Part 19

Home--Studying law with John Cadwallader--Philadelphia as I found it--Richard B. Kimball--"Fusang"--Literal reporting in German--First experiences in magazines and newspapers--Father Matthew--Dr. Rufus Griswold--Engaged to be married--A journey North--Colonel Cotl and pistol-practice with him--Alfred Jaell--Editor of Barnum's _Illustrated News_--Dr. Griswold and his MS.--Bixby's--Mr. Barnum--My first books--New York society in the early Fifties--Alice and Phoebe Carey--Washington Irving--Bayard Taylor--N. P. Willis--J. G. Saxe--H. C. Carey--Emily Schaumberg--I become assistant-editor of the _Bulletin_--George H. Boker--Cremation--Editorial life--Paternal enterprise--My father renews his fortune--I am married--The Republican Convention--First great dissension with the South--Translating Heine--The lady in the burning hotel--The writing of "Hans Breitmann's Barty"--Change to New York--Appletons' _Cyclopaedia_--G. W. Ripley and Charles A. Dana--Foreign editing of _New York Times_--"Vanity Fair"--The Bohemians--Artemus Ward--Lincoln's election--The Civil War--My political work in the _Knickerbocker_--Emancipation--I become sole editor of the _Continental Magazine_--What I did in 1862 and 1863 in aid of the Union cause.

So we arrived in New York, and within an hour or two after my arrival I was in the train _en route_ for Philadelphia. On the way, I intrusted a newsboy with an English shilling to go and get me change. I still await that change. And in Philadelphia the hackman who drove me to my father's house, as soon as the trunks were removed, departed suddenly, carrying away with him a small hand-bag containing several valuable objects, which I never recovered. I began to think that if the object of travel be to learn to keep one's eyes open and avoid being swindled, that I had better have remained at home.

My father had removed to another house in Walnut Street, below Twelfth Street. After this he only changed dwellings once more before his death. This constant change from one rented house to another, like the changes from school to school, is very unfortunate, as I have before said, for any family. It destroys all the feeling and unity of character which grow up in a settled _home_.

I pass over the joy of again seeing my parents, the dear sisters, and brother Henry. I was soon settled down, soon visiting friends, going to evening parties, making morning or afternoon calls, and after a little while was entered as a law-student in the office of John Cadwallader in Fourth Street.

I cannot pass over the fact, for it greatly influenced my after life, that though everybody was very kind to me, and I was even in a small way a kind of lion, the change from my late life was very hard to bear. I have read a wonderful story of a boy who while at a severe school had a marvellous dream. It seemed to last for years, and while it lasted, he went to the University, graduated, passed into diplomatic life, was a great man and beloved; when all at once he awoke and found himself at school again and birchable. After the freedom of student life in Heidelberg and Munich and Paris, and having been among the few who had carried out a great revolution, and much familiarity with the most cosmopolite type of characters in Europe, and existing in literature and art, I was settled down to live, move, and have all being henceforth and perhaps for ever in Philadelphia! Of which city, at that time, there was not one in the world of which so little evil could be said, or so much good, yet of which so few ever spoke with enthusiasm. Its inhabitants were all well-bathed, well-clad, well-behaved; all with exactly the same ideas and the same ideals. A decided degree of refinement was everywhere perceptible, and they were so fond of flowers that I once ascertained by careful inquiry that in most respectable families there was annually much more money expended for bouquets than for books. When a Philadelphian gave a dinner or supper, his great care was to see that everything _on the table_ was as good or perfect as possible. I had been accustomed to first considering what should be placed _around_ it on the chairs as the main item. The lines of demarcation in "society" were as strongly drawn as in Europe, or more so, with the enormous difference, however, that there was not the slightest perceptible shade of difference in the intellects, culture, or character of the people on either side of the line, any more than there is among the school-boys on either side of the mark drawn for a game. Very trifling points of difference, not perceptible to an outsider, made the whole difference between the exclusives and the excluded; just as the witch-mark no larger than a needle-point indicates to the judge the difference between the saved and the damned.

