When I was in high school, briefly, I discovered four authors: Emerson, Thoreau, Richard Wright and Baldwin.
I loved Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine. But, for me, the real fun in American literature began with Emerson. Most of the earlier writers had to be endured, rather than enjoyed.
Recently, I’ve been looking at some of those early authors again, to see what the teenaged version of me, in his arrogance, missed.
I can’t remember what I read of James Russell Lowell, but I remember thinking I could do without a second helping. I’m sorry I jumped to that conclusion.
His essay “Abraham Lincoln” contains several wonders, but this is superb:
Hitherto the wisdom of the President’s measures has been justified by the fact that they have always resulted in more firmly uniting public opinion. One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without losing respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected him. No higher compliment was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, the fireside plainness, with which Mr. Lincoln always addresses himself to the reason of the American people.
That part of the essay was written in 1864, when Lincoln was running for re-election. (Lowell added a new ending to the essay in 1865, after Lincoln was killed.)
Americans are divided in 2024, but we were murderously divided in 1864. The nation faced divisive issues, and Lowell talked about them. But I think he was right to focus on character before policy. The Greeks held that some personalities are tragically flawed, and that people who follow such leaders blindly always end in ruin. That idea seems to be badly out of fashion today, but I think it’s true.
Lowell gives a clear description of what those of us who believe in democracy ought to expect in people we entrust with office.
If I could be editor for a day, I’d commend Lowell’s essay to the new generation of editorial writers.
• Source: James Russell Lowell’s “Abraham Lincoln” has been published by Project Gutenberg:
Cross my heart: when I hit the words “the level of confidential ease,” I thought of FDR’s fireside chats. And there’s “fireside plainness” at the end. Wikipedia says that the phrase “was inspired by a statement by Roosevelt's press secretary, Stephen Early, who said that the president liked to think of the audience as a few people seated around his fireside.” I wonder if Early might have been thinking of Lowell’s words about Lincoln.
ReplyDeleteI'd bet Early knew the essay. I think Lowell was better known a couple of generations ago. It's such an obvious point: the way you talk to people matters. It's odd that we have candidates who infuriate people, divide people, insult people. Texas seems to have produced more than its fair share of politicians of that stripe, and we have at least one obvious example here in Georgia.
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