Edward Everett Hale

“ Edward Everett Hale has been the interpreter of a pure, simple loving and living faith to thousands and thousands of souls. He has taught us that the fatherhood and tenderness of God are manifested here and now in this world, as they will be hereafter; that the religion of Christ is a religion of daily living; that salvation is the purifying of the soul from sin, not its escape from the consequences of sin. He is the representative and the incarnation of the best and loftiest Americanism. He knows the history of his country, and knows his countrymen through and through. ”

“ Edward Everett Hale will be seventy years old April 3, but it will not do to contradict the birth record and the arithmetic, in spite of all his unfailing energy and youthful activity in many different undertakings. Dr. Hale is one of the men who will be always young, and it may be in consequence of this that he has written so many things that will never lose their freshness. ”

“ Then we shut them in, in the dark, and cross the well-cleared roadway to the shed, and so home again. Certainly Mrs. Empson's kerosene lamp is in her window. That must be her light which gives a little halo in that direction in the falling snow. That looks like society.
And this time Huldah undresses the baby, puts on her yellow flannel night-gown,—makes the whole as long as it may be,—and then, still making believe be jolly, lights another lamp, eats her own supper, clears it away, and cuts into the new Harper which John had brought up to her the day before. ”

“ In Everett’s life and career was a combination of the results of diligent training, unflinching industry, delicate literary tastes and unequalled acquaintance with modern international politics. This combination made him in America an entirely exceptional person. He was never loved by the political managers; he was always enthusiastically received by assemblies of the people. ”

“ Young Hale entered Yale College when in the sixteenth year of his age. His brother Enoch, the grandfather of Rev. Edward Everett Hale, of Boston, and two years the senior of Nathan, entered Yale at the same time. The students then numbered about sixty. His course of col [Pg 5] lege-life was eminently praiseworthy; and he was graduated with the highest honors in September, 1773. Popular with all the students, the tutors, and the faculty, he was always a welcome visitor in the best families of New Haven.
In the autumn of 1848 I visited the venerable Eneas Munson, M.D., at New Haven. ”

“ And he paused.
"Why do you stop, my dear Edward? I have promised. What shall I do?"
"Dearest, you are to do nothing. Simply, you are not to ask what my daily duty is, and you are not to ask me to introduce you to my friends. It separates me less from my sunbeam than most men's cares. Without knowing it, you can help me in a thousand ways in it. But to know what it is will only bring care on you and grief on me. Can we not live, as you trust me and as I love you, without my worrying you with these petty cares?"
"Is that all?" said Psyche, with her pretty laugh. ”

“ Brave man that he can. How his voice must have choked, as if he were in a dream. "I am Lieutenant Pim, late of 'Herald.' Captain Kellett is at Melville Island." Well-chosen words, Pim, to be sent in advance over the hundred yards of floe! Nothing about the "Resolute,"—that would have confused them. But "Pim," "Herald," and "Kellett" were among the last signs of England they had seen,—all this was intelligible. An excellent little speech, which the brave man had been getting ready, perhaps, as one does a telegraphic despatch, for the hours that he had been walking over the floe to her. ”

“ She also edited “Life and Letters of Thomas Gold Appleton” (New York, 1885) . — Edward Everett's daughter, Ellen Day, artist, b. in Worcester, Mass., 11 Feb., 1855, was educated under the supervision of her aunt, Susan Hale, and received her first instructions in art from Dr. William Rimmer, afterward studying under William M. Hunt and Helen M. Knowlton, and in Julien's art-school in Paris. Miss Hale has travelled in Spain and Italy, and has resided in Paris and in London. Her present home is in Boston, where she is engaged in artistic work. ”

“ And, as he spoke, one of the new-comers of the Philistines leaned over, and whispered to the chief: "He is a bard himself, and we made him promise to sing to us. I brought his harp with me that he might cheer up our bivouac. Pray, do you ask him."
The old chief needed no persuasion; and the eyes of the whole force brightened as they found they had a minstrel "of their own" now, when the old man pressed the young Ionian courteously to let them hear him: "I told you, sir, that we had no Muses of our own; but we welcome all the more those who come to us from over seas."
Homer smiled ”

