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GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
Two hundred aud fifty copies of this edition were
on hand-made paper, March, 1893.
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GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
As lu- looked when I first saw hiin.-W. W.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
DELIVERED BEFORE THE PEOPLE OF STATS If
ISLAND, AT THE CASTLETON, ST. GEORGE,
FEBRUARY 24, 1893
BY
WILLIAM WINTER
" Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quenchM in smoke,
The trumpet s silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill."
SIR WALTER SCOTT
PRINTED FOR THE
CURTIS COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE,
OF STATEN ISLAND,
BY
MACMILLAN AND CO.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
COPYRIGHT 1893
BY
MACMILLAN & CO.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
This brilliant throng, this daz
zling array of eager faces, this
gentle, fervent welcome they are
not for me. They are for another.
They proclaim your affectionate
devotion to a gracious figure that
has passed from this world; a
voice that is silent ; a face that
here will shine on you no more.
And, surely, if the souls of the
departed are aware of anything
upon this earth, if those ties of
affection still subsist, without
2 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,
which life whether here or else
where would be worthless, his
sacred spirit descends upon this
place, to-night, and sees into your
hearts and rejoices in your love,
and knows this hour and hallows
it.
In the days of my youth I was
often privileged to sit by the
fireside of the poet Longfellow.
He was exceedingly kind to me,
and with his encouragement and
under his guidance I entered
upon that service of literature
to which, humbly but earnest
ly, my life has been devoted.
Longfellow possessed a great
and peculiar fascination for
youth. He was a man who nat-
GEORGE WILLIAM CUKTIS. 3
urally attracted to himself all
unsophisticated spirits ; and as
I did not then know, but subse
quently learned he was a man
who naturally attracted to him
self all persons who were intrin
sically noble. His gentleness was
elemental. His tact was inerrant.
His patience never failed. As I
recall him I am conscious of a
beautiful spirit; an altogether
lovely life ; a perfect image of
continence, wisdom, dignity,
sweetness, and grace. In Long
fellow s home the old Craigie
mansion at Cambridge on an
autumn evening nearly forty
years ago was assembled a bril
liant company of gay ladies and
4 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
gallant gentlemen ; and as I en
tered the large drawing-room,
which now I believe is the library,
one figure in particular attracted
my gaze. It was a young man,
lithe, slender, faultlessly appar
elled, very handsome, who rose
at my approach, turning upon
me a countenance that beamed
with kindness and a smile that
was a welcome from the heart.
His complexion was fair. His
hair was brown, long, and waving.
His features were regular and of
exquisite refinement. His eyes
were blue. His bearing was that
of manly freedom and unconven
tional grace, and yet it was that
of absolute dignity. He had the
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 5
manner of the natural aristocrat
a manner that is born, not made ;
a manner that is never found ex
cept in persons who are self-cen
tred without being selfish ; who
are intrinsically noble, wholly sim
ple and wholly true. I was in
troduced to him by Longfellow :
and then and thus it was that
I first beheld George William
Curtis. From that hour until the
day he died I was honored with
his friendship now become a hal
lowed memory. That meeting
was more than once recalled be
tween us ; and as I look back to
it, across the varied landscape of
intervening years, I see it as a
precious and altogether excep-
6 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,
tional experience. It was a hand
dispensing nothing but blessings
which bestowed that incomparable
boon the illustrious and vener
ated hand of the foremost poet of
America. It was the splendid
magnificence of Longfellow that
gave the benediction of Curtis.
It is not, however, only because
he was a friend of mine that I
have been asked to speak of him
in this distinguished presence. It
is because he was a friend of
yours, whom you loved and hon
ored living and whom you de
plore in death. It is because he
was a great person whose lot
was cast in this community, and
because this community is wish-
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 7
iul to listen to even the hum
blest voice that can be raised
in his honor. Not indeed that
his name requires eulogy. The
career of Curtis is rounded and
complete. The splendid struc
ture of his character stands be
fore the world like a monument
of gold. It is not for his sake
that our tribute is laid upon the
shrine of memory; it is for our
own. When the grave has closed
over one whom we love, our
hearts instinctively strive to find
a little comfort in the assurance
that while it was yet possible to
manifest our affection we did not
fail to do so. We were never
unkind (so the heart whispers),
8 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
* we were never neglectful ; we
were always appreciative and
sympathetic and true, and he was
aware of our fidelity and found
a pleasure in it. By thoughts
like those the sharpness of grief
is dulled and the sense of loss
is made less bitter. With that
motive this assemblage has con
vened, in order that here, amid
the scenes that he knew and
loved; here, within a few paces
of the home that was so beauti
ful and is now so lonely ; here,
in the hall from which the echoes
of his melodious voice have
scarcely died away, his neighbors
and friends, bringing their gar
lands of gentle remembrance and
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
lender affection, may utter bless
ings on his name. It is the
spirit of resignation for which
we seek, and with it the satisfac-
f action of our sense of duty.
Not to express homage for a
public benefactor would be to
fail in self-respect. Not to rev
erence a noble and exemplary
character is to forego a benefit
that is individual as well as
social. Nowhere else can so
much strength be derived as
from the contemplation of men
and women who pass through
the vicissitudes of human expe
rience, the ordeal of life and
death, not without action and
not without feeling, but calmly
10 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
and bravely, without fever and
without fear. There is nothing
greater in this world, nor can
there be anything greater in
the world to come, than a
perfectly pure and true and res
olute soul. When the old Scotch
Lord Balmerino was going to
the block, on Tower Hill, in
expiation of his alleged treason
to the House of Hanover, he
spoke a few great words, that
ought to be forever remembered.
" The man who is not fit to die,"
he said, "is not fit to live."
That was the voice of a hero.
An image of heroism like that
is of inestimable value, and it
abides in the human soul as a
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 11
perpetual benediction. In Shake
speare s tragedy, when the foes
of Brutus are seeking to cap
ture him on the field of battle,
his friend Lucilius, whom they
have already taken, denotes, in
two consummate lines, the same
inspiring ideal of superb sta
bility:
" When you do find him, or alive
or dead,
He will be found like Brutus, like
himself."
That might always have been
said of Curtis. That was the
man whom we admired and
loved. That was the character
we do ourselves the justice to
12 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
celebrate and reverence now. In
every duty faithful ; in every
trial adequate ; in every attri
bute of nobility perfect
" He taught us how to live, and oh,
too high
The price for knowledge! taught us
how to die."
And that announces to you
the substance and the drift of
my discourse. It is not the
achievement of Curtis that now
lingers most lovingly in the
memory it is the character.
The authoritative and final
word upon his works will be
spoken by posterity. For us it
is enough that, we remind each
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 13
other of what we already know
of the man. ..." When .a neigh
bor dies" (so Curtis himself
wrote, in his wise and sympa
thetic sketch of the beloved and
lamented Theodore Winthrop),
" his form and quality appear
clearly, as if he had been dead
a thousand years. Then we see
what we only felt before. He
roes in history seem to us po
etic because they are there. But
if we should tell the simple truth
of some of our neighbors it
would sound like poetry." . v ;
The simple truth about Curtis
has that sound now, and more
and more it will have that sound
as time proceeds. It is the
14 GBOEGE WILLIAM CUIlTIS.
story of a man of genius whose
pure life and splendid powers
were devoted to the ministry of
beauty and to the self-sacrific
ing service of mankind. The
superficial facts of that story,
indeed, are familiar and usual.
