Sergei Witte

“ In the meanwhile William of Orange urged on the course of events by every means in his power, eagerly waiting for the time when the people, by whom he was idolised, should have made of the bodies of the brothers the two steps over which he might ascend to the chair of Stadtholder.
Thus, then, on the 20th of August, 1672, as we have already stated in the beginning of this chapter, the whole town was crowding towards the Buytenhof, to witness the departure of Cornelius de Witte from prison, as he was going to exile ”

“ To establish as an unbreakable rule that no law shall take effect without confirmation by the State Duma and that the elected representatives of the people shall be guaranteed the opportunity to participate in the supervision of the legality of the actions of Our appointed officials. ”

“ To carry out successfully the general measures that we have conceived to restore peace to the life of the state, We believe that it is essential to coordinate activities at the highest level of government. ”

“ The brothers De Witte, therefore, had to strive against a double difficulty,—against the force of national antipathy, and, besides, against the feeling of weariness which is natural to all vanquished people, when they hope that a new chief will be able to save them from ruin and shame. ”

“ We summon all loyal sons of Russia to remember their duties toward their country, to assist in terminating the unprecedented unrest now prevailing, and together with Us to make every effort to restore peace and tranquility to Our native land. ”

“ Witte resolved to organise a national procession to the Imperial Palace. Who was to lead it? The revolutionary leaders could be of no use, it was necessary to have a reliable man. He was found in the pope Gapon, who was very popular among the labouring classes. He led the multitudes of workmen, students, and intelligentsia in front of the Winter Palace. At the head of the procession went women and old men carrying portraits of the Tsar and the Tsaritsa, crosses, and holy ikons. ”

“ Besides this, Mynheer Isaac Boxtel encouraged himself with the following sophism:—
“Cornelius De Witte is a bad citizen, as he is charged with high treason, and arrested.
“I, on the contrary, am a good citizen, as I am not charged with anything in the world, and as I am as free as the air of heaven.
“If, therefore, Cornelius De Witte is a bad citizen—of which there can be no doubt, as he is charged with high treason and arrested—his accomplice, Cornelius Van Baerle, is no less a bad citizen than himself. ”

“ That's the way he justified his subterranean deals with the KAISER; and he even goes so far as to assert that 'if the Vyborg-Björkesund treaty had not been denounced the present war would not have happened.' He speaks of this a little passionately, scorning the very memory of Count Witte for 'questioning the morality of that arrangement.' That great Minister my prisoner refers to as 'an uncouth bully who bellowed like a mad bull.' In this respect it is my impression that the ex-Empress indorses his state of mind. What he likes she will place in the superlative ”

“ We might hurl ourselves with all our available strength upon the enemy, overthrow him, and make the path free to our comrades."
In spite of the fearful gravity of the situation, the major smiled; then he shook his head.
"The advice does you all honor, Lieutenant Witte, but it could only come from a three-and-twenty year old head: it is not practicable. You have heard that the enemy has a three-fold strength; the situation makes it tenfold. We should share the fate which threatens our men without being able to rescue them." ”

“ The Happy Man makes Acquaintance with Misfortune.
Cornelius de Witte, after having attended to his family affairs, reached the house of his godson, Cornelius van Baerle, one evening in the month of January, 1672. ”

“ The Germans had now a fresh item, and a very big one, on the account that we had to settle with them.
On the 8th of September, we had our revenge. For the second time, the army made a sortie from Antwerp, and the Cavalry Division, forming the left wing, advanced towards Louvain. Information of all kinds poured in at Headquarters and one detail struck General de Witte, that chief of whom I can [Pg 157] never speak without the greatest respect and admiration. The General had been told that the village of Werchter was only weakly guarded. ”

“ Davis's surprise he did not hesitate to entertain visitors in his sleeping room if they arrived while he was there, and many of them would remain until "the wee sma' hours." There was a charm in fellowship with him, and ill and lethargic as he had grown, it was said: "Walt Whitman's friends rarely visited him without having a good laugh over something or other"; and "gifted with a clear resonant voice, the poet often gratifies his friends as he sits by a blazing wood fire—which is his delight—singing old-fashioned songs." ”

