed to illustrate and animate his pages with its fruits, the result being, in the long run, great monotony.[26] As a relief to the tired brain, without a complete loss of time, the reading at hazard, even browsing in a library, has its place in the equipment of a historian. One of the most striking examples of self-education in literature is Carlyle's seven years, from the age of thirty-two to thirty-nine, passed at Craigenputtock where his native inclination was enforced by his physical surroundings. Craigenputtock, wrote Froude, is "the dreariest spot in all the British dominions. The nearest cottage is more than a mile from it; the elevation, 700 feet above the sea, stunts the trees and limits the garden produce to the hardiest vegetables. The house is gaunt and hungry-looking."[27] The place realized Tennyson's words, "O, the dreary, dreary moorland." Here Carlyle read books, gave himself over to silent meditation, and wrote for his bread, although a man who possessed an adequate income could not have been more independent in thought than he was, or more averse to writing to the order of editors of reviews and magazines. With no outside distractions, books were his companions as well as his friends. As you read Froude's intimate biography, it comes upon you, as you consider Carlyle's life in London, what a tremendous intellectual stride he had made while living in this dreary solitude of Craigenputtock. It was there that he continued his development under the intellectual influence of Goethe, wrote "Sartor Resartus" and conceived the idea of writing the story of the French Revolution. Those seven years, as you trace their influence during the rest of his life, will ever be a tribute to the concentrated, bookish labors of bookish men.

It is often said that some practical experience in life is necessary for the training of a historian; that only thus can he arrive at a knowledge of human nature and become a judge of character; that, while the theory is occasionally advanced that history is a series of movements which may be described without taking individuals into account, as a matter of fact, one cannot go far on this hypothesis without running up against the truth that movements have motors and the motors are men. Hence we are to believe the dictum that the historian needs that knowledge of men which is to be obtained only by practical dealings with them. It is true that Gibbon's service in the Hampshire militia and his membership in the House of Commons were of benefit to the historian of the Roman Empire. Grote's business life, Macaulay's administrative work in India, and the parliamentary experience of both were undoubtedly of value to their work as historians, but there are excellent historians who have never had any such training. Carlyle is an example, and Samuel R. Gardiner is another. Curiously enough, Gardiner, who was a pure product of the university and the library, has expressed sounder judgments on many of the prominent men of the seventeenth century than Macaulay. I am not aware that there is in historical literature any other such striking contrast as this, for it is difficult to draw the line closely between the historian and the man of affairs, but Gardiner's example is strengthened in other historians' lives sufficiently to warrant the statement that the historian need not be a man of the world. Books are written by men and treat of the thoughts and actions of men and a good study may be made of human character without going beyond the walls of a library.

Drawing upon my individual experience again I feel that the two authors who have helped me most in this study of human character are Shakespeare and Homer. I do not mean that in the modern world we meet Hamlet, Iago, Macbeth, and Shylock, but when we perceive "the native hue of resolution sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," when we come in contact with the treachery of a seeming friend, with unholy ambition and insensate greed, we are better able to interpret them on the page of history from having grasped the lessons of Shakespeare to mankind. A constant reading of Shakespeare will show us unchanging passions and feelings; and we need not make literal contrasts, as did the British matron who remarked of "Antony and Cleopatra" that it was "so unlike the home life of our beloved queen." Bernard Shaw, who has said much in detraction of Shakespeare, writes in one of his admiring moods, "that the imaginary scenes and people he has created become more real to us than our actual life--at least until our knowledge and grip of actual life begins to deepen and glow beyond the common. When I was twenty," Shaw continues, "I knew everybody in Shakespeare from Hamlet to Abhorson, much more intimately than I knew my living contemporaries; and to this day, if the name of Pistol or Polonius catches my eye in a newspaper, I turn to the passage with curiosity."[28]

Homer's character of Ulysses is a link between the ancient and the modern world. One feels that Ulysses would be at home in the twentieth century and would adapt himself to the conditions of modern political life. Perhaps, indeed, he would have preferred to his militant age our industrial one where prizes are often won by craft and persuasive eloquence rather than by strength of arm. The story of Ulysses is a signal lesson in the study of human character, and receives a luminous commentary in Shakespeare's adaptation of it. The advice which Ulysses gives to Achilles[29] is a piece of worldly wisdom and may well be acted on by those who desire advancement in life and are little scrupulous in regard to means. The first part of Goethe's "Faust" is another book which has profoundly affected my view of life. I read it first when seventeen years old and have continually re-read it; and, while I fail to comprehend it wholly, and, although it does not give me the same kind of knowledge of human character that I derive from Shakespeare's plays, I carry away from it abiding impressions from the contact that it affords with one of the greatest of human minds.