It was the inspiration of them
that made them poetic that pro
found, intuitive sense of the ob
ligation of noble living which
controlled and fashioned and di
rected his every thought and
deed. The incidents customary
5n the life of a man of letters
are scarcely more important
than were the migrations of the
Vicar of Wakefield from the
brown bed to the blue and from
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, 15
the blue bed back again to the
brown. He moves from place
to place ; he has ill fortune and
good fortune ; he gains and
loses ; he rejoices and suffers ;
he writes books : and he is never
justly appreciated until he is
dead. Curtis was a man of let
ters, born sixty-nine years ago
this day, in our American Venice,
the New England city of Provi
dence ; born nearly two months
before the death of Byron (so
near, in literature, we always are
to the great names of the past),
and a boy of eight in that
dark year which ended the illus
trious lives of Goethe and Sir
Walter Scott. It has been usual
16 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
to ascribe the direction of his
career to the influence of his
juvenile experience at Brook
Farm, in Roxbury, where he
resided from 1840 to 1844; but
it should be remembered that
the Brook Farm ideal was in his
mind before he went there the
ideal of a social existence regu
lated by absolute justice and
adorned by absolute beauty. In
that idyllic retreat that earthly
Eden, conceived and founded by
the learned and gentle George
Ripley as a home for all the
beatitudes and all the arts
and later, at Concord, his young
mind, no doubt, was stimulated
by some of the most invigo-
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 17
rating forces that ever were
liberated upon human thought :
Theodore Parker, who was in
carnate truth ; the mystical spirit
of Channing ; the resolute, in
trepid, humanitarian Dana ; the
sombre, imaginative Hawthorne ;
the audacious intellect and indom
itable will of Margaret Fuller ;
and, greatest of all, the heaven-
eyed thought of Emerson. But
the preordination of that mind
to the service of justice and
beauty and humanity was ger
minal in itself. Curtis began
wisely, because he followed the
star of his own destiny. He was
wise, in boyhood, when he went
to Brook Farm. He was wiser
18 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
still in early manhood, having
formally adopted the vocation
of literature, when he sought
the haunted lands of the Ori
ent, and found inspiration and
theme in subjects that were
novel because their scene was
both august and remote. On
that expedition, consuming four
precious years, he penetrated
into the country of the Nile
and he roamed in Arabia and
Syria. He stood before the
Sphinx and he knelt at the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
It is a privilege to be able to
add since he was an American
that he did not endeavor to
be comic. When, in later days,
GEOBGE WILLIAJC CURTIS. 10
my friend Artemus Ward went
to the Tower of London he
looked upon the Traitor s Gate,
and he remarked that apparent
ly as many as twenty traitors
might go in abreast. It was
funny but to a reverent mind
the note is a discordant note.
Curtis was a humorist, but he
was not the humorist who grins
amid the sculptures of Westmin
ster Abbey. He was a humorist
as Addison was, whom he much
resembled. He looked upon life
with tranquil, pensive, kindly
eyes. He exulted in all of
goodness that it contains ; he
touched its foibles with bland,
whimsical drollery ; he would
20 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
have made all persons happy by
making them all noble, serene,
gentle, and patient. Such a
mind could degrade nothing.
Least of all could it degrade
dignity with sport, or antiquity
with ridicule. He looked at the
statue of Memnon and he saw
that " serene repose is the atti
tude and character of godlike
grandeur." " Those forms," he
said, " impress man with him
self. In them we no longer suc
cumb to the landscape, but sit,
individual and imperial, under
the sky, by the mountains and
the river. Man is magnified in
Memnon." He stood among the
ruined temples of Erment and
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 21
he saw Cleopatra, glorious in
beauty upon the throne of Rame-
ses, and he uttered neither a
scrap of morality nor a figment
of jest. " Nothing Egyptian,"
he said, "is so cognate to our
warm human sympathy as the
rich romance of Cleopatra and
her Roman lovers." ..." The
great persons and events," he
added, " that notch time in pass
ing do so because Nature gave
them such an excessive and ex
aggerated impulse that wherever
they touch they leave their
mark ; and that intense human
ity secures human sympathy be
yond the most beautiful balance,
which, indeed, the angels love
22 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,
and we are beginning to appreci
ate." That was the spirit in which
he rambled and saw and wrote.
" The highest value of travel," he
urged, "is not the accumulation
of facts, but the perception of
their significance." In those true
words he made his comment, not
simply upon the immediate and
local scene, but upon the whole
wide stage of human activity
and experience. He was wise,
when he began to labor for the
present, thus to fortify himself
with the meaning of the past.
Those early books of his, the
"Nile Notes" and the "Howadji
in Syria," which have been be
fore the world for more than
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 23
forty years, will always be a
refreshment and a delight. They
glow with the authentic vitality
of nature, her warmth, and col
or, and copious profusion, and
exultant joy, and they are buoy
ant with the ardor of an auspi
cious and yet unsaddened soul.
But they are exceptionally pre
cious now, for their guidance to
the springs of his character. In
the " Syria " there is a passage
that, perhaps, furnishes the key
to his whole career. He is speak
ing of successful persons, and he
says this : . . . " Success is a
delusion. It is an attainment
but who attains ? It is the hori
zon, always bounding our path
24 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
and therefore never gained. The
Pope, triple-crowned, and borne,
with flabella, through St. Peter s,
is not successful, for he might
be canonized into a saint. Pyg
malion, before his perfect statue,
is not successful, for it might
live. Raphael, finishing the Sis-
tine Madonna, is not success
ful, for her beauty has revealed
to him a finer and an unattain
able beauty." ... In those words
you perceive, at the outset, the
spirit of comprehensive, sweet,
and tolerant reason that was ever
the conspicuous attribute of his
mind. Those words denote, in
deed, the inherent forces that
governed him to the last per-
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 25
ception and practical remem
brance of what has already been
accomplished, and the realization
that human life is not final
achievement but endless endeavor.
In early days Curtis wrote
verse, as well as prose. As late
as 1863 he delivered before the
Sons of Rhode Island a poem
of 418 lines, entitled " A Rhyme
of Rhode Island and the Times."
In that occurs his impassioned
paean for the Flag of the Re
public :
" At last, at last, each glowing star
In that pure field of heavenly blue,
On every people shining far,
Burns, to its utmost promise
true. ,
26 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
4 And when the hour seems dark
with doom
Our sacred banner, lifted higher.
Shall flash away the gathering
gloom
With inextinguishable fire.
"Pure as its white the future see!
Bright as its red is now the sky !
Fixed as its stars the faith shall
be
That nerves our hands to do or
die!"
Those are but three of the
eight stanzas. They show his
patriotic ardor, and they also
show the felicity of his diction
in verse. That felicity is still
further manifested in another
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 27
characteristic passage, denoting
that in the eighteenth-century
manner he also could have been
expert, if he had cared to pur
sue it :
Admonished, by life s fluctuating
scene,
Of all he is and all he might have
been,
Man, toiling upward on the dizzy
track,
Still looks regretful or remorseful
back;
Paces old paths, remembering vows
that rolled
In burning words from hearts for
ever cold ;
Bows his sad head where once he
bowed the knee
28 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
And kissed the lips that no more
kissed shall be.
So the sad traveller climbing from
the plain
Turns from the hill and sees his
home again,
And sighs to know that, this sweet
prospect o er,
The boundless world is but a foreign
shore."
A certain frenzy is inseparable
from the temperament of the
poet. He must not yield his
mind absolutely to its control,
but he must be capable of it
and he must guide and direct
its course. He must not, with
Savage and with Burns, abdi
cate the supremacy of the soul.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 29
He must, with Shakespeare and
with Goethe (to borrow the fine
figure of Addison), "ride on the
whirlwind and direct the storm."