“ There is no indication in Whitman’s writings that he was ever swept off his feet by this fierce tide of adventure. Anyone who has felt such a current setting in among the fluid populations of the West is not likely to underestimate its power. Even in the more staid and sober East the excitement must have been intense: and it is, at the first thought, surprising that Walt, who was still full of youth and strength and ambition, should have remained at home. ”

“ He would often come into the wards carrying wild flowers newly picked, and strewing them over the beds, like a herald of the summer. Well did he know that they were messengers of life to the sick, words to them from the Earth-mother of men.
Whatever he might be in the literary world of Washington or New York, here Whitman was nothing but Walt the comrade of soldiers. And for himself, he said in later years, that the supreme loves of his life had been for his mother and for the wounded. [385] It is a saying worthy of remembrance, for it indicates the man. ”

“ A few days after I found Willie I was in the hospital, when a gentleman came in seeking some one. He was from Ohio. He happened to see Willie, and was wonderfully attracted to the child, and Willie seemed to take a great fancy to the gentleman. He came daily to see Willie during his stay in Sedalia. “This child,” he said to me one day, with tears in his eyes, “looks so much like my own boy, my only child, who died a few months ago, that I want to adopt him if my wife will consent. But her heart is so nearly broken by grief, that she may shrink from the plan.” ”

“ So too was Walter, the father of Walt, and one of Jesse’s many sons.
Born in 1789—the year in which the amended Constitution of the United States actually came into force—Walter grew up into a silent giant, [21] a serious solid man, reserved and slow of speech, kindly but shrewd and obstinate; capable too, when he was roused, of passion. He was a wood-cutter and carpenter, a builder of frame-houses and barns, solid as himself. He learnt his trade in New York, and afterwards wandered from place to place in its pursuit. ”

“ We infer from this that Count Witte intends either to remain without M. Durnovo or to leave. But supposing his resignation is accepted and M. Durnovo remains?”
“But you do not think——” I interrupted.
“All things are possible,” rejoined Dimitri Nikolaievitch; “remember that; because a course is suicidal that is no guarantee that it will not be taken; the contrary rather is true. Remember the story of Rehoboam 176I have just read you: ‘Es ist eine alte Geschichte, doch bleibt sie immer neu.’”
“But in any case,” I asked, “how do you think any present or future Government will deal with the Duma?” ”

“ The inner experiences of so sane and stalwart a man are of the utmost psychological interest, and we cannot lay too much stress upon their importance in Whitman’s story, proving as they do the delicate nervous organisation of the man.
As the struggle proceeds, Walt seems to be seized by a strange new feeling. He is fascinated by the tiny wind-rows left by the tide upon the sand, and the sense of a likeness between himself and them arises in him, taking the form not so much of a thought as of a consciousness of kinship. ”

“ You could not have got so far as you have unless you had some one else behind you. Poor Nicholas!—Every one knows what he is, and that he has less power than any other man in Russia. Are you Witte’s man, I wonder? ”

“ To leeward of the camp, three great log fires were blazing and crackling furiously.
Mother Bickerdyke, a grand old army nurse, who did heroic service in the hospitals from the beginning until the close of the war, was there, and giving directions with the clearness and force of a sea-captain in a storm. Orders were imposed on all of us before we were out of the ambulance. “Come on, Lawrence, with your men, and help get up these tents. Mrs. Wittenmyer, you and Mrs. Porter get sticks and pry out rocks, and heat them here in these fires and put them about the men to keep them from freezing.” ”

“ At the time of this interview he was accompanied by a sickly listless lad whom he had found at the boarding-house where he stayed. Whitman had compassion on him and carried him along, in order that he might communicate something of his own superabundant vitality to him.
During his stay in Boston, Walt frequently attended the services then conducted at the Seamen’s Bethel by Father Taylor. [256] As a rule, he avoided churches of every sort, feeling acutely the ineffectiveness of what is grimly called “Divine Service,” feeling also that worship was for the soul in its solitude. ”