All this counsel of mine, as to the reading of the embryo historian is, of course, merely supplementary, and does not pretend to be exhaustive. I am assuming that during his undergraduate and graduate course the student has been advised to read, either wholly or in part, most of the English, German, and French scientific historians of the past fifty years, and that he has become acquainted in a greater or less degree with all the eminent American historians. My own experience has been that a thorough knowledge of one book of an author is better than a superficial acquaintance with all of his works. The only book of Francis Parkman's which I have read is his "Montcalm and Wolfe," parts of which I have gone over again and again. One chapter, pervaded with the scenery of the place, I have read on Lake George, three others more than once at Quebec, and I feel that I know Parkman's method as well as if I had skimmed all his volumes. But I believe I was careful in my selection, for in his own estimation, and in that of the general public, "Montcalm and Wolfe" is his best work. So with Motley, I have read nothing but the "Dutch Republic," but that I have read through twice carefully. I will not say that it is the most accurate of his works, but it is probably the most interesting and shows his graphic and dashing style at its best. An admirer of Stubbs told me that his "Lectures and Addresses on Mediaeval and Modern History" would give me a good idea of his scholarship and literary manner and that I need not tackle his magnum opus. But those lectures gave me a taste for more and, undeterred by the remark of still another admirer that nobody ever read his "Constitutional History" through, I did read one volume with interest and profit, and I hope at some future time to read the other two. On the other hand, I have read everything that Samuel R. Gardiner has written except "What Gunpowder Plot Was." Readers differ. There are fast readers who have the faculty of getting just what they want out of a book in a brief time and they retain the thing which they have sought. Assuredly I envy men that power. For myself, I have never found any royal road to learning, have been a slow reader, and needed a re-reading, sometimes more than one, to acquire any degree of mastery of a book. Macaulay used to read his favorite Greek and Latin classics over and over again and presumably always with care, but modern books he turned off with extraordinary speed. Of Buckle's large volume of the "History of Civilization" Macaulay wrote in his journal: "I read Buckle's book all day, and got to the end, skipping, of course. A man of talent and of a good deal of reading, but paradoxical and incoherent."[30] John Fiske, I believe, was a slow reader, but he had such a remarkable power of concentration that what he read once was his own. Of this I can give a notable instance. At a meeting in Boston a number of years ago of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Colonel William R. Livermore read a learned and interesting paper on Napoleon's Campaigns in Northern Italy, and a few men, among whom were Fiske and John C. Ropes, remained after supper to discuss the paper. The discussion went well into details and was technical. Fiske had as much to say as any one and met the military critics on their own ground, holding his own in this interchange of expert opinions. As we returned to Cambridge together, I expressed my surprise at his wide technical knowledge. "It is all due to one book," he said. "A few summers ago I had occasion to read Sir Edward Hamley's 'Operations of War' and for some reason or other everything in it seemed to sink into my mind and to be there retained, ready for use, as was the case to-night with his references to the Northern Italian campaigns."

Outside of ordinary historical reading, a book occurs to me which is well worth a historian's mastery. I am assuming that our hypothetical student has read Goethe's "Faust," "Werther," and "Wilhelm Meister," and desires to know something of the personality of this great writer. He should, therefore, read Eckermann's "Conversations with Goethe," in which he will find a body of profitable literary criticism, given out in a familiar way by the most celebrated man then living. The talks began when he was seventy-three and continued until near his death, ten years later; they reveal his maturity of judgment. Greek, Roman, German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian authors are taken up from time to time and discussed with clearness and appreciation, running sometimes to enthusiasm. As a guide to the best reading extant up to 1832 I know nothing better. Eckermann is inferior as a biographer to Boswell, and his book is neither so interesting nor amusing; but Goethe was far greater than Johnson, and his talk is cosmopolitan and broad, while Johnson's is apt to be insular and narrow. "One should not study contemporaries and competitors," Goethe said, "but the great men of antiquity, whose works have for centuries received equal homage and consideration.... Let us study Moliere, let us study Shakespeare, but above all things, the old Greeks and always the Greeks."[31] Here is an opinion I like to dwell upon: "He who will work aright must never rail, must not trouble himself at all about what is ill done, but only to do well himself. For the great point is, not to pull down, but to build up and in this humanity finds pure joy."[32] It is well worth our while to listen to a man so great as to be free from envy and jealousy, but this was a lesson Carlyle could not learn from his revered master. It is undoubtedly his broad mind in connection with his wide knowledge which induced Sainte-Beuve to write that Goethe is "the greatest of modern critics and of critics of all time."[33]