“ A nice girl at the West once wrote me to ask why all the good young men, who were bright and spirited and nice, were in my books, and why, in fact, the bright boys, who knew something and could do something and could be something—in short, were agreeable—were apt to be lounging round liquor saloons in the village when they should be better employed. I told her, of course, to wait a little; that she was looking through some very small key-hole. How I wish that my unknown correspondent could have seen Horace Ray! He was handsome, he was bright, he was strong, he was steady, he was full of fun ”

“ Find his life, boy; and perhaps it may sing for you."
"We should be more manly men, if he sang to us every night."
"Or if the other did," said an Ionian sailor.
"Yes," said the chief. "And yet, I think, if your countryman sang every night to me, he would make me want the other. Whether David's singing would send me to his, I do not feel sure. But how silly to compare them! As well compare the temple in Accho with the roar of a whirlwind—"
"Or the point of my lance with the flight of an eagle. The men are in two worlds." ”

“ And she looks wistfully across the ice to her little friend the steam tender "Intrepid," and she sees there is no one there. "Intrepid! Intrepid! have they really deserted us? We have served them so well, and have they really left us alone? A great many were away travelling last year, but they came home. Will not any of these come home now?" No, poor "Resolute"! Not one of them ever came back again! Not one of them meant to. Summer came. August came. No one can tell how soon, but some day or other this her icy prison broke up, and the good ship found herself on her own element again ”

“ What, there is no boy? Let one of the girls have it then; it will count one more present for her." And so he pressed his [Pg 279] brown-paper parcel into my hand. From every house, though it were the humblest, a word of love, as sweet, in truth, as if we could have heard the voice of angels singing in the sky.
I bade Harry good night; took Lycidas to his lodgings, and gave his wife my Christmas wishes and good night; and, coming down to the sleigh again, gave way to the feeling which I think you will all understand, that this was not the time to stop, but just the time to begin. ”

“ Hand in my pocket,—brown paper parcel.
"Where are you, Frederic?" "Yes," said I, for the last time. Twine off! brown paper off. And I learned that the "Sheffield wimble" was one of those things whose name you never heard before, which people sell you in Thames Tunnel, where a hoof-cleaner, a gimlet, a screw-driver, and a corkscrew fold into one handle.
"Yes," said I, again. "Pop," said the cork. "Bubble, bubble, bubble," said the whiskey. Bottle in one hand, full tumbler in the other, I walked in. George poured half a tumblerful down Lycidas's throat that time. ”

“ I would rather by a hundred times die such a death, than know that you belonged to any other man!"
"Aucassin," replied Nicolette, "I do not believe that you love me as much as you say; but I am quite sure that I love you more than you love me."
"Never!" replied Aucassin. "Oh, my darling sweetheart! you cannot love me more than I love you. No woman can love man as man loves woman; for woman's love is in her eye, it is in the tip of her toe, and the end of her finger: but man's love is in the bottom of his heart, and so firmly does it grow there, that it can never be uprooted." ”

“ Goole found, to her joy, that it was eleven, she broke up the somewhat shaky whist-table, and spoke to Hester.
"My dear," said she, "it is really too late for any one to stay up any longer. My girls must go, and you too."
So Hester jumped up, kissed her father good-night, and bade au revoir to De Alcantara. Then she turned to section six, directed by the obsequious John.
"Wait," said De Alcantara, "I have a surprise for you;" and he led her to number nine, where her immense Saratoga stood on the sofa. "If you need anything," said he, "you yourself have been careful that you will find it here." ”

“ Sometimes I have thought a great earthquake had wrecked their old happy home. Sometimes I have thought there was some horrid pestilence, or fire. No matter what happened, something happened,—so that Oello and her husband, of a hot, very hot day, were alone under a forest of laurels mixed with palms, with bright flowering orchids on them, looking like a hundred butterflies; ferns, half as high as the church is, tossing over them; nettles as large as trees, and tangled vines, threading through the whole. ”

