Martin Farquhar Tupper - My Life as an Author

M >> Martin Farquhar Tupper >> My Life as an Author

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It is hopeless for me to look through the multitudinous large quarto
pages of my first diary and its letters, comments, paragraphs, &c.; they
are only too full of compliments and kindnesses from friends in many
instances passed away: and I will simply record two or three of the more
public hospitalities which greeted me.

One of these was a grand dinner with the Maryland Historical Society at
Baltimore, May 13, 1851, my late friend Mr. Kennedy in the chair as
president, while Sir Henry Bulwer and myself supported him right and
left, some hundreds of other guests also being present. Of course all
was very well done, luxuriously and magnificently; but perhaps the best
thing I can do (if my reader's patience and my present tired penmanship
will approve it) is to extract from a newspaper, the _Baltimore Clipper_
of the above date, a _precis_ of my speech on the occasion. Some
distinguished gentleman having proposed my health,--"This brought to his
feet Mr. Tupper, who, having expressed his thanks in an appropriate
manner, and acknowledged his superior gratitude to the Author of all
good, alluded to that international loving-kindness which he avowed to
be one main errand of his life; and he very happily brought in Horace's
prophetical description of England and America in their relation of
mother and child, 'O matre pulchra filia pulchrior.' He followed by
relating some striking incidents of the good feeling which pervades the
old country in favour of her illustrious offspring. One we cannot fail
to give was that the Royal Naval School at Greenwich had inserted his
well-known ballad 'To Brother Jonathan' in a collection published for
the use of the Royal Navy. The speaker then paid an eloquent compliment
to the literature of America--her poets, statesmen, historians, and
divines. He rejoiced that 'Insular America and Continental England' were
so intimately and inseparably intermingled in the authorial productions
of the human mind, as well as bound together by the strongest ties of
nature and religion, of lineage, laws, and language. Adverting to the
wise piety of such associations as the one before him, he exhorted to
keep together the records of the past, that they may sanctify the
present and be an encouragement to good and a warning against evil for
the future. He commented severely upon the vandal act of the British
troops under General Ross in burning the national archives at
Washington. In this connection he introduced the beautiful lines from
Milton:--

'Lift not thy spear against the Muse's bower;
The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground.'

In conclusion, Mr. Tupper related an interesting fact, which in his mind
suggested what should be to Americans a pleasing idea--possibly a
discovery--as to the origin of the national flag. On making a pilgrimage
just lately to Mount Vernon, he was forcibly struck by the circumstance
that the ancient family coat-of-arms of the illustrious Washington
consisted of three stars in the upper portion of the shield, and three
stripes below; the crest represented an eagle's head, and the motto was
singularly appropriate to American history, 'Exitus acta probat.' Mr.
Tupper said he could not but consider this a most interesting
coincidence. He thought the world might well congratulate America upon
being the Geographical Apotheosis of that great unspotted character,
who, while he yet lived, was prospectively her typical impersonation.
The three stars by a more than tenfold increase have expanded into
thirty-three; the glorious Issue has abundantly vindicated every
antecedent fact; and your whole emergent eagle, fully plumed, is now
long risen from its eyrie and soars sublimely to the sun in heaven." I
may venture as an end to all this to quote a bit from my home letter.
"At 6 o'clock, and thereafter till 12, I was the honoured guest at the
enclosed splendid banquet. Our English ambassador sat on one side of the
chairman and I on the other; the newspaper will save me all the trouble
of a long account; but it was altogether one of the best triumphs I have
ever achieved: see the papers. My dinner was very light, terrapin soup,
_pate de foie gras aux truffes_, and sweetbread: with a deluge of iced
water, and very little wine. My two speeches raised whirlwinds of
applause, and took the company by storm. It was a most important
opportunity for me, and, by God's help, I met it manfully. All the
principal people of Maryland were there, besides our own minister; with
Lady Bulwer in a side room and that nice young fellow Lytton; and there
were many other distinguished strangers. You should have heard the
shouts and cheers which greeted the points of my speech, and the after
congratulations crowded about me. I begin to feel that if I had had
common chances I should have been an orator. When I kindle up, my
steam-horse goes off, and carries all his audience with him. While I was
speaking, the people moved up _en masse_, and they gave me three cheers
upstanding when I had done."