All of the conversations did not run upon literature and writers. Although Goethe never visited either Paris or London, and resided for a good part of his life in the little city of Weimar, he kept abreast of the world's progress through books, newspapers, and conversations with visiting strangers. No statesman or man of business could have had a wider outlook than Goethe, when on February 21, 1827, he thus spoke: "I should wish to see England in possession of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez.... And it may be foreseen that the United States, with its decided predilection to the West will, in thirty or forty years, have occupied and peopled the large tract of land beyond the Rocky Mountains. It may furthermore be foreseen that along the whole coast of the Pacific Ocean where nature has already formed the most capacious and secure harbors, important commercial towns will gradually arise, for the furtherance of a great intercourse between China and the East Indies and the United States. In such a case, it would not only be desirable, but almost necessary, that a more rapid communication should be maintained between the eastern and western shores of North America, both by merchant ships and men-of-war than has hitherto been possible with the tedious, disagreeable, and expensive voyage around Cape Horn.... It is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a passage from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and I am certain that they will do it. Would that I might live to see it!"[34]

"Eckermann's book," wrote Sainte-Beuve, "is the best biography of Goethe; that of Lewes, for the facts; that of Eckermann, for the portrait from the inside and the physiognomy. The soul of a great man breathes in it."[35]

I have had frequent occasion to speak of Sainte-Beuve and I cannot recommend our student too strongly to read from time to time some of his critical essays. His best work is contained in the fifteen volumes of "Causeries du Lundi" and in the thirteen volumes of "Nouveaux Lundis" which were articles written for the daily newspapers, the _Constitutionnel_, the _Moniteur_, and the _Temps_, when, between the ages of forty-five and sixty-five, he was at the maturity of his powers. Considering the very high quality of the work, the quantity is enormous, and makes us call to mind the remark of Goethe that "genius and fecundity are very closely allied." Excluding Goethe, we may safely, I think, call Sainte-Beuve the greatest of modern critics, and there is enough of resemblance between historical and literary criticism to warrant a study by the historian of these remarkable essays. "The root of everything in his criticism," wrote Matthew Arnold, "is his single-hearted devotion to truth. What he called 'fictions' in literature, in politics, in religion, were not allowed to influence him." And Sainte-Beuve himself has said, "I am accustomed incessantly to call my judgments in question anew and to recast my opinions the moment I suspect them to be without validity."[36] The writer who conforms to such a high standard is an excellent guide for the historian and no one who has made a study of these Causeries can help feeling their spirit of candor and being inspired to the attempt to realize so high an ideal.

Sainte-Beuve's essays deal almost entirely with French literature and history, which were the subjects he knew best. It is very desirable for us Anglo-Saxons to broaden our minds and soften our prejudices by excursions outside of our own literature and history, and with Goethe for our guide in Germany, we can do no better than to accept Sainte-Beuve for France. Brunetiere wrote that the four literary men of France in the nineteenth century who had exercised the most profound influence were Sainte-Beuve, Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Auguste Comte.[37] I have already recommended Balzac, who portrays the life of the nineteenth century; and Sainte-Beuve, in developing the thought of the same period, gives us a history of French literature and society. Moreover, his volumes are valuable to one who is studying human character by the means of books. "Sainte-Beuve had," wrote Henry James, "two passions which are commonly assumed to exclude each other, the passion for scholarship and the passion for life. He valued life and literature equally for the light they threw on each other; to his mind, one implied the other; he was unable to conceive of them apart."[38]

