Chapter VIII: THE LATEST PERIOD.—In 1832, with the death of Goethe, a new (5)

As “The Betrothed” brought us back from Constantinople and Palestine to Merrie England, so “Ivanhoe” transports the reader, and some of the prominent actors of the drama, from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean to the pleasant district of the West Riding of Yorkshire, watered by the river Don, “where flourished in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so popular in English song.”

The prominent historical features which Scott illustrates in the romantic story of “Ivanhoe” are the domestic and civil relations existing between the Saxon and the Norman about the year 1196, when the return of Richard the First from Palestine and captivity was an event rather hoped for than expected; and an event _not_ hoped for by King John and his followers.

The Saxon spirit had been well nigh subdued by the strict and unjust laws imposed by the Norman kings. For one hundred and thirty years Norman-French had been the language of the court, the language of law, of chivalry and justice. The laws of the chase and the curfew,—and many others unknown to the Saxon constitution,—had been placed upon the necks of the inhabitants of the soil. With few exceptions the race of Saxon princes had been extirpated; and it was not until the reign of Edward III. that England became thoroughly united as one people. The English language at the close of the twelfth century was not yet born. The Saxon mother and Norman father were not yet wedded; the two languages were gradually getting acquainted with each other; or, as Scott has logically expressed it, “the necessary intercourse between the lords of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that soil was cultivated, occasioned the formation of a dialect, compounded betwixt the French and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could render themselves mutually intelligible to each other; and from this necessity arose by degrees the structure of our present English language, in which the speech of the victors and the vanquished has been so happily blended together, and which has since been so richly improved by importations from the classical languages, and from those spoken by the southern nations of Europe.” In the first chapter—and it is always well to read carefully the first chapter of Scott—we are introduced to a swine-herd, born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood, one of the few powerful Saxon families existing in England at the time of our story. He is attended by a domestic clown, or jester, maintained at that time in the houses of the wealthy. With an art and unity like Shakspere, Scott emphasizes at the very outset the chief historic feature of his story, by putting the following conversation in the mouths of these Saxon menials:

“How call you those grunting brutes running about on
their four legs?” demanded Wamba, the jester.

“Swine,” said the herd.

“And swine is good Saxon,” said the jester; “but how
call you it when quartered?”

“Pork,” answered the cow-herd.

“And pork,” said Wamba, “is good Norman-French; and
so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a
Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a
Norman, and is called _pork_, when she is carried to
the castle-hall to feast among the nobles. Nay, I can
tell you more,” said Wamba, in the same tone, “there is
Alderman Ox, who continues to hold his Saxon epithet,
while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such
as thou, but becomes _beef_, a fiery French gallant,
when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are
destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes
Monsieur de _Veau_ in the like manner; he is Saxon when
he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he
becomes matter of enjoyment.”

The third chapter brings together a strange gathering under the roof of the hospitable Cedric: Brian de Bois Gilbert, a haughty Templar; Prior Aymer, of free and jovial character; a poor Palmer, just returned from the Holy Land, and a Jew known as Isaac of York; all journeying on their way to a tournament to be held a few miles distant at Ashby de la Zouche. Lady Rowena, descended from the noble line of Alfred, graced the table with her presence, a ward destined by Cedric, but not by fate, to be the wife of Athelstane,—a Saxon descended from Edward the Confessor: in the furtherance of which idea his only son had been exiled, when it became known that he aspired to the hand of the Saxon beauty.

At the tournament the remaining characters of the drama are introduced: King John, with his retinue; Richard the Lion-Hearted, under the disguise of the “Black Knight;” Rebecca, the Jewess; the proud baron Front de Bœuf; Robin Hood, the brave outlaw, under the name of Loxley; and Ivanhoe, the poor pilgrim, who wins the prize at the tournament and crowns Rowena Queen of Beauty. At the close of the second day’s tournament, in which Ivanhoe is again successful, a letter is handed to King John with the brief sentence, “Take heed to yourself, for the devil is unchained.” It was like the handwriting on the wall of Belshazzar’s palace, and proclaimed the end of his kingdom.

Cedric, Rowena, Isaac, Rebecca, Athelstane and Ivanhoe depart their several ways from the tournament, but are captured and taken to Front de Bœuf’s castle. Cedric escapes in the guise of a monk. The castle is stormed, and now occurs one of the most dramatic pictures in the pages of romantic literature, destined to reveal to all time the undying hate between the Saxon and the Norman. A Saxon woman, by name Ulrica, had lived for years in Front de Bœuf’s castle. She had seen her father and seven brothers killed in defending their home, but she “remained to administer ignominiously to the murderers of her family. She used the seductions of her beauty to arm the son against the father; she heated drunken revelry into murderous broil, and stained with a parricide the banqueting hall of the conquerors.” She had sold body and soul to obtain revenge for Norman cruelties; and now, grown old in servitude, incensed by the contempt of her masters, she determines upon a deed, which will make the ears of men tingle while the name of Saxon is remembered. She fires the castle and appears on a turret in the guise of one of the ancient furies, yelling forth a war-song. “Her long, dishevelled grey hair flows back from her uncovered head; the inebriated delight of gratified vengeance contends in her eyes with the fire of insanity; and she brandishes the distaff which she holds in her hand, as if she were one of the fatal sisters, who spin and abridge the thread of human life. At length, with a terrific crash, the whole turret gives way, and she perishes in the flames which consume her tyrant.”

