Chapter 7

I have used the term audacious in speaking of Delacroix, and circumstances forced him to justify the epithet. Yet to a student of his work, and still more of his character as revealed in his writings (his recently published letters and the few articles published during his life in the "Revue des Deux-Mondes"), he would appear to have been by nature prepared to receive the full academic tradition, and only because of what appeared a violation of the tradition _as he understood it_, to have arrayed himself in violent opposition: a situation which rendered him in work and in life contradictory to his natural instinct. It is the old story of the defect of system. Even the most cunningly devised cannot make a place for all the many manifestations of temperamental activity. Like Géricault, a pupil of Guérin, Delacroix found in his master and in the general spirit of the school an insistence on the letter of the classic law to which his richly endowed nature could not bend, and was thus forced to rebel; whereas a more elastic application of received principles would have found him an enthusiastic adherent. In this way he missed acquiring the technical mastery over form, which proved a stumbling block to him through life. At times his drawing is possessed of a vigor and life which even Ingres never had; at others his work is almost lamentable in its lack of constructive form. In respect to color in its finest, most harmonic qualities, he is the greatest of French painters; and at all times he is master of an intense dramatic force. It was with a masterpiece--"Dante and Virgil"--that he made his first appearance at the Salon in 1822. At a bound he found himself famous. Guérin, who had counselled him against sending his picture to the Salon, grudgingly acknowledged that he was wrong. Gros told him that it was like Rubens, with more correctness of form--Rubens "chastened" was the word. The government bought the picture, paying the artist two hundred and forty dollars--twelve hundred francs--for it.

The same year Delacroix submissively made his final attempt for the Prix de Rome, but came out sixtieth in the competition. Thenceforward he was to be constantly before the public, constantly opposed, misunderstood, criticised; but nevertheless, with all the energy which shows in his portrait, constantly in the front. When his defenders had sufficient influence to force the hand of the ministry of fine arts, he was commissioned to paint for the state; and to this we owe the decorations in the gallery of Apollon in the Louvre, the decorations in the church of St. Sulpice, and others. When he received the order for the entrance of the Crusaders to Constantinople for the Gallery of Battles at Versailles, the good King Louis Philippe sent him word to make it as little like his usual style as possible!

Among Delacroix's critics Ingres, with all the force of his convictions, was the foremost. He to whom a sky had always served as a simple background was not created to understand the almost purple canopy of azure stretching far above the heads of the Crusaders; nor to find barbaric delight in the rich trappings of horses and men, since to him a drapery was simply a textureless covering adjusted to accentuate the form beneath. Delacroix, whose intelligence was of a higher order and who said of himself that he was "more rebellious than revolutionary," treated Ingres when they met on official occasions, as at the meetings of the Institute (where finally Delacroix had penetrated), with a high and distant courtesy which his sturdy adversary, strong in his pious devotion to classicism, hardly returned. Delacroix had by far the most brilliant following, reinforced as it was by the landscape painters, who from 1830 onwards gave to this century its most notable school of painting. Added to this was a fair measure of appreciation on the part of collectors.

Delacroix's genius found expression in many small pictures, all of them characterized by a gem-like coloration (which is more than mere color, however, for in it lies the secret of a powerful and direct expression of sentiment) and by a vivid realization of movement. Proud by nature, delicate in health, his life was far from happy; he never ceased to feel the sting of adverse criticism. "For more than thirty years I have been given over to the wild beasts," he said once. He had warm friends, who have left many records of his sweetness of disposition when the outer barrier of haughty reserve was broken through; but they were few in number. He never married; painting, he said, was his only mistress, and his passion for his art is felt through all his work. His death occurred at Champrosay near Paris, where he had a modest country house, on August 13, 1863; and four years later, January 14, 1867, his great adversary, Ingres, followed him.

CY AND I.

BY EUGENE FIELD.

As I went moseyin' down th' street, My Denver friend I chanced t' meet. "Hello!" says I, "Where have you been so long a time That we have missed your soothin' rhyme?" "New York," says Cy. "Gee whiz!" says I.

"You must have seen some wonders down In that historic, splendid town;" And then says I: "For bridges, parks, and crowded streets There is no other place that beats New York," says I. "_Correct!_" says Cy.