The conduct of his life must not
be a delirium; but the capacity
of delirium must, inevitably, be
a part of his nature. Conven
tionality is bounded by four
walls. Unless the heart of the
poet be passionate he cannot
move the hearts of others: and
the poet who does not touch the
heart is a poet of no impor
tance. Curtis was a man of deep
poetic sensibility. In that idyllic
composition, " Prue and I," the
poetic atmosphere is invariably
sustained and it is invariably
30 GEOIIGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
beautiful. The use of poetic
quotation, wherever it occurs,
throughout his writings, is re
markably felicitous as in his
book that we know as " Lotus-
Eating," written in 1851 and it
manifests the keenest apprecia
tion of the poetic element. His
analysis of the genius of Bry
ant, in his noble oration before
the Century Club in 1878, is
not less subtle than potential,
and it leaves nothing to be said.
His perception of the ideal as
when he wrote upon Hamlet,
with the spiritual mind and
prince-like figure of Edwin
Booth in that character was
equally profound and compre-
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 31
hensive, and as fine and delicate
as it was unerringly true. There
can be little doubt that he was
conscious, originally, of a strong
impulse toward poetry, but that
this was restricted and presently
was diverted into other channels,
partly by the stress of his philo
sophical temperament, and partly
by the untoward force of iron
circumstance. His nature was
not without fervor ; but it was
the fervor of moral and spirit
ual enthusiasm, not of passion.
His faculties and feelings were
exquisitely poised, and I do not
think there ever was a time in
all his life when that perfect
sanity was disturbed by any in-
32 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
ordinate waywardness or any
blast of storm. The benign and
potent but utterly dispassionate
influence of Emerson touched his
responsive spirit, at the begin
ning of his career, and beneath
that mystic and wonderful spell
of Oriental contemplation and
bland and sweet composure his
destiny was fulfilled. Like grav
itates to like. Each individual
sways by that power, whatsoever
it be, to which in nature he is
the most closely attuned. The
poetic voice of Emerson was the
voice, not of the human heart,
but of the pantheistic spirit :
" As sunbeams stream through liberal
space,
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 33
And nothing jostle nor displace,
So waved the pine-tree through my
< - , thought,
And fanned the dreams it never
brought."
In Curtis the poetic voice was
less remote and more human ; but
it was of the same elusive qual
ity. It was not often heard. It
sounded very sweetly in his tender
lyric of other days :
" Sing the song that once you sung,
When we were together young,
When there were but you and I
Underneath the summer sky.
" Sing the song, and o er and o er
But I know that nevermore
Will it be the song you sung
When we were together young."
34 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,
There can be no higher mission
than that of the poet, but there
are many vocations that exact
more direct practical effort and in-
volve more immediate practical
results. One of those vocations,
meanwhile, had largely absorbed
the mind of Curtis,
To people of the present day it
would be difficult to impart an ad
equate idea of the state of politi
cal feeling that existed in New
England forty years ago. The
passage of the Fugitive Slave Act,
which was regarded as the cul
mination of a long series of
encroachments, had inspired a
tremendous resentment, and the
community there was seething
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 35
with bitterness and conflict. The
novel of " Uncle Tom s Cabin " had
blazoned the national crime of
slavery, and had aroused and in
flamed thousands of hearts against
it, as a sin and a disgrace. Theo
dore Parker that moral and intel
lectual giant was preaching in
the Boston Music Hall. The pas
sionate soul of Thomas Starr King
poured forth its melodious fervor
in the old church in Hollis Street.
Sumner, and Phillips, and Wilson,
and Giddings, and Hale, and Bur-
lingame, in Faneuil Hall and ev
erywhere else, were pleading the
cause of the slave and the purifi
cation of the flag. The return of
Anthony Burns from Boston, in
36 GEORGE WILLIAM CUKTIS.
June, 1854, when the court-house
was surrounded with chains and
soldiers, and when State Street
was commanded with cannon,
although perfectly legal, was felt
by every freeman as an act of
monstrous tyranny, and as the
consummation of national shame.
The murderous assault on Sumner,
committed in the United States
Senate chamber by Brooks of
South Carolina, had aroused all
that was best of manly pride
and moral purpose in the North,
and from the moment when that
blow was struck every man who
was not blinded by folly knew that
the end of human slavery in the
Republic must inevitably come.
GEOEGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 37
There never had been seen in our
political history so wild a tide of
enthusiasm as that which swept
through the New England States,
bearingonward the standard of Fre
mont, in 1856. Statesmen, indeed,
there were foreseeing and dread
ing civil war who steadily coun
selled moderation and compromise.
Edward Everett was one of those
pacificators, and Rufus Choate was
another. Choate, in Faneuil Hall,
delivered one of the most enchant
ing orations of his life, in solemn
and passionate warning against
those impetuous zealots of freedom
w ho as he beheld them were
striving to rend asunder the col
ossal crag of national unity, al-
38 GEOfiGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
ready smitten by the lightning and
riven from summit to base. And
it must be admitted and it needs
no apology that the conviction
of generous patriotism in those wild
days of wrath and tempest was the
conviction that a Union under
which every citizen of every free
State was, by the law, made a hun
ter of negro slaves for a Southern
driver, was not only worthless but
infamous. Conservatives, cynics,
mercenary, scheming politicians,
and timid friends of peace might
hesitate, and palter with the occa
sion, and seek to evade the issue and
postpone the struggle ; but the
general drift of New England sen
timent was all the other way. Old
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 39
political lines disappeared. The
everlasting bickerings of Protes
tant and Catholic were for a mo
ment hushed. The Know-Nothings
vanished. The thin ghosts of the
old silver-gray Whig party, led by
Bell and Everett, moaned feebly
at parting and faded into air.
Elsewhere in the nation the lines
of party conflict were sharply
drawn ; but in New England
one determination animated every
bosom the determination that
human slavery should perish. The
spirit that walked abroad was the
spirit of Concord Bridge and. Bun
ker Hill. The silent voices of
Samuel Adams and James Otis
were silent no more. "My ances-
40 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
tor fell at Lexington," said old
Joel Parker then over threescore
years of age and I am ready to
shed more of the same blood in
the same cause." It was a tremen
dous epoch in New England his
tory, and we who were youths in
it felt our hearts aflame with holy
ardor in a righteous cause. I was
myself a follower of the Pathfinder
and a speaker for him, in that
stormy time, assailing Choate and
Caleb Gushing and other giants
of the adverse faction, with the
freedom and confidence that are
possible only to unlimited moral
enthusiasm. What a different world
it was from the world of to-day !
How sure we were that all we de-
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 41
sired to do was wise and right !
How plainly we saw our duty, and
how eager we were for the onset
and the strife ! If we could only
have foreseen the beatific con
dition of the present, I wonder if
that zeal would have cooled. Some
of us have grown a little weary of
rolling the Sisyphus stone of be
nevolence for the aggrandizement
of a selfish multitude, careless of
everything except its sensual en
joyment. But it was a glorious
enthusiasm while it lasted; and, as
poor Byron truly said,
" There s not a joy the world can give
like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought de
clines in feeling s dull decay."
42 GEOHUE WILLIAM CURTIS.
Into that conflict, of Right
against Wrong, Curtis threw him
self with all his soul. His reputa
tion as a speaker had already been
established. He had made his
first public address in 1851 before
the New York National Academy
of Design discussing " Contem
porary Artists of Europe," and in
1853 he had formally adopted the
Platform as a vocation ; and it
continued to be a part of his vo
cation for the next twenty years.
