Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume Ii Part 33

During this stay in Paris I took part in two commemorations.

First came the Fourth of July, when, in obedience to the old custom which I had known so well in my student days, the American colony visited the cemetery of the Rue Picpus and laid wreaths upon the tomb of Lafayette,--the American band performing a dirge, and our marines on duty firing a farewell volley. It was in every way a warm and hearty tribute. A week later was the unveiling of the statue of Camille Desmoulins in the garden of the Palais Royal,--this being the one-hundredth anniversary of the day on which, in that garden,--and, indeed, on that spot, before the Cafe Foy,--he had roused the mob which destroyed the Bastille and begun the whirlwind which finally swept away so much and so many, including himself and his beloved Lucille. Poor Camille, orating, gesticulating, and looking for a new heaven and a new earth, was one of the little great men so important at the beginning of revolutions and so insignificant afterward. It was evident that, in spite of the old legends regarding him, the French had ceased to care for him; I was surprised at the small number present, and at the languid interest even of these.

Among my most delightful reminiscences of this period are my walks and talks with my old Yale and Paris student friend of nearly forty years before, Randall Gibson, who, having been a general in the Confederate service, was now a United States senator from Louisiana. Revisiting our old haunts, especially the Sorbonne, the Pantheon, St. Sulpice, and other monuments of the Latin Quarter, we spoke much of days gone by, he giving me most interesting reminiscences of our Civil War period as seen from the Southern side. One or two of the things he told me are especially fastened in my mind. The first was that as he sat with other officers over the camp-fire night after night, discussing the war and their hopes regarding the future, all agreed that when the Confederacy obtained its independence there should be no "right of secession" in it. But what interested me most was the fact that he, a Democratic senator of the United States, absolutely detested Thomas Jefferson, and, above all things, for the reason that he considered Jefferson the real source of the extreme doctrine of State sovereignty. Gibson was a typical Kentucky Whig who, in the Civil War, went with the South from the force of family connections, friendships, social relations, and the like, but who remained, in his heart of hearts, from first to last, deeply attached to the Union.

Leaving Paris, we went together to Homburg, and there met Mr.

Henry S. Sanford, our minister at Belgium during the Civil War, one of Secretary Seward's foremost agents on the European continent at that period. His accounts of matters at that time, especially of the doings of sundry emissaries of the United States, were all of them interesting, and some of them exceedingly amusing. At Homburg, too, I found my successor in the legation at Berlin, Mr. Pendleton, who, though his mind remained clear, was slowly dying of paralysis.

Thence with Gibson and Sanford down the Rhine to Mr. Sanford's country-seat in Belgium. It was a most beautiful place, a lordly chateau, superbly built, fitted, and furnished, ample for the accommodation of a score of guests, and yet the rent he paid for it was but six hundred dollars a year. It had been built by a prince at such cost that he himself could not afford to live in it, and was obliged to rent it for what he could get. Thence we made our way to London and New York.

CHAPTER LV

MEXICO, CALIFORNIA, SCANDINAVIA, RUSSIA, ITALY, LONDON, AND BERLIN--1892-1897

Arriving at New York in the autumn of 1889, I was soon settled at my accustomed work in the university,--devoting myself to new chapters of my book and to sundry courses of lectures. Early in the following year I began a course before the University of Pennsylvania; and my stay in Philadelphia was rendered very agreeable by various new acquaintances. Interesting to me was the Roman Catholic archbishop, Dr. Ryan. Dining in his company, I referred admiringly to his cathedral, which I had recently visited, but spoke of what seemed to me the defective mode of placing the dome upon the building; whereupon he made one of the most tolerable Latin puns I have ever heard, saying that during the construction of both the nave and the dome his predecessors were hampered by lack of money,--that, in fact, they were greatly troubled by the res angustae domi. Interesting also was attendance upon the conference at Lake Mohonk, which brought together a large body of leading men from all parts of the country to discuss the best methods of dealing with questions relating to the freedmen and Indians. The president of the conference, Mr. Hayes, formerly President of the United States, I had known well in former days, when I served under him as minister to Germany, and the high opinion I had then formed of him was increased as I heard him discuss the main questions before the conference. It was the fashion at one time among blackguards and cynics of both parties to sneer at him, and this, doubtless, produced some effect on the popular mind; but nothing could be more unjust: rarely have I met a man in our own or any other country who has impressed me more by the qualities which a true American should most desire in a President of the United States; he had what our country needs most in our public men--sobriety of judgment united to the power of calm, strong statement.

