University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

We were scarcely seated, the next morning, at the
table, when the post man brought a handful of letters,
and laid them before Hammond.

“You seem to have a large correspondence?”

“Yes”—said he; “and one of the least profitable, in
the world; but I shall be done with it. I cannot afford
such pleasure. With the exception of two or three persons,
my correspondents are altogether young men,
whom, at different times, I have encountered, in a state
of torpidity; electrified, almost to combustion, by the
contact—and put, bare footed, upon the fiery track of
Ambition; of the whole—ah—what have we here—
Wallace—by heaven! Well,—let me see what he
says.”

He opened it; and, as he read, I saw his countenance
change—like the tablet of a camera obscura:—
every passion—every feeling, every emotion of his
heart, perhaps of the human heart, went over his broad
forehead, and beautiful mouth, till he threw down the
letter, at last—dashed off a tear, with the back of his
hand—and cried out—

“Read it—read it, William. I have done him wrong.
He has a brave heart—a stout one. I must love him.
Read it! 'tis in answer to that which I showed to you.”

I opened, and read as follows:

“Tautology,” said Hammond.

On the side, a P. S. was written, after the following
fashion: “In reading over your letter once more, I have
observed your heavy charge, with respect to your opinions
concerning the poem, which I sent to you, for perusal
and correction. They are altogether incorrect.”

“Noble!” cried Hammond—“that is the language of
a man.”

“I little cared how much you played the severe critick
with the work—it was for my good; and it has been
for my good—that is the truth.”

“Thank God!” said Hammond, devoutly. I looked up
—his features were agitated—his nostrils dilated, and
red with his breathing, like a race horse, leaping in the
wind.

“And now, what do you think of it?” said he.

“Me?” said I.

“Me!—do talk English—what do me think of it!”

I was nettled—“I know not what to think of him;”
said I; “but his letter is beautiful.”

“Yes—quite too beautiful. However, I have great
hope of him. There are more errours in it, of punctuation,
orthography, grammar, and style—and fewer
careful erasures with a sharp pen knife, than in any
that I have seen of his, for a long time. You smile—
but I'll tell you what it is, William—it is in vain, for
any man to tell me, that the writer of a letter feels, when
I find his is all dotted, and his is all crossed. A man
cannot stop, in the tumult of his heart, to tie a shoe string;
or to correct his writing, any more than his conversation;

as well might he stop to tie his cravat, or to pick
his nails, at a fine drama.”

“He then, who blunders most outrageously, writes
most feelingly,” I suppose.

“Pretty much;” he replied, with invincible coolness;
“I would have a man write as he talks.”

“That phrase again—it is always in your mouth,
Hammond; what do you mean by it?”

“Just what I say,” he replied—“I would have a man
write, and read and speak, just as he would converse.”

“What!—when some, who blunder eternally in conversation,
can write elegantly?”

“That is false. No man, that blunders in conversation,
ever wrote elegantly. Elegance implies ease and
gracefulness; and he, who cannot talk with ease, can
never write so. A man can no more learn his language
by writing it, than he can learn to swim, upon a table.
He must always talk first.”

“Suppose him to be deaf-and-dumb.”

Hammond laughed;—but answered—“then he will
write like a deaf-and-dumb man. Nay—I will go further;—there
is a certain air of ease about what is natural,
so remarkable, that I would undertake to detect,
at once, any affectation of style, in the writing of
one that I never saw, just as easily as you could, any
affectation in his gait or voice. Nay, I do believe that
I could tell a left handed man, or a deaf-and-dumb man,
by his manner of expressing himself, on paper.”

“But suppose that one cannot, whether from invincible
timidity; want of experience; or, any impediment,
in his speech—express himself in company, would you
prohibit him from writing?”

“No!—but I would prohibit you from calling him a
beautiful or natural writer. There is a witchery; an
energy about nature, which are irresistible. One man
may captivate you with a movement, which, in another,
would distress you. Why? because it is natural in the
one; affected in the other. Thus it is with language.
You may listen to one that talks naturally; and your
heart will beat audible time to his voice: You will feel
the sap running through it, like champaigne. Another

may imitate him;—a third may use infinitely better
words, yet produce no emotion. Why?—with him, they
are an artificial language. Yet more. Let me repeat
what I have already said. Read to me the writing
of a deaf-and-dumb man—a wounded one—or one that
had an impediment in his speech; and I will promise
you to discover that there is something wrong in it,
more readily than you would, from seeing the man.—
You are amazed—but I am very serious. What constitutes
the beauty of conversation? Is it not a certain
simplicity—continual repetition, either of thought
or language—redundancy—such as the scriptures perpetually
abound with, in matters of tenderness, or eloquence,
or pathos. You can bring tears into the eyes
of people, in conversation. Would you do the same in
writing? How can you hope to do it, but by the same
means? Would you truss up, the broken and dislocated
language of the heart; and link it together?—and
polish it? You destroy the talisman---the magick was in
its disorder. You must write then, as you would talk;
---with this qualification---as you would talk—upon the
same subject---to the same persons.”