* * * * *

Another memorable event was a grand dinner given to Washington Irving
and myself, as chief guests amongst others, by Prince Astor at his
palatial residence in New York. As for the profusion of gold plate,
glittering glass, innumerable yellow wax-candles in ormolu chandeliers,
and general exhibition of splendid and luxurious extravagance, and all
manner of costly wines and rarest gourmandise, I never have seen its
like before or since; and more than this (if I may state the fact
without much imputation of vaingloriousness), the intellectual treat
was, to my _amour propre_ at least, of a still more exquisite character,
when our host protested to his company in a generous and genial speech
that, if he could make the exchange, he would give all his wealth for
half the literary glory of Washington Irving and Martin Tupper! We
whispered to each other we heartily wished he could. I strangely missed
visiting Irving at his own home, though urgently invited to it; but
somehow other pressing engagements hindered, and so it was not to be.

On the same day with the Astorian dinner, Mr. Davis, a man of high
social position, had urged me to dine with him, but I could not come as
engaged till the evening. Now he, a local poet himself, had asked me in
divers stanzas of fair rhyme; and so, not willing either to beat him in
versification or to let him beat me, I made this epigrammatic reply in
dog-Latin, which was taken to be rather 'cute:--

"Certes, amice Davis,
Ibo quocunque mavis,
Sed princeps Astor primo
Me rapuit ad prandium;
Cum me relinquit, imo
In me videbis handyum."

This skit was well appreciated. I met at his house divers celebrities,
as indeed I did at many other splendid mansions, especially at the
Mayor's, Mr. Kingsland: I hear he is the third personage in rank in the
United States, and he lives with the grandeur of our London Lord Mayor.
I went with him on the 22d of March 1851 to one of the most magnificent
affairs I ever attended. Here is an extract from my home-letter journal
of same date:--

"Mr. Kingsland, the Mayor, came early to invite me to a grand day, being
the inauguration of the Croton Waterworks. Went off with him at 10 from
the City Hall in a carriage and four followed by forty new omnibuses and
four, some with six horses, and caparisoned with coloured feathers and
little flags, besides a number of private carriages; a gay procession,
nearly a mile long, containing all the legislature and magnates of New
York State and of the city--several hundreds." They visited in turn
divers public institutions, and at most of them I had to speak or to
recite my ballads, especially at a Blind Asylum, where, after an address
from a blind lady (the name was Crosby), "at the request of the Governor
of the State and the Mayor, I answered on the spur of the moment in a
speech and a stave that took the room by storm," &c. &c. And so on for
other institutions, and to the opening of the Croton Aqueduct. But there
is no end to this sort of vainglorious recording. As Willis says in his
_Home Journal_ at the time, "Mr. Tupper is among us, feeling his way
through the wilderness of his laurels, and realising his share of
Emerson's 'banyan' similitude,--the roots that have passed under the sea
and come up on this side of the Atlantic rather smothering him with
their thriftiness in republican soil." I suppose by thriftiness he meant
thrivingness.

My first acquaintance with N.P. Willis arose in this, way. He had (as I
have mentioned before) been in the habit of quoting month after month in
his own paper passages from my "Proverbial Philosophy," believing that
book to be an obscure survival of the Shakespearean era, and that its
author had been dead some three centuries. When he came to town, I
called upon him at his lodging near Golden Square, walking in plainly
"_sans tambour et trompette_" but simply announcing the then
young-looking author as his old Proverbialist! I never saw a man look so
astonished in my life; he turned pale, and vowed that he wouldn't
believe that this youth could be his long-departed prophet; however, I
soon convinced him that I was myself, and carried him off to dine in
Burlington Street. Afterwards we improved into a friendship till he went
the way of all flesh in Heaven's good time.

Perhaps another notable matter to record is that President Fillmore
invited me to meet his Cabinet at dinner in the White House, and that I
there "met and conversed immensely with Daniel Webster, a colossal
unhappy beetle-browed dark-angel-looking sort of man, with a depth for
good and evil in his eye unfathomable; also with Home Secretary Corwen,
a coarse but clever man, who had been a waggon-driver; and with Graham,
Secretary of the Navy, and with Conrad, Secretary at War, both gentlemen
and having lofty foreheads; and with many more, including above all the
excellent President," &c. &c. It was no small honour to meet such men on
equal terms.

If I allowed myself to quote more from my first visit to America, it
could only amount to variations of the same theme,--the great kindness
of all around me to one, however humble, who had shown himself their
friend both by tongue and pen. My books and my ballads had made the way
to their affections, and so the author thereof reaped their love.

