In those few days next to follow 's tantrum of the chair, like those several to precede it, I was given no more than pictures of her. I should perhaps beg forgiveness for the name “tantrum,” which is a byword or term of slang, but search as I may, I find nothing so good wherewith to tell the story of that rootless of Peg's. However, I may say I was at care not to shift the chair again, but left it to stand waiting for her in accord with her command.
Peg, on the next day after that tantrum, and on every day, would come for her visit with the General; but each time she so crept by me, whether by stealth or luck, that I lost notice of her , and knew nothing of her presence until she went past my door when on her way for home. She would create noise enough with her flight; setting her small feet down in emphasis and sending a along the hallway with the of her petticoats, so that I had ample time to raise my head and be on guard for her. She would nod slightly as she caught my glance, but ever sustained herself with that distance which she had seen fit to construct between us.
When Peg flashed by my door—for, radiant as ever, and with the motion of a meteor, “flashed” should be the description of it—I was bound to observe how her look shot straight for her chair like an arrow. She would be sure it was there, that chair; and I could tell how its absence would have become the signal for crowning me with so warm a version of her feelings that I shriveled like October leaves to simply think on it. But I would meet no risk of the sort, since I did not entertain the hardihood to it.
I say the latter, because sooth it is, that half in anger, half in thought to bring her in for a talk, I once had it on my mind to send Peg's chair again into exile. Indeed, I did put it out of the room. But only for a moment; the wick of my courage burned dim, and I fell to be in utmost haste to restore that leathern furnishment, breathing the while in a quick, craven fashion of , lest she surprise me before the situation was repaired. Thus it stood; the chair and I in the room, and both , with Peg going each day by like a watchman on his rounds, to glance in and be assured.
These conditions of separation between Peg and myself, as days went on, would give me less and less of ease. I was forever carrying them on the of my thought, and they made an unhappy element in life's skyline. I stood the more in grief, since to be out with little Peg was like a quarrel with a child; and then, moreover, the fault of it was mine, for I overstepped an obvious line of right conduct when I went upon Eaton's . It was a fool's work, besides; for I might have known she would be sharp to notice and as sharply bound to resent; had she not already warned me how I disfavored Eaton, and told me I was jealous? She would say, truly, she did not care for that ; but that was laughter when her fancy was at merriest. Also, she had told how I did not know her, and never would see her true self; I began now to understand that she was right. And yet I would have her back, and our old frank confidence returned; for Peg, as I tell you, was only a child—a girl when all was in, and it made no more for my credit than for my peace that we should be at crosses.
It stands a thing strangest of all, how differently one will regard another when the time is this or that. Peg, as I have written, would seem ever to me the rompish child; for my thoughts of her were forged and beaten out upon the stithy of those moments when, free and playful and without restraint, she sat alone with me. By the same token! I recall another score of moments where the stage was a drawing room and strange folk framed the scene, and Peg, a beautiful woman of dignity and grave reserve, would remind one of no child at all. But then she would not be Peg to me; on such times when this proud, sufficient being made me some , stately recognition, and as though I had known her but a day, I have stood aside to wonder was she that playful Peg whose white mark I wore on my hand? Was it she to call me “slave” and kiss the mark, or “watch-dog” and make me a collar with her arms? And still I liked her thus. I was proud to see her proud; and my would to note how when Peg, fastidious, and with her highbred look, stepped across a room, she seemed among the women gathered there—and they the Vere de Veres—a greyhound among poodles, or rather the leopard she was among a troop of tabbies. These be crude comparisons, surely; yet there comes no other to so fit with my thoughts of rearward days when Peg moved an empress in the midst of peasants, at once the envy and despair of .
As I tell you, for all these exhibitions of commanding womanhood, Peg would continue with me but a child; the image of such triumphs were not to remain with me, while the real Peg, the true Peg, the dear Peg of memory when alone, would ever be the laughing, mocking, hectoring, teasing Peg on her leathern throne at my desk's end. It is the same with men; there come such words as play and work, and danger and safety; and the man you saw on the battle-line, as stern and as brave as Caesar, is that boy by yonder campfire who now laughs over some tale of personal chicken-pillage when he fled before a mad old armed of a pudding stick.
While Peg and I were on these long-range terms, I went more in hunt of the General for his company's sake and for conversation. I do not think the General stood aware of Peg's cold pose towards me, for, as I have urged, he was no one to see such things; besides, Peg, who showed herself no bad strategist, would be about me with the of those days that were, whenever the General sat by to make a third. Peg held the General in a best ; and then, too, she would be mindful how lately he was ill and save for her tending might have died, and be the last to him with thoughts of how two so near him and dear upon his sentiment nourished a among themselves.
While the General missed the reason of my frequent visits, he no less our talks; for a president, let me inform you, is a idle man, for all your and of print would him as a slave who breaks his heart against an of duty. A president has little to do beyond and while affairs go crosswise to his wishes; also, the General would have him to be a most tied and helpless creature, besides.