He was everywhere popular in the
lyceum, and he now brought into
the more turbulent field of politics
the dignity of the scholar, the re
finement and grace of the gentle
man, and all the varied equipments
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 43
of the zealous and accomplished
advocate, the caustic satirist, and
the impassioned champion of the
rights of man. I first heard him
speak on politics making an ap
peal for Fremont at a popular
convention in the town of Fitch-
burg. It was on a summer day,
under canvas, but almost in the
open air. The assemblage was
vast. Curtis followed Horace
Greeley with whose peculiar
drawl and rustic aspect his prince-
like demeanor and lucid and so
norous rhetoric were in wonderful
contrast. Neither of those men
was wordly-wise ; neither was
versed in political duplicity.
Greeley, no doubt, had then the
44 GEORGE WILLIAM CD HTIB.
advantage in political wisdom ;
but Curtis was the orator and,
while Curtis spoke, the hearts of
that multitude were first lured and
entranced by the golden tones of
his delicious voice, and then were
shaken, as with a whirlwind, by
the righteous fervor of his mag
nificent enthusiasm. It was the
diamond morning blaze of that
perfect eloquence which some of
you have known in its noonday
splendor, and all of you have
known in its sunset ray. He
continued to speak for that cause
everywhere with great effect ;
and down to the war-time, and
during the war-time, the prin
ciples which are at the basis of
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 45
the American Republic had no
champion more eloquent or more
sincere. He abandoned the plat
form as a regular employment in
1873 ; but as we all gratefully
remember he never altogether
ceased the exercise of that match
less gift of oratory for which he
was remarkable and by which he
was enabled to accomplish so
much good and diffuse so much
happiness.
In this domain he came to his
zenith. The art in which Curtis
excelled all his contemporaries of
the last thirty years was the art
of oratory. Many other authors
wrote better in verse, and some
others wrote as well in prose.
46 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
Hawthorne, Motley, Lowell, Whip-
pie, Giles, Mitchell, Warner, and
Stedman were masters of style.
But in the felicity of speech
Curtis was supreme above all
other men of his generation. My
reference is to the period from
1860 to 1890. Oratory as it ex
isted in America in the previous
epoch has no living representative.
Curtis was the last orator of the
great school of Everett, Sumner,
and Wendell Phillips. His model
in so far as he had a model
was Sumner, and the style of
Sumner was based on Burke.
But Curtis had heard more magi
cal voices than those for he had
heard Daniel Webster and Rufus
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 47
Choate ; and although he was
averse to their politics, he could
profit by their example. Webster
and Choate each in a different
way were perfection. The elo
quence of Webster had the af
fluent potentiality of the rising
sun ; of the lonely mountain ; of
the long, regular, successive
surges of the resounding sea. His
periods were as lucid as the light.
His logic was irresistible. His
facts came on in a solid phalanx of
overwhelming power. His tones
were crystal-clear. His mag
nificent person towered in dignity
and seemed colossal in its imperial
grandeur. His voice grew in
volume, as he became more and
48 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
more aroused, and his language
glowing with the fire of cog
viction, rose and swelled and
broke, like the great ninth wave
that shakes the solid crag. His
speech, however, was addressed
always to the reason, never to
the imagination. The eloquence
of Rufus Choate, on the other
hand, was the passionate en
chantment of the actor and the
poet an eloquence in which you
felt the rush of the tempest, and
heard the crash of breakers and
the howling of frantic gales
and the sobbing wail of homeless
winds in bleak and haunted re
gions of perpetual night. He
began calmly, often in a tone
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 49
that was hardly more than a
whisper ; but as he proceeded
the whole man was gradually
absorbed and transfigured, as
into a fountain of fire, which
then poured forth, in one tumult
uous and overwhelming torrent
of melody, the iridescent splen
dors of description, and appeal,
and humor, and pathos, and in
vective, and sarcasm, and poetry,
and beauty till the listener lost
all consciousness of self and was
borne away as on a golden river
flowing to a land of dreams.
The vocabulary of that orator
seemed literally to have no limit.
His voice sounded every note,
from a low, piercing whisper to
50 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
a shrill, sonorous scream. His
remarkable appearance, further
more, enhanced the magic of his
speech. The tall, gaunt, vital
figure, the symmetrical head, the
clustered hair, once black, now
faintly touched with gray, the
emaciated, haggard countenance,
the pallid olive complexion, the
proud Arabian features, the
mournful flaming brown eyes,
the imperial demeanor and wild
and lawless graceall those at
tributes of a strange, poetic per
sonality commingled with the
boundless resources of his elo
quence to rivet the spell of alto
gether exceptional character and
genius. In singular contrast
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 51
with Choate was still another
great orator whom Curtis heard,
and about whom he has
written, that consummate
scholar and rhetorician Edward
Everett. There is no statelier
figure in American history. If
Everett had been as puissant in
character as he was ample in
scholarship, and as rich in emo
tion as he was fine in intellect,
he would have been the peerless
wonder of the age. He was a
person of singular beauty. His
form was a little above the mid
dle height and perfectly propor
tioned. His head was beautifully
formed and exquisitely poised.
His closely clustering hair was as
52 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
white as silver. His features
were regular; his eyes were dark;
his countenance was pale, refined,
and cold. His aspect was formal
and severe. He dressed habitu
ally in black, often wearing
around his neck a thin gold
chain, outside of his coat. His
eloquence was the perfection of
art. I heard him often, and in
every one of his orations, except
the magnificent one that he gave
in Faneuil Hall on the death of
Rufus Choate, which was su
preme and without blemish, his
art was distinctly obvious. He
began in a level tone and with a
formal manner. He spoke with
out a manuscript, and whether his
GEOEGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 53
speech was long or short he never
missed a word nor made an error.
As he proceeded his countenance
kindled and his figure began to
move. With action he was pro
fuse, and every one of his ges
tures had the beauty of a mathe
matical curve and the certainty
of a mathematical demonstration.
His movement suited his word,
his pauses were exactly timed;
his finely modulated voice rose
and fell with rhythmic beat; and
his polished periods flowed from
his lips with limpid fluency and
delicious cadence. A distinguish
ing attribute of his art was its
elaborate complexity. In his
noble oration on Washington,
54 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,
when he came to contrast the
honesty of that patriot with the
mercenary greed of Marlborough,
it was not with words alone that
he pointed his moral, but with a
graceful, energetic blow upon his
pocket that mingled the jingle
of coin with the accents of scorn.
One speech of his I remember
(as far back as 1852) contained a
description of the visible planets
and constellations in the midnight
sky; and his verbal pageantry
was so magnificent that almost,
I thought, it might take its place
among them.
Such was the school of oratory
in which Curtis studied and in
which his style was formed. It
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 55
no longer exists. The oratory of
the present day is characterized
by colloquialism, familiarity, and
comic anecdote. Curtis main
tained the dignity of the old
order. You all remember the
charm of his manner how subtle
it was, yet seemingly how sim
ple ; how completely it con
vinced and satisfied you ; how it
clarified your intelligence ; how
it ennobled your mood. One
secret of it, no doubt, was its
perfect sincerity. Noble himself,
and speaking only for right, and
truth, and beauty, he addressed
nobility in others. That consid
eration would explain the moral
and the genial authority of his
56 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
eloquence. The total effect of it,
however, was attributable to his
exquisite and inexplicable art.
He could make an extempora
neous speech, but as a rule his
speeches were carefully prepared.
They had not always been
written, but they had always
been composed and considered.