"The town is mighty big, but then It isn't in it with its men, Is it?" says I. "And tell me, Cyrus, if you can, Who is its biggest, brainiest man?" "Dana!" says Cy. "You _bet_!" says I.

"He's big of heart and big of brain, And he's been good unto us twain"-- Choked up, says I. "I love him, and I pray God give Him many, many years to live! Eh, Cy?" says I. "_Amen!_" says Cy.

A YOUNG HERO

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF COLONEL E.E. ELLSWORTH.

BY JOHN HAY,

Author, with John G. Nicolay, of "Abraham Lincoln: a History."

It is in contemplating what the world loses in the deaths of brilliant young citizen soldiers that we appreciate most fully the waste of war and the priceless value of the cause for which such lives were sacrificed. When a man like Henri Regnault--the most substantial hope and promise of art in our century--is seen at the siege of Paris lingering behind his retreating comrades, "_le temps de bruler une dernière cartouche_" the last words he uttered; when a genius like Theodore Winthrop is extinguished in its ardent dawn on an obscure skirmish field; when a patriot and poet like Koerner dies in battle with his work hardly begun--we feel how inadequate are all the millions of the treasury to rival such offerings. We shall have no correct idea what our country is worth to us if we forget all the singing voices that were hushed, all the noble hearts that stopped beating, all the fiery energies that were quenched, that we might be citizens of the great and indivisible Republic of the Western world.

I believe that few men who fell in our civil conflict bore with them out of the world possibilities of fame and usefulness so bright or so important as Colonel Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth, who was killed at Alexandria, Virginia, on May 24, 1861--the first conspicuous victim of the war. The world can never compute, can hardly even guess, what was lost in his untimely end. He was killed by the first gun he ever heard fired in strife; and his friends, who believe him to have had in him the making of a great soldier, have nothing to support their opinion but the impression made upon them by his manly character, his winning and vigorous personality, and the extraordinary ardor and zest with which his powerful mind turned towards military affairs in the midst of circumstances of almost incredible difficulty and privation. He was one of the dearest of the friends of my youth. I cannot hope to enable the readers of this paper to see him as I saw him. No words can express the vivid brilliancy of his look and his speech, the swift and graceful energy of his bearing. He was not a scholar, yet his words were like martial music; in stature he was less than the medium size, yet his strength was extraordinary; he seemed made of tempered steel. His entire aspect breathed high ambition and daring. His jet-black curls, his open candid brow, his dark eyes, at once fiery and tender, his eagle profile, his mouth just shaded by the youthful growth that hid none of its powerful and delicate lines--the whole face, which seemed made for nothing less than the command of men, whether as general or as orator, comes before me as I write, with a look of indignant appeal to the future for the chance of fame which inexorable fate denied him. The appeal, of course, is in vain. Only a few men, now growing old, knew what he was and what he might have been if life had been spared him for a year or two. I will merely try to show in these few pages, mainly from his own words, how great a heart was broken by the slugs of the assassin at the Marshall House.

He was born in the village of Mechanicsville, Saratoga County, New York, on April 23, 1837. His parents were plain people, without culture or means; one cannot guess how this eaglet came into so lowly a nest. He went out into the world at the first opportunity, to seek his fortune; he turned his hand, like other American boys, to anything he could find to do. He lived a while in New York, and finally drifted to Chicago, where we find him, in the spring of 1859, a clerk and student in the law office of Mr. J.E. Cone. From his earliest boyhood he had a passionate love of the army. He learned as a child the manual of arms; he picked up instinctively a knowledge of the pistol and the rifle; he became, almost without instruction, a scientific fencer. But he was now of age, and determined to be a lawyer, since, to all appearance, there was no chance for him in the army. The way in which he pursued his legal studies he has set down in a diary which he kept for a little while. He began it on his twenty-second birthday. "I do this," he said, "because it seems pleasant to be able to look back upon our past lives and note the gradual change in our sentiments and views of life; and because my life has been, and bids fair to be, such a jumble of strange incidents that, should I become anybody or anything, this will be useful as a means of showing how much suffering and temptation a man may undergo and still keep clear of despair and vice."