A little before my departure on this first visit this notable matter
happened, and I will relate it in an extract from my last letter
homeward.

"The happy thought occurred to me to call on Barnum, as I had brought
him a parcel from Brettell; and, through him, to leave a card of respect
for Jenny Lind. Barnum received me most graciously, and favoured me with
two tickets for Jenny's concert to-night, whereof more anon. Meanwhile I
thought of sending to Jenny, through Barnum, a pretty little copy of
'Proverbial Philosophy,' with a pretty little note,--whereof also more
anon. Called on Edwards by good providence, and found that J.C. Richmond
had misled me--he isn't to be married till next week. A nice visit to
Major Kingsland and his good wife:--I find that my oratory has gone
everywhere, and has made quite a sensation. Think of my stammering
tongue having achieved such triumphs.--I do hope you get the papers I
send. A card at Lester's, Union Hotel, as to Mary M. Chase.--Dined.--A
full feast of reason with George Copway, the Redman chief, a gentleman,
an author, and a right good fellow. Meeting also Gordon Bennett, the
great New York Heraldist, who sat next me at dinner, when we had plenty
of pleasant talk together; also Squier, the celebrated American Layard,
who has discovered so much of Indian archaeology, a small, good-looking,
mustachioed, energetic man: also Tuckerman, the amiable poet: also
Willis, a good sort of man, just now much calumniated for having shown
up English society in his books,--but a kindly and a clever every way.
Mrs. Willis called and carried off Willis, and I took Tuckerman under my
wing to the monster concert at Castle Garden. The immense circular
building, full of heads (it holds 8000!) and lighted by 'cressets' of
gas, put me in mind of Martin's illustration of Satan's Throne in
Milton! The concert, as per programme, was a cold and dull affair
enough,--though Lind did terrible heights and depths in the Italian
execution line,--but after the concert came this beautiful episode.
Barnum hunted me out from the two or three acres of faces,--because the
fair and melodious Jenny had expressed to him an urgent wish to see me.
When I got to her boudoir, where Barnum introduced me, I really thought
she would have cried outright,--as feeling herself a stranger in a
foreign land, and in the presence of an old unseen book-friend; for it
seems,--as she told me in beautiful slightly broken English,--that my
poor dear 'Proverbial Philosophy,'--which I never thought she had seen
till I gave it to her,--has been to her 'such a comfort, such a comfort,
many days;' and she was 'so glad, so ver glad,' to see me,--and she
looked so unhappy,--though the immense hall was still echoing with those
tumults of applause,--and she clasped my hand so often, and would hardly
let it go, and made me sit and talk with her, for I was 'her friend,'
and really seemed like a child clinging to its elder brother. I was
quite sorry to leave her,--and when, putting aside all idle musical
compliments, I tried to cheer her by the thought,--how nobly and
generously for many good purposes she was using the melodious gift of
God to her, poor Jenny only looked up devoutly, and shook her head, and
sighed, and seemed unhappy. However, it was time to go, so with another
hearty shake-hands, and 'my love to _dear_ England,' Jenny Lind and I
took leave. This testimony as to my book's good use for comfort,--she
will 'read more now she sees me,'--is very pleasing,--it is much to do
poor Jenny good, who does good to so many others. I think I've forgotten
to say that great old Webster, the Secretary of State, avows that he
'always after hard work refreshes his mind' with that book: and--I might
fill volumes with the same sort of thing. God has blessed my writings to
millions of the human race! And from prince to peasant good has been
done through this hand, incalculable.--God alone be praised."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

SECOND AMERICAN VISIT.

After the long interval of five-and-twenty years, filled up with many
more such volumes and fly-leaves, I called again by pressing invitation
on my American constituency, and found them as warm and generous and
hospitable as before. This time I was six months a guest among
them,--literally so, for I found myself passed on from home to home, and
almost never took my bed at an hotel. The chief feature of this visit
was that I posed everywhere as a public "reader from my own works," and
met with generally good success, in spite of the terrific winter weather
manfully encountered half the time. Everybody knows what extremities of
cold are endured both in the North-Eastern States and in Canada. At
Baltimore I have seen the snow piled almost man-high on each side of the
middle lane dug for the tramway,--in New York men skated to their
offices; at Ottawa the thermometer was 25 deg. below zero, and at Montreal
it was everywhere deep snow (glorious for sleighing), icicles yard long
outside the windows,--and of course smaller audiences to a frozen-up
lecturer. Yet many came nevertheless, and I am pleased to remember among
them good Bishop Oxenden and his family. In spite, then, of positively
Arctic influences, as I had to do it, I did it bravely; and sent home
needful dollars, and came back with a pocket full too. All this is
surely part of an author's lifework; so I am writing appositely.