Supposing the student to have devoted five years to this general preparation and to have arrived at the age of thirty, which Motley, in similar advice to an aspiring historian, fixed as the earliest age at which one should devote himself to his special work, he is ready to choose a period and write a history, if indeed his period has not already suggested itself during his years of general preparation. At all events it is doubtless that his own predilection will fix his country and epoch and the only counsel I have to offer is to select an interesting period. As to this, opinions will differ; but I would say for example that the attractive parts of German history are the Reformation, the Thirty Years' War, the epoch of Frederick the Great, and the unification of Germany which we have witnessed in our own day. The French Revolution is to me the most striking period in modern annals, whilst the history of the Directory is dull, relieved only by the exploits of Napoleon; but when Napoleon becomes the chief officer of state, interest revives and we follow with unflagging attention the story of this master of men, for which there is a superabundance of material, in striking contrast with the little that is known about his Titanic predecessors, Alexander and Caesar, in the accounts of whose careers conjecture must so frequently come to the aid of facts to construct a continuous story. The Restoration and the reign of Louis Philippe would for me be dull periods were they not illumined by the novels of Balzac; but from the Revolution of 1848 to the fall of the Second Empire and the Commune, a wonderful drama was enacted. In our own history the Revolutionary War, the framing of the Constitution, and Washington's administrations seem to me replete with interest which is somewhat lacking for the period between Washington and the slavery conflict. "As to special history," wrote Motley to the aspiring historian, "I should be inclined rather to direct your attention to that of the last three and a half centuries."[39] Discussing the subject before the advanced historical students of Harvard a number of years ago, I gave an extension to Motley's counsel by saying that ancient history had better be left to the Germans. I was fresh from reading Holm's History of Greece and was impressed with his vast learning, elaboration of detail, and exhaustive treatment of every subject which seemed to me to require a steady application and patience, hardly consonant with the American character. But within the past five years Ferrero, an Italian, has demonstrated that others besides Germans are equal to the work by writing an interesting history of Rome, which intelligent men and scholars discuss in the same breath with Mommsen's. Courageously adopting the title "Grandeur and Decadence of Rome" which suggests that of Montesquieu, Ferrero has gleaned the well-reaped field from the appearance of Julius Caesar to the reign of Augustus[40] in a manner to attract the attention of the reading public in Italy, France, England, and the United States. There is no reason why an American should not have done the same. "All history is public property," wrote Motley in the letter previously referred to. "All history may be rewritten and it is impossible that with exhaustive research and deep reflection you should not be able to produce something new and valuable on almost any subject."[41]

After the student has chosen his period I have little advice to offer him beyond what I have previously given in two formal addresses before the American Historical Association, but a few additional words may be useful. You will evolve your own method by practice and by comparison with the methods of other historians. "Follow your own star." If you feel impelled to praise or blame as do the older historians, if it is forced upon you that your subject demands such treatment, proceed fearlessly, so that you do nothing for effect, so that you do not sacrifice the least particle of truth for a telling statement. If, however, you fall naturally into the rigorously judicial method of Gardiner you may feel your position sure. It is well, as the scientific historians warn you, to be suspicious of interesting things, but, on the other hand, every interesting incident is not necessarily untrue. If you have made a conscientious search for historical material and use it with scrupulous honesty, have no fear that you will transgress any reasonable canon of historical writing.

An obvious question to be put to a historian is, What plan do you follow in making notes of your reading? Langlois, an experienced teacher and tried scholar, in his introduction to the "Study of History," condemns the natural impulse to set them down in notebooks in the order in which one's authorities are studied, and says, "Every one admits nowadays that it is advisable to collect materials on separate cards or slips of paper,"[42] arranging them by a systematic classification of subjects. This is a case in point where writers will, I think, learn best from their own experience. I have made my notes mainly in notebooks on the plan which Langlois condemns, but by colored pencil-marks of emphasis and summary, I keep before me the prominent facts which I wish to combine; and I have found this, on the whole, better than the card system. For I have aimed to study my authorities in a logical succession. First I go over the period in some general history, if one is to be had; then I read very carefully my original authorities in the order of their estimated importance, making copious excerpts. Afterwards I skim my second-hand materials. Now I maintain that it is logical and natural to have the extracts before me in the order of my study. When unusually careful and critical treatment has been required, I have drawn off my memoranda from the notebooks to cards, classifying them according to subjects. Such a method enables me to digest thoroughly my materials, but in the main I find that a frequent re-perusal of my notes answers fully as well and is an economy of time.

