in 1872 horace greeley was nominated by the democratic party for the presidency, to oppose general grant's second term, and wrote to my husband:—
"dear general pryor:—
"i want you to help me in this canvass. i want you to go to virginia and do some work for me there and at the south.
"your friend,
"horace greeley."
mr. greeley had at first opposed the civil war. he had suffered great mental distress at its approach. he labored with all his might to prevent a resort to arms—but, when this was inevitable, he followed the advice of polonius. it was he who raised the cry "on to richmond," and he was thereafter a powerful supporter of the government. after the surrender, he just as strongly advocated pacific measures, opposed the action of the federal government in holding mr. jefferson davis a prisoner without trial, and, oblivious to all personal and pecuniary consequences, had gone to richmond and in open court signed the bail-bond of the confederate president.
it can be easily perceived that the active support of a man like general pryor—who could remember 351and use to advantage these facts—might be extremely useful to mr. greeley. the temptation appealed, with force, to my husband. active political life had been his most successful, most agreeable occupation, but he remembered his resolution to work, and work in the study of his profession, and declined mr. greeley's invitation.
"you are making a great mistake," said one of his friends, "in your office all day, and at home all night. i should like to know how you expect to get along! you never make a visit—you are never seen at a club or any public gathering."
"very true," said my husband, "but i am persuaded that my only hope for salvation here is to know something, have something the new york people want. they do want good lawyers, and i must study day and night to make myself one."
his friend, john russell young, far away in europe, heard of mr. greeley's campaign. himself an intense republican and devoted friend of general grant, he could not learn with equanimity of any added strength to mr. greeley from the support of the south. he wrote from geneva, september 16, 1872:—
"dear pryor:—
"i saw in the new york world that you were to make a speech in favor of greeley in virginia, and had my own reflections on the announcement. i should like to exchange observations with mrs. pryor on this subject, as she has positive political convictions. but i remember her saying once that darning stockings had a debilitating effect upon literary aspirations—and she made no reservation in favor 352of politics. at the present moment i should like to enlist her attention and support.
"the idea of r. a. p.—the representative fire-eater, the robespierre, or danton, or, if you like it better, the harry hotspur of the southern revolution,—the one orator who clamored so impatiently for the shrewsbury clock to strike,—oh, my friend! the spectacle of this leader championing horace greeley! can the irony of events have a deeper illustration? miserere! how the world is tumbling! what can we expect next? jefferson davis and frederick douglass running on the presidential ticket, in favor of chinese suffrage! if you really did make a speech, send it to me. i suppose in your own mind you have made many, for events like these develop thought in the minds of all thinking men. i do not see greeley's election. i have a letter from him written in july which speaks very cheerfully. but i have a letter from the white house quite as cheerful. i cannot think that grant will be beaten; and am certain, with all deference to mrs. pryor's positive political views, that he should not be. i can understand the passionate desire you and your people have for honest reconstruction. i can see how you might even fall into the arms of horace greeley to achieve such a deliverance. but there is no honest reconstruction possible under mr. greeley and the men who would accompany him in power. the south has its future in its own hands. if the men who led it as you did had followed your example when the war was over, there would be no trouble. but that required courage—a higher courage than ever rebellion demanded; and if the south has not reasserted itself, it is the fault of the southern men themselves.
"but i will not preach politics from this distance. if you are not in the campaign, keep out! run over here with miss gordon. how delighted i should be to see you. i am sure mademoiselle would revel in paris. mrs. 353young would travel with her, too, to germany, visit all the famous convents and ecclesiastical establishments and, finally, wind up with paris and an exhausted search through the shops.
"for myself, i feel that i am having opportunities and neglecting them. however, i have always my work, have grappled with french, done something in spanish, and have designs on the german language. but as you can only eat your artichoke a leaf at a time, french is my main occupation outside my business. i don't have time to play chess—and i presume miss gordon will give me a knight when we play next. you mustn't think me utterly good-for-naught. i have finished carlyle's 'frederick' in thirteen volumes—think of that! in the summer i dissipated in novels,—'don quixote,' 'tom jones,' 'roderick random,'—and now i am about to begin 'romola,' which bayard taylor said yesterday was the best historical novel in our language. remember me most kindly to all at home, and believe me to be, dear pryor,
"your friend sincerely,
"john russell young.
we had first known john russell young as a boy sent by colonel forney to report a speech of my husband's in congress, now on the staff of the new york herald. during a temporary residence in london he began a series of charming letters to my daughter—lasting until the end of his life. from london he wrote:—
"my dear miss gordon:—
"i send you two autographs—one is from dinah mulock craik (who wrote 'john halifax,' you know), the other from mr. gladstone, the former premier. 354 "i shall try to obtain an autograph of carlyle, and his photograph, for your library. the old man is very hard to reach—he is very old. i have not seen george eliot yet, but will. i dined with william black last evening.
"i have had a good time in london. i never had so much attention in my life—i don't know how it happened, but so it fell. my macmillan article opened the door, however, of every newspaper and magazine to me—and the door is of no use, except to look inside! but fancy the people i have met!—not, as i said, carlyle or george eliot (but she is possible when she comes home), but i think i have dined with nearly everybody else. green—the short history man—and i have become good friends. i told him how much you liked his book, and he blushed like a june rose. i have dined with huxley, tyndall, froude, browning, herbert spencer, kingsley, bryce, green, norman lockyer, william black, motley, and i don't know how many others,—so you see, as far as coming abroad has any value in enlarging one's horizon, i have not come in vain. you must forgive the vanity of all this, but when one is away from home, what can one do but write about one's own self?
