Is there, then, an average of human goodness independent of race and place? When the war is over and Germany has been punished for her sins, shall we accept her as a good neighbor equally with England? Shall we look upon her moral lapse as a thing of the day and the hour, or shall we think of it as a taint in nature that only the centuries can eradicate? Secondarily, shall we still nourish our children upon the blood-lust of the Nibelungenlied? or shall we rather let them have their own heritage in the gentle and humane spirit and the clear and highminded fortitude of Beowulf? Doubtless, in the large sense, “we shall have to live with Germany after the war"; but, with this thousand-year-old record of evil ingrained in her nature clearly before us, we should not take her intimately to our bosoms. Races are not the same; and it is significant here that Lombroso's studies in criminology gave him the warrant for saying that only English and Frenchmen had never been willing to be ruled by criminals. Until Germans have come to realize deeply that kingship in our day is not a thing of the sword only, they should hardly be admitted freely into the full comity of civilized nations. Socially a little personal disapproval, not so much expressed as made evident, often goes a long way in bringing a social offender to a better state of miud. Society, as such, could not exist if it were to keep its doors open charitably for every comer. Morals and manners both would suffer wreckage at once. Internationally the same principle must hold. Morals and manners in that kind demand that Germany shall be given the cold shoulder long beyond the day when politically she pays the price of the war. Des Moines, Iowa. LEWIS WORTHINGTON SMITH. THE KENNEDY PAPERS (Second Article) LETTERS FROM DICKENS, MACAULAY, COOPER, HOLMES, In the first installment of the Kennedy Papers, published in the last issue of this magazine, we brought together a dozen and a half letters received by the Baltimore novelist from Washington Irving. In the present article we give a number of letters selected from the mass of Kennedy's correspondence with men of note from abroad and with certain of his friends and acquaintances in New York and New England; and to these have been added a few notes from his diary and two of his own letters. The letters from Dickens grew out of Kennedy's interest in the enactment of an international copyright law, a subject that engaged his attention for several years during his connection with Congress in the forties. There is no letter in the collection, as it happens, from Thackeray, though Kennedy evidently knew him more intimately than he knew Dickens. And there is but a single letter from Cooper, although it is plain that Kennedy's admiration for Cooper was both deep and enduring. Among English writers who are represented in the collection, but whom we must ignore, are Sir Henry Bulwer,' Samuel Rogers, and Martin Farquhar Tupper, and among New Englanders are John Neal, Horace Greeley, Prescott, and Everett. 2 I Dickens to Kennedy' NIAGARA FALLS, Thirtieth April, 1842. MY DEAR SIR,-I am truly vexed to discover, by a mere accident, that a letter I wrote to you from Pittsburgh a month ago, went to England in a packet with others! The mistake is so ridiculous that I can hardly offer a serious apology to you for it, although it has annoyed me inexpressibly. 1 Brother of the novelist and ambassador to the United States in the fifties. * There are a dozen interesting letters in the Kennedy collection from this eccentric writer. 3 Kennedy makes the following entry in his diary under date of September 30, 1842: "Charles Dickens was in Washington in March- he and his wife. I met him several times, and have received two or three letters from him since he left us.'' 13 I told you in that letter (it will come back to you, I dare say, one of these days) that on consideration, and on sitting down to the task, I found I could not write anything which was at all likely to prove of service to you in the matter of your report; that I have always felt, and do always feel, so keenly the outrage which the existing piracy inflicts upon writers - the flagrant injustice which law-makers suffer to be committed upon them as though the exercise of the highest gifts of the Creator of right entailed upon a man heavy pains and penalties, and put him beyond the pale of congressional and senatorial sympathies-that I cannot, though I try ever so hard, discuss the question as one of expediency, or reason it as one of national profit and loss. Again and again I put pen to paper agreeably to the promise I made you; and again and again I threw it down in disgust. When Miss Martineau came to me to sign the petition which was presented to the American Legislature a few years ago, I said then that I had an invincible repugnance to ask humbly for what I had as clear a right to as the coat upon my back; and that I could not bring myself to sue to a body which had so long sanctioned such a monstrous and wholesale injustice, as if, in seeking its correction, I asked a favor at their hands. I was persuaded to sign that petition, and did so; I have always regretted it since. And now, if I begin to write upon the subject, the old fit comes upon me, and I get (as Carlyle says of himself in the same matter) "inconveniently loud." I made a few sketches for your report, clearly showing-as all we authors know perfectly well-that under an International Copyright law, popular books would be no dearer than they are now. Then I be thought myself that I had always said, and always intended to say, that the question was one of plain right and wrong, and was not to be considered, honestly, in any other light. So down went my pen at the thought that if I went on with what I was doing, I could not reiterate that opinion, and say that much for myself, in writing on the subject when I got home. All this I wrote to tell you: and all this