Carlyle, in answer to an inquiry regarding his own procedure, has gone to the heart of the matter. "I go into the business," he said, "with all the intelligence, patience, silence, and other gifts and virtues that I have ... and on the whole try to keep the whole matter simmering in the _living_ mind and memory rather than laid up in paper bundles or otherwise laid up in the inert way. For this certainly turns out to be a truth; only what you at last _have living_ in your own memory and heart is worth putting down to be printed; this alone has much chance to get into the living heart and memory of other men. And here indeed, I believe, is the essence of all the rules I have ever been able to devise for myself. I have tried various schemes of arrangement and artificial helps to remembrance," but the gist of the matter is, "to keep the thing you are elaborating as much as possible actually _in_ your own living mind; in order that this same mind, as much awake as possible, may have a chance to make something of it!"[43]

The objection may be made to my discourse that I have considered our student as possessing the purse of Fortunatus and have lost sight of Herbert Spencer's doctrine that a very important part of education is to fit a man to acquire the means of living. I may reply that there are a number of Harvard students who will not have to work for their bread and whose parents would be glad to have them follow the course that I have recommended. It is not too much to hope, therefore, that among these there are, to use Huxley's words, "glorious sports of nature" who will not be "corrupted by luxury" but will become industrious historians. To others who are not so fortunately situated, I cannot recommend the profession of historian as a means of gaining a livelihood. Bancroft and Parkman, who had a good deal of popularity, spent more money in the collection and copying of documents than they ever received as income from their histories. A young friend of mine, at the outset of his career and with his living in part to be earned, went for advice to Carl Schurz, who was very fond of him. "What is your aim?" asked Mr. Schurz. "I purpose being a historian," was the reply. "Aha!" laughed Schurz, "you are adopting an aristocratic profession, one which requires a rent-roll." Every aspiring historian has, I suppose, dreamed of that check of L20,000, which Macaulay received as royalty on his history for its sale during the year 1856,[44] but no such dream has since been realized.

Teaching and writing are allied pursuits. And the teacher helps the writer, especially in history, through the necessary elaboration and digestion of materials. Much excellent history is given to the world by college professors. Law and medicine are too exacting professions with too large a literature of their own to leave any leisure for historical investigation. If one has the opportunity to get a good start, or, in the talk of the day, the right sort of a "pull," I can recommend business as a means of gaining a competence which shall enable one to devote one's whole time to a favorite pursuit. Grote was a banker until he reached the age of forty-nine when he retired from the banking house and began the composition of the first volume of his history. Henry C. Lea was in the active publishing business until he was fifty-five, and as I have already frequently referred to my own personal experience, I may add that I was immersed in business between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-seven. After three years of general and special preparation I began my writing at forty. The business man has many free evenings and many journeys by rail, as well as a summer vacation, when devotion to a line of study may constitute a valuable recreation. Much may be done in odd hours in the way of preparation for historical work, and a business life is an excellent school for the study of human character.

[3] Conversations of Goethe, Eng. trans., 230.

[4] Trevelyan, I, 86.

[5] Life of Gladstone, II, 181.

[6] III, 51.

[7] Talks with Emerson, 23.

[8] My Vol. II, 142, n. 2.

[9] Curtis, I, 250.

[10] _Ibid._, I, 252.

[11] Miscellanies, I, 275.

[12] Exam. of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, II, 310, 311.

[13] Gladstone, I, 195.

[14] p. 142.

[15] Trevelyan, I, 91.

[16] Froude, II, 317.

[17] Nichol, 20.

[18] Talks with Emerson, 162.

[19] Trevelyan, I, 379, 387, 409.

[20] Froude, III, 64, 65.

[21] _Ibid._, II, 385; III, 59.

[22] _Ibid._, III, 73.

[23] English Composition, 158.

[24] Letters of Jane Carlyle, II, 31.

[25] Froude's Carlyle, IV, 125.

[26] Causeries du Lundi, XV, 95.

[27] Froude, II, 19.

[28] Dramatic Opinions, II, 53.

[29] "Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:" etc.

[30] Trevelyan, II, 388, n.

[31] Eng. trans., 236.

[32] _Ibid._, 115.

[33] Nouveaux Lundis, III, 265.

[34] Eng. trans., 222.

[35] Nouveaux Lundis, III, 328.

[36] Enc. Brit.

[37] Balzac, 309.

[38] Brander Matthews, _Cent. Mag._, 1901.

[39] Letter of April 4, 1864, _Harper's Mag._, June, 1889.

[40] I speak of the first four volumes.

[41] _L.c._

[42] p. 103.

[43] New Letters, II, 11.

[44] Life, II, 345.

NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES

A paper read before the American Historical Association in Washington on December 29, 1908; printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1909.

NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES

The impulse of an American writer in justifying the use of newspapers as historical materials is to adopt an apologetic tone. It is somewhat curious that such should be the case, for newspapers satisfy so many canons of historical evidence. They are contemporary, and, being written without knowledge of the end, cannot bolster any cause without making a plain showing of their intent. Their object is the relation of daily events; and if their relation is colored by honest or dishonest partisanship, this is easily discernible by the critic from the internal evidence and from an easily acquired knowledge of a few external facts. As the journals themselves say, their aim is to print the news; and much of the news is present politics. Moreover, the newspaper itself, its news and editorial columns, its advertisements, is a graphic picture of society.

When Aulard, in his illuminating criticism of Taine, writes that the journals are a very important source of the history of the French Revolution, provided they are revised and checked by one another, the statement seems in accordance with the canons of historical writing; and when he blames Taine for using two journals only and neglecting ten others which he names, the impression on the mind is the same as if Taine were charged with the neglect of evidence of another class. One would hardly attempt to justify Taine by declaring that all journals are inaccurate, partisan, and dishonest, and that the omission was a merit, not a defect. Leaving out of account the greater size and diffuseness of the modern journal, the dictum of Aulard would seem to apply to any period of history.

Why is it then that some American students fall consciously or unconsciously into an apologetic tone when they attempt to justify the use of newspapers as historical sources? I suppose it is because of the attitude of cultivated society to the newspaper of to-day. Society calls the ordinary newspaper sensational and unreliable; and, if neither, its accounts are so diffuse and badly proportioned as to weary the seeker after the facts of any given transaction. Despite the disfavor into which the American newspaper has fallen in certain circles, I suspect that it has only exaggerated these defects, and that the journals of different democracies have more resemblances than diversities. The newspaper that caters to the "masses" will never suit the "classes," and the necessity for a large circulation induces it to furnish the sheet which the greatest number of readers desire.

But this does not concern the historian. He does not make his materials. He has to take them as they are. It would undoubtedly render his task easier if all men spoke and wrote everywhere with accuracy and sincerity; but his work would lose much of its interest. Take the newspaper for what it is, a hasty gatherer of facts, a hurried commentator on the same, and it may well constitute a part of historical evidence.

When, in 1887, I began the critical study of the History of the United States from 1850 to 1860, I was struck with the paucity of material which would serve the purpose of an animated narrative. The main facts were to be had in the state papers, the Statutes, the _Congressional Globe_ and documents, the records of national conventions and platforms, and the tabulated results of elections. But there was much less private correspondence than is available for the early history of our country; and, compared with the period of the Civil War and later, a scarcity of biographies and reminiscences, containing personal letters of high historical value. Since I wrote my first two volumes, much new matter concerning the decade of 1850 to 1860 has been published. The work of the American Historical Association, and of many historical societies, the monographs of advanced university students, have thrown light upon this, as they have upon other periods, with the result that future delvers in this field can hardly be so much struck with the paucity of material as I was twenty-one years ago.

Boy though I was during the decade of 1850 to 1860, I had a vivid remembrance of the part that the newspaper played in politics, and the thought came to me that the best way to arrive at the spirit of the times was to steep my mind in journalistic material; that there was the secret of living over again that decade, as the Abolitionist, the Republican, the Whig, and the Democrat had actually lived in it. In the critical use of such sources, I was helped by the example of von Holst, who employed them freely in his volumes covering the same period, and by the counsel and collaboration of my friend Edward G. Bourne, whose training was in the modern school. For whatever training I had beyond that of self came from the mastery, under the guidance of teachers, of certain general historians belonging to an epoch when power of expression was as much studied as the collecting and sifting of evidence.

While considering my materials, I was struck with a statement cited by Herbert Spencer as an illustration in his "Philosophy of Style": "A modern newspaper statement, though probably true, if quoted in a book as testimony, would be laughed at; but the letter of a court gossip, if written some centuries ago, is thought good historical evidence." At about the same time, I noticed that Motley used as one of his main authorities for the battle of St. Quentin the manuscript of an anonymous writer. From these two circumstances, it was a logical reflection that some historians might make an exaggerated estimate of the value of manuscript material because it reposed in dusty archives and could be utilized only by severe labor and long patience; and that, imbued with this idea, other historians for other periods might neglect the newspaper because of its ready accessibility.