There is another historic feature of the times emphasized in this romance: the oppression of the Jews in England during these cruel and adventurous times. The character of the race is vividly portrayed in Isaac of York, in which masterly delineation Scott seems truer to nature than Shakspere in the character of Shylock. Rebecca, his noble and beautiful daughter, is the type of all that is pure and womanly. Her words have the eloquence of the poets and prophets of old: “Know proud knight,” she says, “we number names amongst us to which your boasted Northern nobility is as the gourd compared with the cedar—names that ascend far back to those high times when the Divine Presence shook the mercy seat between the cherubim, and which derive their splendor from no earthly prince, but from the awful Voice, which bade their fathers be nearest of the congregation to the vision; such were the princes of the house of Jacob; now such no more. They are trampled down like the shorn grass, and mixed with the mire of the ways; yet there are those among them who shame not such high descent, and of such shall be the daughter of Isaac, the son of Adonikam. Farewell! I envy not thy blood-won honors; I envy not thy barbarous descent from northern heathens; I envy not thy faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never in thy heart nor in thy practice.”

The description of Friar Tuck entertaining King Richard in disguise is in Scott’s happiest vein; and Robin Hood, with his bold outlaws, shares the honors gracefully with knights and nobles. But it is alike unnecessary and unprofitable to attempt a condensation of “Ivanhoe.” No outline can convey the beauty of a finished picture. It is not to be taken at second hand. It is only for us to indicate its relation to history; and it will suffice to say that King Richard was gladly welcomed by the English people, and that Ivanhoe was wedded to the beautiful Rowena.

But, do I hear the reader ask, what becomes of the fair Jewess? Scott has answered the question so beautifully in his preface that I borrow his own words—a passage to my mind unsurpassed in English prose: “The character of the fair Jewess found so much favor in the eyes of some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered such an union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe, that he thinks a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance, that rectitude of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions, or attainment of our wishes. In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied character is dismissed with temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the indulgence of such a rashly formed or ill-assorted passion as that of Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the reader will be apt to say, ‘Verily, virtue has had its reward.’ But a glance on the great picture of life will show that the duties of self-denial and the sacrifice of passion to principle are seldom thus remunerated; and that the internal consciousness of their high-minded discharge of duty produces on their own reflections a more adequate recompense in the form of that peace which the world can not give or take away.”

THE GREAT ORGAN AT FRIBOURG.

By EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.

After thoroughly “doing” Berne in most approved guide-book fashion; feeding the bears—hot, dusty looking creatures; standing in the middle of the street, heads thrown back at the risk of dislocating our necks to watch the celebrated clock strike, we stand one evening on the hotel terrace and take our farewell look at the Bernese Alps. Sharply defined against a sunset-flushed sky, as if cut from alabaster, glittering fair and white like the pinnacles and domes of a city celestial, rise the Mönch, Eiger, Wetterhorn, and, serene and august in her icy virgin beauty, the Jungfrau.

“Too soon the light began to fade,
Tho’ lingering soft and tender;
And the snow giants sank again
Into their calm dead splendor.”

Leaving Berne, we take our way to Fribourg, to see its wonderful gorges and skeleton bridges, and hear its more wonderful organ. On our arrival at this quaint old Romanesque town, we are driven to the most delightful little hotel, hanging on the very edge of the great ravine, upon the sides of which the town is built. Through the more closely-built region of the town runs the old stone wall with its high watch-towers. Spanning the great gulf are the bridges—mere phantoms of bridges they seem from our windows. A dreary, drizzling rain sets in soon after we arrive, and some American lads across the court-yard from time to time send forth in their sweet untrained voices the refrain of that mournful ballad, the “Soldier’s Farewell,”

“Farewell, farewell, my own true love.”