Among notabilia of this second visit, which was crowded like the former
with abundance of private hospitality and of public honours,--I may
record these briefly. Dr. Talmage, my kind and liberal host for two
lengthened visits, gave a grand reception on October 26, 1876, to
William Cullen Bryant and myself, which was attended by Peter Cooper,
Judges Neilson and Reynolds, Mayor Schroeder, Professors Crittenden and
Eaton, with some hundred more; the chief features of the evening being
Bryant's poetical recitations and mine. On another occasion I read my
Proverbial Essay on Immortality at the Tabernacle before 7000 people at
Dr. Talmage's special request: and of course at Chickering Hall, the
Brooklyn Theatre, and other places I had to give Readings to large
audiences. The Lotos Club and other genial hosts gave me complimentary
dinners. Mr. Hulbert, the well-known editor, made a _partie carree_
(only four of us to consume some of the rarest delicacies) for Lord
Rosebery, Mr. Barnum and myself: and in fact my journal overflows with
elaborate hospitalities. It was the Centennial Year, and at Philadelphia
I found abundant welcome, especially as an inmate of the genial homes of
Mr. Roberts, the eminent Dr. Levis, the excellent Mrs. Fisher, and of
Mr. Pettit, the clever artist who painted my portrait complimentarily.
Of course I did the Great Exhibition thoroughly, and was quite surprised
at its splendour and extent; I think that the thirty-three States were
represented by no fewer than 180 ornamental edifices full of special
products and treasures. At Niagara I stayed twice for a week each, with
the kindest of hosts, the Rev. Mr. Fessenden and his good wife, and saw
the great cataract in all the magnificence of winter as well as autumn.
Also at the pleasant homes, of Mr. Lister in Hamilton, at Toronto,
Kingston, and above all Montreal, my new but old book friends were full
of liberal greetings, and everywhere I had to exhibit myself as a Reader
from my own works; a specialty not common, as combining both author and
orator. At Toronto, the ministers, Mr.--now Sir John--Macdonald, and
Dr.--now Sir Charles--Tupper were my principal welcomers; and I dined
then with the Cabinet, as in 1851 I had with Lord Elgin's in (I think)
the same hall. At Ottawa I found myself full of friends, and visited
Lord Dufferin. At Montreal the wealthy merchant, Mr. Mackay of Kildonan
(since departed and gone up higher), was my generous host: and there in
one of the hardest winters known I often made acquaintance with the
splendid gallop of his sleighs, all furs and colour and delightful
excitement: on one occasion having nearly had nose and ears frost-bitten
till my neighbour with his fur gloves and snow rubbed life into them
again. With Dr. Dawson of M'Gill University I had plenty of geological
talk, especially about the new found Eozoa of the St. Lawrence
stratum,--and with his clever son, and my cousin, Professor Selwyn.
Thereafter I went south, the welcome guest of other cousins, the
Vaughan-Tuppers of Brooklyn, among my most hospitable friends over
there: and we routed out all about our family in America, as recorded
for ten generations in Freeman's "History of Massachusetts." And I
feasted at Mr. Trocke's on trout from "Tupper Lake" in the
Adirondacks,--the name coming from an ancestor, not as after me, though
sometimes thought so; and I met with many points both of family and of
authorial interest. Then I was entertained by the New England Society,
which, amongst abounding luxuries, still produces as a characteristic
dish the frugal pork and beans of Puritan times. And the Century and
other Clubs made me free of them. And of course Longfellow, Bryant,
Fields, Biglow, O.W. Holmes, and many others, opened their houses and
hearts to me. And I met and dined in company with General Grant and all
sorts of other celebrities,--and so did all I hoped to do. Going south,
Brantz Mayer at Baltimore, my cousin the Rev. Dr. Tupper (Bishop of the
Baptists), and many others are memorable. Stay, I will give a casual
extract from my home-letter, No. 39, of my second visit, giving several
names.