The two following years, 1890-1891, were pa.s.sed mainly at Cornell, though with excursions to various other inst.i.tutions where I had been asked to give addresses or lectures; but in February of 1892, having been invited to lecture at Stanford University in California, I accepted an invitation from Mr.

Andrew Carnegie to become one of the guests going in his car to the Pacific coast by way of Mexico. Our party of eight, provided with cook, servants, and every comfort, traveled altogether more than twelve thousand miles--first through the Central and Southern States of the Union, thence to the city of Mexico and beyond, then by a series of zigzag excursions from lower California to the northern limits of Oregon and Washington, and finally through the Rocky Mountains and the canons of Colorado to Salt Lake City and Denver. Thence my companions went East and I returned alone to Stanford to give my lectures. During this long excursion I met many men who greatly interested me, and especially old students of mine whom I found everywhere doing manfully the work for which Cornell had aided to fit them. Never have I felt more fully repaid for any labor and care I have ever given to the founding and development of the university. Arriving in the city of Mexico, I said to myself, "Here certainly I shall not meet any more of my old Cornellians"; but hardly was I settled in my room when a card came up from one of them, and I soon learned that he was doing honor to the Sibley College of the university by superintending the erection of the largest printing-press which had ever been brought into Mexico. The Mexican capital interested me greatly. The cathedral, which, up to that time, I had supposed to be in a debased rococo style, I found to be of a simple, n.o.ble Renaissance character, and of real dignity. Being presented to the President, Porfirio Diaz, I was greatly impressed by his quiet strength and self-possession, and then understood for the first time what had wrought so beneficent a change in his country. His ministers also impressed me favorably, though they were evidently overshadowed by so great a personality. One detail struck me as curious: the room in which the President received us at the palace was hung round with satin draperies stamped with the crown and cipher of his predecessor--the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian.

California was a great revelation to me. We arrived just at the full outburst of spring, and seemed to have alighted upon a new planet. Strong and good men I found there, building up every sort of worthy enterprise, and especially their two n.o.ble universities, one of which was almost entirely officered by Cornell graduates. To this inst.i.tution I was attached by a special tie. At various times the founders, Governor and Mrs.

Stanford, had consulted me on problems arising in its development; they had twice visited me at Cornell for the purpose of more full discussion, and at the latter of the two visits had urged me to accept its presidency. This I had felt obliged to decline. I said to them that the best years of my life had been devoted to building up two universities,--Michigan and Cornell,--and that not all the treasures of the Pacific coast would tempt me to begin with another; that this feeling was not due to a wish to evade any duty, but to a conviction that my work of that sort was done, and that there were others who could continue it far better than I. It was after this conversation that, on their asking whether there was any one suitable within my acquaintance, I answered, "Go to the University of Indiana; there you will find the president, an old student of mine, David Starr Jordan, one of the leading scientific men of the country, possessed of a most charming power of literary expression, with a remarkable ability in organization, and blessed with good, sound sense. Call him." They took my advice, called Dr. Jordan, and I found him at the university. My three weeks' stay interested me more and more. Evening after evening I walked through the cloisters of the great quadrangle, admiring the solidity, beauty, and admirable arrangement of the buildings, and enjoying their lovely surroundings and the whole charm of that California atmosphere.

The buildings, in simplicity, beauty, and fitness, far surpa.s.sed any others which had at that time been erected for university purposes in the United States; and I feel sure that when the entire plan is carried out, not even Oxford or Cambridge will have anything more beautiful. President Jordan had more than fulfilled my prophecies, and it was an inspiration to see at their daily work the faculty he had called together. The students also greatly interested me. When it was first noised abroad that Senator Stanford was to found a new university in California, sundry Eastern men took a sneering tone and said, "What will it find to do? The young men on the Pacific coast who are as yet fit to receive the advantages of a university are very few; the State University of California at Berkeley is already languishing for want of students." The weakness of these views is seen in the fact that, at this hour, each of these universities has nearly three thousand undergraduates. The erection of Stanford has given an impetus to the State University, and both are doing n.o.ble work, not only for the Pacific coast, but for the whole country.