A prevalent tone of _heimweh_ is in the air; eyes are filling, and memory is stretching longing hands over the ocean, when fortunately comes the summons to _table d’hote_. At our plates we find programs in very bad English of a concert to be given this evening upon the great organ in the cathedral. Thither we go at dusk, pausing a moment to look at the grotesque carving of the last judgment over the great door. Thereon the good, with most satisfied faces, are being admitted to heaven by St. Peter, a stout old gentleman in a short gown, jingling a bunch of keys; while the wicked are being carried in Swiss baskets to a great cauldron over a blazing fire, therein to be deposited, and to be stirred up by devils armed with pitchforks for that purpose. We enter. Without, the ceaseless drip of the rain; within, gloom, darkness—save for the never-ceasing light before the altar, decay. The air is chill and damp. Around us stretch dark, shadowed aisles. Tombs of those long dust are on every hand. The air seems peopled with ghosts. We are seated, and patiently wait for life to be breathed into that mighty monster looming up in the darkness, above our heads. Suddenly, with a crash that shakes the building, the organ speaks. Silenced, overwhelmed, we listen, possessing our souls in patience for the “Pastorale,” representing a thunder storm among the Alps, which is to close the evening’s entertainment. We have but recently come from the everlasting hills, and our souls are still under their magic enchantment. At last the moment comes. A pause, and there steals upon the ear a light, sweet refrain. It is spring, the old, ideal spring; the trees are budding; flowers are smiling from the meadows; we feel warm south winds blowing; afar in the woods we hear the sylvan pipe of the shepherd and the songs of birds. A peace is upon everything. Nature is calm, happy, and full of promise of glad fruition. To this succeeds a languid, dreary strain—it is a drowsy summer afternoon. A delicious languor pervades the air; we hear the trees whispering to each other of their perfect foliage; we hear the laughing waters leaping and calling to each other through their rocky passes; the flocks are asleep in the shade; the shadows are stealing and playing over the sides of the mountains, and the whole world swims in a misty, golden haze. Now listen closely. Do not we catch the mutter of distant thunder? And again, do not we hear that clear, bell-like bird-call for rain? The distant muttering grows louder, a stronger breeze sways the trees; still we hear distinctly that bird-call. Now louder rolls the thunder, the wind has arisen, the trees are bending to meet it, and in rage are tossing their boughs to the overcast sky; and ah! here comes the rain. Patter, patter, at first, now fast and faster, and now with a mad rush down it comes in one tremendous, outpouring sheet, and now with a terrific rumble and crash,

“From peak to peak the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder:
Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers from her misty shroud
Back to the joyous Alps who call on her aloud.”

The wind shrieks and howls, and yet above all this tumult and roar of the elements, clearly and unmistakably rings that sweet flute-like bird-call. The storm rages, spends its fury, and dies away, and from a neighboring cloister come the voices of an unseen choir, raising a “Te Deum” to him who holds the storms in his hands. Silently we rise and go, a great peace upon us, for divine notes from the soul of the organ have entered into ours.

* * * * *

IT is not the nature of man to be always moving forward; it has its comings and goings. Fever has its cold and hot fits, and the cold shiver proves the height of the fever quite as much as the hot fit. The inventions of man from age to age proceed much in the same way. The good nature and the malice of the world in general have the same ebbs and flows. “Change of living is generally agreeable to the rich.”—_Pascal._

ECCENTRIC AMERICANS.

By COLEMAN E. BISHOP.

II.—THE STATESMAN IN A STATE OF NATURE.

David Crockett was born in the wilds of Tennessee, August 17, 1786. He toughened rapidly, like a bear’s cub, but he showed in addition to the usual woodsman’s instincts the unusual qualities of great tenderness of feeling and generosity, with a remarkable gift of wit and love of fun. The incredible stories of his hardships at the age of twelve and thereafter we have not room to recount. In the best sense he was a tough boy. The closing scene of his home life—if a hut presided over by a drunken father, and a mother who left no impression on the boy’s character that showed itself in after years can be by any courtesy called a home—was a dissolving view of a ragged, bare-footed urchin of fourteen chased through the brush by a father with a large goad and a large load of liquor. Thus David Crockett set out upon the world for himself.

With Crockett’s story as a bear-hunter, nomadic woodsman, soldier and Indian-fighter, exciting and marvelous as are these incidents of the first thirty years of his life, we shall not much concern ourselves. But I do wonder that his life-like, quaint narrative of these has not become standard juvenile literature, along with Robinson Crusoe and Mayne Reid’s stories of adventure. Through all these exciting though isolated years, the young woodsman picked up a good deal of practical knowledge, not one scrap of which he ever forgot; and withal was developing a strange quality of unpretentious self-esteem. “The idea seemed never to have entered his mind that there was any one superior to David Crockett, or any one so humble that Crockett was entitled to look down upon him with condescension. He was a genuine democrat, and all were in his view equal. And this was not the result of thought, of any political or moral principle. It was a part of his nature, like his stature or complexion. This is one of the rarest qualities to be found in any man.”[H]

He also was developing oratorical powers. He acquired unbounded popularity at musters and frolics, in camp and in the chase by his fun-making qualities, his homely, kindly, keen wit. His retentive memory was an inexhaustible store-house of anecdote, and he always had an apt illustration for any point he wanted to make. He began to taste the sweet consciousness of power over his fellows, and to easily fall into the position of leadership, for which nature designed him.