He possessed absolute self-con
trol ; a keen sense of symmetry
and proportion ; the faculty of
logical thought and lucid state
ment ; unbounded resources of
felicitous illustration ; passionate
earnestness, surpassing sweetness
of speech, and perfect grace of
action. Like Everett, whom he
more closely resembled than he
GEORGE WILLIAM CUETIS. 57
did any other of the great mas
ters of oratory, he could trust
his memory and he could trust
his composure. He began with
the natural deference of un
studied courtesy serene, pro
pitiatory, irresistibly winning.
He captured the eye and the ear
upon the instant, and before he
had been speaking for many
minutes he captured the heart.
There was not much action in
his delivery ; there never was any
artifice. His gentle tones grew
earnest. His fine face became
illumined. His golden periods
flowed with more and more of
impetuous force, and the climax
of their perfect music was always
58 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
exactly identical with the climax
of their thought. There always
was a certain culmination of
fervent power at which he aimed,
and after that a gradual subsid
ence to the previous level of
gracious serenity. He created
and sustained the absolute illu
sion of spontaneity. You never
felt that you had been beguiled
by art : you only felt that you
had been entranced by nature.
I never could explain it to myself.
I cannot explain it to you. I can
only say of him, as he himself
said of Wendell Phillips: "The
secret of the rose s sweetness, of
the bird s ecstasy, of the sunset s
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 59
glory that is the secret of genius
and of eloquence."
While, however, the secret of
his eloquence was elusive, the
purpose and effect of it were per
fectly clear. It dignified the
subject and it ennobled the
hearer. He once told me of a
conversation, about poetry and
oratory, between himself and the
late distinguished senator, Ros-
coe Conkling. That statesman,
having declared that, in his judg
ment, the perfection of poetry was
" Casablanca," by Mrs. Hemans
(" The boy stood on the burning
deck "), and the perfection of
oratory a passage in a Fourth-
of-July oration by Charles
GO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
Sprague, desired Curtis to name
a supreme specimen of eloquence.
" I mentioned," said Curtis, " a
passage in Emerson s Dartmouth
College oration, in which, how
ever, Mr. Conkling could perceive
no peculiar force." That passage
Curtis proceeded to repeat to me.
I wish that I could say it as it
was said by him ; but that is im
possible. Yet the citation of it is
appropriate, not only as showing
his ideal but as explaining his
self-devotion, not to art alone but
to conscience.
"You will hear every day"
(so runs that pearl of noble
thought and feeling) "the max
ims of a low prudence. You
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 61
will hear that the first duty is
to get land and money, place
and name. What is this Truth
you seek? what is this Beauty?
men will ask, with derision. If,
nevertheless, God have called any
of you to explore truth and
beauty, be bold, be firm, be
true ! When you shall say, As
others do, so will I ; I renounce,
I am sorry for it, my early vis
ions ; I must eat the good of
the land and let learning and
romantic expectation go until a
more convenient season ; then
dies the man in you ; then once
more perish the buds of art and
poetry and science, as they have
died already in a thousand, thou-
152 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
sand hearts. The hour of that
choice is the crisis of your his
tory : and see that you hold
yourself fast by the intellect."
... It was natural that Curtis
should adopt that doctrine. He
would have evolved it if he
had not found it. That divine
law was in his nature, and from
that divine law he never swerved.
How should a man of genius
use his gift? Setting aside the
restrictive pressure of circum
stance, two ways are open to
him. He may cultivate himself
standing aloof from the world,
as Goethe did and as Tennyson
did, aiming to make his pow
ers of expression perfect, and to
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 63
make his expression itself uni
versal, potential, irresistible, such
as will sift into the lives of the
human race as sunshine sifts
into the trees of the forest ; or
he may take an executive course
and yoke himself to the plough
and the harrow, aiming to ex
ert an immediate influence upon
his environment. The former way
is not at once comprehended by
the world : the latter is more
obvious.
In his poem of Retaliation,
Goldsmith has designated Ed
mund Burke as a man who,
" Born for the universe, narrowed his
mind.
64 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
And to party gave up what was
meant for mankind."
It has always seemed to me
that Curtis made one sacrifice
when he went into business, and
another when he went into poli
tics. He manifested, indeed, ster
ling character and splendid abil
ity in both ; yet he did not, in
a practical sense, succeed in
either. The end of his experi
ment in business was a heavy
burden of debt, which he was
compelled to bear through a
long period of anxious and
strenuous toil. His experience
was not the terrible experience
of Sir Walter Scott that heroic
gentleman, that supreme and in-
GEORGE WILL1AAT CURTIS. 65
comparable magician of romance !
but it was an experience of
the same kind. He released him
self from his burden, justly and
honorably, at last ; but the strain
upon his mind was an injury to
him, and I believe that the lite
rature of his country is poorer
because of the sacrifice that he
was obliged to make. That
" Life of Mehemet Ali," the great
Pasha of Egypt, which he de
signed to write, was never writ
ten. On a day in 1860 I met
him in Broadway, and he said
to me, very earnestly, " Take ad
vantage of the moment : don t
delay too long that fine poem,
that great novel, that you in-
66 GEOKGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
tend to write." It was the wise
philosophy that takes heed of
the enormous values of youth and
freedom. It pleases some philos
ophers, indeed, to believe that
a man of letters will accomplish
his best expression when goaded
by what Shakespeare calls " the
thorny point of sharp necessity/
That practice of glorifying hard
ship is sometimes soothing to
human vanity. Men have thought
themselves heroes because they
rise early. It may possibly be
true of the poets that they
learn in suffering what they
teach in song ; but the suffer
ing must not be sordid. Lit
erature was never yet en-
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 67
riched through the pressure of
want. The author may write
more, because of his need, but
he will not write better. The
best literatures of the world, the
literatures of Greece and Eng
land, were created in the gentlest
and most propitious climates of
the world. The best individual
works in those literatures with
little exception were produced
by writers whose physical cir
cumstances were those of com
fort and peace. Chaucer, Shake
speare, Milton, Herrick, Addison,
Pope, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley,
Scott, Moore, Lamb, Thackeray,
Tennyson neither of them lacked
00 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
the means of reputable subsist
ence. Burns, fine as he was,
would have been finer still, in a
softer and sweeter environment
of worldly circumstance. Curtis
was a man of extraordinary pa
tience, concentration, and poise.
He accepted the conditions in
which he found himself, and he
made the best of them. His in
cessant industry and his compo
sure, to the last, were prodigious.
He never, indeed, was acquainted
with want. The shackle that busi
ness imposed on him was the
shackle of drudgery. He was
compelled to write profusely and
without pause. His pen was never
at rest. Once in 1873 he broke
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 69
down completely, and for several
months he could not work at all.
During more than forty years,
however, he worked all the time.
Curtis, at his best, had the grace
of Addison, the kindness of Steele,
the simplicity of Goldsmith, and
the nervous force of the incompa
rable Sterne. Writing under such
conditions, however, no man can
always be at his best. The won
der is that his average was so fine.
He attained to a high and orderly
level of wise and kindly thought,
of gentle fancy, and of winning
ease, and he steadily maintained
it. He had an exceptional faculty
for choosing diversified themes,
and his treatment of them was al-
70 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
ways felicitous. He wrought in
many moods, but always genially
and without flurry, and he gave
the continuous impression of spon
taneity and pleasure. A fetter,
however, is not the less a fetter
because it is lightly borne, and
whatever is easy to read was hard
to write. It may be, of course,
that the troublesome business ex
perience in the life of Curtis was
only an insignificant incident. It
may be that he fulfilled himself as
an author leaving nothing un
done that he had the power to do.
