Part 5

It was a simple, quiet talk, illustrated in various ways by references to the book and the sciences spoken of. He thus drew them nearer to himself, and removed the dread with which so many approach the vexed subject of mathematics. This class was in algebra, on at cube root, doing pretty solid work. The ground was familiar to him. Problem after problem had been performed; the whole class seemed roused to a new interest, and in stepped the Principal, but the work went on. Every blackboard was in use; it was a busy scene; there were no idlers there.

“Never touch a problem hereafter,” he said, “unless you are certain you have the rule fixed in your minds. Do not forget this, and if you have that clear, then ask yourself, in case of difficulty, ‘What axiom shall I use next?’ for you must keep using them, as you do the letters of the alphabet, over and over again.

“One thing more: we are going to have hard, quick work done in this room, and be sure now that every one gets ready for it, and we will have a splendid time.”

Mr. Blaine’s resources had never been drawn on before in any real, business-like way. But it was an experience he was ready for, and he liked it. He next had a class in Latin, and then in United States history. He could not have been better suited in studies. They were just the ones that delighted him. Christmas seemed to come that year on wings, and soon the spring-time was on them, and the picnic season.

He had shut himself up closely to his work. Visitors had abounded, but he accepted but few of the invitations that were given. He did not even accept any one of several invitations to spend the holidays with students at their homes. A short trip to Lexington and Frankfort satisfied, and he was back at work.

The literature of every subject connected with his recitations must he read up carefully, and every spare hour was devoted to these lines of study.

But he did go to the annual picnic. He was part of the school, and he must go. Everybody went, seemingly. It was a sectional affair; other schools were there. He met a familiar face: it was a lady’s; who could it be?

She recognized him, and bowed. He returned it. He awoke as from a revery, he had so lived in his work; and being worried with the question, “Where have I seen that face,” traced it at once to the stage-coach. They were introduced.

It was Miss Hattie Stanwood, of Augusta, Maine. She also was teaching school, not far away. It was quite the thing in that day for well-educated New England girls or young ladies to go South and teach school.

They had remembered each other through the winter, but neither knew the other’s name, address, or occupation. Now all was clear. Thoughts and dreams were actualized. It was a marvel, almost a miracle, that they should meet.

The picnic had no further charms for them. They quietly strolled away together over the hills after the lunch was served, and for three full hours they lived in each other’s lives. They seemed strangely near to each other, and a peculiar peaceful joy seemed living in their hearts. It had evidently come to stay. None other ever seemed to be so needful to life itself. No formal words were spoken, only cards exchanged and carefully preserved. In two weeks her school would close, and she would spend the summer northward at her home, and he would take a long trip southward through various states, and see what could be seen as far down as New Orleans. They spent two afternoons in each other’s company before the time of departure came; correspondence was agreed upon, and in the autumn they would meet and renew acquaintance in the old posts of duty. Some slight tokens were exchanged, and as they must they nerved brave hearts for a long and perilous separation.

When the time for their departure came they were found seated side by side in the same old coach, for Louisville. The ride was much shorter and far more pleasant in that rich and beauteous spring-time than in the ripe and luscious autumn before.

Politics was a barren subject now. Homes were admired as they passed along; bits of sentiment indulged; snatches of song and lines of poetry; much sober, sensible talk filled in the hours which served as a needed respite to minds kept hard at thought throughout the year.

The future loomed up, real and grand. Their lives took on a glow of interest and earnestness of hope they never had known. There seemed to be a reason in them now, before unseen. They felt their worth and knew their joy, as it was never felt or known before.

Mr. Blaine took his southern trip, and made business of it. He knew the history of all that country, every state and town.

It had a vastly different look to him from any region of the North which he had visited. Slavery was the hideous monstrosity of evil that met him everywhere. It was to him the great contradiction and condemnation of the South.

He had heard and heard, but determined to see for himself, and see he did. There was much that seemed pleasant in plantation-life, but when he went to the slave-pens and the slave-auctions, and saw families broken and sold asunder, and heard their cries, and saw the blows,--their only recognition,--his patriot-blood boiled fiercely in his veins. It was enough. He sought his old home, and spent a happy month or more with its loved ones, those who rejoiced with him greatly over the achievements of the year.

Miss Stanwood made her journey northward amid all the loveliness of Nature, and arrived home far more the woman than when she left. Life was more real and earnest now, and filled with larger hopes. She was charmed with the South, and had strange longings to return. But letters are tell-tale things, for men, without any special reason, will write a great, bold hand.

James was able to lay two hundred dollars on the table on his return, and entertained them by the hour with stories of the South. He had seen much gambling and drinking, many bowie knives and revolvers, and seen many splendid specimens of men.