His first official position came to him at about the age of thirty. There were a good many outlaws in the region where he at that time had his cabin and claim, and society began to cohere for self-protection. The settlers convened and appointed Crockett and others to be justices of the peace, and a corps of stalwart young men to be constables. These justices were really provost-marshals in power. There were no statute laws nor courts; but there was authority enough, and Crockett says everybody made laws according to his own notions of right. For shooting and appropriating a hog running at large, for instance, the sentence was to strip the thief, tie him to a tree and give him a flogging, burn down his cabin and drive him out of the country. Soon after, the new territory was organized into counties and Crockett was regularly commissioned a justice by the legislature. His account of his administration is interesting:

“I was made a squire according to law; though now the
honor rested on me more heavily than before. For, at
first, whenever I told my constable, says I, ‘catch
that fellow and bring him up for trial!’ away he
went, and the fellow must come, dead or alive. For we
considered this a good warrant, though it was only in
_verbal writing_. But after I was appointed by the
Assembly, they told me my warrants must be in _real_
writing and signed; and that I must keep a book and
write my proceedings in it. This was a hard business
on me, for I could just barely write my own name. But
to do this, and write the warrants too, was at least
a huckleberry over my persimmon. I had a pretty well
informed constable however, and I told him when he
should happen to be out anywhere and see that a warrant
was necessary and would have a good effect, he needn’t
take the trouble to come all the way to me to get one,
but he could just fill one out, and then on the trial
I could correct the whole business if he had committed
any error. In this way I got on pretty well, till by
care and attention I improved my handwriting in such a
manner as to be able to prepare my warrants and keep my
record books without much difficulty. My judgments were
never appealed from: and if they had been they would
have stuck like wax, as I gave my decisions on the
principles of common justice and honesty between man
and man, and relied on natural born sense, and not on
law learning, to guide me; for I had never read a page
in a law-book in all my life.”

Crockett made his first stump speech when he was about thirty-four years old. A militia regiment was to be organized, and a Captain Mathews, after promising Crockett the majority of the regiment if he would support him for its colonel, turned against Crockett in favor of his own son. At a great muster prepared by Mathews, he made a stump speech in his own and his son’s favor. Crockett, entirely unabashed, mounted the stump as soon as Mathews finished, and on the captain’s own grounds proceeded to expose his duplicity and argue the total unfitness of both him and his son for the command. The speech was fluent, witty, full of anecdote, and carried the rude audience by storm. It effectually beat both father and son. The fame of this maiden effort traveled fast in a community where oratory was the great, if not the only engine of popular control, and the result was that a committee soon waited on Crockett and asked him to stand for the legislature then about to be elected (1821). Some of his first electioneering adventures illustrate the frankness and tact so queerly combined in him, and also show how he got his education in politics. Hickman county wanted to change its county seat. He says: “Here they told me that they wanted to move their town nearer to the center of the county, and I must come out in favor of it. I did not know what this meant, or how the town was to be moved, and so I kept dark, going on the same identical plan that I now find is called _non-committal_.”

On one occasion the candidates for governor of the State, Congress, and several for legislature, some of them able stump-speakers, were announced. As he listened, a sense of inferiority for the first time, probably, penetrated him; he drank in all they said, and remembered it. He says:

“The thought of having to make a speech made my knees
feel mighty weak, and set my heart to fluttering almost
as bad as my first love scrape with the Quaker’s niece.
But as luck would have it, these big candidates spoke
nearly all day, and when they quit the people were worn
out with fatigue, which afforded me a good apology for
not discussing the government. But I listened mighty
close to them, and was learning pretty fast about
political matters. When they were all done I got up and
told some laughable story and quit.”

He was elected, and in the legislature proved a good story-teller, a formidable antagonist in repartee, and above all a good listener. He says the first thing that he took pains to learn was the meaning of the words “judiciary” and “government,” as up to that time he had “never heard that there was any such thing in all nature as a judiciary.” The halls of the Tennessee legislature were again brightened in 1823-24 by the wit and good sense of “the gentleman from the cane” as an opponent derisively dubbed him, very much to his subsequent regret.

Crockett was now so well known that he was put forward for Congress. His rapid advancement staggered even his self-sufficiency, and he objected, saying he “knowed nothing about Congress matters.” Fortunately, perhaps, he was given time to learn more, for he was beaten at the polls this time. It was claimed by his supporters the result was obtained by fraud, and as the adverse majority was small, he was urged to contest the election; but he declined, saying he did not care enough for office to take it unless the clearly expressed will of the people called him thereto. From hunting for men he turned with zest to hunting for bears; his endurance, hardihood and success, and the never-failing benevolence with which he divided the fruits of the hunt with poor settlers, or lent a helping hand in many other ways, made him more political capital than the best stump speeches could have done. He killed one hundred and five bears one season. Two years later (1827) he ran for Congress again and was triumphantly elected over two strong opponents. Thus the bear-hunting, Indian-fighting “gentleman from the cane,” barely able to write his name, so poor that he had to borrow money to pay his traveling expenses to Washington, became a law-maker of a great nation by sheer force of native talent and goodness of heart.

