JOURNAL

66

A perfect gem! His is a schöne Seele, (beautiful soul). An illiterate tailor, he writes in a style of the most exquisite purity and grace. His moral qualities are transferred to his writings. Had he not been so very humble, he would have written a still better book; for, fearing to indulge in vanity, he conceals the events in which he was a great actor. His religion

is love. His whole existence and all his passions were love! If one could venture to impute to his creed, and not to his personal character, the delightful frame of mind which he exhibited, one could not hesitate to be a convert. His Christianity is most inviting, it is fascinating.-ROBINSON, HENRY CRABB, 1824, Diary, Jan, 22.

Its author was a tailor, living in a small village of New Jersey; and of tailoring he rejected all the more lucrative branches. He chiefly occupied himself with the smallest class of business by which, even in those economical days, a support could be won. Living before the commencement of any distinctively American literature, he expressed his thoughts in the English of the common schools. And yet these And yet these thoughts have won the attention and admiration of scholars and literary men, for they show, in humblest language, the desire of a conscience to be at peace with its Maker even in the smallest details of daily life. No mirror ever reflected more faithfully the lineaments of him who looked upon it, than does this "Journal" give back the moral likeness of its author. -HOOPER, WILLIAM R., 1871, John Woolman, Appleton's Journal, vol. 6, p. 606.

It is certain, therefore, that, considering the transformations among the Quakers themselves, the New Jersey preacher would be sadly out of place if he stepped down from his niche in their pantheon

into their meeting-houses and homes at the present day. St. Simeon Stylites at the Fifth Avenue Hotel would hardly appear more anachronistic. Doubtless, the suggested contrasts between our age and his, joined to Woolman's childlike simplicity and naïveté, his often inconsequential discourse, and his half-pitiful, halfamusing bodily afflictions, were what made his Journal favorite reading with Charles Lamb. And if we do not misjudge, they strike a responsive chord in Mr. Whittier's humor (a greater possession than the world gives him credit for); and he takes up the book, not always that he may deepen his moral sense and renew his standard of duty-what every one may do who reads his "Journal" devoutlybut as one, not a Quaker, would open "Don Quixote" or "The Merry Wives of Windsor."- GARRISON, W. P., 1871, Woolman's Journal, The Nation, vol. 13, P. 45.

If we open the record at random we see a good man, living for God in the world, and ranging in his tender sympathies from little things to great.-RICHARDSON, CHARLES F., 1887, American Literature, 1607-1885, vol. 1, p. 151.

His journal is remarkable for its simple and lucid style, as well as for its humanity.-HART, ALBERT BUSHNELL, 1896, ed., American History told by Contemporaries, vol. II, p. 302.

The purity of the gentle Quaker's soul has, as Whittier, his loving editor, says, entered into his language. The words are a transparent medium of spirit. Style and man are equally unconscious of themselves. Without art Woolman has attained, in his best passages, that beauty of simplicity, that absolute candor which is the goal of most studious art. As lucid as Franklin's "Autobiography," the "Journal" shines with a pearly lustre all

its own.-BATES, KATHARINE LEE, 1897, American Literature, p. 90.

As we study John Woolman along the pages upon which he has made record of his inmost nature, we shall be inclined to infer that the traits which made him the man he was, were these: first, a singularly vivid perception of the reality and worth of things spiritual; secondly, such a passion of desire for all that is like God, that whatsoever he met with in himself or

in others which was otherwise, grieved him with an ineffable sorrow; thirdly, love, taking every form of adoration for the Highest Love, and of sympathy and effort on behalf of all God's creatures, great and small; next, humility; next, directness, simplicity, sincerity; next, refinement. TYLER, MOSES COIT, 1897, The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763-1783, vol. II, p. 342.

GENERAL

Get the writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers. LAMB, CHARLES, 1821, A Quakers' Meeting.

Him, though we once possessed his works, it cannot be truly affirmed that we ever read. Try to read John we often did; but read John we did not. This, however, you say, might be our fault, and not John's. Very likely; and we have a notion that now, with our wiser thoughts, we should read John if he were here on this table. It is certain that he was a good man, and one of the earliest in America, if not in Christendom, who lifted up his hand to protest against the slave trade; but still we suspect that, had John been all that Coleridge represented, he would not have repelled us from reading his travels in the fearful way that he did. But again we beg pardon, and entreat the earth of Virginia to lie light upon the remains of John Woolman; for he was an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile.-DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 1845-59, Coleridge

and Opium-Eating; Collected Writings, ed. Masson, vol. v, p. 196.