He was filled with its beauties and glories, and with its generous, kindly hospitalities. It was a region so historic, so immense in possibilities, so alive and magnificent with the old ante-bellum greatness, and splendor of cities and homes; so many graduates from Yale and Harvard, which had been a dream of fame and greatness ever to him; so many men of leisure, and, withal, so much to see; so much of pleasing, thrilling interest; so much stir and life, that weeks passed by.

He spent parts of two winters in New Orleans. He was, in fact, a southern man for the time. His business was in the South, and his great social powers gave him friends and entrance everywhere.

The kind letters of his fellow-teachers,--Colonel Thorndike F. Johnson, the principal of the Academy, and Colonel Bushrod Johnson, after of the Confederate army,--gave him many pleasing acquaintances. This was twelve or fourteen years before the war. The political business and educational interests of the country were a unit. There was no talk of rebels or of treason. The prominent men of the country, politically, were largely from the South. The presidents had been selected largely from that section, and the political contests throughout were carried on by parties whose strongholds were North and South. Only the summer before, President Polk had made a tour through the Middle and Eastern states, going eastward as far as Portland, Maine, and was received with every demonstration of respect. Nathan Clifford, of Maine, was his Attorney-general, and Mr. Bancroft, his Minister to England.

Mr. Blaine’s father had moved to Washington, as he was prothonotary of the courts, during his term at college, so that he had made his home with them during some of these years, and the remainder of the time with a Mrs. Acheson. He had ample opportunity to renew acquaintance with old friends; with Prof. Wm. P. Aldrich, who had drilled him so faithfully in mathematics: with Prof. Richard Henry Lee, grandson of Richard Henry Lee, of the Revolutionary war, who was his professor of rhetoric and belle-lettres; with his firm friend, Professor Murray, who so inspired him in the study of the languages, and gave Mr. Blaine a regular theological drill in the study of Greek, that most perfect receptacle of human thought, in all its shades and vastness, even now,--a language which took up Christ, his kingdom, and his mission, thoughts and doctrines, and perpetuated them for the world.

No drill is more highly intellectual, more conducive of fine taste, good judgment, and accuracy, than the study of the Greek; and this he had under the master-hand.

To Prof. Richard Henry Lee may be traced the training of power so brilliantly displayed in Mr. Blaine’s forensic efforts and on the stump.

To renew acquaintance with these men, and a multitude of other friends, was a part of his great pleasure. He was fresh and full as ever, taller by an inch, and larger every way. He no longer seemed to them a boy, but had the air and manners of a man, and yet his laugh was as merry and hearty, his shake of the hand as vigorous and friendly as ever.

The sunny South shone full upon them in the fresh report he brought. It was a goodly land, and he had made it a study, bringing to bear all his power of close observation.

He had taken his course at college principally for the sake of study, simply, and the knowledge he gained; but the prominent thought in his mind had been journalism. This had not been his purpose in education, but simply a chief idea in his mind rather than a chosen aim in life. So that with this thought within him, and the habit of seeing everything on him, but little escaped the wide range of his vision during his southern journeyings.

Of course when home he did not ignore the old college-library. It was a resort so greatly loved, and almost sacred.

But when the hour struck he was eager to be off for his post of duty,--Kentucky. Promptness and despatch were ever elements of power with him. He reached Georgetown ahead of time, and was rested and in readiness when the new year of work began, and it was a year of hard, steady, constant work with him. He not only had now a reputation to sustain, but to be greatly advanced. That a man stops growing when he is satisfied, was a thing perfectly understood by him. A man without ambition is dead while he lives, and the one content to live with his head over his shoulder may as well be turned into a pillar of salt. It is the men who look ahead, and who look up who have a future. A backward look is a downward look to them.

Competition was strong at the academy. Enthusiasm was great. Professor Blaine had done much to arouse it, but all unconsciously. He had held steadily to his fixed habits of study, preparing carefully for each recitation himself, permitting no shams in his class-room. The military discipline at the institution aided greatly its matter of discipline. Life and energy were everywhere manifest.

And so the year passed with nothing special worthy of note, except the amount of real work performed, and the large measure of success achieved.

Acquaintance with his lady friend was early renewed and pleasantly continued. It had much to do with the inspiration of the present and in shaping his future. Of course it was kept a profound secret, and no one in Kentucky permitted to know that they were aught to each other except chance friends, and indeed in point of formal fact they were not until near the close of the year, when the crisis came; but the young professor was a gallant knight, and had occasion required might readily have performed some thrilling act of knighthood that would have set the neighborhood agog, for none can doubt he had it in him even then. Milder methods have ever been his rule, except emergency arise, and then he arises with it.