“How?---you surely would not have me blunder in
writing, merely because I blunder in talking!”

“Yes I would. It would stand enregistered against
you, till you are ashamed of it. That is one reason.
But I have a better. I would prefer that a man should
blunder, naturally, than avoid it unnaturally; as I would
prefer the natural, lubberly, slovenly case, of any human
creature, to affectation; as I would prefer a leftlegged
bow, to the step of a dancing master;---as I would
prefer a sweet girl's blundering a little, in the hilarity of
her soul---to her talking superfinely. Of the first evil,
I should have some hope; of the latter, none.”

“Then,” said I, “to meet your opinion of a perfect
style, one should address the populace; write for a newspaper;
or a friend, precisely as he would talk.”

“Exactly!”---he replied.

“Are you in earnest?”

“Yes.”

“Hammond, I will not believe you---what, the gossiping

of the tea tables---the laboured pleasantry of—
the—”

“Stop, William Adams---breathe a little.”

“The flippancy;”--said I---“would you prohibit improvement?---would
you have a fellow stutter on paper?”

“Patience, my dear fellow. No---but I would have
the improvement begin, where Nature meant, that it
should, in the mind and conversation. I would rather
hear a man blunder in a foreign language, than talk to
me in a set discourse, made up in the closet, from a
combination of grammars and dictionaries. Let us put
the matter to a test. Suppose that you were telling a
pleasant anecdote. Would you not tell it; and write
it; and speak it, (if you spoke it at all, in publick) in
the same language?”

I was much struck with that remark:—and he continued.
“But suppose that you have to relate a murder—something
that appals the heart,—stiffens the hair
—would you adopt a different tone, in pleading to a
jury, before the judge of the land, than if you were talking
to the same men; having the same object in view;
with the same persons listening to you? If you should,
you would become unnatural; and your client might be
hanged for it. Yet all speakers do this. The moment
that they are upon their legs, their voice, tone, emphasis,
look, all change. So, in reading—men never read in
the language of nature;—and never speak in it, when
they can help it.”

“What! would you have a man read poetry as he
would converse.”

“Yes—if he ever conversed in poetry. If he read familiar
dialogue, he should read, in the familiar colloquial
tone, of every day conversation. Do not your
very tone, look, accent—nay, your very pronunciation,
change with your subject? You say to me, on one subject,
don't do so—but, on another subject, you would say
do not---I pray you, do not. Solemnity may be heard
now;---and then, a flippant levity---even in the clipping,
and hurrying of your words: now, you are emphatick
deep---collected;---now, passionate, and thoughtless.

If one read a tragedy; let him read it, as he would
speak, were he, himself, the sufferer; or the being, in rea
life, whose part he is reading. The rule is simple. I
do not ask a man to read a scene of wrath and passion
from a great drama; or one of deep, sweet quiet in a poem;
or one of magnificence and solemnity---as he would
talk about his bread and butter---but as he would, if
he, himself, were about to be murdered;---or, he, himself,
had been hunted, and set upon, like the creature
in the play;---or, were he sitting by the dear one of the
poet,---who, it may be, was going to her grave, heart
broken, in her untasted beauty, unable to move her
lips; or---were he abroad, with the poet,—the everlasting
skies, blue, blue and boundless---rolling over him---
and the “North wind pealing among her banners.”---
Will not his voice rise---his nostrils dilate---his eyes
lighten—his chest heave, when he talks of such things?
---And would you have him, when he comes to speak,
and write of them---take down, and, subdue the glorious
colouring of Nature;---put her beautiful limbs into the
habiliments of fashion;—fetter, and lock, and clasp down
the giant, wrist and ancle, upon a bed of iron---lest he
should not pigeon wing classically.”

I was amazed, I started from my seat. I gazed at
him with astonishment, and dismay.

“By heaven,” I cried---with the tears in my eyes---
“By heaven! Albert Hammond, my blood thrills at
your voice, as to a trumpet call---what are you?---who
are you?”