is wandering about England at this moment. I found the documents of which the inclosed are copies, awaiting me at Buffalo a day or two since. You will see that they are signed by the first writers in England; and that their object (as they have taken fire at my being misrepresented on such a matter) is publicity. Not being very well able, as a stranger, to decide whether it would be best to publish these letters and the memorial, in a literary journal, or in the newspapers, I have sent them to some friends in Boston; begging them to decide, and to do with them what they shall conclude right. I have added a few lines from myself also for publication-stating that Mr. Carlyle's creed is mine. I expect to be in New York on the Thirtieth or Thirty-first of March." May I hope to hear from you? Faithfully yours always, my dear Sir, CHARLES DICKENS. The reference is to two letters sent by Carlyle to Dickens, one of them written by Carlyle, the other addressed to Dickens by twelve of his countrymen (including Bulwer, Campbell, and Tennyson). Both documents have to do with copyright conditions in America. There is also in the Kennedy collection an original letter from Carlyle to Dickens, of date March 26, 1842. 5 Evidently a mistake for "May." CARLTON House, New York, Second of June, 1842. MY DEAR SIR,-I am going on a short excursion up the Hudson, and shall not return until the day of sailing. I have been here but a few hours, and have barely time to acknowledge the receipt of your very welcome and interesting letter. I My address in London is No. 1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park. Command me, at all times and seasons, in the International copyright matter. And trust me that I will leave no stone unturned which human levers can uproot. Bulwer, Hallam, and all the signers of that letter (with many more behind) will help me cordially. Whatever you have need of, ask for. I will communicate your letter to them all immediately on my arrival in England. My first step shall be to stop the sale of early proofs to our newspapers in the United States. We will deprive them of that interest in the present robbery, at any rate. I inclose you Carlyle's autograph communication-and am always Faithfully yours, THE HONORABLE J. P. KENNEDY. Macaulay to Kennedy CHARLES DICKENS. ALBANY, LONDON, February 23, 1856. SIR,-My friend, Mr. Thackeray, has sent me a letter written by you to him, and has requested me to furnish you with any information which I may be able to obtain about the fate of a Colonel George Talbot who was sent from Virginia to England as a prisoner on a charge of murder in 1685. I have been almost entirely confined to my room during some weeks, and have not been able to make any researches. I can, however, I think, with confidence say that Colonel Talbot escaped with life. For if a man of his rank had been hanged, there would undoubtedly have been some notice of his end in the Diary of Narcissus Luttrell, who was a very accurate chronicler of executions. There is a weekly publication here entitled Notes and Queries. Any person who wishes for information on any historical or literary point can send a question to the editor, and may, in this way, learn much that is not to be learned from books. I have sent a question about Colonel Talbot; and it is not impossible that some member of the Talbot family may be able to give an answer. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, T. B. MACAULAY. THE HONORABLE J. P. KENNEDY. G. P. R. James to Landor BRITISH CONSULATE, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, 3 May, 1856. MY DEAR LANDOR,-Let me make you acquainted with the Honble. J. P. Kennedy, late Secretary of the Navy in the United States. As a Statesman, a literary man, and a connoisseur of the arts, he is equally and deservedly Macaulay's inquiry appeared in Notes and Queries for March 1, 1856 (p. 173). well known here, and you have only to converse with him ten minutes to thank me for sharing with you an acquaintance from which the greatest pleasure has been derived during several years by Yours ever, G. P. R. JAMES. P. S.-I see I have shocked your Anglo-Saxon prejudices by using a French word. Forgive me. James to Kennedy BRITISH CONSULATE, Richmond, VA., 20th July, 1857. MY DEAR MR. KENNEDY,-I have not been very well since I received your letter, and indisposed to even so small and insignificant exertion as that of writing. . . . Political and courtly men you will, I know, be easily introduced to, by your influences; but I wished to make you known to others, less prominent perhaps, but perhaps more interesting. Dickens I think you know. Would you like to know Charles Lever? If so, write to Yours ever faithfully, G. P. R. JAMES. Lever to Kennedy' MY DEAR SIR,-By a most unlucky contretemps I lost my voice just as I most desired it-to have a talk with you. I have been laid up ever since my arrival here, and am now in that miserable state called convalescence, hesitating between chick [en]-heartedness and chicken broth. I hope to be a better man, however, in a day or two, and if you will dine with me on Friday at seven o'clock, better still. Tuesday Mg. Believe me, very sincerely yours, Excerpt from Kennedy's Diary (Florence, April 28, 1858.)—Dine with Lever. . . . We have a gay party and a good dinner. After which on returning to the drawing room we have segars, of which Mrs. Lever partakes with apparently high relish. She is suffering from a recent attack which has deprived her of her voice. Lever talks of coming to the U. S. . . . Lever['s] grown-up daughters are very playful and make excellent company. They seem to be highly educated, and speak German and Italian, and I suppose French, with great fluency. II After the letters from Irving, the most important series of letters in the Kennedy Papers is that from Edgar Allan Poe. 7 This letter is without explicit date, but was evidently written either in 1856 or in 1858. |