His fame preceded him to Washington. His prowess in arms, his dexterity in politics, and his quaint wit had been in the papers; all his sayings had been, as is the style of American journalism, exaggerated and embellished and distorted, until the general impression of him was that of a coarse, outlandish, swaggering yahoo. His appearance in Washington dispersed these illusions thence, but the misrepresentations did not cease in the prints. As in the case of Lincoln, every profane and vulgar thing that cheap wit could invent was attributed to Crockett, and received as his. Many of these false impressions survive to this day; it is therefore proper here to give a picture of the man as he was seen at home. It is thus reported by an intelligent gentleman who visited his cabin just after his election. The visitor penetrated to Crockett’s cabin eight miles through unbroken wilderness by a path blazed on the trees. He says:

Two men were seated on stools at the door, both in
their shirt-sleeves, engaged in cleaning their rifles.
As the stranger rode up, one of the men came forward
to meet him. He was dressed in very plain homespun
attire, with a black fur cap upon his head. He was
a finely proportioned man, about six feet high,
apparently forty-five years of age, and of very frank,
pleasing, open countenance. He held his rifle in his
hand, and from his right shoulder hung a bag made of
raccoon-skin, to which there was a sheath attached
containing a large butcher-knife.

“This is Colonel Crockett’s residence, I presume,” said
the stranger.

“Yes,” was the reply, with a smile as of welcome.

“Have I the pleasure of seeing that gentleman before
me?” the stranger added.

“If it be a pleasure,” was the courteous reply, “you
have, sir.”

“Well, Colonel,” responded the stranger, “I have ridden
much out of my way to spend a day or two with you, and
take a hunt.”

“Get down, sir,” said the Colonel, cordially. “I am
delighted to see you. I like to see strangers. And the
only care I have is that I can not accommodate them as
well as I could wish. I have no corn, but my little boy
will take your horse over to my son-in-law’s. He is a
good fellow, and will take care of him.”

Leading the stranger into his cabin, Crockett very
courteously introduced him to his brother, his wife,
and his daughters. He then added:

“You see we are mighty rough here. I am afraid you will
think it hard times. But we have to do the best we can.
I started mighty poor, and have been rooting ’long ever
since. But I hate apologies. What I live upon always, I
think a friend can for a day or two. I have but little,
but that little is as free as the water that runs. So
make yourself at home.”

He seemed to have a great horror of binding himself to any man or party. “I will pledge myself to no administration,” he said. “When the will of my constituents is known, that will be my law; when it is unknown my own judgment shall be my guide.” So clear and lofty an idea had this unlearned man formed of the duties of a representative! Well for the country if as high a standard of political duty even now prevailed among the best and wisest legislators!

Nothing is recorded of his first term in Congress except that he “brought down the house” every time he spoke, and once so discomfited a colleague that a duel was talked of; upon which Crockett gave out that if any one challenged him he should select as their weapons _bows and arrows_.

He was re-elected in 1829. This was the Jackson tidal wave—the inauguration of that craze of hero-worship and spoils-grabbing which entailed its curse upon our politics, even to this day. During this term came the turning point in Crockett’s career and a triumphant test of the strength of his character. At first he supported Jackson’s administration and acted with the party. But when that “constitutional democrat” blossomed out into an unconstitutional autocrat, one man of his party was found manly enough to act upon his own convictions. One of these unconstitutional measures was an act to vote half a million of dollars for disbursements made without color of law, and Crockett opposed it. The result is best told in his own words:

“Soon after the commencement of this second term, I
saw, or thought I did, that it was expected of me that
I would bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow
him in all his motions, and mindings, and turnings,
even at the expense of my conscience and judgment.
Such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to
my principles. I know’d well enough, though, that if
I didn’t ‘hurrah’ for his name, the hue and cry was
to be raised against me, and I was to be sacrificed,
if possible. His famous, or rather I should say his
_infamous_ Indian bill was brought forward, and I
opposed it from the purest motives in the world.
Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how
well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They
said this was a favorite measure of the President, and
I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a
wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against
it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I
was willing to go with General Jackson in everything I
believed was honest and right; but, further than this,
I wouldn’t go for him or any other man in the whole
creation.

“I had been elected by a majority of three thousand
five hundred and eighty-five votes, and I believed they
were honest men, and wouldn’t want me to vote for any
unjust notion, to please Jackson or any one else; at
any rate, I was of age, and determined to trust them.
I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience
yet tells me that I gave a good, honest vote, and one
that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day
of judgment. I served out my term, and though many
amusing things happened, I am not disposed to swell my
narrative by inserting them.

“When it closed, and I returned home, I found the storm
had raised against me sure enough; and it was echoed
from side to side, and from end to end of my district,
that I had turned against Jackson. This was considered
the unpardonable sin. I was hunted down like a wild
varment, and in this hunt every little newspaper in
the district, and every little pin-hook lawyer was
engaged. Indeed, they were ready to print anything
and everything that the ingenuity of man could invent
against me.”