“ He and his soul—he distinguishes decisively between the temporal and the eternal elements in himself whose equal balance, neither abdicating its place nor contesting that of the other, makes the harmony of his life—he and his soul commune together, and discover that the world means Love, and that the very grass is full of suggestions of immortality.
Everything indeed has its word for Walt Whitman; he understands what the streets are unconsciously saying; the animals of the country-side, the working men, the youths and the women, each and all are teaching him something of himself. ”

“ Our common niggahs would never do to wait on fine gentlemen. You see, dey’s awkard an’ hain’t got no good close. So I just hir’d dese fashionable watahs case I wanted to have the thing done up right.”
Of course I made no objections. At the appointed hour, General Grant, dressed in military uniform, riding his little black horse that had carried him so often around the fiery lines of Vicksburg during the siege, and General McPherson, dressed in elegant military fashion, tall, stately, commanding, and splendidly mounted, rode up in front of our house. ”

“ To Walt Whitman's credit be it said, he [Pg 33] never spoke an unkind word to Mrs. Davis; never was arrogant or overbearing to her; never belittled her or put her down before others; always treated her as an equal; relied upon her judgment and often sought her advice;—but he would have his own way, and she with her yielding nature soon gave in; the struggle was only a short one; before winter commenced, confusion once more reigned.
In due time piles of periodicals were stacked on the table and on chairs; newspapers, letters, envelopes and bundles of manuscript were in the corners ”

“ John de Witt is distracted by the agony of Maria de Witt, the fears of his own children, the piteous bewilderment of his father, the dismay of his friends; his very trust in God is almost shaken.
In the bitterness of his despair he appeals to the man who was once his pupil.
The day before the final verdict on Cornelius (and his brother does not doubt that it will be death) the Stadtholder returns unexpectedly to the Hague. ”

“ John de Witt, desperate, tries to save his brother by disarming the resentment of his enemies. He goes to the Assembly and resigns the post he has held most nobly for twenty years.
The States accept it. They ask the Prince if they may thank him for his services.... The Stadtholder, absorbed in the war, sends answer “Yes.”
Still he cannot save Cornelius.
The people want blood.
The elder de Witt is put to the torture, which is a thing beyond credence, horrible; no confession is extorted from him. The unjust judges are defeated in their endeavours to please the mob. ”

“ William was annoyed. He never loved the mob in any form or mood; he was utterly indifferent to popularity, which he rated too keenly at its true value.
He felt no gratitude to these people for their enthusiasm. They had suffered John de Witt for twenty years; despite their flag-waving and their shouting they suffered him still; therefore he sat silent, reining in his horse on the causeway of the canal and waiting for the crowd to pass.
But the beauty of the animal and the richness of the rider’s dress did not escape the attention of the Orangists. ”

“ A politician as, bold as and more far-sighted than Admiral Coligny, twice struck down, like him, by assassins, John van Witt remained in history the unique model of a great republican chief, virtuous and able, proud and modest, up to the day at which other United Provinces, fighting like Holland for their liberty, presented a rival to the purity of his fame, when they chose for their governor General Washington. ”

“ Europe was shaken from end to end; and in a few weeks, even days, the storm that had nearly overwhelmed the United Provinces became a great war whirlwind enveloping the world.
John de Witt does his part. His heart swells with pleasure at the deliverance of his country; he does justice, too late, to the Prince whom he has always mistrusted.
He is reviled, hated, cursed; the storm has already engulfed his brother.
Cornelius de Witt, who left the Hague with a guard of honour as plenipotentiary of Their Noble Mightinesses, returned to it on foot, a prisoner. ”

“ Notable, even among these, was Walt Whitman. Even here, he was unlike other men: the fulness of his spirits, his robust individuality, the generosity of his whole nature, was so exceptional as to make itself felt. His figure began to grow familiar to all kinds of New Yorkers during these years. He was frequently to be seen on Broadway, [147] in his favourite coign of vantage, on the stage-top by the driver’s side, a great, red-faced fellow, in a soft beaver, with clothes of his own choosing, an open collar like that of Byron or Jean Paul, and a grey beard. ”