“The ,” he would say, “when one goes to a last experiment, is but another word for .”
“And is a president such a thing without hands?” I would ask, for it was sure he thirsted to lecture.
“The office is so much bigger than the man,” he would reply, “that it controls him, as a mountain might bear down the strongest were you to load his back with one.”
“Now, I had thought a president to be of some consequence,” I would retort, in a manner of him. “At least I have known presidents to think so.”
“And so thought I,” he would respond, “ten months ago and before . Sir, a president is but the fly on the chariot wheel. Being vain, the insect might flatter himself with a theory that he is the reason of that dust and motion he observes. But the insect's vanity would be none the less in error. I say to you, a presidency is a thing of bolts and bars and locks and . What may a president do? He may say this man shall keep office and that man shall not, and that would be as important as if he said this rat shall go overboard and that rat stay to roam the ship. The vermin fate of these, for black or white, would neither affect a course nor pick those ports at which the touched.”
“But a president may veto a bill,” I would reply, “or make it a law with his fist. He may bring down a war.”
“And yet he is no free agent when he does any of these,” he would return. “He is pressed upon by one force or another, or mayhap a dozen at once, and must go with conditions like a man in a . As I say, the office is so much bigger than the man that it the man, and not the man the office. It is as though one were made president of the Potomac, or of a . Could he take the one beyond its banks with a war or stay the other in its progress with a veto? He might run up a flag, order a blown, fire a gun; but the river or the glacier would be the last impressed. No, sir; were one made chief of that snowstorm which now whitens the world outside, and set to rule its , he would be in as much control as when given a White House and told that he is President.”
Mayhap it will interest should I offer a report of one of our afternoons. It might go as of all, for each was but a strolling here and there of talk. Our would be hit or miss, like a rag carpet, and would fall of whatever caught the eye or stubbed the toe of fancy at the moment.
On this day, and being weary with the sight of Peg's empty chair, I went down the hall to the General's workroom and found him with his nose in Tristram Shandy.'
“Do you like your author?” said I.
“Why, sir,” said the General, laying aside the book, “he is so grown up to sedge of phrase and choked of word-weeds as to deny one either the sight or the taste of the true stream of his story.”
“Walpole,” I returned, “said that reading Tristram was to laugh a moment and yawn an hour.”
“Then he had the better of me, since I have done nothing but yawn.” After a pause: “Peg gave me the book; it was my to the child that sent me between its pages. And speaking of Peg: Do you still send her the roses? I know you do, for I met your Jim on his way to her, buried in blossoms and looking for all the world like the flower booth in a village fair.” Here the General lazily reached for his pipe.
“And why should she not have the flowers?” I demanded, warmly.
“No reason under the sky, sir,” said he, giving me that old glance out of the eyes of him—to anger me, I suppose—“none under the sky! Send our pretty Peg the roof off the house should she have a mind for it.” Then, when now his pipe was going: “Was it not you to recommend a round, , corpulent being named Curtis to be marshal for Tennessee?”
“I said he was a good man.”
“One might say as much of a pan of . The creature is absolutely without motion; I tried him mentally and , so to speak; the man is .”
“None the less a good man,” I contended. “To do nothing is at least to do no harm.”
“Now, that is as may be,” retorted the General. “I will have nothing to do with your motionless folk. They are always the worst folk of all. I never have been in any crush of or concern where action was not less than inaction, and to do the wrong thing far and away better than to do nothing at all. Now, this fellow Curtis of yours would not even talk. He had no more conversation than a .”
“Silence is caution,” said I, dogmatically, also reaching down a pipe from the mantel to keep the General in smoky ; “silence is caution, and caution is ever a good thing.”
“Caution is a braggart,” returned the General, argumentatively, “to call itself a when it is more often a cover for . Caution has lost more fights than rashness, you may take a soldier's word for that.”
“That is in keeping with your other proverb, 'Never overrate a .' Those be the to get folk killed!”
“And why not, so the folk be the enemy? I have beaten twice my strength because they overrated me.”
“Still,” said I, stubbornly, “the crime of silence which you charge upon this Curtis is no mighty delinquency. Words, as a rule, are a weakness; and I think Curtis should be marshal.”
“Let him be marshal, then, and end it,” returned the General; “but I may tell you, sir, that words are not a weakness, but a source of strength.” The General was an indomitable conversationist, and would not be criticised. “The man who says the most, commonly knows the most, and comes most often to succeed. Silent folk win only by accident, as he shall see who any of their victories to its birth.”
“And now what nonsense!” cried I. “What wise one said 'Silence is golden!'?”
“Some wise one who wanted the floor for himself, doubtless,” the General. “Talk is a cloak, and great talk a great cloak to hide one's movements. It is a common fallacy to suppose that one who talks much—chatters, we will even call it—tells ever the truth. Now my experience goes for it that a great talker is misleading you nine-tenths of the time; heads one way while he talks another. I cannot be sure of the plans or aims of a great talker. He would seem to point so many ways at once. Your tongue-tied fellow I read easily. When I once know where he is, and then remember where he would be, I will readily foresee for you the trail he means to travel.”