I had not been long engaged in studying law when I made the acquaintance of Richard B. Kimball, a lawyer of New York, who had written a few novels which were very popular, and are still reprinted by Tauchnitz. He knew everybody, and took a great interest in me, and opened the door for me to the _Knickerbocker Magazine_. To this I had contributed articles while at Princeton. I now sent it my translation of Professor Neumann's "Chinese in Mexico in the Fifth Century." I forget whether this was in 1849 or 1850. In after years I expanded it to a book, of which a certain Professor said, firstly in a paper read before the American Asiatic Society, and secondly in a pamphlet, that there was nothing of any importance in it which had not already appeared in Bancroft's work on the Pacific. I wrote to him, pointing out the fact that Bancroft's work did not appear till many years after my article in the _Knickerbocker_. To which the Sinologist replied very suavely and apologetically indeed that he was "very sorry," but had never seen the article in the _Knickerbocker_, &c. But he did not _publish_ the correction, as he should have done. For which reason I now vindicate myself from the insinuated accusation that I borrowed from Bancroft. I had, indeed, almost forgotten this work, "Fusang," when, in 1890, Prince Roland Bonaparte, at a dinner given by him to the Congres des Traditions Populaires, startled me by recurring to it and speaking of it with great praise. For it vindicates the claim of the French that Desguignes first discovered the fact that the Chinese were the first to discover America. If any one doubts this, let him read the truly great work of Vinton on the whole. Prince Roland had been in China and earnestly studied the subject. Von Eichthal had endorsed my views, and wrote to me on Fusang. I have been for many years well acquainted with his nephew, Baron von Eichthal, and his remarkably accomplished wife, who is expert in all the minor arts.

My father's resources became about this time limited, and I, in fact, realised that he had taxed himself more than I had supposed to maintain me abroad. His Congress Hall property did not pay much rent. For my position in the world, friends, studies, and society, I found myself very much and very often in great need of money. As at that time we were supposed to be much richer than we really were, this was an additional source of trial. I began to see clearly that in the law, as in all business or professions, I should have to wait for years ere I could make a living. For the instances are very few and far between in which a young man, who has not inherited or grown up to a practice, can make one himself at once.

More than this, I was not fitted for law at all. From my birth I had absolutely one of those peculiar temperaments which really disqualify men for "business." If I had entered a law-office in which there was much office-work or practice, I might have acquired a practical interest in the profession, but of this there was in ours literally none whatever. I had a great fondness for copying deeds, &c., but Mr. Cadwallader, though he very much admired my quaint round hand, being the very soul of honour, observing that I was eager for such work, would not give me much of it though it would have been to his profit, because, as he said, "students who paid should not be employed as clerks only, much less as copying machines." As it had always been deeply impressed on my mind by every American friend that I had "no business capacity," and, moreover, as I greatly dreaded speaking in court, I had from the beginning a great fear that I could never live by the law. I mention this because there are many thousands of young men who suffer terribly from such apprehension, and often ruin life by it. A few months' practice in a mercantile college will go far to relieve the first apprehension, while as regards _stage fright_, it can be easily educated out of anybody, as I have since those days educated it out of myself, so that rising to debate or speak inspires in me a _gaudium certaminis_, which increases with the certainty of being attacked. Let the aspirant begin by reading papers before, let us say, a family or school, and continue to do so frequently and at as short intervals as possible before such societies or lyceums as will listen to him. Then let him speak from memory or improvise and debate. This should form a part of all education whatever, and it should be _thorough_. It is specially needed for lawyers and divines, yet a great proportion of both are most insufficiently trained in it; and while I was studying law it was never mentioned to me. I was never so much as once taken into court or _practically_ employed in any manner whatever.

I remember an amusing incident in the office. Mr. Cadwallader asked me one day to call, returning from my lunch, on a certain Mr. Dimpfel, one of his clients, leave a certain message and his request as follows:--"I want you, Mr. Leland, to be _very careful_. I have observed that you are sometimes inaccurate in such matters, therefore be sure that you give me Mr. Dimpfel's _very words_." Mr. Cadwallader knew French and Spanish perfectly, but not German, and was not aware that I always conversed with Mr. Dimpfel in the latter language. When I returned my teacher said--

"Now, Mr. Leland, can you repeat accurately _word for word_ what Mr. Dimpfel said?" I replied:

"Yes. _Der Herr Dimpfel lasst sich grussen und meldet das er Montag kommen wird um halb drei_. _Und er sagt weiter_ . . . "

"That will do," cried Mr. Cadwallader; "you must give it in English."

"I beg your pardon," was my grave reply, "but you asked for his very words."

I began to write for publication in 1849. Mr. John Sartain, a great engraver, established a magazine, to which I contributed several articles on art subjects, subsequently many more on all subjects, and finally every month a certain number of pages of humorous matter. A man named Manuel Cooke established in Philadelphia a _Drawing-Room Journal_. For this I wrote a great deal for a year or two. It paid me no money, but gave me free admission to theatres, operas, etc., and I learned a great deal as to the practical management of a newspaper.