The larger portions of Woolman's writings are devoted to the subjects of slavery, uncompensated labor, and the excessive toil and suffering of the many to support the luxury of the few. The argument running through them is searching, and in its conclusions uncompromising, but a tender love for the wrong-doer as well as the sufferer underlies all. They aim to convince the judgment and reach the heart without awakening prejudice and passion. To the slaveholders of his time they must have seemed like the voice of conscience speaking to them in the cool of the day. One feels, in reading them, the tenderness and humility of a nature redeemed from all pride of opinion and self-righteousness, sinking itself out of sight, and intent only upon rendering smaller the sum of human sorrow and sin by drawing men nearer to God and to each other. The style is that of a man unlettered, but with natural refinement and delicate sense of fitness, the purity of whose heart enters into his language. There is no attempt at fine writing, not a word or phrase for effect; it is the simple unadorned diction of one to whom the temptations of the pen seems to have been wholly unknown.-WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF, 1871, ed., The Journal of John Woolman, Introduction, p. 33.

The gentle hearted Quaker, like Izaak Walton, a tailor, and like him, also, a lover of man, animal and plant. Although he was an irrepressible reformer, his writings have none of the pride of opinion and self-righteousness which are the besetting sins of reformers. Catholic, humble, receptive, his words are a benediction. Such Charles Lamb, the purest and manliest of modern English writers, found them, and as such he praised them.MABIE, HAMILTON W., 1892, The Memorial Story of America, p. 585.

PERSONAL

Lord Chesterfield was allowed by everybody to have more conversable entertaining table-wit than any man of his time; his propensity to ridicule, in which he indulged himself with infinite humour and no distinction, and with inexhaustible spirits and no discretion, made him sought and feared, liked and not loved, by most of his acquaintance; no sex, no relation, no rank, no power, no profession, no friendship, no obligation, was a shield from those pointed, glittering weapons, that seemed to shine only to a stander-by, but cut deep in those they touched. With a person as disagreeable as it was possible for a human figure to be without being deformed, he affected following many women of the first beauty and most in fashion; and, if you would have taken his word for it, not without success; whilst in fact and in truth, he never gained any one above the venal rank of those whom an Adonis or a Vulcan might be equally well with, for an equal sum of money. He was very short, disproportioned, thick and clumsily made; had a broad, rough-featured, ugly face, with black teeth, and a head big enough for a Polyphemus. One Ben Ashurst,

told Lord Chesterfield once that he was like a stunted giant which was a humorous idea and really apposite. HERVEY, JOHN LORD, 1727-43? Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second, ed. Croker, ch. iv.

Chesterfield is a little, tea-table scoundrel, that tells little womanish lies to make quarrels in families; and tries to make women lose their reputations, and make their husbands beat them, without any object but to give himself airs; as if anybody could believe a woman could like a dwarf baboon.-GEORGE II., 1743? To Lord Hervey.

He had early in his life announced his claim to wit, and the women believed in it. He had besides given himself out for a man of great intrigue, with as slender pretensions; yet the women believed in that too-one should have thought they had been more competent judges of merit in that particular! It was not his fault if he had not wit; nothing exceeded his efforts in that point; and though they were far from producing the wit, they at least amply yielded the applause he aimed at. He was so accustomed to see people laugh at the most trifling things he said, that he would be disappointed at finding nobody smile before they knew what he was going to say. His speeches were fine, but as much laboured as his extempore sayings. His writings were-everybody's: that is, whatever came out good was given to him, and he was too humble ever to refuse the gift. In short, my

Lord Chesterfield's being the instrument to introduce this new era into our computation of time will probably preserve his name in almanacs and chronologies, when the wit that he had but laboured too much, and the gallantry that he could scarce ever execute, will be no more remembered.-WALPOLE, HORACE, 1751? Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George II.

There was besides these two, another person of great rank, who came to have a considerable share in the design of ruining sir Robert Walpole, I mean the earl of Chesterfield: he was esteemed the wittiest man of the time, and of a sort that has scarcely been known since the reign of king Charles the second, and revived the memory of the great wits of that age, to the liveliest of whom he was thought not to be unequal. He was besides this, a very graceful speaker in

publick, had some knowledge of affairs, having been ambassador in Holland, and when he was engaged in debates, always took pains to be well informed of the subject, so that no man's speaking, was ever more admired, or drew more audience to it, than his did, but chiefly from those, who either relished his wit, or were pleased with feeling the ministry exposed by his talent of ridicule, and the bitterness of jest, he was so much master of, and never spared. And this made him so very

terrible to the ministers who were of the house of lords, that they dreading his wit upon them there, and his writings too, for he sometimes, as it was thought, furnished the weekly paper of the opposition, with the most poignant pieces it had.-ONSLOW, ARTHUR, 1752? Remarks on Various Parts of Sir Robert Walpole's Conduct, and Anecdotes of the Principal Leaders of the Opposition; Coxe, Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, vol. II, p. 570.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre; that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty

would suffer me to continue it.

