Chapter XXXIV

In 1872 Horace Greeley was nominated by the Democratic party for the presidency, to oppose General Grant's second term, and wrote to my husband:—

"DEAR GENERAL PRYOR:—

"I want you to help me in this canvass. I want you to go to
Virginia and do some work for me there and at the South.

"Your friend,
"HORACE GREELEY."

Mr. Greeley had at first opposed the Civil War. He had suffered great mental distress at its approach. He labored with all his might to prevent a resort to arms—but, when this was inevitable, he followed the advice of Polonius. It was he who raised the cry "On to Richmond," and he was thereafter a powerful supporter of the government. After the surrender, he just as strongly advocated pacific measures, opposed the action of the federal government in holding Mr. Jefferson Davis a prisoner without trial, and, oblivious to all personal and pecuniary consequences, had gone to Richmond and in open court signed the bail-bond of the Confederate President.

It can be easily perceived that the active support of a man like General Pryor—who could remember and use to advantage these facts—might be extremely useful to Mr. Greeley. The temptation appealed, with force, to my husband. Active political life had been his most successful, most agreeable occupation, but he remembered his resolution to _work_, and work in the study of his profession, and declined Mr. Greeley's invitation.

"You are making a great mistake," said one of his friends, "in your office all day, and at home all night. I should like to know how you expect to get along! You never make a visit—you are never seen at a club or any public gathering."

"Very true," said my husband, "but I am persuaded that my only hope for salvation here is to know something, have something the New York people want. They do want good lawyers, and I must study day and night to make myself one."

His friend, John Russell Young, far away in Europe, heard of Mr. Greeley's campaign. Himself an intense Republican and devoted friend of General Grant, he could not learn with equanimity of any added strength to Mr. Greeley from the support of the South. He wrote from Geneva, September 16, 1872:—

"DEAR PRYOR:—

"I saw in the _New York World_ that you were to make a speech
in favor of Greeley in Virginia, and had my own reflections
on the announcement. I should like to exchange observations
with Mrs. Pryor on this subject, as she has positive
political convictions. But I remember her saying once that
darning stockings had a debilitating effect upon literary
aspirations—and she made no reservation in favor of politics.
At the present moment I should like to enlist her attention
and support.

"The idea of R. A. P.—the representative fire-eater, the
Robespierre, or Danton, or, if you like it better, the
Harry Hotspur of the Southern Revolution,—the one orator
who clamored so impatiently for the Shrewsbury clock to
strike,—oh, my friend! The spectacle of _this_ leader
championing Horace Greeley! Can the irony of events have a
deeper illustration? Miserere! How the world is tumbling! What
can we expect next? Jefferson Davis and Frederick Douglass
running on the presidential ticket, in favor of Chinese
suffrage! If you really did make a speech, send it to me. I
suppose in your own mind you have made many, for events like
these develop thought in the minds of all thinking men. I do
not see Greeley's election. I have a letter from him written
in July which speaks very cheerfully. But I have a letter from
the White House quite as cheerful. I cannot think that Grant
will be beaten; and am certain, with all deference to Mrs.
Pryor's positive political views, that he should not be. I can
understand the passionate desire you and your people have for
honest reconstruction. I can see how you might even fall into
the arms of Horace Greeley to achieve such a deliverance. But
there is no honest reconstruction possible under Mr. Greeley
and the men who would accompany him in power. The South has
its future in its own hands. If the men who led it as you did
had followed your example when the war was over, there would
be no trouble. But that required courage—a higher courage than
ever rebellion demanded; and if the South has not reasserted
itself, it is the fault of the Southern men themselves.

"But I will not preach politics from this distance. If you
are not in the campaign, keep out! Run over here with Miss
Gordon. How delighted I should be to see you. I am sure
mademoiselle would revel in Paris. Mrs. Young would travel
with her, too, to Germany, visit all the famous convents and
ecclesiastical establishments and, finally, wind up with Paris
and an exhausted search through the shops.