“A man!—William Adams---A man!---untrammelled,
and unfettered by the schools: A man!--that lived, in ignorance,
thank God, till his judgment was able to decide
between good and evil for himself!-- A man! who
had never been taught---kicked nor cuffed, into a veneration
for anything;---and left, in the strength of his
faculties, to judge of all men; old or young, living and
dead---of ancient or of modern time, without any regard
to the opinion of others—”

“How full of poetry.”

“Poetry! call you that. Man—you do not know
what poetry is—it, is something, I must tell you, as I
once did General W. after I had been driven from definition,

to definition, by him and his rockets. Poetry,
is something—of which you cannot even form a conception.”

“No. It is not poetry—it is something better. It is
down right honesty.”

“But pray—have not you written a great deal of
what you call poetry?” I said.

“No.”

“How much?”

“Twenty pages, perhaps.”

“Twenty pages! Why, I thought that you had written
volumes. There are three or four hundred pages
in the book that you gave me.”

“O,—as to that—I have written two or three volumes,
of what others call poetry—nay, better than
what they call poetry, in many others.”

“Not published—I suppose?”

“Yes, it is”

“Where?”

“Faith, it were rather difficult to tell—with one kind
of truck and another.”

“Why do you not collect it, and republish it altogether?”

“What?”

He stared at me, and I repeated the question.

“It is'nt worth it”—said he, carelessly; but, with the
air of one, whose unconcern is not affected; who
means precisely what he says; and does not dream of
being doubted.

“Really, Hammond, you are an incomprehensible
fellow. What do you think of yourself?”

“Should you like to know?

“Indeed, I should.”

“Well then—I think, that, if I live twenty years,
I shall have no equal in the United States.'

I looked him steadily in the eyes, for a minute, I
suppose; and then, seeing that there was no change, or
shadow of change in them, I laughed in his face, very
heartily—but not so heartily, as I could have wished.

He bore it with perfect good humour. “Look you;”
said he—“you see what I have done. I have but be

gun. So far, I am only in my alphabet. My course
of study, for the next ten years is marked out. I
know what I am capable of doing. I have an iron constitution;
and I can work, three hundred and sixty five
days in the year; sixteen hours a day, without sinking
under it. Can you find me another man able to do
this? You cannot—my frame has been hardened by
toil; I was not put to school, before the cartilage had
stiffened; and fed to death on dainties; and crippled
with study. No! but I was sent out barefooted, and
half naked, to face the northern blast; when the snow
and ice cut into my flesh, like a hurricane of powdered
glass. I was not nourished in a hot house; or
washed with warm water; but accustomed to clamber
the mountains, before day light; leap through the thin
ice; and buffet the torrent, with my Newfoundland dog
at my side. I am damnably ugly, as you see. What
temptation have I to sin? I am a sensualist, a voluptuary.
How can I kennel with strumpets? or gamble
my life away, with fools? I am deformed—poor, and
proud—I cannot dance; am not sought after by the
women; and who can interfere with me in the way of
my ambition. Look at me. I can write seventy-five
pages of letter paper in a day[1] —and can read a volume
of five hundred octavo pages through, with ease,
in one day.”

“And what do you know of it, when you have
done.”

“Give me one, and try me—more than many a plodder,
who would be a month about it.”

“Sir—I could have read a volume of Blackstone
through in one day; when the book would open of itself,
at the place, where a fellow student had been reading
it for three months.”

“But how could you do these things? They are incredible.”

“By system—perseverance. I began to carry the
bull while it was a calf.”

“How do other people study? I'll tell you. They
go to their room, one week with another, through the

year, about four days, in each week; and sit there,
nodding over their book; talking, or smoking, or
thinking of the last night's debauch; or their next
night's ball, perhaps three or four hours of a day; during
which time, they think it no light matter to read
twenty or thirty solid pages. By heaven! I would
sooner digest my own heart three times a day—with
all its bitterness, than starve my spirit on such a rascally
diet.”

“I'll tell you what I did. I began with reading
one hundred pages a day—of law, history, and miscellany.
They occupied me the whole day, and evening.
In a few weeks, I found, that I could get through, an
hour sooner. I then read one hundred and ten—then
one hundred and twenty, and so on, constantly augmenting,
till at last, it became as easy, for me to read
three hundred pages, as it had been, at first, to read one
hundred. And, for about three years, William Adams,
I verily believe, that, apart from all that I wrote; and
apart, too, from the languages, and some time taken up
in visiting my friends—that I averaged full three hundred
pages a day, of law and miscellany.”