But that is not my reading of the
artistic mind, and it is not my
reading of him. For me the mist
was drawn too early across those
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 71
luminous and tender pictures of
the Orient, those haunting shapes
and old historic splendors of the
Nile. For me the rich, tranquil
note of tender music that breathes
in " Prue and I " was too soon
hushed and changed. Genius is
the petrel, and like the petrel it
loves the freedom of the winds
and waves.
" My thoughts like swallows skim the
main,
And bear my spirit back again,
Over the earth and through the air
A wild bird and a wanderer."
All thinkers repudiate the nar
row philosophy that would regu
late one man s life by the stand-
TZ GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
ard of another. "Be yourself!"
is the precept of the highest
wisdom. Shakespeare has writ
ten his Plays. Milton has writ
ten his Epic. Those things can
not be done again and should
not be expected. The new ge
nius must mount upon its own
wings, and hold its own flight,
and seek the eyrie that best it
loves. I recognize, and feel, and
honor the nobility of Curtis as
a citizen ; but I cannot cast
aside the regret that he did not
dedicate himself exclusively to
Literature. Everything is rela
tive. To such a nature as that
of Curtis the pursuits of busi
ness and politics are foreign
GEOKGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 73
and inappropriate. He was un
doubtedly equal to all their
responsibilities and duties ; but
he was equal to much more to
things different and higher and
the practical service essential to
business and politics did not
need him. The State, indeed,
needs the virtue that he possessed
but needs it in the form, not of
the poet but the gladiator, who,
when he goes rejoicing to battle,
has no harp to leave in silence
and no garlands to cast unheeded
in the dust. I would send Saint
Peter, with his sword, to the pri
mary meeting; I would not send
the apostle John. The organist
should not be required to blow
74 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
the bellows. Curtis was, by na
ture, a man of letters. His fac
ulty in that direction was pro
digious. So good a judge as
Thackeray, looking at him as a
young man, declared him to be
the most auspicious of all our
authors. It is a great vocation,
and because its force, like that of
nature, is deep, slow, silent, and
elemental, it is the most tremen
dous force concerned in human
affairs. Shall I try to say what it
is? The mission of the man of
letters is to touch the heart ; to
kindle the imagination ; to en
noble the mind. He is the inter
preter between the spirit of
beauty that is in nature and the
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 75
general intelligence and sensibility
of mankind. He sets to music
the pageantry and the pathos of
human life, and he keeps alive in
the soul the holy enthusiasm of
devotion to the ideal. He honors
and perpetuates heroic conduct,
and he teaches, by many devices
of art by story, and poem, and
parable, and essay, and drama
purity of life, integrity to man,
and faith in God. He is continu
ally reminding you of the good
ness and loveliness to which you
may attain ; continually causing
you to see what opportunities of
nobility your life affords ; continu
ally delighting you with high
thoughts and beautiful pictures.
76 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
He does not preach to you. He
does not attempt to regulate your
specific actions. He does not
assail you with the hysterical
scream of the reformer. He does
not carp, and vex, and meddle.
He whispers to you, in your silent
hours, of love and heroism and
holiness and immortality, and you
are refreshed and strong, and
come forth into the world smiling
at fortune and bearing blessings
in your hands. On these bleak
February nights, with the breakers
clashing on our icy coasts and the
trumpets of the wind resounding
in our chimneys, how sweet it has
been, sitting by the evening lamp,
to turn the pages of " The Tern-
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 77
pest," or "The Antiquary," or
" Old Mortality," or " Henry Es
mond," or "The Idylls of the
King," while the treasured faces
of Shakespeare and Scott and
Thackeray and Tennyson looked
down from the library walls !
How sweet to read those ten
der, romantic, imaginative pages
of " Prue and I," in which the
pansies and the rosemary bloom
forever, and to think of him who
wrote them !
" His presence haunts this room to
night,
A form of mingled mist and light
From that far coast !
Welcome beneath this roof of mine!
Welcome ! this vacant chair is thine,
Dear guest and ghost."
78 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
But whether the choice that
Curtis made was a sacrifice or
not, we know he made it and
we know why he made it. Pre
figured in his character and his
writings, at the outset, and illus
trated in all his conduct, was
the supreme law of his being
practical consideration for others.
The trouble of the world was
his trouble. The disciple of An
drew Marvel could not rest at
ease in the summer - land of
Keats. His heart was there; but
his duty, as he saw it, steadily
called him away.
" Some life of men unblest
He knew, which made him droop,
and fill d his head.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 79
He went; his piping took a troubled
sound,
Of storms that rage outside our
happy ground ;
He could not wait their passing; he
is dead."
He would have rejoiced in
writing more books like " Prue
and I;" but the virtuous glory
of the commonwealth and the
honor and happiness of the peo
ple were forever present to him,
as the first and the most solemn
responsibility. When his proto
type, Sir Philip Sidney, on that
fatal September morning, three
hundred and seven years ago,
set forth for the field of battle
at Zutphen, he met a fellow-
80 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
soldier riding in light armoi,
and thereupon he cast away a
portion of his own mail and
in so doing, as the event proved,
he cast away his life in order
that he might be no better pro
tected than his friend. In like
manner Curtis would have no
advantage for himself, nor even
the semblance of advantage,
that was not shared by others.
He could not with his superla
tive moral fervor dedicate him
self exclusively to letters, while
there was so much wrong in the
world that clamored for him to
do his part in setting it right.
He believed that his direct, prac
tical labor was essential and
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 81
would avail, and he was eager
to bestow it. Men of strong
imagination begin life with il
limitable ideals, with vast illu
sions, with ardent and generous
faith. They are invariably dis
appointed, and they are usually
embittered. Curtis was con
trolled less by his imagination
than by his moral sense. He
had ideals, but they were based
on reason. However much he
may have loved to muse and
dream, he saw the world as a
fact and not as a fancy. He
was often saddened by the spec
tacle of human littleness, but,
broadly and generally, he was
not disappointed in mankind,
82 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
and he never became embittered.
The belief in human nature with
which he began remained his
belief when he ended. Nothing
could shake his conviction that
man is inherently and intrinsi
cally good. He believed in the
people. He believed in earthly
salvation for the poor, the weak,
and the oppressed. He believed
in chivalry toward woman. He
believed in refinement, gentle
ness, and grace. He believed
that the world is growing better
and not worse. He believed in
the inevitable, final triumph of
truth and right over falsehood
and wrong. He believed in free
dom, chanty, justice, hope, and
GEORGE WILLIAM CUBTIS. 83
love. The last line that fell
from the dying pen of Long
fellow might have been the last
word that fell from the dying
lips of Curtis: " Tis daylight
everywhere !"