"i wrote your father last week that i was about to come home. i packed all my trunks and engaged my room on the adriatic, which sails on the 25th. a cable comes from mr. bennett asking me to await his coming. so i have unpacked my trunk and again resigned myself to the london fog. if you will gently break the news to the retired statesman who mourns over the decadence of the republic, you will be a dutiful child and my very good friend. i am very much disappointed in not going home. there is a little woman whose eyes are, i suppose, sad enough straining through the mists for a truant lord who seems to wander as long as ulysses. there are friends whose faces it would be sunshine to see,—and there are 355duties in the way of educating public opinion on the question of the presidency,—all of which is only a roundabout way of saying i am homesick, and that i would give the best book in my library (you see how extravagant i am) if it were in my power to accept an invitation from your mother to tea. i would even run the risk of a quarrel with your father on politics! remember me to all at home—to your mother with especial duty, and believe me, my dear miss gordon,
"always yours sincerely,
"jno. russell young."
"p.s.—from a letter your mother has kindly written me, i perceive you are to visit virginia. now if you will only justify the hopes of your friends and bring back a descendant of pocahontas or patrick henry or of g. w. to be a comfort to your father and mother, i shall feel you have not visited virginia in vain. however, as that is a subject from which i have often been warned away by the pryor family, i shall not venture to give any advice.
"again your friend sincerely,
"jno. russell young."
"i am sending you," he says in another letter, "a noticeable article on george eliot's work. you will observe the tendency to criticise, and quotations of little things to sustain an adverse verdict. i remember only better things. of course i must acknowledge the tinge of bitterness in all of george eliot's writings, but the latter-day critic brings a railing accusation against the artistic features of her books. he thinks it was a dreadful thing for dorothea to marry a second time, but how trifling is all this! i always feel when i have finished 'adam bede' and 'middlemarch' like saying in reverence, 'oh, mistress! oh, my queen!' for she is the mistress and queen of her art, and ought to be mentioned with carlyle and hugo."
356 the "chance" for which general pryor for nine years had worked and waited came at last. a new york correspondent of the st. louis republican thus comments upon the event: "general pryor borrowed the law books which he needed to begin the study requisite to enable him to do justice to his clients, and he studied as he fought—bravely. no man has burned more midnight oil, and from being no lawyer ten years ago, he has grown to be a most accomplished and erudite member of the bar. in his late great speech in the trial of tilton against henry ward beecher, in resisting the attempt of william m. evarts, of beecher's counsel, to prevent the plaintiff from testifying, general pryor hurled law at the head of mr. evarts which the latter in all of his delving had not reached, and mr. evarts complimented general pryor, not only upon the brilliant presentation of the law, but upon his extended acquaintance with the authorities. his speech won the point for tilton. he is known to be an indefatigable student. seven hours a day he studies law as though he needs it all on the morrow. no man in new york has a more brilliant future; and when it comes, no man will have so completely carved out his own way and made his own fortune."
this trial against america's great preacher was famous at home and in england. the accusation of theodore tilton aroused a tremendous feeling throughout the united states and abroad wherever mr. beecher's great reputation had established itself. the trial lasted six months. mr. tilton's counsel were mr. beach, hon. sam morris, judge fullerton, 357and general pryor. arrayed against them were hon. william m. evarts, hon. benjamin tracy, thomas shearman, and austin abbott.
to general pryor was intrusted all the delicate or obscure questions of law incident upon the case. the press of the day universally awarded him the highest praise for learning and thorough knowledge of his subject. he won a very great reputation, and from that time onward felt that his professional career was to be an active one. the impression the new advocate—the rebel politician and soldier turned lawyer—made upon the correspondents of the press never varied. a new york correspondent of an ohio paper[7] thus describes him:—
"general pryor's reply to mr. evarts's was, after all, the greatest surprise of the day. it was so remarkable in many respects, that i am at a loss where to begin the characterization. not an exciting topic, one would say, for a fiery southern orator, to analyze the statutes of the state of new york on the subject of evidence from married people. but it was evident from the very first, though formal, sentence, that exploded from general pryor's lips that he needed no outward occasion to minister excitement to his surcharged batteries of personal electricity. a dry legal question was provocation enough; what he would do under the heat of an impassioned issue is inconceivable, if the proportions of occasion and effect were preserved. his execution, to borrow a musician's term, is prodigious, considered merely as a tour de force. it is a volcanic torrent of speech. to say the enunciation is rapid, is nothing: it is lightning-like. the most dexterous 358reporters could hardly follow him. its nervous energy is equally remarkable, and seems to break out from every pore of his body, as well as out of his mouth, eyes, and finger ends. with the legal volume in his left hand, the eye-glass quivering in his right, and jumping to his nose and off again, with or without object, like a thing of life, or emphasizing the utterance with thrusting gestures of its own; his head thrown up, at every beginning his eyes shoot straight at the judge as if they would transfix him, and he drives onward like a jehu rushing into battle. he has no moderate passages; but perhaps he will avail himself of these effects when he comes to address the jury. and yet, all this prodigious nervous expenditure, so far from drawing off the power of the brain, is only an index of its action; so far from jarring the self-possession and sequence of thought, or the precision of conception and expression, it only enhances and secures all these, as sheer impetus sustains the equilibrium of a wheel. the diction, with all its headlong speed, is perfect in precision and force, and no less in elegance; not an after word, not a word of surplusage, or a word to be bettered in revisal; and the like is true of the closely knit argument."
this picture, drawn with a bold hand, greatly amused the home circle in willow street. but then, we had not heard the speech!
charlotte cushman.