“Heaven, and earth!—how could you live through
it!”

“Hear me through. By system, temperance, and
undeviating regularity. I let nothing discourage me;
nothing elate me; nothing disturb me. I first convinced
myself, that, if I followed the course, which I had undertaken,
it must bring me out, gallantly, at the end;
and then, what cared I?—nothing; though I fell, a dead
body, with every artery split, and torn—upon the
place of victory. I had blood in me. I did not ask to
feel my progress every hour—no, nor every day. I
did not expect to remember all that I read—nor would
I desire it. I never bothered myself with names nor
dates; and was willing to read any troublesome affair,
two or three times over. I never held it worth my
while, to do what was difficult, merely because it was difficult;
nor to load my memory, no matter how retentive,
or how accurate it was, with the names of cases, pages,
or chronological tables; when, after all, I should have

to refer to the books, themselves, however certain I
might be, if there should be any dispute; and I learnt,
moreover, that, after twenty years of labour, in accumulating
a capital in legal science, one must study
hard, to keep his original stock good, and hold way
with innovation. I learned at the same time, that the
sum and substance of all legal acquisition is, after all,
not so much a knowledge of what is law, as a knowledge
of the places, where it is to be found—not so
much, the power of deciding a question, without reference
to authorities, as the power of referring instantly,
to authorities. I now feel the advantage of it. I cannot
study now, as I used to. That is impossible—my
time is no longer my own. But, still I am going on,
one way and another, in a progress, that startles nobody—while
it accumulates, surely; and, in a geometrical
ratio.”

“But, how could you keep alive? What amusement
had you?”

“Writing. When I was weary of every thing else;
spent with toil, and sore about the temples, with abstraction,
I would fall to writing; and my blood would
ripple and tingle again, like that of a benumbed creature,
asleep, in the sunshine, filled to the lips, with
old wine, and charged with electricity.”

“But, you surely did not confine yourself to law?”

“Oh, no!—that would have killed me.[2] By Jupiter!—no
wonder, that you stared. Coke upon Littleton,
Fearne---and such light reading, thermometer at
ninety-five, would soon have put out my pipe, at two
hundred pages a day. No—I read, of such gentry, only
fifty or one hundred—then, of some other, one hundred
more—taking care, however, always to begin in
the morning, with that study, which was least agreeable
to me; and to leave off, at night, with that, which
was most so. This kept me always in tune—my faculties
never lost their edge. Do you remember Dr.
Doddesly, and his boy?”

“Father,” said the little fellow—crying, “take me
up in your arms. I cannot walk another step.”

“O, yes you can, my child”—said the Doctor.

“No, Father, no, indeed; indeed I cannot.”

“Here take my gold headed cane, and ride upon it.”

“The delighted child took it, and gallopped all round
the garden.”

“Every faculty of the mind is like that child. Girls,
too, will dance all night long to musick; jumping miles
and miles, without weariness—who are worn to death
by a short walk: soldiers will travel day after day, to
musick; and people will travel all day long, in company,
without being sensible of distance, or fatigue;
when, if alone, or in silence, they would be ready, sometimes,
to lie down by the road side, and give up the
ghost. All the sensibilities of our nature—all that is
lordly and heroick; beautiful, or wise, in man, is like
these dancing girls and travellers. Amuse them, and diversify
their toil, and they are never weary, nor worn.”

“But how managed you to learn so many languages?”

“By learning them nearly all at the same time.”

“What! all your masters upon you, at once!”

“I had none.”

“What—no masters!”

“No—yet, I ought not to say that. I took a master,
for a time only, just to get the pronunciation—in two
or three languages: the rest, I managed alone.”

“How?”

“By discarding dictionaries and grammars, and
committing no one rule or word to memory.”

“But how could you ever learn one grammatically?”

“Just as I have learnt my own. Who speaks it
more grammatically? Yet, I do not know one rule of
the grammar—and scarcely, a substantive from a preposition.”

“It is incredible.”

“Not at all. Can you give me a definition of the words
that you use?”

“Yes.”

“No, you can`t—unless in a bungling way:—yet
you never use them wrong. Children do the same!

How do they learn the meaning of a word? By its use
and association. They learn to qualify it every day. So
do we. Not one word, out of five hundred, that we
use, in our own language, have we ever looked into
het dictionary for. Children learn grammar the very
same way—by good company and good books.”

“You would discard grammar.”