It is this ability of abilities, this almost perfection of powers, that has made him equal to every occasion, however dire or desperate opposition may have been; that has given him his great prominence in journalism, in halls of legislature, both of state and nation, and in the field of politics. But he has had this mountain-peak of power because beneath and back of it lay a long mountain-range of endeavor, capacity, and growth.

The patient, hard, honest toil of years has ever and anon had its culmination in hours of splendid victory.

V.

A NEW FIELD.

The years at Georgetown reviewed and solidified the work of his student scholarly life thus far, beside carrying him forward to new fields of conquest. Courtship could not interfere with study and with work, and it did not.

This new relationship had changed somewhat the plan of life. Other years could be but a repetition of the two now nearly passed, so that while he was in the line of promotion and in a place to grow, it was not just the thing, so he relinquished his professorship and went northward.

These years had been eventful in the history of the country. The Mexican war had been fought, and General Taylor, its hero, elected and inaugurated president. Both were triumphs of the Slave-Power.

President Polk had taken part in the ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of General Taylor, and gone to his home in Tennessee by way of Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans, only to die on the 15th of June, 1849, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.

The cholera was raging in the South “like a desolating blast. It swept over the valley of the Mississippi, carrying off thousands with the suddenness of the plagues of the old world.” The South was surely no place for northerners at such a time.

The great gold-fever of California was on the country, and scores were hurrying to the Pacific coast. But Mr. Blaine had no taste for adventure,--no thirst for gold. He was a man of books and a man of affairs, profoundly interested in all that pertained to the country, but too young as yet either to hold office or vote.

He took his last winter’s journey to the South, and returned home to find his father near his end, at the age of fifty-five years.

James was now twenty years old, and the pressure of new responsibilities was on him. His attention is turned to business matters, and he displays the same capacity and aptitude which in fuller power have characterized him.

He early became impressed with the extent and richness of the great coal-fields of Pennsylvania, and before he was thirty years of age made those investments which have so enriched him in later years.

It is the part of wisdom and sagacity in men to make the most of their first years, or the first half of life. This is an eminent feature in the career of Mr. Blaine. There are no wasted years in his life; no baneful habits to destroy his energies or dry up the fountain of his joys. He is a clean, strong, vigorous man, and is able to celebrate the year of his majority with a more extensive preparation and experience as scholar, teacher, traveler, and man of business, and a brighter outlook for life, than falls to the lot of many young Americans.

In this year of 1851 transpired the event more propitious than any other. It was his marriage, at Pittsburgh, to Miss Hattie Stanwood, the present Mrs. Blaine, a lady of fine culture and rare good sense, who loves her home with the devotion of a true wife and noble mother.

It would require the sagacity of a sage to have predicted the future of Mr. Blaine, had it not been his kindly fortune to have his life crowned with so much of goodness, wisdom, intelligence, and love, as is found in the companion of his honors and joys.

Six children, now living, have come in these years to honor their wedded life;--a goodly family indeed.

It is perhaps not unworthy of remark that during an entire century of the nation’s life, but one old bachelor was ever elected president, and he the last resort of an expiring Democracy.

From 1852 to 1854 Mr. Blaine was principal teacher in the Institution for the Blind at Philadelphia, meanwhile reading law in the office of Theodore Cuyler, who became a leading lawyer in that famed city, eminent for the greatness of the members of its bar.

These quiet years of reading and study and teaching in a great degree fitted Mr. Blaine for his career as a statesman.

He fitted himself for admission to the bar, but never committed himself to the practice of the profession by assuming its functions. The love of journalism would not die. It was in his heart. The time had come to give it light and opportunity. Often had the attractions of the Pine Tree state been presented to him by Mrs. Blaine in all the glowing colors with which youth is accustomed to paint the scenes that lie near its heart. No state had the charms for her possessed by the state of Maine. Here she was born, and here those dearest to her resided.

As yet they had not settled down for life. The time had come for their decision. Her powers of argument, and its very eloquence of oratory, without aught of noise and gesture, but of simple and quiet way, were brought into requisition, and it was decided not to go west and grow up with the country, but go east and grow where greatness has its models.

Maine has never wanted for great men; she had them then, she has them to-day.

In 1854 Mr. Blaine removed with his family to Augusta, the capital city of Maine, where he has since resided.

He purchased, with Joseph Baker, the _Kennebec Journal_, founded in 1823.

Now, the political field could be reviewed and studied at will; the political arena was entered. The paper had been first started by a meeting of the principal citizens to found a Republican paper, and such it was in real earnest. No longer the secluded life of the student, or the quiet life of the teacher.