“ It delineates American life so graphically that we feel as if Mr. Hale must have seen every rood of ground he describes, and must have known personally every character he so cleverly depicts. In his hearty fellowship with young people lies his great power. The story is permeated with a spirit of glad-heartedness and elasticity which in this hurried, anxious, money-making age it is most refreshing to meet with in any one out of his teens ”

“ Ah! sir, in our rocks here we have few enough Muses, but those who carry these lances, or teach us how to trade with the islands for tin."
[Pg 62]
"That's not quite fair," cried another. "The youngsters who are gone sing well; and one of them has a harp I should be glad you should see. He made it himself from a gnarled olive-root." And he turned to look for it.
"You'll not find it in the tent: the boy took it with him. They hoped the Ziklag minstrel might ask them to sing, I suppose."
"A harp of olive-wood," said the Ionian, "seems Muse-born and Pallas-blessed." ”

“ There are few books of travel which combine in a romance of true love so many touches of the real life of many people, in glimpses of happy homes, in pictures of scenery and sunset, as the beautiful panorama unrolled before us from the windows of this Pullman car. ”

“ Hale learned the language from them, made a vocabulary, and then set up the type and printed the book with his own hand. Hayward, Hildreth, and Wheeler, who carried on the magazine for its third volume, all died young, before the age of thirty. Hayward had written one or more of the lives in Sparks’s “American Biography,” Wheeler had distinguished himself as a Greek scholar here and in Europe, and Hildreth, as a young poet, had given promise for what we all supposed was to be a remarkable future. ”

“ After them goes Pim; finds them to be three hares, magnified by fog and mirage, and their long ears answering for horns. This same day they got upon the Bay of Mercy. No ship in sight! Right across it goes the Lieutenant to look for records; when, at two in the afternoon, Robert Hoile sees something black up the bay. Through the glass the Lieutenant makes it out to be a ship. They change their direction at once. Over the ice towards her! He leaves the sledge at three and goes on. How far it seems! At four he can see people walking about, and a pile of stones and flag-staff on the beach. ”

“ EVERETT, EDWARD (1794–1865) , American statesman and orator, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on the 11th of April 1794. He was the son of Rev. Oliver Everett and the brother of Alexander Hill Everett (q.v.) . His father died in 1802, and his mother removed to Boston with her family after her husband’s death. At seventeen Edward Everett graduated from Harvard College, taking first honours in his class. While at college he was the chief editor of The Lyceum, the earliest in the series of college journals published at the American Cambridge. ”

“ It is in Mexico, I know. It is on this side of Mexico. It tells all about it in an old ‘Harper’—oh, a good many years ago—but I never bound mine; there are always one or two missing every year. I asked Fausta to look for it, but she was busy. I thought,” continued poor Felix, a little crestfallen, “one of you might remember.”
No, nobody remembered; and nobody felt much like going to the public library to look, on Carter’s rather vague indications. In fact, it was a suggestion of Haliburton’s that proved more popular.
Haliburton said he had not laid in his coal. They all said the same. ”

“ Then I told Fausta of the respectable boarding-house, and that she must go there. She did not say no. But she did say she would rather not spend the evening there. "There must be some place open for us," said she. "There! there is a church-bell! The church is always home. Let us come there."
So to "evening meeting" we went, startling the sexton by arriving an hour early. If there were any who wondered what was the use of that Wednesday-evening service, we did not. In a dark gallery pew we sat, she at one end, I at the other ”

“ Let us hope she has not broken her leg. I meanwhile am driving a silver pronged fork into the Bourbon corks, and the blade of my own penknife on the other side.
"Now, Fred," from George within. (We all call [Pg 291] Morton "George.") "Yes, in one moment," I replied. Penknife blade breaks off, fork pulls right out, two crumbs of cork come with it. Will that girl never come?
I turned round; I found a goblet on the washstand; I took Lycidas's heavy clothes-brush, and knocked off the neck of the bottle. Did you ever do it, reader, with one of those pressed glass bottles they make now? ”