The first summer after my return we went to Stonington, and thence to visit our friends in New England, as of yore. At Dedham I had an attack of cholera; my uncle, Dr. Stimson, gave me during the night two doses of laudanum of fifty drops each, which cured me. Father Matthew came to Dedham. I went with a very pretty young cousin of mine named Marie Lizzie Fisher, since deceased, to hear him preach. After the address, meeting the Father, I went boldly up and introduced myself to him, and then Miss Fisher. I think that his address must have deeply affected me, since I was obliged to stop on my way home to take a drink to steady my nerves. It was against the law at that time to sell such "poison," so the hotel-keeper took me and my paternal uncle, George, who treated, down into the cellar, where he had concealed some Hollands. I can remember that that pleasant summer in Dedham I, one Sunday morning in the church during service, composed a poem, which in after years even found its way into "The Poets and Poetry of America." It began with the words--

"O'er an old ruined doorway Philosophus hung, And madly his bell-cap And bauble he swung."

It was a wild mixture of cosmopolitanism and Hamletism, and it indicates accurately the true state of my _cor cordium_ at that time. Earnest thought, or a yearning for truth, and worldly folly, were playing a game of battledore and shuttlecock, and I was the feathered cork. There is a song without words by Mendelssohn, which sets forth as clearly as Shakespeare or Heine could have done in words, deep melancholy or unavoidable suffering expressing itself merrily and gaily in a manner which is both touching and beautiful, or sweet and sad. Without any self- consciousness or display of sentimentalism, I find deep traces of this in many little poems or sketches which I wrote at that time, and which have now been forgotten. I had been in Arcadia; I was now in a very pleasant sunny Philistia; but I could not forget the past. And I never forgot it. Once in Paris, in the opera, I used in jest emphatically the Russian word _harrascho_, "good," when a Russian stranger in the next box smiled joyously, and rising, waved his glove to me. Once in a brilliant soiree in Philadelphia there was a Hungarian Count, an exile, and talking with him in English, I let fall for a joke "_Bassama terem-tete_!" He grasped my hand, and, forgetting all around, entered into a long conversation. It was like the American who, on finding an American cent in the streets in Paris, burst into tears. So from time to time something recalled Europe to me.

I went now and then to New York, which I liked better than Philadelphia. I was often a guest of Mr. Kimball. He introduced me to Dr. Rufus Griswold, a strange character and a noted man of letters. He was to his death so uniformly a friend to me, and so untiring in his efforts to aid me, that I cannot find words to express his kindness nor the gratitude which I feel. He became the editor of a literary magazine which was really far in advance of the time. It did not last long; while it endured I supplied for it monthly reviews of foreign literature.

There were not many linguists on the American press in those days, and my reviews of works in half-a-dozen languages induced some one to pay a high compliment to the editor. It was Bayard Taylor, I believe, who, hearing this, declared honestly, and as a friend, that I alone deserved the credit. This was repeated by some one to Dr. Griswold in such a form that he thought _I_ had been talking against him, though I had never spoken to a soul about it. The result was that the Doctor promptly dismissed me, and I felt hurt. Mr. Kimball met me and laughed, saying, "The next time you meet the Doctor just go resolutely at him and _replace yourself_. Don't allow him a word." So, meeting Dr. Griswold a few days after in Philadelphia, I went boldly up and said, "You must come at once with me and take a drink--immediately!" The Doctor went like a lamb--not to the slaughter, but to its milk--and when he had drunk a comforting grog, I attacked him boldly, and declared that I had never spoken a word to a living soul as to the authorship of the reviews--which was perfectly true, for I never broke the golden rule of "contributorial anonymity." So the Doctor put me on the staff again. But to the end of his life I was always with him a privileged character, and could take, if I chose, the most extraordinary liberties, though he was one of the most irritable and vindictive men I ever met, if he fancied that he was in any way too familiarly treated.

Kossuth came to America, and I was almost squeezed to death--right against a pretty German girl--in the crowd at his reception in Philadelphia. At the dinner in New York I met at Kimball's house Franz Pulszky, and sat by his wife. I have since seen him many times in Buda- Pest.

There lived in Philadelphia a gentleman named Rodney Fisher. He had been for many years a partner in an English house in Canton, and also lived in England. He had long been an intimate friend of Russel Sturgis, subsequently of "Baring Brothers." He was a grand-nephew of Caesar Rodney, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a son of Judge Fisher, of Delaware. He was a man of refined and agreeable manners and an admirable relater of his innumerable experiences in Europe and the East. His wife had been celebrated for her beauty. When I first met her in her own house she seemed to me to be hardly thirty years of age, and I believed at first she was one of her own daughters. She was without exception the most amiable, I may say lovable person whom I ever met, and I never had a _nuance_ or shade of difference of opinion with her, or know an instant during which I was not devoted to her. I visited his house and fell in love with his daughter Belle, to whom I became, after about a year, engaged. We were not, however, married till five years after. Thackeray, whom I knew well, said to a Mr. Curtis Raymond, of Boston, not long before leaving for England, that she was the most beautiful woman whom he had seen in America. I cannot help recording this.