When I

had once addressed your Lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing

which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before. The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The

notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself. Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation.

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most humble,
Most obedient servant.

-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1755, Letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Chesterfield, Feb. 7.

Lord Chesterfield however by his perpetual attention to propriety, decorum, bienséance, &c., had so veneered his manners, that though he lived on good terms with all the world he had not a single friend. The fact was I believe that he had

no warm affections. His excessive and

unreasonable attention to decorum and

studied manner attended him almost to his

last hour.-MALONE, EDMOND, 1783, Maloniana, ed. Prior, p. 357.

Nature, it must be owned, had endowed him with fine parts, and these he cultivated with all the industry usually practised by such as prefer the semblance of what is really fit, just, lovely, honourable, to the qualities themselves; thus he had eloquence without learning, complaisance without friendship, and gallantry without love. . . . In addition to his character of an orator and a statesman, he was emulous of that of a poet, his pretensions to which were founded on sundry little compositions in verse that from time to time appeared in collections of that kind; elegant it must be confessed; but generally immoral and ofttimes profane.HAWKINS, SIR JOHN, 1787, Life of Samuel Johnson, pp. 178, 180.

That Lord Chesterfield must have been mortified by the lofty contempt, and polite, yet keen satire with which Johnson

exhibited him to himself in this letter, it is impossible to doubt. He, however, with that glossy duplicity which was his constant study, affected to be quite unconcerned. Dr. Adams mentioned to Mr. Robert Dodsley that he was sorry Johnson had written his letter to Lord Chesterfield. Dodsley, with the true feelings of trade, said "he was very sorry too; for that he had a property in the 'Dictionary,' to which his Lordship's patronage might have been of consequence." . . . Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom: "This man (said he) I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!" And when his "Letters" to his natural son were published, he observed, that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master."BOSWELL, JAMES, 1791-93, Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, vol. 1, pp. 307, 308.

Lord Chatham :-Never since the conquest has Ireland passed so long a time in tranquility and contentment. In this, my lord, you stand high above the highest of our kings and by those who are right minded, and who judge of men by the good they do and the difficulty of doing it, you will be placed by future historians in an elevated rank among the rulers of mankind. Pardon me: for to praise a great man in his presence is no slight presumption.-LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, 1824, Lord Chesterfield and Lord Chatham; Imaginary Conversations, Second Series, p. 142.

Chesterfield was, what no person in our time has been or can be, a great political leader, and at the same time the acknowledged chief of the fashionable world; at the head of the House of Lords and at the head of ton; Mr. Canning and the Duke of Devonshire in one. In our time the division of labor is carried so far that such a man could not exist. Politics require the whole of energy, bodily and mental, during half the year; and leave very little time for the bow window at White's in the day, or for the crush-room of the Opera at night. A century ago the case was different. Chesterfield was at once the most distinguished orator in the Upper House, and the undisputed sovereign of wit and fashion. He held this eminence

for about forty years. At last it became the regular custom of the higher circles to laugh whenever he opened his mouth, without waiting for his bon mot. He used to sit at White's with a circle of young men of rank round him, applauding every syllable that he uttered. If you wish for a proof of the kind of position which Chesterfield held among his contemporaries. look at the prospectus of Johnson's Dictionary. Look even at Johnson's angry letter. It contains the strongest admission of the boundless influence which Chesterfield exercised over society.MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1833, To Hannah M. Macaulay, Aug. 2; Life and Letters, ed. Trevelyan.

Lord Chesterfield's eloquence, the fruit of much study, was less characterized by force and compass than by elegance and perspicuity, and especially by good taste and urbanity, and a vein of delicate irony which, while it sometimes inflicted severe strokes, never passed the limits of decency and propriety. It was that of a man, who in the union of wit and good sense with politeness, had not a competitor. These qualities were matured by the advantage which he assiduously sought and obtained, of a familiar acquaintance with almost all the eminent wits and writers of his time, many of whom had been the ornaments of a preceding age of literature, while others were destined to become those of a later period.-STANHOPE, PHILIP HENRY EARL, (LORD MAHON), 1845, ed., The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, Preface.

Although one of the genuine aristocracy, owing his title to no modern creation, he made himself a reputation which few of his countrymen equalled in his own day; and, which is perhaps more remarkable, he left his mark upon the mind and manners of the English race so deep, that it will be long before it is entirely effaced. No man ever put into more attractive shape the maxims of a worldly Epicurean philosophy. No man ever furnished, in his own person, a more dazzling specimen of the theory which he recommended. If Cicero came more nearly than any person ever did to the image of the perfect orator which he described, Chesterfield is universally considered as having equally sustained his own idea of the perfect gentleman.ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS, 1846, The