"Jan. 18, 1877, evening. Took an oyster tea at Brantz Mayer's, and read
to a party several things by request, especially as to the souls of
animals. Judge Bond called for me there in his carriage, and took me (as
invited by the President) to a great assemblage of Baltimore magnates
(inaugurating the John Hopkins University), where I had casually quite
an ovation, meeting literally hundreds of friends: I cannot pretend to
remember many names, but these will remind me of others: General
McClellan, General Ellicott (cousin to our Bishop), Carroll, the State
Governor, no end of professors, among them Sylvester, who knew my
brother Arthur at the Athenaeum, plenty of judges, presidents of
institutions, doctors, journalists, lawyers, and many fine figure-heads
of elderly magnates; each and all knew me as an early book friend, and I
had quite to hold a court for two hours, receiving each as introduced,
and having to say something pretty to him. Mr. Weld (of Lulworth),
married to a rich Baltimorean, takes to me monstrously, and with Mr.
President Gilman is going to manage a Reading here for me on my return
from the South. He took me after the great event to the Maryland Club
(making me a member for a month), and we had a glass of wine together,
meeting again several of the bigwigs migrated like ourselves for
something better than iced-water! for the odd thing is that, although
the eating luxuries were profuse at this grand banquet,--whole salmons,
bolsters of truffled turkey, oysters in every form, and plenty of
terrapines, canvas-back ducks, and other costly comestibles,--not a drop
of anything but water (except indeed tea and coffee) was to be had, the
excuse being that at least some of the party would be sure to take too
much; so all are mulcted for a few as usual." But my American journals
are full of that sort of thing, and this honest extract may serve as a
sample. I never guessed how crowded up by popularities a poor author may
be till I had crossed the Atlantic and reaped the kindness of Greater
Britain.

After all this, I went down South,--where I have seen brilliant
humming-birds flying about, some two or three days after I had waded
through deep snow northwards; my chief host, and a right worthy one,
being a good cousin, S.Y. Tupper, President of the Chamber of Commerce
at Charleston, S.C. With him and his I had what is called over there a
good time, and indited several poetical pieces under his hospitable
roof, in particular "Temperance" (see a former page). Also I wrote there
another stave of mine which caused great discussion in the States,
because I, reputed a Liberian and Emancipator, was supposed to have
recanted and turned to be South instead of North; but I was only just
and true, according to my lights. Here is the peccant stave, only to be
found in Charleston and other American papers of February 1877,
therefore will I give it here:--

_To the South_.

"The world has misjudged you, mistrusted, maligned you,
And should be quick to make honest amends;
Let me then speak of you just as I find you,
Humbly and heartily, cousins and friends!
Let us remember your wrongs and your trials,
Slander'd and plunder'd and crush'd to the dust,
Draining adversity's bitterest vials,
Patient in courage and strong in good trust.

"You fought for Liberty, rather than Slavery!
Well might you wish to be quit of that ill,
But you were sold by political knavery,
Meshed in diplomacy's spider-like skill:
And you rejoice to see Slavery banished,
While the free servant works well as before,
Confident, though many fortunes have vanished,
Soon to recover all--rich as before!

"Doubtless, there had been some hardships and cruelties,
Cases exceptional, evil and rare,
But to tell truth--and truly _the_ jewel 'tis--
Kindliness ruled, as a rule, everywhere!
Servants, if slaves, were your wealth and inheritance,
Born with your children, and grown on your ground,
And it was quite as much interest as merit hence
Still to make friends of dependents all round.

"Yes, it is slander to say you oppressed them;
Does a man squander the price of his pelf?
Was it not often that he who possessed them
Rather was owned by his servants himself?
Caring for all, as in health so in sicknesses,
He was their father, their patriarch chief;
Age's infirmities, infancy's weaknesses
Leaning on him for repose and relief.

"When you went forth in your pluck and your bravery,
Selling for freedom both fortunes and lives,
Where was that prophesied outburst of slavery
Wreaking revenge on your children and wives?
Nowhere! you left all to servile safe keeping,
And this was faithful and true to your trust;
Master and servant thus mutually reaping
Double reward of the good and the just?

"Generous Southerners! I who address you
Shared with too many belief in your sins;
But I recant it,--thus, let me confess you,
Knowledge is victor and every way wins:
For I have seen, I have heard, and am sure of it,
You have been slandered and suffering long,
Paying all Slavery's cost, and the cure of it,--
And the great world shall repent of its wrong."

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