He was neat, almost foppish, in his attire; not strictly fashionable, for he liked bright colors, flowing cravats, and hats that suggested the hunter or ranger rather than the law clerk; yet the pittance for which he worked was very small, and his poverty extreme. He therefore economized upon his food. He lived for months together upon dry biscuits and water. Here is a touching entry from his diary: "Had an opportunity to buy a desk to-day worth forty-five dollars, for fourteen dollars. It was just such a one as I needed, and I could sell at any time for more than was asked for it. I bought it at auction. I can now indulge my ideas of order in the arrangement of my papers to their fullest extent. Paid five dollars of my own money and borrowed ten dollars of James Clayburne; promised to return it next Tuesday. By the way, this was an instance in a small way of the importance of little things. Some two years since, when I was so poor, I went one day into an eating-house on an errand. While there, Clayburne and several friends came in.

"As I started to go out they stopped me and insisted upon my having an oyster stew. I refused, for I always made it a practice never to accept even an apple from any one, because I could not return like courtesies. While they were clamoring about the matter and I trying to get from them, the waiter brought on the oysters for the whole party, having taken it for granted that I was going to stay. So to escape making myself any more conspicuous by further refusal, I sat down. How gloriously every morsel tasted--the first food I had touched for three days and three nights. When I came to Chicago with a pocket full of money I sought James out and told him I owed him half a dollar. He said no, but I insisted my memory was better than his, and made him take it. Well, when I wanted ten dollars, I went to him, and he gave it to me freely, and would take no security. Have written four hours this evening; two pounds of crackers; sleep on office floor to-night."

The diary relates many incidents like this. He took a boyish pride in refusing offers of assistance, in resisting temptation to innocent indulgence, in passing most of his hours in study, earning only enough by his copying to keep body and soul together. One entry is, "Read one hundred and fifty pages of Blackstone--slept on floor." Such a regimen was not long in having its effect upon even his rugged health. He writes: "I tried to read, but could not. I am afraid my strength will not hold out. I have contracted a cold by sleeping on the floor, which has settled in my head, and nearly sets me crazy with catarrh. Then there is that gnawing, unsatisfied sensation which I begin to feel again, which prevents any long-continued application." About this time he was urged to take command of a company of cadets which, through mismanagement, had been reduced to a deplorable condition. He at first declined, but afterward consented if the company would accept certain rigorous conditions of discipline and obedience. He was as firm as granite to his company, and cheery and gay to the world, while in his private life he was subjecting himself to the cruel rigors described in his diary of April 21: "I am convinced that the course of reading which I am pursuing is not sufficiently thorough. Have commenced again at beginning of Blackstone. I now read a proposition or paragraph and reason upon it; try to get at the principle involved, in my own language; view it in every light till I think I understand it; then write it down in my commonplace book. My progress is, in consequence, very slow, as it takes on an average half an hour to each page. Attended meeting of cadets' committee on ways and means; all my propositions accepted. I spent my last ten cents for crackers to-day. Ten pages of Blackstone."

The next day he writes: "My mind was so occupied with obtaining money due to-morrow that I could not study. Five pages of Blackstone. Nothing whatever to eat. I am very tired and hungry to-night. Onward."

In these circumstances of hunger and toil, he took charge of the company of cadets, which was falling to pieces from neglect. There was no sign in his bearing of the poverty and famine which were consuming him. He told them roundly that if they elected him their captain they did so with their eyes open; that he should enforce the strictest discipline, and make their company second to none in the United States. His laws were Draconic in their severity. He forbade his cadets from entering a drinking or gambling saloon or any other disreputable place under penalty of expulsion, publication of the offender's name in the city papers, and forfeiture of uniform. He insisted on prompt obedience and unremitting drill. The company under his firm and inspiring command rapidly pulled itself together, and attracted all at once the notice and admiration of Chicago and northern Illinois. The young captain did not give up his law studies. He wrote and affixed to his desk a card which contained his own daily orders: "So aim to spend your time that at night, when looking back at the disposal of the day, you find no time misspent, no hour, no moment even, which has not resulted in some benefit, no action which had not a purpose in it. Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays: Rise at 5 o'clock; 5 to 10, study; 10 to 1, copy; 1 to 4, business; 4 to 7, study; 7 to 8, exercise; 8 to 10, study. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: Rise at 6; 6 to 10, study; 10 to 1, business; 1 to 7, study and copy; 7 to 11, drill."