“No—I would teach it, imperatively. But I could
not begin with grammar—any more than I would teach
an infant to walk by diagrams. The one would talk
very well, and the other creep quite agreeably, and
naturally. I am thinking, though neither understood
what part of speech any word was; or in what latitude,
and longitude his porringer of milk lay; or, at what
angle it was to be assailed.”

“Thus have I studied languages. I have learnt the
meaning of words by their association—and, in time. I
have been able to read many languages. It is another
thing, to speak them. Then, it would be well for a foreigner
to take up the grammar, soon after being able
to read. We can read, you know, what we can`t speak,
or write. So we can understand all that an Orator
shall say, without being able to say it: many can read
Milton—few could have written like him.[3] ”

“Nothing distresses me so much, as the barbarous
doctrine of the age, respecting education. It is said, that
brass is harder to engrave upon, than sand—but that
the engraving will last the longer. It is a very pretty
conceit; but, unhappily, a mischievous one, in its application.
Lest children should forget easily, they are
made to acquire, hardly!—Experience shows, I confess,
that a quick memory is not generally a retentive
one; and so, with the other faculties. They, that acquire
with ease, are too apt to lose with ease—they are
inclined to be lavish and neglectful. But is it wisdom
to counteract that facility, by throwing difficulties in the
way. They talk of making a child labour; and they set
him to committing a large volume of latin gibberish—

with rules, to which the exceptions are more numerous,
than the examples under them: and to “tumbling over”
the dictionary. And what is the consequence. First, you
make study hateful to him; and, next, an unproductive
toil. He searches for a word—ransacks the dictionary—the
grammar—the “Key”--the irregular verbs—the
declen-sions----and, at last, finds it with fifty different
significations. What shall he do? He can only ascertain
the meaning, by another process of decyphering the
definition; till, at last, wearied and ashamed, he goes
to the master, and hears, what should have been told
him at first, with a pleasant countenance, what the
the meaning of the word is, in that particular case.”

“By heaven, you might as well set a child's feet in
the stocks; or screw up one of his thumbs in a vice, to
prevent the acquisition, from being easy to him, as to
do this. No—take your book. Make him sit down
by you, with another. Read each word; and make him
repeat it. Go over it again. Throw aside the grammar
and dictionary. Do not let him look into them,
for one year, at least. In a little time, you will find
him able to read, and pronounce, with a facility, that
will surprise you; and an understanding of what he
reads, beyond all your hope. But, do not be foolish
—do not expect to make your boy a critical judge of
the niceties and delicacies of a language, in forty eight
lessons. No—nor in five hundred. That is not to be
done, but by a long, and indefatigable application.
Enough, it is true, for the common business of life, may
be thus acquired, in a quarter of the usual time.—
What o`clock is it?”

“Half past four, by all that is hungry!”

“Pleasant prospect!” said Hammond, ruefully. “We
dine at half past three. But you won't mind waiting
a day or two, I suppose.”

“Upon my word,” said I, “you are the strangest fellow.
Do you treat every body so?”

“Every body!—no. To people in general, I say—
stop—give me a fee—no talk—I won't hear a word—
I'm busy. No, no—you must take this, as especially
civil in me. You smile. What ails you?”

“I am thinking;” said I. “I—.”

“Out with it—don't be bashful.”

“No—I cannot—you'll think me vain.”

“Think you vain. O, no—I shall not, indeed.”

I was obliged to laugh; there was a something irresistible,
in his eyes.

“What was it?” said he.

“I was thinking,” said I, “that we are strangely
alike.”

“I retract. You are vain now. There is no denying
it. You allude of course, not to any personal resemblance;
for you are, really, quite a decent fellow;
but I—damnation!—I cannot carry on this pleasantry.
It drives me mad, when I look upon my own shadow.
—What! You look terrified—thunderstruck—come,
come—never mind it. I am like you—very like you,
indeed.”

“Were you quarrelsome, I should say that you were
almost the brother of my spirit.”

“I am.”

“You!—O, no—I know you better. You are full of
endurance.”

“You are mistaken—the sweltering tyger, under the
hottest African sun, is not less so, than I have been.”

“Well then, there is but one thing more.—Were you
ever the slave of a woman?”

“I am!” said the dwarf, in a voice that went to my
heart. O, it was so passionate and thrilling, that I
would not have had a woman that I loved, hear it, for
all the world.”

“Is it possible!” said I. “When? where?”

“Tomorrow, or, this evening, I will tell you all—I
have a load here; (striking his breast, like an anvil;)
a heavy load.”

“This evening, be it then.”