One of the most noteworthy things in the history of American university education thus far is the fact that the university buildings erected by boards of trustees in all parts of the country have, almost without exception, proved to be mere jumbles of mean materials in incongruous styles; but to this rule there have been, mainly, two n.o.ble exceptions: one in the buildings of the University of Virginia, planned and executed under the eye of Thomas Jefferson, and the other in these buildings at Palo Alto, planned and executed under the direction of Governor and Mrs.

Stanford. These two groups, one in Virginia and one in California, with, perhaps, the new university buildings at Philadelphia and Chicago, are almost the only homes of learning in the United States which are really satisfactory from an architectural point of view.

The "City of the Saints," which I saw on my way, had much interest for me. I collected while there everything possible in the way of publications bearing on Mormonism, beginning with a copy of the original edition of the "Book of Mormon"; but nothing that I could find in any of these publications indicated any considerable intellectual development, as yet.

More encouraging was a rapid visit, on my way home, to the Chicago Exposition buildings, which, though not yet fully completed, were very beautiful; and still more pleasure came from a visit to the new University of Chicago, which was evidently beginning a most important work for American civilization. Its whole plan is remarkably well conceived, and with the means that it is rapidly acc.u.mulating, due to the public spirit of its main benefactor and a mult.i.tude of others hardly second to him in the importance of their gifts, it cannot fail to exercise a great influence, especially throughout the Northwestern States. First of all, it will do much to lift the city in which it stands out of its crude materialism into something higher and better. It is a pleasure to note that its buildings are worthy of it: they seem likely to form a fourth in the series of fit homes for great centers of advanced education in the United States,--Virginia, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania being the others.

Having returned to Cornell, I went on quietly with my work until autumn, when, to my surprise, I received notice that the President had appointed me minister to St. Petersburg; and on the 4th of November I arrived at my post in that capital. Of my experience as minister I have spoken elsewhere, but have given no account of two journeys which interested me at that period. The first of these was in the Scandinavian countries. The voyage of a day and night across the Baltic through the Aland Islands was like a dream, the northern twilight making night more beautiful than day, and the approach to the Swedish capital being, next to the approaches to Constantinople and to New York, the most beautiful I know.

Very instructive to me was a visit to Upsala--especially to the university and cathedral. As to the former, the "Codex of Ulfilas," in the library, which I had long desired to see, especially interested me; and visits to the houses of the various "nations" showed me that out of the social needs of Swedish students in the middle ages had been developed something closely akin to the fraternity houses which similar needs have developed in our time at American universities. The cathedral, containing the remains of Gustavus Vasa and Linnaeus, was fruitful in suggestions. By a curious coincidence I was at that time finishing my chapter ent.i.tled "From Creation to Evolution," and had been paying special attention to the ancient and mediaeval conceptions of the creation of the world as a work done by an individual in human form, laboring with his hands during six days, and taking needed rest on the seventh; and here I found, at the side entrance of the cathedral, a delightfully naive mediaeval representation of the whole process,--a series of medallions representing the Almighty toiling like an artisan on each of the six days and reposing, evidently very weary, on the seventh.

The journey across Sweden, through the ca.n.a.ls and lakes, was very restful. At Christiania Mr. Gade, the American consul, who had served our country so long and so honorably in that city, took me under his guidance during various interesting excursions about the fiords. At Gothenburg I took pains to obtain information regarding their system of dealing with the sale of intoxicating liquors, and became satisfied that it is, on the whole, the best solution of the problem ever obtained. The whole old system of saloons, gin-shops, and the like, with their allurements to the drinking of adulterated alcohol, had been swept away, and in its place the government had given to a corporation the privilege of selling pure liquors in a restricted number of decent shops, under carefully devised limitations. First, the liquors must be fully tested for purity; secondly, none could be sold to persons already under the influence of drink; thirdly, no intoxicant could be sold without something to eat with it, the effects of alcohol upon the system being thus mitigated. These and other restrictions had reduced the drink evil, as I was a.s.sured, to a minimum. But the most far-reaching provision in the whole system was that the company which enjoyed the monopoly of this trade was not allowed to declare a dividend greater than, I believe, six per cent.; everything realized above this going into the public treasury, mainly for charitable purposes. The result of this restriction of profits was that no person employed in selling ardent spirits was under the slightest temptation to attract customers. Each of these sellers was a salaried official and knew that his place depended on his adhering to the law which forbade him to sell to any person already under the influence of liquor, or to do anything to increase his sales; and the whole motive for making men drunkards was thus taken away.