Working faithfully as he did in the office, his whole heart was in his drill room. His fame as a fencer went abroad in the town, and he was challenged to a bout by the principal teacher of the art in Chicago. Ellsworth records the combat in his diary of May 24th: "This evening the fencer of whom I have heard so much came up to the armory to fence with me. He said to his pupils and several others that if I held to the low guard he would disarm me every time I raised my foil. He is a great gymnast, and I fully expected to be beaten. The result was: I disarmed him four times, hit him thirty times. He disarmed me once and hit me five times. At the _touche-à-touche_ I touched him in two places at the same allonge, and threw his foil from him several feet. He was very angry, though he tried to conceal it."

Public interest constantly grew in the Zouaves and their young captain. Large crowds attended every drill. The newspapers began to report all their proceedings, and to comment upon them with more or less malevolence; for military companies were treated with scant respect in Western towns before the war. Ellsworth at last determined to confront hostile opinion by giving a public exhibition of the proficiency of his company on the Fourth of July. He was not without trepidation. The night before the Fourth he wrote: "To-morrow will be an eventful day to me; to-morrow I have to appear in a conspicuous position before thousands of citizens--an immense number of whom, without knowing me except by sight, are prejudiced against me. To-morrow will demonstrate the truth or falsity of my assertion that the citizens would encourage military companies if they were worthy of respect." The result was an overwhelming success; and the young soldier, after his feast of crackers the next night, wrote in exultation: "Victory! And thank God!"

The Chicago "Tribune," which had previously been unfriendly to the little company who were trying to make soldiers of themselves, gave a long and flattering account of the performance, and said: "We but express the opinion of all who saw the drill yesterday morning, when we say this company cannot be surpassed this side of West Point."

Encouraged by this public applause, he brought his company of Zouaves as near to absolute perfection of drill as was possible; and then, having tested them in as many competitive contests as were within reach, he challenged the militia companies of the United States, and set forth in the summer of 1860 on a tour of the country which was one unbroken succession of triumphs. He defeated the crack companies in all the principal Eastern cities, and went back to Chicago one of the most talked-of men in the country. Hundreds of Zouave companies started up in his wake, and a very considerable awakening of interest in military matters was the substantial result of his journey.

On his return to Illinois he made the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, and gained at once his friendship and esteem. He entered his office in Springfield ostensibly as a law student; but Mr. Lincoln was then a candidate for the Presidency, and Ellsworth read very little law that autumn. He made some Republican speeches in the country towns about Springfield, bright, witty, and good-natured. But his mind was full of a project which he hoped to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Lincoln--no less than the establishment in the War Department of a bureau of militia, by which the entire militia system of the United States should be concentrated, systematized, and made efficient: an enormous undertaking for a boy of twenty-three; but his plans were clear, definite, and comprehensive.

After Mr. Lincoln's election Ellsworth accompanied him to Washington. As a preliminary step towards placing him in charge of a bureau of militia, the President gave him a commission as a lieutenant in the army. Shortly afterward he fell seriously ill with the measles; and before he was thoroughly convalescent, the guns about Sumter opened the Civil War. There had been much doubt in many minds as to the loyalty of the people in case of actual war. Ellsworth never had doubted it. He said to me as I sat by his bedside: "You know I have a great work to do, to which my life is pledged; I am the only earthly stay of my parents; there is a young woman whose happiness I regard as dearer than my own; yet I could ask no better death than to fall next week before Sumter. I am not better than other men. You will find that patriotism is not dead, even if it sleeps." When the news came that South Carolina had begun the war, he did not wait an instant. He threw up his commission in the regulars, took all the money we both had, which was not much, and thus insufficiently equipped, started for New York, and raised, with incredible celerity, the New York Zouaves, a regiment eleven hundred strong.

This unique organization filled so large a space in the public mind while Ellsworth commanded it that it seems hard to realize that its history with him is only a matter of a few weeks. He brought his regiment down to Washington early in May, arriving thin as a greyhound, his voice hoarse with drilling; but flushed and happy to know he was busy and useful at last.

There was no limit to the hopes and the confidence of his friends. We had grown to admire and respect him for his high and honorable character, his thorough knowledge of his business, ardent zeal for the flag he followed, and his extraordinary courage and energy. We fully expected, relying upon his splendid talents and the President's affectionate regard, that his first battle would make him a brigadier-general, and that his second would give him a division. There was no limit to the glory and usefulness we anticipated for him. How soon all these hopes were dust and ashes!