It proved as he had anticipated; he failed of re-election, but only by a majority of seventy votes. Two years of bear-hunting followed, during which Crockett thirsted for the nobler pursuit of ambition of which he had had a taste. Some of his predictions as to Jackson’s course had been verified, and many things conspired to open his constituents’ eyes to the high character of their representative’s course. In the canvass of 1833 he was elected the third time, winning one of the most remarkable political triumphs ever known in this country. He had against him all the education, talent and wealth of his district; the administration made it a test vote, and all that promises of reward, threats of punishment, political and social, unlimited money, the influence of the national banks, and every appliance that the most tyrannical disposition ever dominant in our affairs could bring to bear were used. Men of genius, eloquence, influence and fortune rode the district; whiskey was free as water. The entire press opposed Crockett with the ingenuity and abandon which only “patronage” can inspire. More than all this the common people of the district, with whom lay Crockett’s influence, if he had any, worshiped “Old Hickory,” under whom many of them had fought. Against these odds the impoverished, uneducated hunter, with no aid but his natural gifts and a clean record, canvassed the district of seventeen counties and 100,000 inhabitants and won. This remarkable victory in Jackson’s own State, when his popularity was at its height, gave Crockett a new and better title to respect than any he had before presented; and it increased the mystery hanging about this strange, uncultured genius. The world abandoned its preconceived notions of the back-woodsman when it saw his power; but it was at loss to conceive a true idea of him.

During this session of Congress (1833-34) Crockett wrote his autobiography. As might be expected, it is a very unique work. Its style is simple and vigorous; the language is Shaksperian in its monosyllables and short sentences, but the _ensemble_ is graphic, and as the events narrated are of the most extraordinary kind, it makes very exciting reading. On the title page appears his famous motto:

“I leave these words for others when I’m dead;
Be always sure you’re right, then GO AHEAD!”

Crockett submitted the manuscript of this work to a critic for revision; but he declared afterward that the reviser had not improved the work—probably because he toned down its vigorous language. Such expressions as “my son and me went,” occur, and spelling like this: “hawl,” “tuff,” “scaffled,” “clomb” (for climbed); “flower” (for flour). But he positively objected to some of the orthographical corrections, as he said “such spelling was contrary to nature.” He brought the narrative of his life up to the date, and concluded it as follows:

“I am now here in Congress, this 28th day of January,
in the year of our Lord 1834; and, what is more
agreeable to my feelings, as a free man. I am at
liberty to vote as my conscience and judgment dictate
to be right, without the yoke of any party on me or the
driver at my heels with the whip in hand commanding
me to ‘gee-wo-haw!’ just at his pleasure. Look at my
arms: you will find no party handcuffs on them! Look at
my neck: you will not find there any collar with the
engraving,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. MY DOG.—ANDREW JACKSON. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

But you will find me standing up to my rack as the
people’s faithful representative, and the public’s most
obedient, very humble servant,

“DAVID CROCKETT.”

What would not senators and representatives of to-day give for the same independence? What health and manliness it would impart to public life, if every legislator were thus free of handcuffs and collars!

In the spring of 1834, Crockett made his famous “starring tour” through the East. From Philadelphia to Portland, and back to Washington, it was a continuous ovation. Crockett and the populace were mutually astonished; he at his receptions, and they at the actions, appearance, and utterances of the man who had been represented to them by his political opponents as a buffoon and semi-savage. He was more than all impressed with the developments of wealth and enterprise in the North; he frankly confessed the prejudices he had formed against the Yankees, and praised their thrift and principles. He spoke well and appropriately on each occasion, though—strange change in him!—with evident confusion at the lionizing. He wrote of the ovation he received on landing in Philadelphia:

“It struck me strangely to hear a strange people
huzzaing for me; it took me so uncommon unexpected,
as I had no idea of attracting attention. The folks
came crowding around me, saying, ‘Give me the hand
of an honest man.’ I thought I had rather be in the
wilderness with my gun and dogs, than to be attracting
all that fuss.”

In a happy little speech here, from the hotel balcony, he said:

“I am almost induced to believe this flattery—perhaps
a burlesque. This is new to me, yet I see nothing but
friendship in your faces.”

At a grand banquet in New York City, Crockett having been toasted as “The undeviating supporter of the constitution and the laws,” made this neat and characteristic hit, as he reports it:

“I made a short speech, and concluded with the story of
the red cow, which was, that as long as General Jackson
went straight, I followed him; but when he began to go
this way, and that way, and every way, I wouldn’t go
after him; like the boy whose master ordered him to
plough across the field to the red cow. Well, he began
to plough, and she began to walk; and he ploughed all
forenoon after her. So when the master came, he swore
at him for going so crooked. ‘Why, sir,’ said the boy,
‘you told me to plough to the red cow, and I kept after
her, but she always kept moving.’”