These several considerations justified a belief, arrived at from my preliminary survey of the field, that the use of newspapers as sources for the decade of 1850 to 1860 was desirable. At each step of my pretty thorough study of them, I became more and more convinced that I was on the right track. I found facts in them which I could have found nowhere else. The public meeting is a great factor in the political life of this decade, and is most fully and graphically reported in the press. The newspaper, too, was a vehicle for personal accounts of a quasi-confidential nature, of which I can give a significant example. In an investigation that Edward Bourne made for me during the summer of 1889, he came across in the _Boston Courier_ an inside account of the Whig convention of 1852, showing, more conclusively than I have seen elsewhere, the reason of the failure to unite the conservative Whigs, who were apparently in a majority, on Webster. From collateral evidence we were convinced that it was written by a Massachusetts delegate; and the _Springfield Republican_, which copied the account, furnished a confirmation of it. It was an interesting story, and I incorporated it in my narrative.

I am well aware that Dr. Dryasdust may ask, What of it? The report of the convention shows that Webster received a very small vote and that Scott was nominated. Why waste time and words over the "might have been"? I can plead only the human interest in the great Daniel Webster ardently desiring that nomination, Rufus Choate advocating it in sublime oratory, the two antislavery delegates from Massachusetts refusing their votes for Webster, thus preventing a unanimous Massachusetts, and the delegates from Maine, among whom was Webster's godson William P. Fessenden, coldly refusing their much-needed aid.

General Scott, having received the nomination, made a stumping tour in the autumn through some of the Western States. No accurate account of it is possible without the newspapers, yet it was esteemed a factor in his overwhelming defeat, and the story of it is well worth preserving as data for a discussion of the question, Is it wise for a presidential candidate to make a stumping tour during his electoral campaign?

The story of the formation of the Republican party, and the rise of the Know-nothings, may possibly be written without recourse to the newspapers, but thorough steeping in such material cannot fail to add to the animation and accuracy of the story. In detailed history and biographical books, dates, through mistakes of the writer or printer, are frequently wrong; and when the date was an affair of supreme importance, I have sometimes found a doubt resolved by a reference to the newspaper, which, from its strictly contemporary character, cannot in such a matter lead one astray.

I found the newspapers of value in the correction of logical assumptions, which frequently appear in American historical and biographical books, especially in those written by men who bore a part in public affairs. By a logical assumption, I mean the statement of a seemingly necessary consequence which apparently ought to follow some well-attested fact or condition. A striking instance of this occurred during the political campaign of 1856, when "bleeding Kansas" was a thrilling catchword used by the Republicans, whose candidate for president was Fremont. In a year and a half seven free-state men had been killed in Kansas by the border ruffians, and these outrages, thoroughly ventilated, made excellent campaign ammunition. But the Democrats had a _tu quoque_ argument which ought to have done much towards eliminating this question from the canvass.

On the night of May 24, 1856, five pro-slavery men, living on the Pottawatomie Creek, were deliberately and foully murdered by John Brown and seven of his disciples; and, while this massacre caused profound excitement in Kansas and Missouri, it seems to have had no influence east of the Mississippi River, although the fact was well attested. A Kansas journalist of 1856, writing in 1879, made this logical assumption: "The opposition press both North and South took up the damning tale ... of that midnight butchery on the Pottawatomie.... Whole columns of leaders from week to week, with startling headlines, liberally distributed capitals, and frightful exclamation points, filled all the newspapers." And it was his opinion that, had it not been for this massacre, Fremont would have been elected.

But I could not discover that the massacre had any influence on the voters in the pivotal states. I examined, or had examined, the files of the _New York Journal of Commerce_, _New York Herald_, _Philadelphia Pennsylvanian_, _Washington Union_, and _Cleveland Plain Dealer_, all Democratic papers except the _New York Herald_, and I was struck with the fact that substantially no use was made of the massacre as a campaign argument. Yet could anything have been more logical than the assumption that the Democrats would have been equal to their opportunity and spread far and wide such a story? The facts in the case show therefore that cause and effect in actual American history are not always the same as the statesman may conceive them in his cabinet or the historian in his study.

In the newspapers of 1850 to 1860 many speeches, and many public, and some private, letters of conspicuous public men are printed; these are valuable material for the history of the decade, and their use is in entire accordance with modern historical canons.

