Newport, 2 October, 1861.
. . . I sent you yesterday a copy of de Vere's last volume
of poems. There are some very charming things in it. He has genuine poetic
sensibility, and with age he gains power of expression and depth of thought. In
everything he writes he shows the refinement of his taste, the delicacy of his
feeling, and his strong religious sentiment. He is greatly pleased with any expression
of appreciation from America, and if you have a fit opportunity I wish you
would say something of this volume in print. And if you should do so, please be
sure to tell me, (for I do not always see “Harper's Monthly” and “Weekly”),
that I may send it to him.
De Vere has taken from the beginning the most intelligent
and sympathetic view of our great contest. I read you, I think, one of his letters
about it; and in later letters he has expressed his convictions still more fully
and warmly. Nor is this volume without the marks of his hearty interest in our
struggle.
I have great faith in Fremont. But how painfully little we
know! and how ungenerously that little is used against Fremont by the public
generally in forming their opinion of his course! I earnestly hope that he may
soon have a success which shall win back to him the popular confidence. Events
prove Lincoln's modifications of his proclamation even more unfortunate than it
at first seemed, — and even at first it seemed bad enough. In a fight so
desperate as that which is now being waged in Missouri we have need of all our
arms, — and Lincoln has compelled us to throw aside the most effective of them
all, — he has spiked our gun of longest range. Have I before quoted to you Milton's
sentence about those “who coming in the course of these affairs to have their
share in great actions above the form of law or custom . . . dispute precedents, forms, circumstances when
the commonwealth nigh perishes for want of deeds in substance, done with just
and faithful expedition?” “To these,” as he says, “I wish better instruction,
and virtue equal to their calling.”
It is an unexampled experience that we are having now, and a
striking development of the democratic principle, — of great historic deeds
being accomplished, and moral principles working out their results, with out
one great man to do the deeds or to manifest the principle in himself.
The fight in Kentucky seems to me one of the most important
phases in the war. Her conduct for the past year has been so mean that she deserves
the suffering that has come upon her; but in her borders we have now got
slave-holders arrayed against slave-holders, and between them they will kill
slavery in her limits. I hope you are wrong in thinking that we shall lose her,
— though, if we do, I shall not much grieve, believing that every reverse of
ours but makes our final success more certain, and gives to it a solid reality
which would not be the result of an easy triumph. . . .
SOURCE: Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters
of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 242-4
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