Most enthusiastic of all was his reception in Boston, where President Jackson’s policy was most unpopular. It was even proposed to confer on Crockett the degree of LL.D., an honor that had been awarded to Jackson: but, unlike Jackson, Crockett had the wit to decline an honor which neither of the two deserved.

The more he saw and heard the more humble he became. When called up for an after-dinner speech in Boston he burst out in his honest way—“I never had but six months’ schooling in all my life, and I confess I consider myself a _poor tyke_ to be here addressing the most intelligent people in the world.” If he had not culture, he had what was far more rare in that age of truckling to one-man power—_manhood_. It seemed as if unlettered David Crockett was the only man in public life to stand up straight, and people acknowledged the power of true character. The culture and wealth of the East bowed to unspoiled manhood; it was a revelation fresh from Nature’s hand.

A few extracts from one of his more sustained and dignified efforts will illustrate the development Crockett had attained by simple observation. After praising New England he said:

“I don’t mean that because I eat your bread and drink
your liquor, that I feel so. No; that don’t make me see
clearer than I did. It is your habits, and manners,
and customs; your industry; your proud, independent
spirits; your hanging on to the eternal principles of
right and wrong; your liberality in prosperity, and
your patience when you are ground down by legislation,
which, instead of crushing you, whets your invention to
strike a path without a blaze on a tree to guide you;
and above all, your never-dying, deathless grip to our
glorious Constitution. These are the things that make
me think you are a mighty good people.

“I voted for Andrew Jackson because I believed he
possessed certain principles, and not because his name
was Andrew Jackson, or the ‘Hero,’ or ‘Old Hickory.’
And when he left those principles which induced me to
support him, I considered myself justified in opposing
him. This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to; I
don’t like it; it taints every action of life.

“I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I
would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in
the forest, than to belong to any party, further than
to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of
my country. The time will and must come, when honesty
will receive its reward, and when the people of this
nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and
will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem
ourselves from the government of one man. It cost the
lives and fortunes of thousands of the best patriots
that ever lived. Yes, gentlemen, hundreds of them fell
in sight of your own city.

“Gentlemen, if it is for opposing those high-handed
measures that you compliment me, I say I have done so,
and will do so, now and forever. I will be no man’s
man, and no party’s man, other than to be the people’s
faithful representative: and I am delighted to see the
noble spirit of liberty retained so boldly here, where
the first spark was kindled; and I hope to see it shine
and spread over our whole country.”

He took his seat in Congress, a central object in the political field. His position was anomalous. Party ties were closely drawn, and party rancor bitter as it can be only when nothing but plunder is at stake between parties. The Democrats could not claim Crockett so long as he antagonized their god, Jackson; and the alliance of the Whigs he most distinctly repudiated. He was an independent, an “unattached statesman;” the prototype of an element which has now become formidable in our politics, but a character for whom there was no place in those times. He was, like all eccentrics, ahead or apart from his age, and was at first feared, then shunned, and then called crazy by the great body of public men, whose standard of sanity was to sacrifice manhood to party, to betray the Republic for spoils.

It was during this Congress that he created a sensation by antagonizing benevolence of representatives at government expense. A bill had been reported and was about to pass, appropriating a gratuity to a naval officer’s widow. Crockett made an unanswerable argument on the unconstitutionality of this and other such appropriations, and closed by offering, with other friends of the widow, to give her a week of his salary as congressman. Not a member dared to answer or to vote for the bill, and not one followed Crockett’s example of charity at his own expense.

But the independent, honest eccentric had reached the end of his public career. In the next congressional election he was beaten by tricks such as would not be tolerated at this time. One of these devices was to announce fictitiously a large number of public meetings in Crockett’s name on the same day. When he failed to appear, as announced, speakers of the Jackson party, who would always arrange to be present, denounced Crockett as afraid to face his constituents upon his “treacherous and corrupt record in Congress.” The defeat was a surprise to him; more, it almost broke his heart. He wrote, manfully, but pathetically, “I have suffered myself to be politically sacrificed to save my country from ruin and disgrace.” I may add, like the man in the play, “Crockett’s occupation’s gone.”

Shortly after he made a farewell address to his constituents, into which he compressed a good deal of plain speaking, or as he says, “I put the ingredients in the cup pretty strong, I tell you: and I concluded by telling them that I was done with politics for the present, and that they might all go to hell and I would go to Texas.”

“When I returned home,” he adds, “I felt sort of cast down at the change that had taken place in my fortunes; sorrow, it is said, will make even an oyster feel poetical. Such was my state of feeling that I began to fancy myself inspired; so I took my pen in hand, and as usual, I went ahead.” This is

CROCKETT’S FAREWELL TO HOME.

“Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to me
Were more beautiful far than Eden could be;
No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spread
Her bountiful board, and her children were fed.
The hills were our garners—our herds wildly grew
And Nature was shepherd and husbandman too.
I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man,
As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshiped his plan.