Embarking in journalism at such a time was like embarking on the sea, where storms and collisions abound; where icebergs show themselves, and rocks and reefs are found. No country has more political storms and commotions, perhaps, than America. They are of all kinds and sizes, from city, town, county, up to state and national storms, and blows, hurricanes, and tempests. In those times of the slave oligarchy, they beat with a fury unknown to-day. Sometimes they were fierce in their cruelty. It was a fight of great learning and profound convictions on both sides, a fight of dearest principle and of Christian faith.

President Taylor had died on the 9th of July, 1850, and Millard Fillmore served out his term of office. March 4, 1853, Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, who, in 1846, had declined to be Attorney-general in President Polk’s cabinet; also an appointment of United States Senator by Governor Steele, and the Democratic nomination for Governor, but had plunged into the Mexican war and won his honors there, and who stood at the head of the New Hampshire bar, was inaugurated President, and ruled the nation when Mr. Blaine became an editor. He had a powerful cabinet, who, of course, were among the prominent public men of the time.

When Mr. Blaine entered political life, though not of his ilk, there were William L. Marcy, of New York, Secretary of State; Robert M’Clelland, of Michigan, Secretary of the Interior; James Guthrie, of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Secretary of War; James Dobbins, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, Attorney-general, and James Campbell, of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-general. Webster, Corwin, Stuart, Conrad, Graham, Crittenden, and Hall had been in Mr. Fillmore’s cabinet. The time for Republican victory was drawing nigh, and the young editor was in position to help bring it on.

It was the centennial of the city’s history. The celebration was very beautiful, an account of which appeared in Mr. Blaine’s paper, the _Kennebec Journal_, of July 6, 1854, and seemed auspicious of his arrival in the city, and the inauguration of his work.

Augusta is about midway between towns that boast two of the leading institutions of learning in the state, Colby University at Waterville, and Bowdoin College at Brunswick, where Longfellow graduated, and his class-mate, Hon. James W. Bradbury, who was, about this time, United States Senator from Maine, when the great men of the nation,--Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Douglas, Cass, and others,--were discussing in the senate the constitutional and slavery questions involved in the compromise measures.

It was a time and place where great historic interests centered. It had been the scene of grave military operations, a fort and outposts on the nation’s frontier, less than a hundred years before, had been conspicuous in the French and Indian wars.

The mind of Blaine was not long, with his practical methods of historic research, in threading out lines of history, entering the labyrinths of knowledge of a mighty past, and a great and wondrous present, boxing the compass historically, as it were, until he knew the past and present of his adopted state, and of New England, as he had known his native state.

He came with no beat of drum and blare of trumpet, but quietly, with no parade or display, and went to work with good grace and strong determination. He brought his capital with him. It had not been embezzled, nor squandered, nor stolen. It was in a portable bank in which he had been depositing his investments, or investing his deposits, steadily for nearly twenty years. Already he had drawn compound interest, and yet, unlike air, water or money, the more he drew, the more there was on deposit, bright and clear with the polish of the mint. He had invested in solid, reliable knowledge and education. He had taken stock in James G. Blaine, taught and trained him to think, to know, to talk, to write, and act. There is always a demand for just such men. Communities want them, the state and nation wants them. From the distant South, explored and carefully surveyed and estimated, he had come to the farthermost North and East, and here for life his home is to be.

VI.

JOURNALISM.

It was not the policy of Mr. Blaine to undertake a work for which he was not specially fitted. General adaptation and preparation were not enough; he must be master of the situation or not at all, so he did not sit down in the editorial chair at once. He was among a new people. He must know them. His paper was published at the state capital. He must know the state. He must know it politically, socially, morally, educationally, religiously. This required extensive travel. He must understand the demands of the people, their character and temperament.

The _Kennebec Journal_ had not yet risen to that standard of circulation and of excellence, its position warranted and required. In the words of one thoroughly conversant with its affairs, “The paper was badly run down.” It was the opposition paper, and had long been what, in common parlance is known as “the under dog in the fight.” There was the largest opportunity for the display of the new editor’s push and tact in business matters. To these two things, therefore,--public acquaintance and business affairs,--he gave himself until November, 1854.

About this time a turn came in the political tide, and William Pitt Fessenden, “that good Whig,” was elected to the United States senate, routing the Pillsbury Democracy. Governor Crosby and his council were also Whigs.

Everything of a political character seemed highly favorable for the best editorial work, just as after the war the highest statesmanship was requisite to garner and perpetuate its results, crystalize its victories, and thus secure their glory untarnished.