I have so far considered the press in its character of a register of facts; but it has a further use for historical purposes, since it is both a representative and guide of public sentiment. Kinglake shows that the _Times_ was the potent influence which induced England to invade the Crimea; Bismarck said in 1877 that the press "was the cause of the last three wars"; Lord Cromer writes, "The people of England as represented by the press insisted on sending General Gordon to the Soudan, and accordingly to the Soudan he was sent;" and it is current talk that the yellow journals brought on the Spanish-American War. Giving these statements due weight, can a historian be justified in neglecting the important influence of the press on public opinion?

As reflecting and leading popular sentiment during the decade of 1850 to 1860, the newspapers of the Northern States were potent. I own that many times one needs no further index to public sentiment than our frequent elections, but in 1854 conditions were peculiar. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise had outraged the North and indicated that a new party must be formed to resist the extension of slavery. In the disorganization of the Democratic party, and the effacement of the Whig, nowhere may the new movement so well be traced as in the news and editorial columns of the newspapers, and in the speeches of the Northern leaders, many of these indeed being printed nowhere else than in the press. What journals and what journalists there were in those days! Greeley and Dana of the _New York Tribune_; Bryant and Bigelow of the _Evening Post_; Raymond of the _Times_; Webb of the _Courier_ and _Enquirer_; Bowles of the _Springfield Republican_; Thurlow Weed of the _Albany Journal_; Schouler of the _Cincinnati Gazette_,--all inspired by their opposition to the spread of slavery, wrote with vigor and enthusiasm, representing the ideas of men who had burning thoughts without power of expression, and guiding others who needed the constant iteration of positive opinions to determine their political action.

The main and cross currents which resulted in the formation of the compact Republican party of 1856 have their principal record in the press, and from it, directly or indirectly, must the story be told. Unquestionably the newspapers had greater influence than in an ordinary time, because the question was a moral one and could be concretely put. Was slavery right or wrong? If wrong, should not its extension be stopped? That was the issue, and all the arguments, constitutional and social, turned on that point.

The greatest single journalistic influence was the _New York Weekly Tribune_ which had in 1854 a circulation of 112,000, and many times that number of readers. These readers were of the thorough kind, reading all the news, all the printed speeches and addresses, and all the editorials, and pondering as they read. The questions were discussed in their family circles and with their neighbors, and, as differences arose, the _Tribune_, always at hand, was consulted and re-read. There being few popular magazines during this decade, the weekly newspaper, in some degree, took their place; and, through this medium, Greeley and his able coadjutors spoke to the people of New York and of the West, where New England ideas predominated, with a power never before or since known in this country. When Motley was studying the old letters and documents of the sixteenth century in the archives of Brussels, he wrote: "It is something to read the real _bona fide_ signs manual of such fellows as William of Orange, Count Egmont, Alexander Farnese, Philip the Second, Cardinal Granville and the rest of them. It gives a 'realizing sense,' as the Americans have it." I had somewhat of the same feeling as I turned over the pages of the bound volumes of the _Weekly Tribune_, reading the editorials and letters of Greeley, the articles of Dana and Hildreth. I could recall enough of the time to feel the influence of this political bible, as it was termed, and I can emphatically say that if you want to penetrate into the thoughts, feelings, and ground of decision of the 1,866,000 men who voted for Lincoln in 1860, you should study with care the _New York Weekly Tribune_.

One reason why the press was a better representative of opinion during the years from 1854 to 1860 than now is that there were few, if any, independent journals. The party man read his own newspaper and no other; in that, he found an expression of his own views. And the party newspaper in the main printed only the speeches and arguments of its own side. Greeley on one occasion was asked by John Russell Young, an associate, for permission to reprint a speech of Horatio Seymour in full as a matter of news. "Yes," Greeley said, "I will print Seymour's speech when the _World_ will print those of our side."

Before the war, Charleston was one of the most interesting cities of the country. It was a small aristocratic community, with an air of refinement and distinction. The story of Athens proclaims that a large population is not necessary to exercise a powerful influence on the world; and, after the election of Lincoln in 1860, the 40,000 people of Charleston, or rather the few patricians who controlled its fate and that of South Carolina, attracted the attention of the whole country. The story of the secession movement of November and December, 1860, cannot be told with correctness and life without frequent references to the _Charleston Mercury_ and the _Charleston Courier_. The _Mercury_ especially was an index of opinion, and so vivid is its daily chronicle of events that the historian is able to put himself in the place of those ardent South Carolinians and understand their point of view.