“The home I forsake where my offspring arose;
The graves I forsake where my children repose.
The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;
The home I have loved as a father his child;
The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,
The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared;
The wife of my bosom—Farewell to ye all!
In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.

“Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,
When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell.
In peace or in war I have stood by thy side—
My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
But I am cast off, my career now is run,
And I wander abroad like the prodigal son—
Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,
The fallen—despised—will again go ahead.”

We can not follow our hero—for he was a moral hero—in his adventures while going across the country to Texas. Only one incident have we room for. On the way he rode apace with a circuit preacher, a man not less a hardy adventurer than himself. He narrates this:

“We talked about politics, religion, and nature,
farming, and bear-hunting, and the many blessings that
an all-bountiful Providence had bestowed upon our
happy country. He continued to talk on this subject,
traveling over the whole ground, as it were, until
his imagination glowed, and his soul became full to
overflowing; and he checked his horse, and I stopped
mine also, and a stream of eloquence burst forth from
his aged lips, such as I have seldom listened to:
it came from the overflowing fountain of a pure and
grateful heart. We were alone in the wilderness, but as
he proceeded, it seemed to me as if the tall trees bent
their tops to listen; that the mountain stream laughed
out joyfully as it bounded on like some living thing;
that the fading flowers of autumn smiled, and sent
forth their fresher fragrance, as if conscious that
they would revive in spring; and even the sterile rocks
seemed to be endued with some mysterious influence. We
were alone in the wilderness, but all things told me
that God was there. The thought renewed my strength and
courage. I had left my country, felt somewhat like an
outcast, believed that I had been neglected and lost
sight of. But I was now conscious that there was one
watchful eye over me; no matter whether I dwelt in
the populous cities, or threaded the pathless forests
alone; no matter whether I stood in the high places
among men, or made my solitary lair in the untrodden
wild, that eye was still upon me. My very soul leaped
joyfully at the thought. I never felt so grateful in
all my life. I never loved my God so sincerely in all
my life. I felt that I still had a friend.

“When the old man finished, I found that my eyes were
wet with tears. I approached and pressed his hand, and
thanked him, and says I, ‘Now let us take a drink.’ I
set him the example, and he followed it, and in a style
too that satisfied me, that if he had ever belonged
to the temperance society, he had either renounced
membership, or obtained a dispensation.”

Crockett reached Texas just in time to take part with the American filibusters in the famous defense of the fortress of the Alamo, against Santa Anna’s army. On the 6th of March, 1836, the citadel was carried by the Mexicans by assault, only six of the little garrison surviving, of whom Crockett was one. When captured he stood at bay in an angle of the fort, his shattered rifle in one hand and a bloody bowie-knife in the other; twenty Mexicans, dead or dying, were at his feet. His face was covered with blood flowing from a deep gash across his forehead. Santa Anna ordered the prisoners to be put to the sword. Crockett, hearing the order, though entirely unarmed, sprang like a tiger at the throat of the Mexican general, but a dozen swords interrupted him and cut off his life.

Thus in its prime was thrown away a life that in many respects was one of the most extraordinary in our annals. If he had enjoyed early advantages, he would have been one of the greatest of Americans. Nay, it is possible that if he had not been so deeply wounded by ingratitude, treachery and defeat, and had remained at home, he, instead of General Harrison, would have been the one to lead the popular revolution, when came the reaction from the unlicensed _regime_ of Jackson and Van Buren.

David Crockett’s courage, independence, honesty, goodness of heart, made him shine “like a good deed in a naughty world.” He ought not to be forgotten by his countrymen, for a noble illustration of the capabilities that may be found among the common people, and of the career possible to even the lowliest-born American citizen.

* * * * *

WHEN a man is called feeble, what is meant by the expression? Feebleness denotes a relative state; a relative state of the being to whom it is applied. He whose strength exceeds his necessities, though an insect, a worm, is a strong being; he whose necessities exceed his strength, though an elephant, a lion, a conqueror, a hero, though a god, is a feeble being.—ROUSSEAU.

FOOTNOTE:

[H] Abbott.

ETIQUETTE.

Etiquette is from the French word for ticket, and its present use in English suggests the old custom of distributing tickets or cards on which the ceremonies to be observed at any formal proceedings are fully set forth—a kind of program for important social gatherings of distinguished persons. Modern usage has given the word a much wider significance. It means the manners or deportment of cultured people; their bearing toward, or treatment of others.

The suggestions in a recent number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, respecting “street etiquette,” or things proper to be observed in riding, driving and walking, will not now be repeated, though many of our younger readers might profit by having, on so familiar a subject, “line upon line, precept upon precept.”

The etiquette proper for the home and every-day life, in town and country, is quite as important, and embraces more things than there is space to notice.

CALLS AND CARDS.

Home, the dearest spot on earth, would be no fit abode for social beings if closed against the entrance and friendly offices of those without. The courtesies and kindness of neighbors must be received and reciprocated to make the home comforts complete. By simple methods the most important amicable relations in society are established and maintained.