Upon the spirit in which he
served the state no words can
make so clear a comment as his
own. " There is no nobler am
bition," he said, " than to fill a
great office greatly." His esti
mate of Bryant culminates in
the thought that " no man, no
American, living or dead, has
more truly and amply illustrated
the scope and fidelity of re
publican citizenship." . . . " The
great argument for popular gov-
84 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
ernment," he declared, in his
fine eulogy on Wendell Phil
lips, " is not the essential right
eousness of a majority, but the
celestial law which subordinates
the brute force of numbers to
intellectual and moral ascend
ency." And his stately tribute
to the character of Washington
reached a climax in his impas
sioned homage to its lofty se
renity, its moral grandeur, and
its majestic repose. The quality
of every man may be divined
from the objects of his genu
ine devotion. There could be
no doubt of the patriotism of
Curtis : and I will make bold to
say that> in the conditions which
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 85
now confront the American Re
public, conditions more perilous
than ever yet existed in its
experience (vicious immigration,
the dangerous Indian, the still
more dangerous negro, racial
antagonism, discontented labor,
socialism, communism, anarchy,
a licentious press, a tottering
church, ambitious Roman Cathol
icism, the Irish vote, boss rule,
ring rule, corruption in office,
levity, profanity, and a generally
low state of public morals), it
was no slight thing that such
a man as Curtis should have
testified, to the last, his confi
dence in the future of the Ame
rican people, and to the last
86 GEORGE WILLIAM CUETIS.
should have devoted his splen
did powers more largely to their
practical service than to any
thing else. Fortunate is the
man who can close the awfully
true book of " Ecclesiastes" and
forget its terrible lessons ! For
tunate is the people that has the
example, the sympathy, the sup
port, and the guidance of such
a man ! If the altogether high
and noble principles that Curtis
advocated could prevail, then in
deed the Republic that Wash
ington conceived would be a
glorious reality. When a wise
and final check is placed upon
the influence of mere numbers
then, and not till then, will
GEORGE WILLIAM CUBTIS. 87
the ideal of Washington be ful
filled ; then, and not till then,
will the Republic be safe. There
is no belief more delusive and per
nicious than the belief that virtue
and wisdom are resident in the
will of the multitude.
If, therefore, Curtis made a
sacrifice in turning from the Muse
to labor for the commonwealth,
at least it was not made in vain.
Nor must it be forgotten that
despite his preoccupation as a
publicist and as the incumbent
of many unpaid and most exact
ing offices his contributions to
literature, especially in the domain
of the Essay, were extraordinary
and brilliant. When, in 1846, he
88 GEOEGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
began his literary career, a young
man of twenty-two, American lit
erature had begun to assume the
proportions of a substantial and
impressive fabric. Paulding, Ir
ving, Dana, Bryant, Cooper, and
Percival were in the zenith. Long-
fellowand Whittier were ascending.
Hawthorne was slowly becoming
an auspicious figure. Halleck and
George Fen no Hoffman were reign
ing poets. Poe had nearly finished,
in penniless obscurity, his desolate
strife. Holmes, aged 37, was but
little beyond the threshold : and
the fine genius of Stoddard was
yet unknown. Griswold still held
the sceptre, which Willis was pres
ently to inherit. Allston and Paul-
GEORGE WILLIAM CUKTIS, 89
ding were 67 years old ; Irving was
63 ; R. H. Dana was 59 ; Sprague
54; Bryant 51; Drake, Halleck, and
Percival 50. Emerson was only 42.
Into that company Curtis entered,
as a boy among graybeards. Au
thors were more numerous than
they had been thirty years earlier,
but they were less numerous than
they are now, and, perhaps, less
distinctive. It was easier to ac
quire literary reputation then than
it is at present; but genuine lite
rary reputation was never easily
obtained. Curtis made a new
mark. In his oriental travels the
observation was large ; the fancy
delicate ; the feeling deep ; the
touch light. Then came, in Put-
90 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
nam s Magazine, between 1852 and
1854, the satirical " Potiphar Pa
pers" and the romantic " Prue and
I " the most imaginative and the
loveliest of his books. After that
the limitations of circumstance be
gan to constrain him. He assumed
the Easy Chair of Harper s Maga
zines 1854, receiving it from that
Horatian classic of American letters
Donald G. Mitchell, by whom it
had just been started, and he oc
cupied it till the last. In Harper s
Weekly, in 1859-60, he wrote the
novel of " Trumps" a work which
will transmit to a distant future
that typical American politician,
prosperous and potential yester
day, to-day, and forever, General
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 91
Arcularius Belch. In Harper s Ba
zar he wrote a series of papers, ex
tending over a period of four years,
called "Manners on the Road"
the Road being life, and Manners
being the conduct of people in
their use of it. In those papers
and in the Easy Chair the Addi-
sonian drift of his mind was fully
displayed. Those Essays do not
excel The Spectator in thought,
or learning, or humor, or inven
tion, or in the thousand felicities
of a courtly, leisurely, lace-ruffle
style ; yet they are level with The
Spectator in dignity of character
and beauty of form ; they surpass
it in vitality ; and they surpass it
in fertility of theme, sustained af-
92 GEORGE WILLIAM CUBTIS.
fluence of feeling, and diversity
of literary grace. The Spectator
contains 635 papers, and it was
written by several hands, though
mostly by the hand of Addison,
between March 1710 and December
1714, a period of four years and
nine months. The Easy Chair con
tains over 2500 articles, and it was
written by Curtis alone and was
prolonged, with but one short in
termission, for 38 years.
It was Wesley, the Methodist
preacher, who objected to the
custom of letting the devil have
all the good music. Curtis was a
moralist who objected to the cus
tom of letting the rakes have all
the graces. Good men are some
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 93
times so insipid that they make
virtue tedious. In Curtis, not
withstanding his invincible com
posure and perfect decorum, there
was a strain of the gypsy. He
had "heard the chimes at mid
night " and he had not forgotten
their music. He had been a wan
dering minstrel in his youth, and
he had twanged the light guitar
beneath the silver moon. As you
turn the leaves of Lester Wallack s
" Memories of Fifty Years," you
find Curtis to be one of them ;
you come upon him very pleas
antly in the society of that brill
iant actor, and you hear their
youthful voices blended the
robust yet gentle genius of
94 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
Thackeray being a listener in
the golden cadence of Ben Jon-
son s lovely Grecian lyric :
" Drink to me only with thine eyec,
And I will pledge with mine ;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup.
And I ll not look for wine."
Throughout his life Curtis never
lost the capacity for sentiment ;
the love of music ; the worship of
art and beauty; the morning
glow of chivalrous emotion. He
never became ascetic. He was a
Puritan but he was not a bigot.
He made the jest sparkle. He
mingled in the dance. Without
excess, but sweetly and genially,
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 95
he filled a place at the festival.
From his hand, in the remote days
of the Castle Garden Opera, the
glorious Jenny Lind received her
first bouquet in America ; and
from his lips, in the last year of
his life, her illustrious memory
received its sweetest tribute.
When he heard the distant note
of the street-organ his spirit
floated away in a dream of " the
mellow richness of Italy :" yet he
was a man who could have rid
den with Cromwell s troopers at
Naseby, and given his life for
freedom. There was no plainness
of living to which he was not
suited, and equally there was no
opulence of culture and art that
96 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
he could not wear with grace.
The extremes of his character
explain its power. There was no
seventy and no sacrifice of which
he was not capable, in his scorn
and detestation of evil and wrong;
but for human frailty he had more
than the tenderness of woman.
He knelt with a disciple s rever
ence at the austere shrine of
Washington : yet his eloquence
blazed like morning sunlight
upon a wilderness of roses when
he touched the rugged, mournful,
humorous, pathetic story of Rob
ert Burns.
In this evanescent and vanish
ing world one thing, and only
one thing, endures, the spiritual
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 97
influence of good. Out of na
ture, out of literature, out of art,
out of character, that alone,
transmuted into conduct, sur
vives ensphered when all the rest
has perished. We are accus
tomed, unconsciously, to speak of
our possessions and our depriva
tions as if we ourselves were
permanent ; not remembering
that, in a very little while, our
places also will be empty. Our
friend is dead our champion,
our benefactor, our guide ! Life
will be lonelier without his pres
ence. The streets in which he
used to walk seem vacant. The
very air of our silent and slum
berous island, musing at the
98 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
mysterious gateways of the sea,
seems more brooding and more
solitary. Yet, being dead, he far
more truly lives than we do, and
in far more exceeding glory, be
cause in that potential influence
which can never die. Still in
our rambles he will meet us, with
the old familiar look that always
seemed to say, You also are a
prince, an emperor, a man ; you
also possess this wonderful heri
tage of beauty, and honor, and
immortal life. Still in the
homes of the poor will dwell the
memory of his inexhaustible
goodness. Still in the abodes of
the rich will live the sweetness
and the power of his benignant
GEOEGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 99
example : and still, when we
have passed away and have been
forgotten, a distant posterity,
remembering the illustrious ora
tor, the wise and gentle philoso
pher, the serene and delicate
literary artist, the incorruptible
patriot, the supreme gentleman,
will cherish the writings, will
revere the character, and will
exult in the splendid tradition of
George William Curtis.