I need not say that, notwithstanding my terrible anxiety as to my future, from this time I led a very happy life. There was in Philadelphia a very wealthy lady called its Queen. This was Mrs. James Rush. She had built the finest house in our city, and placed in it sixty thousand dollars' worth of furniture. "_E un bel palazzo_!" said an Italian tenor one evening to me at a reception there. This lady, who had read much, had lived long in Europe and "knew cities and men." To say that she was kind to me would feebly express her kindness. It is true that we were by much mutual knowledge rendered congenial. She invited me to attend her weekly receptions, &c., with Miss Fisher. There we met and were introduced to all the celebrated people who passed through Philadelphia. One evening I had there, for instance, a conversation in German with Mme. Sontag, the great singer, as with Jerome Bonaparte, the nephew.

When the summer came I joined Mr. Fisher and his two daughters--the second was named Mary--in a tour. We went to New York, thence up the Hudson, and eastward to Boston. After a day's travel we came to a town on the frontier line, where we had to stop for two hours. Mr. Fisher and I, being very thirsty and fatigued, went into a saloon in which were two bars or counters. Advancing to the second of these, I asked for brandy. "We don't sell no brandy here," replied the man. "This is in Massachusetts: go to the other bar--that is in New York." In an instant we left New England for the Middle States, and refreshed ourselves. Thence we went to Springfield and saw the armoury, where guns are made. Thence to Boston, where we stopped at a hotel. I went with Miss Belle Fisher for a day's excursion to Dedham, where my mother and sisters were on a visit. It was very pleasant.

From Boston we went to Newport, and stayed at the Ocean House. There I found Milton Sanford, a connection of mine and a noted character. He had lived in Florence and known Browning and his wife. He was, I believe, uncle of Miss Kate Field. He introduced me to Colonel Colt, the celebrated inventor or re-discoverer of the revolver; to Alf. Jaell, a very great pianist; and Edward Marshall, a brother of Humphrey Marshall. Sanford, Colt, Marshall, and I patronised the pistol-gallery every day, nor did we abstain from mint-juleps. I found that, in shooting, Colonel Colt could beat me _at the word_, but that I always had the best of it at a deliberate "take-your-time" shot. There, too, were the two brothers Burnett, whom I had met long before in Heidelberg. What with drives and balls and other gaiety, the time passed pleasantly enough.

As I spoke German, I became intimate with Jaell. He could not sing at all. Once I suggested to him that he should compose variations on an air, a German popular song. For a day or two he hummed it as well as he could. On the third morning he took me into a room where there was a piano, and asked me to sing while he played accompaniments. All at once he said, "Stop! I have got it!" and then he played the air with marvellously beautiful variations. He was a great genius, but I never heard him play in public as he played then. He was in a "high hour." It was wonderful. I may here say that in after years, while living at a hotel, I became well acquainted with Thalberg, and especially with Ole Bull, the violinist, who told me much about Heine.

So time rolled on for three years. I passed my examination and took an office in Third Street, with a sign proclaiming that I was attorney-at- law and _Avokat_. During six months I had two clients and made exactly three pounds. Then, the house being wanted, I left and gave up law. This was a very disheartening time for me. I had a great many friends who could easily have put collecting and other business in my hands, but none of them did it. I felt this very keenly. Quite apart from a young man's pushing himself, despite every obstacle, there is the great truth that sometimes the obstacles or bad luck become insuperable. Mine did at this time.

The author of "Gossip of the Century" has well remarked that "it has been said that however quickly a clever lad may have run up the ladder, whether of fame or fortune, it will always be found that he was lucky enough to find some one who put his foot on the first rung." Which is perfectly true, as I soon found, if not in law, at least in literature.

I went more than once to New York, hoping to obtain literary employment. One day Dr. Rufus Griswold came to me in great excitement. Mr. Barnum--the great showman--and the Brothers Beech were about to establish a great illustrated weekly newspaper, and he was to be the editor and I the assistant. It is quite true that he had actually taken the post, for which he did not care twopence, only to provide a place for me, and he had tramped all over New York for hours in a fearful storm to find me and to announce the good news.