"For myself, I feel that I am having opportunities and
neglecting them. However, I have always my work, have grappled
with French, done something in Spanish, and have designs on
the German language. But as you can only eat your artichoke
a leaf at a time, French is my main occupation outside my
business. I don't have time to play chess—and I presume Miss
Gordon will give me a knight when we play next. You mustn't
think me utterly good-for-naught. I have finished Carlyle's
'Frederick' in thirteen volumes—think of that! In the summer
I dissipated in novels,—'Don Quixote,' 'Tom Jones,' 'Roderick
Random,'—and now I am about to begin 'Romola,' which Bayard
Taylor said yesterday was the best historical novel in our
language. Remember me most kindly to all at home, and believe
me to be, dear Pryor,

"Your friend sincerely,
"JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG.

We had first known John Russell Young as a boy sent by Colonel Forney to report a speech of my husband's in Congress, now on the staff of the _New York Herald_. During a temporary residence in London he began a series of charming letters to my daughter—lasting until the end of his life. From London he wrote:—

"MY DEAR MISS GORDON:—

"I send you two autographs—one is from Dinah Mulock Craik (who
wrote 'John Halifax,' you know), the other from Mr. Gladstone,
the former Premier.

"I shall try to obtain an autograph of Carlyle, and his
photograph, for your library. The old man is very hard to
reach—he is very old. I have not seen George Eliot yet, but
will. I dined with William Black last evening.

"I have had a good time in London. I never had so much
attention in my life—I don't know how it happened, but so
it fell. My Macmillan article opened the door, however, of
every newspaper and magazine to me—and the door is of no use,
except to look inside! But fancy the people I have met!—not,
as I said, Carlyle or George Eliot (but she is possible
when she comes home), but I think I have dined with nearly
everybody else. Green—the short history man—and I have become
good friends. I told him how much you liked his book, and he
blushed like a June rose. I have dined with Huxley, Tyndall,
Froude, Browning, Herbert Spencer, Kingsley, Bryce, Green,
Norman Lockyer, William Black, Motley, and I don't know how
many others,—so you see, as far as coming abroad has any value
in enlarging one's horizon, I have not come in vain. You must
forgive the vanity of all this, but when one is away from
home, what can one do but write about one's own self?

"I wrote your father last week that I was about to come home.
I packed all my trunks and engaged my room on the _Adriatic_,
which sails on the 25th. A cable comes from Mr. Bennett
asking me to await his coming. So I have unpacked my trunk and
again resigned myself to the London fog. If you will gently
break the news to the retired statesman who mourns over the
decadence of the republic, you will be a dutiful child and my
very good friend. I am very much disappointed in not going
home. There is a little woman whose eyes are, I suppose,
sad enough straining through the mists for a truant lord who
seems to wander as long as Ulysses. There are friends whose
faces it would be sunshine to see,—and there are duties in
the way of educating public opinion on the question of the
presidency,—all of which is only a roundabout way of saying
I am homesick, and that I would give the best book in my
library (you see how extravagant I am) if it were in my power
to accept an invitation from your mother to tea. I would
even run the risk of a quarrel with your father on politics!
Remember me to all at home—to your mother with especial duty,
and believe me, my dear Miss Gordon,

"Always yours sincerely,
"JNO. RUSSELL YOUNG."

"P.S.—From a letter your mother has kindly written me, I
perceive you are to visit Virginia. Now if you will only
justify the hopes of your friends and bring back a descendant
of Pocahontas or Patrick Henry or of G. W. to be a comfort
to your father and mother, I shall feel you have not visited
Virginia in vain. However, as that is a subject from which I
have often been warned away by the Pryor family, I shall not
venture to give any advice.

"Again your friend sincerely,
"JNO. RUSSELL YOUNG."

"I am sending you," he says in another letter, "a noticeable
article on George Eliot's work. You will observe the tendency
to criticise, and quotations of little things to sustain an
adverse verdict. I remember only better things. Of course
I must acknowledge the tinge of bitterness in all of George
Eliot's writings, but the latter-day critic brings a railing
accusation against the artistic features of her books. He
thinks it was a dreadful thing for Dorothea to marry a second
time, but how trifling is all this! I always feel when I
have finished 'Adam Bede' and 'Middlemarch' like saying
in reverence, 'Oh, Mistress! Oh, my Queen!' for she is the
mistress and queen of her art, and ought to be mentioned with
Carlyle and Hugo."

