Oatlands Park Hotel, Walton-on-Thames,
March 29, 1860.
My Dear Wendell:
I am not going to make one word of apology for my long silence. If you will
forgive it and write me again at once, I promise faithfully that I will write
to you as often as once a quarter if you will do the same. I cannot do without
letters from you, and although I have a special dislike to writing them myself,
I am willing to bore you for the sake of the reward. I really believe that you
are the only one of my friends to whom I have not expressed in rapturous terms
the delight with which I have read and re-read your “Autocrat.” We were quite
out of the way of getting the “Atlantic” in our foreign residences—in Nice,
Switzerland, and Rome. But one day after it had been collected into a volume
some traveler lent it to us, and we carefully forgot to return it — a petty
larceny combined with breach of trust which I have never regretted, for no one
could appreciate it more highly than I, in the first place, and then all my
family. It is really even better than I expected it to be, and that is saying
much, for you know how high were my anticipations, and if you do not, poor Phillips, now
no more, who always so highly appreciated you, could have told you how surely
and how often I predicted your great and inevitable success. The “Autocrat” is
an inseparable companion, and will live, I think, as long certainly as anything
which we have turned out on our side. It is of the small and rare class to
which Montaigne's “Essays,” “Elia,” and one or two other books belong, which
one wishes to have forever under one's thumb. Every page is thoughtful,
suggestive, imaginative, didactic, witty, stimulating, grotesque, arabesque,
titillating — in short, I could string together all the adjectives in the
dictionary without conveying to you an adequate expression of my admiration.
In order that you shall not think me merely a devourer and
not an appreciator, I will add that the portions which give me the most
pleasure are those, by far the largest, which are grave, earnest, and profound,
and that the passages least to my mind are those which in college days would
have most highly delighted me, viz., the uproariously funny ones. But, as
Touchstone observes, “we that have good wits cannot hold, we must be flouting,”
and I do not expect to bottle you up. I have not the book at my elbow at this
moment, and am too lazy to go down-stairs to fetch it, but, as an illustration
of what I most enjoy, take such a passage as about our brains being clockwork.
I remember nothing of the diction at this instant, but the whole train of
thought is very distinct to me. Also the bucketful of fresh and startling
metaphors which the Autocrat empties on the head of the divinity student in
return for his complimentary language as to the power of seeing analogies. Also
— but I shall never get any further in this letter if I once begin to quote the
“Autocrat,” so I will only add that I admire many of the poems, especially “The
Voiceless,” which I am never tired of repeating. It is scarcely necessary for
me to add that it is always with a deep sensation of pride and pleasure that I
turn to page 28 and read the verses therein inscribed. Strange to say, I have
not yet read “The Professor at the Breakfast-Table.” I tried to buy it the
other day at Sampson Low's, one of the chief American republishers or
importers, but he said that it had been done by (gentlemen who have, among
others, done me the same favor).
Is there no chance of ever getting an international
copyright bill and hanging these filibusters, who are legally picking the
pockets of us poor-devil authors, who would fain become rich devils if we
could? Why do you not make use of your strong position, having the whole
American public by the button, to make it listen to reason? If I were an
autocrat like you, I would issue an edict immediately. Or I would have a little
starling that should say nothing but “Copyright” and let the public hear
nothing else. Let me not omit to mention also with how much pleasure I read
your poem on Burns. It is magnificent, and every verse rings most
sympathetically upon the heart. So you see we do not lose the run of you,
although I have been so idle about writing, and I am promising myself much
pleasure from “The Professor at the Breakfast-Table,” which I shall have sent
to me from Boston. By the way, I bagged the other day a splendid presentation
copy of the “Autocrat,” which you had sent to Trübner for some one else, and I gave it to Mrs. Norton
(of whom you have heard often enough, and who is a poet herself), who admires it
as much as I do. I do not know whether I shall like the novel as well as your
other readers are likely to do, because the discursive, irresponsible, vagrant
way of writing which so charms me in the “Autocrat” is hardly in place in a
narrative, and, for myself, I always find, to my regret, that I grow every year
less and less capable of reading novels or romances. I wish it were not so.
However, I doubt not you will reclaim me, but I do not mean to read it until it
is finished.
I have not a great deal to talk about now that I find myself
face to face with you. We have been, by stress of circumstances rather than
choice, driven to England, and we have seen a great deal of English society,
both in town and country. We have received much kindness and sat at many “good
men's feasts”; and I must say that I have, as I always had, a warm affection
for England and the English. I have been awfully hard at work for the last year
and a half, with unlucky intermissions and loss of time, but I hope to publish
a couple of bulky volumes by the beginning of next year. There is a cartload of
MS. already in Murray's hands, but I do not know how soon we shall begin to
print.
I wish when you write — and you see that I show a generous
confidence in your generosity by assuming that you will write notwithstanding
my delinquencies — you would tell me what is going on in your literary world,
and also something about politics. One can get but little from the newspapers;
but I should really like to know what chance there is of the country's being
rescued from the government which now oppresses us. But I forget, perhaps you are not a Republican,
although I can hardly conceive of your being anything else. With regard to my
views and aspirations, I can only say that if Seward is not elected (provided
he be the candidate) this autumn, good night, my native land! I admire his
speech, and agree with almost every word he says, barring of course the little
sentimentality about the affection we all feel for the South, which, I suppose,
is very much like the tenderness of Shylock — “Kind sir, you spat on me on
Thursday last, you spurned me such a day, and another time you called me dog,
and for these courtesies,” etc., etc. However, if Mr. Seward thinks it worth
while to stir in a little saccharine of this sort, he knows best. The essential
is to get himself nominated and elected. Now please write and tell me what the chances
are, always provided you agree with me, but not if you are for the pro-slavery
man, whoever he may be. I have not yet succeeded in suppressing Louis Napoleon,
who bamboozles the English cabinet and plays his fantastic tricks before high
heaven with more impunity than ever. Of a truth it may be said now, — three
hundred years ago it was uttered by one of the most illustrious of her sons, — “Gallia
silvescit.” What can be more barbarous than the condition of a country relapsed
of its own choice under a military despot?
Pray remember us most kindly to your wife and children, and
believe me always
Most sincerely yours,
J. L. Motley.
Pray remember me most affectionately to all the fellows at
the club.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition,
Volume 2, p. 81-5