I was a.s.sured by both the American and British consuls, as well as by most reputable citizens, that this system had greatly diminished intemperance. Unfortunately, since that time, fanatics have obtained control, and have pa.s.sed an entirely "prohibitory"

law, with the result, as I understand, that the community is now discovering that prohibition does not prohibit, and that the worst kinds of liquors are again sold by men whose main motive is to sell as much as possible.

The most attractive feature in my visit to Norway was Throndheim.

With my pa.s.sion for Gothic architecture, the beautiful little cathedral, which the authorities were restoring Judiciously, was a delight, and it was all the more interesting as containing one of those curiosities of human civilization which have now become rare. In one corner of the edifice is a "holy well," the pilgrimages to which in the middle ages were, no doubt, a main source of the wealth of the establishment. The attendant shows, in the stonework close to the well, the end of a tube coming from the upper part of the cathedral; and through this tube pious monks in the middle ages no doubt spoke oracular words calculated to enhance the authority of the saint presiding over the place.

It was the same sort of thing which one sees in the Temple of Isis at Pompeii, and the zeal which created it was no doubt the same that to-day originates the sacred fire which always comes down from heaven on Easter day into the Greek church at Jerusalem, the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius in the cathedral at Naples, and sundry camp-meeting utterances and actions in the United States.

Sweden and Norway struck me as possessing, in some respects, the most satisfactory civilization of modern times. With a monarchical figurehead, they are really a republic. Here is no overbearing plutocracy, no squalid poverty, an excellent system of education, liberal and practical, from the local school to the university, a population, to all appearance, healthy, thrifty, and comfortable.

And yet here, as in other parts of the world, the resources of human folly are illimitable. A large party in Norway urges secession from Sweden, and both remain divided from Denmark, though the three are, to all intents and purposes, of the same race, religion, language, and early historical traditions. And close beside them looms up, more and more portentous, the Russian colossus, which, having trampled Swedish Finland under its feet, is looking across the Scandinavian peninsula toward the good harbors of Norway, just opposite Great Britain. Russia has declared the right of her one hundred and twenty millions of people to an ice-free port on the Pacific; why shall she not a.s.sert, with equal cogency, the right of these millions to an ice-free port on the Atlantic? Why should not these millions own a railway across Scandinavia, and a suitable territory along the line; and then, logically, all the territory north, and as much as she needs of the territory south of the line? The northern and, to some extent, the middle regions of Norway and Sweden would thus come under the sway of a czar in St. Petersburg, represented by some governor-general like those who have been trying to show to the Scandinavians of Finland that newspapers are useless, pet.i.tions inadmissible, const.i.tutions a fetish, banishment a blessing, and the use of their native language a superfluity. The only sad thing in this fair prospect is that it is not the objurgatory Bjornson, the philosophic Ibsen, and the impulsive Nansen, with their compatriots, now groaning under what they are pleased to call "Swedish tyranny," who would enjoy this Russian liberty, but their children, and their children's children.

At Copenhagen I was especially attracted by the Ethnographic Museum, which, by its display of the gradual uplifting of Scandinavian humanity from prehistoric times, has so strongly aided in enforcing on the world the scientific doctrine of the "rise of man," and in bringing to naught the theological doctrine of the "fall of man."

A short stay at Moscow added to my Russian points of view, it being my second visit after an interval of nearly forty years.

Although the city had spread largely, there was very little evidence of real progress: everywhere were filth, fetishism, beggary, and reaction. The monument to Alexander II, the great emanc.i.p.ator, stood in the Kremlin, half finished; it has since, I am glad to learn, been completed; but this has only been after long and slothful delays, and the statue in St. Petersburg has not even been begun. It is well understood that one cause of this delay has been the reluctance of the reactionary leaders in the empire to glorify so radical a movement as the emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs.