“Calhoun is a silent man.”
“And Calhoun is a defeated man; his one chance is my death, which I have no mind shall happen. Calhoun is a silent, but not a secret man. He hides nothing, and can hide nothing by a still tongue. Who does not know how he is for Nullification and must live or die by it?”
“And you,” said I, “have it shall be the latter.”
“If Calhoun had not me, and, more, if he had not included Peg's destruction in his plans—as a soldier might burn a beautiful suburb for an element of his assault on a city—Calhoun and I would have come by some agreement. I like the man; but you see he has no gift to be popular. He makes war on me, which is the least popular thing he could do and then, to me on for bitterest resolution and a to the death, he sets his dogs to baying Peg. Also, let us not forget how he would drag down Van Buren because he is Peg's friend and mine. Sir, you and I will one day make Van Buren president for that.”
“And you have written Calhoun that letter to be notice of your hate.”
“It ties him hand and foot,” said the General. “Were Calhoun Samson, that letter his locks. He will publish it, and make every friend I have his enemy.”
“And you are enough loved by the people to make that a most formidable condition for Calhoun.”
You are to observe that now when I would find the General idle and with an for talk, I trolled him along as folk troll pickerel. It relieved him to thus unbuckle; more, it helped him form his plans, for so he said himself.
“I am ten fold more loved than Calhoun,” responded the General. “Calhoun, as I've said, has no gift to be popular. He talks to folk; I talk with them. Sir, between those words, with and to, dwells the whole art of popularity.”
“Your popularity is growth of your work in the field.”
“My being a soldier, had much to do with its beginning. Man is a fighting animal and loves a fighter. Particularly if he win. Now, were I to advise one to a short cut for public favor, I would say, 'Be a soldier and win.'”
“Especially 'win,'” I returned.
“By all means add the 'win' and emphasize it. That is my rede: Be sure to win. No one is made to explain a victory, no one tries a ; the error of all errors is the black error of defeat.”
“And yet a good man may lose.”
“Sir, the best man may lose. But you are to consider: When he loses, the public owes him nothing. A farmer like a slave; a drought kills his crops; is he paid for the corn he does not raise? The public owes the successful soldier for that profit it takes from his sword; and the public pays its debts. I won at the Horseshoe, at Pensacola, at New Orleans; and the public pays me with a White House. Had I lost my battles, I would have been cashiered a score of times. Calhoun would have succeeded with his scheme to court-martial me in the Seminole days, save that I was armored of my victories. I would never agree to less than victory, and that stubbornness for triumph has even defeated enemies I did not know I had.”
“You have had vast success,” said I, judgmatically, “when one remembers the blindness of your prejudices, and how you will help this one or hurt that one for a no better reason than love or hate. There is your defect; I have often wished that to your honesty and you added the just fairness of Jefferson.”
“Jefferson!” This with a snort: “I am a fairer—a more just man than was Jefferson! He was just to his enemies and unjust to his friends. Now, I am strong enough to do justice by a friend. It hurts no man with me that he has been the friend of Andrew Jackson.”
“But you can not do justice by a foe. You are all for a foe's destruction.”
“I am all for a foe's defeat. And defeat of a foe is justice to a foe. ' to the !' said Brennus, and the was right. Being in the field, your business is to conquer.”
“You talk like a philosopher,” said I, “but you never feel like one. Here: I will show you your prejudice in the face! Give me now your estimate of Clay—of Webster—of Hayne—of Calhoun—of Randolph!”
“You think my portraits will be red and black and flame-color.” The General cunningly. I saw how he had gone over his feeling, and now I looked for a mild story of those whom I had named. “Webster, mentally, is strong,” said he, “and willing, like a horse. But, like a horse, he can not harness himself to a load. There should be those about to hook the traces and in a measure guide him for his haulings. Compared with Hayne, whose is slim and as is an elm, Webster is the oak. He is bigger and stronger without being so beautiful. Besides, Hayne is indolent, and would sooner drift all day than pull an oar an hour. That is the reason why Calhoun, who has currents, sweeps Hayne along for Nullification. Calhoun is simply a good man gone wrong; and, for that he was bred narrowly and as an , he loses time over his dignity. Also, he does not keep in touch with the detail of his destinies, but leaves too much to underlings. Thus he is put into the position of him who attacks a woman—an act without defence, and one most ; and, being in, Calhoun lacks that force needed for his . Randolph is built like a spear, with his anger the head and his intelligence to be the of it. He has no morality of thought, and his one virtue is his contempt for Clay. Randolph was born to be beaten, since he was born to make a science of and become a specialist of . Clay is altogether another story. The man is mean beyond expression. H............