31, Hertford Street,
March 15th, 1861.
My Deaeest Mother,
— . . . . . It is not for want of affection and interest, not from indolence,
but I can hardly tell you how difficult it is to me to write letters. I pass as
much of my time daily as I can at the State Paper Office, reading hard in the
old MSS. there for my future volumes; and as the hours are limited there to
from ten till four, I am not really master of my own time.
I am delighted to find that the success of the “United
Netherlands” gives you and my father so much pleasure. It is by far the
pleasantest reward for the hard work I have gone through to think that the
result has given you both so much satisfaction. Not that I grudge the work,
for, to say the truth, I could not exist without hard labour, and if I were
compelled to be idle for the rest of my days, I should esteem it the severest
affliction possible.
My deepest regret is that my work should be for the present
on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Before leaving the subject of the new
volumes, I should like to say that I regret that no one has sent me any of the
numerous reviews and notices in the American papers and magazines to which you
allude. I received a number of the New York Times from the governor, and
also the Courier, containing notices. The latter, which was beautifully
and sympathetically written, I ascribed to Hillard's pen, which I do not think
I can mistake. If this be so, I hope you will convey my best thanks to him.
These are the only two which have been sent to me, and it is
almost an impossibility for me to procure American newspapers here. Of course
both Mary and Lily, as well as myself, would be pleased to see such notices,
and it seems so easy to have a newspaper directed to 31, Hertford Street, with
a three cent stamp. Fortunately I recently subscribed to the Atlantic
Monthly, and so received the March number, in which there is a most
admirably written notice, although more complimentary than I deserve. It is
with great difficulty that I can pick up anything of the sort, and I fear now
that as the time passes it will be difficult for me to receive them from
America.
The Harpers have not written to me, but I received a line
from Tom showing that the book was selling very well considering the times. As
to politics, I shall not say a word, except that at this moment we are in
profound ignorance as to what will be the policy of the new administration, how
the inauguration business went off, and what was the nature of Mr.
Lincoln's address, and how it was received, all which you at home at this
moment have known for eleven days. I own that I can hardly see any medium
between a distinct recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an independent
foreign power, and a vigorous war to maintain the United States Government
throughout the whole country. But a war without an army means merely a general
civil war, for the great conspiracy to establish the Southern Republic,
concocted for twenty years, and brought to maturity by Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet
Ministers, has, by that wretched creature's connivance and vacillation,
obtained such consistency in these fatal three months of interregnum as to make
it formidable. The sympathy of foreign powers, and particularly of England, on
which the seceders so confidently relied to help them on in their plot, has not
been extended to them. I know on the very highest authority and from repeated
conversations that the English Government looks with deepest regret on the
dismemberment of the great American Republic. There has been no negotiation
whatever up to this time of any kind, secret or open, with the secessionists.
This I was assured of three or four days ago. At the same time I am obliged to
say that there has been a change, a very great change, in English sympathy
since the passing of the Morrill Tariff Bill. That measure has done more than
any commissioner from the Southern Republic could do to alienate the feelings
of the English public towards the United States, and they are much more likely to
recognise the Southern Confederacy at an early day than they otherwise would
have done. If the tariff people had been acting in league with the
secessionists to produce a strong demonstration in Europe in favour of the
dissolution of the Union, they could not have managed better.
I hear that Lewis Stackpole is one of the most rising young
lawyers of the day, that he is very popular everywhere, thought to have great
talents for his profession, great industry, and that he is sure to succeed. You
may well suppose with how much delight we hear such accounts of him.
My days are always spent in hard work, and as I never work
at night, going out to dinners and parties is an agreeable and useful
relaxation, and as I have the privilege of meeting often many of the most
eminent people of our times, I should be very stupid if I did not avail myself
of it; and I am glad that Lily has so good an opportunity of seeing much of the
most refined and agreeable society in the world.
The only very distinguished literary person that I have seen
of late for the first time is Dickens. I met him last week at a dinner at John
Forster's. I had never even seen him before, for he never goes now into
fashionable company. He looks about the age of Longfellow. His hair is not much
grizzled and is thick, although the crown of his head is getting bald. His
features are good, the nose rather high, the eyes largish, greyish and very
expressive. He wears a moustache and beard, and dresses at dinner in exactly
the same uniform which every man in London or the civilised world is bound to
wear, as much as the inmates of a penitentiary are restricted to theirs. I
mention this because I had heard that he was odd and extravagant in his
costume. I liked him exceedingly. We eat next each other at table, and I found
him genial, sympathetic, agreeable, unaffected, with plenty of light easy talk
and touch-and-go fun without any effort or humbug of any kind. He spoke with
great interest of many of his Boston friends, particularly of Longfellow,
Wendell Holmes, Felton, Sumner, and Tom Appleton.
I have got to the end of my paper, my dearest mother, and so
with love to the governor and A––, and all the family great and small, I
remain,
Most affectionately
your son,
J. L. M.
P.S. — I forgot to say that another of Forster's guests was Wilkie
Collins (the “Woman in White's” author). He is a little man, with black hair, a
large white forehead, large spectacles, and small features. He is very
unaffected, vivacious, and agreable.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Volume 1, p. 362-5
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