I had one curious experience of Muscovite ideas of trade. Moscow is one of the main centers for the manufacture of the church bells in which the Russian peasant takes such delight; and, being much interested in campanology, I visited several of the princ.i.p.al foundries, and was delighted with the size and workmanship of many specimens. Walking one morning to the Kremlin, I saw at the agency of one of these establishments a bell weighing about two hundred and fifty pounds, most exquisitely wrought, and such a beautiful example of the best that Russians can do in this respect that I went in and asked the price of it. The price being named, I said that I would take it.

Thereupon consternation was evident in the establishment, and presently the head of the concern said to me that they were not sure that they wished to sell it. But I said, "You HAVE sold it; I asked you what your price was, you told me, and I have bought it." To this he demurred, and finally refused altogether to sell it. On going out, my guide informed me that I had made a mistake; that I was myself the cause of the whole trouble; that if I had offered half the price named for the bell I should have secured it for two thirds; but that, as I had offered the entire price, the people in the shop had jumped to the conclusion that it must be worth more than they had supposed, that I had detected values in it which they had not realized, and that it was their duty to make me pay more for it than the price they had asked. The result was that, a few weeks afterward, a compromise having been made, I bought it and sent it to the library of Cornell University, where it is now both useful and ornamental.

The most interesting feature of this stay in Moscow was my intercourse with Tolstoi, and to this I have devoted a separate chapter.[14]

[14] See Chapter x.x.xVII.

One more experience may be noted. In coming and going on the Moscow railway I found, as in other parts of Europe, that governmental control of railways does not at all mean better accommodations or lower fares than when such works are under individual control. The prices for travel, as well as for sleeping-berths, were much higher on these lines, owned by the government, than on any of our main trunk-lines in America, which are controlled by private corporations, and the accommodations were never of a high order, and sometimes intolerable.

During this stay in Russia my sympathies were enlisted for Finland; but on this subject I have spoken fully elsewhere.[15]

[15] See Chapter x.x.xIV.

Having resigned my position at St. Petersburg in October of 1894, the first use I made of my liberty was to go with my family to Italy for the winter; and several months were pa.s.sed at Florence, where I revised and finished the book which had been preparing during twenty years. Then came a rapid run to Rome and through southern Italy, my old haunts at Castellammare, Sorrento, and Amalfi being revisited, and sundry new excursions made. Among these last was one to Palermo, where I visited the Church of St.

Josaphat. This edifice greatly interested me as a Christian church erected in honor of a Christian saint who was none other than Buddha. The manner in which the founder of that great world-religion which preceded our own was converted into a Christian saint and solemnly proclaimed as such by a long series of popes, from Sixtus V to Pius IX, inclusive, by virtue of their infallibility in all matters relating to faith and morals, is one of the most curious and instructive things in all history.[16]

[16] A full account of this conversion of Buddha (Bodisat) into St. Josaphat is given, with authorities, etc. in my "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology," Vol. II, pp. 381 et seq.

At first I had some difficulty in finding this church; but, finally, having made the acquaintance of an eminent scholar, the Commendatore Marzo, canon of the Cappella Palatina and director of the National Library at Palermo he kindly took me to the place. Over the entrance were the words, "Divo Josaphat"; within, occupying one of the places of highest honor, was an altar to the saint, and above it a statue representing him as a young prince wearing a crown and holding a crucifix. By permission of the authorities I was allowed to send a photographer, who took a negative for me. A remark of the Commendatore Marzo upon the subject pleased me much. When, one day, after showing me the treasures of his great library, he was dining with me, and I pressed him for particulars regarding St. Josaphat, he answered, "He cannot be the Jehoshaphat of the Old Testament, for he is represented as a very young man, and contemplating a crucifix: e molto misterioso." It was, after all, not so very mysterious; for in these later days, now that the "Life of Barlaam and Josaphat,"

which dates from monks of the sixth or seventh century, has been compared with the "Life of Buddha," certainly written before the Christian era, the constant coincidence in details, and even in phrases, puts it beyond the slightest doubt that St. Josaphat and Buddha are one and the same person.

