Monday, November 3, 2014

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, December 6, 1859

Shady Hill, 6 December, 1859.

. . . Have you read the accounts of John Brown's invasion of Virginia, of his capture, trial, and death? If so you have been greatly interested in the man. His scheme was a mad one; he was legally punishable with death; but he is not the less a martyr in the cause of freedom. The whole affair has excited the deepest feeling both at the North and the South. Its results promise to be great, — whether good or not Heaven only knows. John Brown's name will be famous in our history, — and perhaps even more than famous. He is of a race of men rare in all time and lands, rare especially in our days; he was one of those men who thought themselves commissioned to do the work of the Lord, — and were ready to meet death or whatsoever else in the cause. Pray read his speech at the close of his trial; and read too the account of his death. We have had nothing like it since the days of the Regicides. He mounts his coffin to be driven to the gallows, and looks round on the landscape, and says, “What a fine prospect!” There has been no rhetoric or mere words in his talk; and the letters he has written from prison add a noble chapter to the volume of the literature of the cell.1 . . .
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1 Above Norton's mantelpiece in his study at Ashfield, there hung a photograph of Lincoln, and, near it, one of “Old Brown.”

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 196-7

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