I shall close this address with
the Monody that I wrote not long
after his death:
I.
ALL the flowers were in their pride
On the day when Rupert died.
100 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
Dreamily, through dozing trees
Sighed the idle summer breeze.
Wild birds, glancing through the air,
Spilled their music everywhere.
Not one sign of mortal ill
Told that his great heart was still.
Now the grass he loved to tread
Murmurs softly o er his head :
Now the great green branches wave
High above his lonely grave:
While in grief s perpetual speech
Roll the breakers on the beach.
O my comrade, O my friend,
Must this parting be the end?
II.
Weave the shroud and spread the
pall !
Night and silence cover all.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 101
Howsoever we deplore,
They who go return no more.
Never from that unknown track
Floats one answering whisper back.
Nature, vacant, will not heed
Lips that grieve or hearts that bleed.
Wherefore now should mourning word
Or the tearful dirge be heard?
How shall words our grief abate?
Call him noble; call him great;
Say that faith, now gaunt and grim,
Once was fair because of him;
Say that goodness, round his way,
Made one everlasting day;
Say that beauty s heavenly flame
Bourgeoned wheresoe er he came;
Say that all life s common ways
Were made glorious in his gaze ;
102 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
Say he gave us, hour by hour,
Hope and patience, grace and power;
Say his spirit was so true
That it made us noble too;
What is this, but to declare
Life s bereavement, Love s despair?
What is this, but just to say
All we loved is torn away?
Weave the shroud and spread the
pall!
Night and silence cover all.
in.
O my comrade, O my friend,
Must this parting be the end?
Heart and hope are growing old :
Dark the night comes down, and
cold:
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 103
Few the souls that answer mine,
And no voice so sweet as thine.
Desert wastes of care remain-
Yet thy lips speak not again !
Gray eternities of space
Yet nowhere thy living face!
Only now the lonesome blight,
Heavy day and haunted night.
All the light and music reft
Only thought and memory left!
Peace, fond mourner! This thy
boon,
Thou thyself must follow soon.
Peace, and let repining go!
Peace, for Fate will have it so.
Vainly now his praise is said;
Vain the garland for his head:
104 G-LJGKGE WILLIAM CUKTIS.
Yet is comfort s shadow cast
From the kindness of the past.
All my love could do to cheer
Warmed his heart when he was here.
Honor s plaudit, friendship s vow-
Did not coldly wait till now.
O my comrade, O my friend,
If this parting be the end,
Yet I hold my life divine
To have known a soul like thine:
And I hush the low lament,
In submission, penitent.
Still the sun is in the skies:
He sets but I have seen him rise!
APPENDIX.
The following tribute to the memory of
Curtis was written by me, in the New
York Tribune of September I, 1892, the
morning after his death. W. W.
" AMONG American men of let
ters no man of this gener
ation has so completely filled as
Curtis did the ideal of clear in
tellect, pure taste, moral pur
pose, chivalry of feeling, and
personal refinement and grace.
From the moment of his en
trance into public life, as a
speaker, now nearly forty years
ago, he has entirely satisfied,
106 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
especially for the mind of sensi
tive and generous youth, the
highest conception of purity,
dignity, and sweetness. His
noble presence and serious de
meanor, the repose and sweep
and sway of his eloquence, and
the crystal clearness of his liter
ary style were all felt to be nat
urally and spontaneously repre
sentative of an exalted person
ality. Upon all public occasions
the tremulous sensibility of his
feelings and the inflexible reti
cence of his mind were not less
remarkable than the absolute
propriety and perfect symmetry
of his language. In the element
of felicity few orators have
GEORGE WILLIAM CUETIS. 107
equalled him and no orator has
surpassed him. He was, of
course, an artist ; but the soul
of his art was the virtuous and
wise sincerity of a noble nature.
The work was fine, but the man
was finer than the work ; and of
all the charms that he exerted
none was so great as that of his
pure and gentle spirit. His
manners, indeed, were so unde
monstrative and so polished as
to seem cold ; but all who knew
him, all who ever listened to his
speech, felt and owned in him
the spell of inherent, genuine
nobility.
There is, indeed, a conception
of character and conduct which
108 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
assumes that when a man is not
effusive and familiar he is aristo
cratic. Curtis was reticent : yet
no one ever more profoundly and
practically believed than he did
in the brotherhood of humanity.
He was republican, through and
through. His voice and his pen,
his personal influence and his priv
ate means, were always enlisted in
the cause of the helpless, the op
pressed, and the weak. Perhaps
the best oration he ever delivered
was that upon Robert Burns in
which every word thrills with the
pulsation of human kindness, and
of which the spirit is love for every
virtue and pity for every weak
ness of the human race. But his
GEOKGE WILLIAM CUETIS. 109
theory of equality was not deg
radation. He desired, and he
labored, to equalize the race, not
by dragging people down, but
by raising them up. If he was
fastidious and reticent, he did
not deny to others the right to
be fastidious and reticent also.
In this he was of the kindred of
Bryant, and Washington Irving,
and Longfellow, and Emerson,
with whom he had much in
common, and the spotless stand
ard of whose art and life he loy
ally and brilliantly sustained and
has transmitted in light and
beauty to all the younger men of
letters who succeed him. In all
that the word implies he was a
110 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
gentleman; and there is no
worthier or more expressive trib
ute that can be brought to any
man s coffin than the tear that
will not be repressed for life
long devotion to duty, for good
ness that never faltered and
kindness that never failed.
In the presence of death and
under the instant sense of be
reavement it is not easily possi
ble to speak with cold judgment
of his achievements as a writer.
He was the master of a style as
pure as that of Addison and as
flexible as that of Lamb. In its
characteristic quality, however, it
does not resemble either of those
models. The influences that
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. Ill
were most intimately concerned
in forming his mind were Emer
son and Thackeray. He had the
broad vision and the fresh,
brave, aspiring spirit of the one,
and he combined with those the
satirical playfulness, the cordial
detestation of shams, and the
subtle commingling of raillery
and tender sentiment that are
characteristic of the other. His
habitual mood was pensive, not
passionate, and he was essen
tially more a contemplative
philosopher than either an advo
cate, a partisan, a reformer, or a
politician all of which parts he
sometimes was constrained to
assume. He was born for the
112 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
vocation of letters and his best
success was gained in the literary
art. His literature will survive
in the affectionate admiration of
his countrymen long after his
political papers are forgotten.
Prue and I is one of the most
delicate, dreamlike books in our
language, and the spirit that it
discloses is full of romance, ten
derness and beauty. The affec
tionate heart, the lively fancy,
and the subtle literary instinct
of Goldsmith could not have
made it finer. As an orator he
had all the grace and more than
the emotion of Everett, whose tra
dition he has perpetuated. His
rhetoric was not merely a sheen
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 113
of words, but it burned and shim
mered with the vital splendor of a
sincere heart. He was in earnest
in all that he said and did. He
has had a long and good life, and
his name is noble forever.
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