The "chance" for which General Pryor for nine years had worked and waited came at last. A New York correspondent of the _St. Louis Republican_ thus comments upon the event: "General Pryor borrowed the law books which he needed to begin the study requisite to enable him to do justice to his clients, and he studied as he fought—bravely. No man has burned more midnight oil, and from being no lawyer ten years ago, he has grown to be a most accomplished and erudite member of the bar. In his late great speech in the trial of Tilton against Henry Ward Beecher, in resisting the attempt of William M. Evarts, of Beecher's counsel, to prevent the plaintiff from testifying, General Pryor hurled law at the head of Mr. Evarts which the latter in all of his delving had not reached, and Mr. Evarts complimented General Pryor, not only upon the brilliant presentation of the law, but upon his extended acquaintance with the authorities. His speech won the point for Tilton. He is known to be an indefatigable student. Seven hours a day he studies law as though he needs it all on the morrow. No man in New York has a more brilliant future; and when it comes, no man will have so completely carved out his own way and made his own fortune."

This trial against America's great preacher was famous at home and in England. The accusation of Theodore Tilton aroused a tremendous feeling throughout the United States and abroad wherever Mr. Beecher's great reputation had established itself. The trial lasted six months. Mr. Tilton's counsel were Mr. Beach, Hon. Sam Morris, Judge Fullerton, and General Pryor. Arrayed against them were Hon. William M. Evarts, Hon. Benjamin Tracy, Thomas Shearman, and Austin Abbott.

To General Pryor was intrusted all the delicate or obscure questions of law incident upon the case. The press of the day universally awarded him the highest praise for learning and thorough knowledge of his subject. He won a very great reputation, and from that time onward felt that his professional career was to be an active one. The impression the new advocate—the rebel politician and soldier turned lawyer—made upon the correspondents of the press never varied. A New York correspondent of an Ohio paper[7] thus describes him:—

"General Pryor's reply to Mr. Evarts's was, after all,
the greatest surprise of the day. It was so remarkable
in many respects, that I am at a loss where to begin the
characterization. Not an exciting topic, one would say, for a
fiery Southern orator, to analyze the statutes of the state of
New York on the subject of evidence from married people. But
it was evident from the very first, though formal, sentence,
that exploded from General Pryor's lips that he needed no
outward occasion to minister excitement to his surcharged
batteries of personal electricity. A dry legal question was
provocation enough; what he would do under the heat of an
impassioned issue is inconceivable, if the proportions of
occasion and effect were preserved. His execution, to borrow
a musician's term, is prodigious, considered merely as a
_tour de force_. It is a volcanic torrent of speech. To say
the enunciation is rapid, is nothing: it is lightning-like.
The most dexterous reporters could hardly follow him. Its
nervous energy is equally remarkable, and seems to break out
from every pore of his body, as well as out of his mouth,
eyes, and finger ends. With the legal volume in his left
hand, the eye-glass quivering in his right, and jumping to
his nose and off again, with or without object, like a thing
of life, or emphasizing the utterance with thrusting gestures
of its own; his head thrown up, at every beginning his eyes
shoot straight at the judge as if they would transfix him,
and he drives onward like a Jehu rushing into battle. He has
no moderate passages; but perhaps he will avail himself of
these effects when he comes to address the jury. And yet,
all this prodigious nervous expenditure, so far from drawing
off the power of the brain, is only an index of its action;
so far from jarring the self-possession and sequence of
thought, or the precision of conception and expression, it
only enhances and secures all these, as sheer impetus sustains
the equilibrium of a wheel. The diction, with all its headlong
speed, is perfect in precision and force, and no less in
elegance; not an after word, not a word of surplusage, or a
word to be bettered in revisal; and the like is true of the
closely knit argument."

This picture, drawn with a bold hand, greatly amused the home circle in Willow Street. But then, we had not heard the speech!