LX.
MR. GREELEY"S NOMINATION.
Dear sisters:--What do you think of the dear old Mountain State now?
Have you reason to be proud of her, or have you not? Do you understand what she has done lately in the way of literature--in the female line, I mean--and now, only think of it, the next President of the United States is expected from that sacred and hilly soil.
I know that Vermont will be almost tickled to death about this. It will be a crown of glory to her mountains, and a song of rejoicing in her valleys. The sap in her maple-trees will start earlier, run brighter, and sugar off more gloriously than it has ever done before. Up to this time, Vermont has never had her share of honors at the national Capitol, but now her time has come.
I am so glad I went to Mr. Greeley"s birthday party, and I haven"t a doubt that a great many other persons feel pretty much as I do about it. When I shook hands with him there, and saw him standing in the midst of his friends, with his kind face looking smooth and enticing as a sweet baked apple, I little thought it might be the next President of these United States that was enjoying himself over a birthday. But things do get tangled and untangled dreadfully in this world of ours--don"t they? and the most uncertain thing on this side of sundown is any man"s destiny. The most certain thing is the popularity of success. It seems to me now as if I think considerable more of this great Vermonter than I did last week, but what has he done to make me?--that"s what I should like to know. He"s just the same man; has just as many faults--no great new supply of virtues. In fact, what has he done this week more than he did last, that I should feel a sort of honor and glory in being his friend?
I have been putting these questions to myself, and the answer makes me feel a little meachen. I am the missionary of one of the most august bodies that can be found in this or any other country. I represent a body of blameless, heroic ladies, whose glory it is to be above prejudice, and capable of self-judgment--ladies that are ladies, and wish to set an example of Christian womanliness to their own s.e.x and the rest of mankind, feeling that "the eyes of all Vermont are upon them."
I am all this, yet I feel the humiliation of thinking all the better of a man because a great hullabaloo of other men have declared before the world that they want him for President of these United States. This is weak, but natural--natural, but awfully weak. Why should we let crowds of men we never saw judge for us? But then, how are we to judge for ourselves?
After all, this self-government is a difficult thing to carry out. What man really does govern himself?--either through his brain, or heart, some one else governs him. He gives himself up by the wholesale to a crowd, or by retail to his own family.
In the parlor of our hotel last night there was nothing but confusion and commotion. I went down there with Cousin E. E., for we all felt the glory that had settled down on us in a reflected way, and longed to enjoy it before folks. So down we went, trying to look as if nothing was the matter, but feeling the smiles quivering and playing about our lips like lady-bugs about an open rose.
The parlors were full. Everybody had something to say. Some were smiling, some looked ready to cry, and others looked grim as gunlocks; but most of the faces we saw were beaming like a harvest moon.
As for me, I felt--yes, as the poet says, "I felt--I felt like a morning star."
"Well, Miss Frost, how do you like it?" says a little mite of a woman, with pink ribbons spreading out on her bosom. "What do you think of the nomination?"
"Think?" says I. "Why, this is what I think--the sun will rise and set on the top of the Green Mountains like a crown of glory, after this."
"Will Vermont go for him?" says another, cutting in.
"Will the mountains stand on their old rocky base?" says I. "What a question!"
"Then you think it will?"
"Think! I know it will. When did that glorious old State neglect one of her own sons?"
"But it"s so strange!" snivelled the little woman.
"Strange!" says I; "what is strange?"
"Why, that Mr. Greeley should be nominated."
"Well," says I, with cutting irony, "do you think it strange that the people of this country should choose an honest man once in a while?
ain"t we always ready to reward merit? Haven"t we done it in the military way with General Grant? Haven"t we a right to go into a new field? First the sword, now the pen."
"Oh! not that; but--but--"
"Well, but what?"
"He"s so--so peculiar."
"Yes, he is," says I, "if integrity, simple good faith, and sound sense is peculiar--and I begin to think it is."
"Do you know him, Miss Frost?"
I drew myself up, and that feeling I have spoken of came over me. It was a temptation, and--well, I and Mrs. Eve are a little alike in our feminine weaknesses; I"m glad I have Bible support in the disposition to fib a little that comes over me.
"Do I know him?" said I. "Yes, intimately."
"Ah!" says she.
"You can judge how intimately," says I, smitten with compunction, and craw-fishing down into a deceiving truth, "when I tell you that I was an honored guest at his birthday party."
"You don"t say so!" says she.
I didn"t feel bound to remind her that I had said so, and only drew myself up a trifle, and waved my fan back and forth with a dignified movement.
"And you really think well of him? But, then, he is an editor, and authors always have a sort of affinity for gentlemen of the press," says a pert young creature, twisting her head on one side, and coming up to me.
"I think well of him," says I, "because he is a man that has worked his way up in the world by the hardest; studied wisdom from the type he was setting, when he had no time for books; worked like a Trojan to support himself days, then sat up half the night to improve his mind. Mr.
Greeley is in all respects a self-made man. This nomination is but the proper and natural crown of a busy life like his, of integrity like his, and of wisdom like his."
"You talk earnestly," says a gentleman, coming up into the little crowd that grew thick around me.
"Because I feel earnestly," says I, a-doubling up my fan, and laying down the law with it. "I don"t pretend to know a great deal about politics, but I do know something about the history of my country, and it has never been better governed than when self-made men have ruled over it; but here is something more--the editor of a great daily journal is gathering up knowledge and wisdom every day of his life. He has opportunities for watching events and judging of actions that prepare his own mind for the exercise of power when it comes. "Why," says I, warming up, "the greatest statesmen that you have are editors and self-made men. The fact is, men who have worked their own way in the world, haven"t time to be rogues, and very seldom are even grasping. It is your lazy fellow, who lives by the cunning that he calls wits, who is not to be trusted. For my part, as two candidates have to be in the field to have a good run, I am glad that those Cincinnati folks had the sense to take a man right out of the bosom of the people to govern the people. Brought up so close to the public heart, he"ll know how it beats. Having been a working man, he"ll know how to feel for toilers like himself, just as General Grant now feels for the soldiers."
"You talk like a book," says the young lady, a-twisting her head the other way.
"I didn"t know till you told me, miss, that books did talk," says I, opening my fan again.
"Oh, yes, they do," says she, giggling.
"Bound to talk, I suppose," says I, a-smiling in my usual bland way.
They all laughed at this, but the girl looked around as if she wondered what it was all about.
I just made a little inclination of the head, and went on:
"We were speaking of self-made men, I think," says I; "such men have drifted away from New England, like shooting stars. Wherever they may shine, New England is proud of them, and claims them as her own; for this reason; and because I love my country, I am glad Horace Greeley is on the highway to be its next President. With him and Grant running neck to neck, I shan"t care much which beats."
LXI.
WOMEN AND THINGS.