Very suggestive to thought was a visit to the wonderful cathedral of Monreale, above Palermo; for here, at this southern extreme of Europe, I found a conception of the Almighty as an enlarged human being, subject to human weakness, identical with that shown in the sculptures upon the cathedral of Upsala, at the extreme north of Europe. The whole interior of Monreale Cathedral is covered with a vast sheet of mosaics dating from about the twelfth century, and in one series of these, representing the creation, the Almighty is shown as working, day after day, like an artisan, and finally, on the seventh day, as "resting,"--seated in almost the exact att.i.tude of the "weary Mercury" of cla.s.sic sculpture, with a marked expression of fatigue upon his countenance and in the whole disposition of his body.[17]

[17] I have given a more full discussion of this subject in my "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology," Vol. I, p. 3.

During this journey, having revisited Orvieto, Perugia, and a.s.sisi, I returned to Florence, and again enjoyed the society of my old friends, Professor Willard Fiske, Professor Villari, with his accomplished wife, and Judge Stallo, former minister of the United States in Rome.

The great event of this stay was an earthquake. Seated on a pleasant April evening in my rooms at the house built by Adolphus Trollope, near the Piazza dell' Independenza, I heard what seemed at first the rising of a storm; then the rushing of a mighty wind; then, as it grew stronger, apparently the gallop of a corps of cavalry in the neighboring avenue; but, almost instantly, it seemed to change into the onrush of a corps of artillery, and, a moment later, to strike the house, lifting its foundations as if by some mighty hand, and swaying it to and fro, everything creaking, groaning, rattling, and seeming likely to fall in upon us. This movement to and fro, with crashing and screaming inside and outside the house, continued, as it seemed to me, about twenty minutes--as a matter of fact, it lasted hardly seven seconds; but certainly it was the longest seven seconds I have ever known. At the first uplift of the seismic wave my wife and I rose from our seats, I saying, "Stand perfectly still."

Thenceforward, not a word was uttered by either of us until all was over; but many thoughts came,--the dominant feeling being a sense of our helplessness in the presence of the great powers of nature. Neither of us had any hope of escaping alive; but we calmly accepted the inevitable, thinking each moment would be, the last. As I look back, our resignation and perfect quiet still surprise me. That room, at the corner of the Villino Trollope, which an ill-founded legend makes the place where George Eliot wrote "Romola," is to me sacred, as the place where we two pa.s.sed "from death unto life."

Nearly all that night we remained near the doors of the house, ready to escape any new shocks; but only one or two came, and those very light. Crowds of the population remained out of doors, many dwellers in hotels taking refuge in carriages and cabs, and staying in them through the night.

Next morning I walked forth to find what had happened,--first to the cathedral, to see if anything was left of Giotto's tower and Brunelleschi's dome, and, to my great joy, found them standing; but, as I entered the vast building, I saw one of the enormous iron bars which take the thrust of the wide arches of the nave pulled apart and broken as if it had been pack-thread; there were also a few cracks in one of the piers supporting the dome, but all else was as before.

At the Palazzo Strozzi a crowd of people were examining sundry crevices which had been made in its mighty walls: and at various villas in the neighborhood, especially those on the road to San Miniato, I found that the damage had been much worse. A part of the tower of one villa, occupied by an English lady of literary distinction, had been thrown down, crashing directly through one of the upper rooms, but causing no loss of life; the villa of Judge Stallo, at the Porta Romana, was so wrecked that he was obliged to leave it; and in the house of another friend a heavy German stove on the upper floor, having been thrown over, had come down through the ceiling of the main parlor, crashing through the grand piano, and thence into the cellar, without injury to any person. One of the professors whom I afterward met told me that he was giving a dinner-party when, suddenly, the house was lifted and shaken to and fro, the chandeliers swinging, broken gla.s.s crashing, and the ladies screaming, and, in a moment, a portion of the outer wall gave way, but fortunately fell outward, so that the guests scrambled forth over the ruins, and pa.s.sed the night in the garden. Perhaps the worst damage was wrought at the Convent of the Certosa, where some of the beautiful old work was irreparably injured.

It was very difficult next morning to get any real information from the newspapers. They claimed that but three persons lost their lives in the city: it was clearly thought best to minimize the damage done, lest the stream of travel might be scared away.