Julia Sand – Letter 22
Context
Beyond the New York state elections, the country as a whole saw similar results in the elections of November 7, 1882 – with Democrats gaining significant political ground and taking control of the House of Representatives.
Letter 22
December 29, 1882
The sorrowful old year is drawing to a close. What year does not look sad, viewed from this end? I wonder sometimes how it would feel to look back upon one that had been happy. This has not been a very joyous one to you. You suffered a great deal last fall, I think – the more so, that what you suffered, you could not express to friend or foe. But those sorrows which we endure entirely alone – if they do not happen to kill us – give us more strength than anything else in life.
I read your message with interest. But what do you mean by it? Are you like Josh Billings’s mule that behaved beautifully for six whole months, that he might get a first class kick at his master? – or are you sincere in the good you propose? Do you know how the people regard your message? They don’t regard it at all. You gave a splendid one last year – but you did not live up to it. People have a great aversion to being made fools of – especially for the second time. Words will never serve you again – actions only will count. But if your actions are honorable, energetic & for the good of the country, depend up[on] it that they will be fully appreciated.
One day last autumn, when I sat alone in my studio, poking my wood fire, my eyes wandering from the Roman scarf & red wheat over our window, to the bearded wheat & blue tissue draped above the next, & down to my little Countess Potocka in one corner & my big morning glories in the other, while my thoughts wandered to things hundreds of miles away, I ended a long revery with the remark to myself: “Perhaps he has not brains enough to know what is right.” But there I was wrong. You have brains enough. Whenever you choose to exert them, you show a very clear apprehension of what ought & what ought not to be done. The trouble is, you object to using them. I understand the objection perfectly. It requires about three times as much vitality to run properly as to run all the rest of the body. The more you think, the more you have to think. If a matter is to be dealt with conscientiously, it means that you must read & write, talk & listen, weigh the evidence on this side & on that. Yes, it is very troublesome – but then some things are worth the trouble. You want to have all the benefit of being wise & good – but you would like to get it by a short cut. There is something tricky in your nature. You have shown it to me, in your extreme distrust of one, who has trusted you unboundedly. That has hurt me often, but it really pained me more on your account, than on my own – to think that you did not know whom you could trust. But I do not mean to reproach you with the indirectness of your nature – that is, that your temptation lies in that direction – for we are not responsible for the traits with which we are born. But we are responsible for it, if we make no distinction between the good & the bad tendencies in us, & put no restraint upon the latter. I believe that you are perfectly sincere in your words & direct in your actions, at times – but the times would be more frequent, if you willed it so. Cannot you make up your mind to put all double-dealing out of your life? If you think Civil Service Reform trash, & don’t care a fig if it fails, say so, & have done with it. That would be a pity – but the country will live. If the people don’t like it, they have themselves to blame – they put you where you are. If they want Civil Service Reform, they will have to wait a little longer for it, that is all. But if, with your present opportunities for observing, you believe that Civil Service Reform is a real public need, then stand by your convictions openly & earnestly – & let your example be such that no man can question your sincerity. Do not waver. If a thing is worth doing, do it with your whole soul.
A few weeks ago Miss Wayland left us, to spend the winter in Washington. I told her, if she chanced to meet you – not at a big reception, but some how informally – to ask you if you remembered ever to have met a Miss Sand in New York – if you remembered her, she wished to be remembered to you – but if you had forgotten her, she did not wish to be remembered. But perhaps Miss W. will not remember – so I will never know if you forget! I envied my elderly friend quite wickedly that morning she went away. I never envy people their possessions, but I always have envied them their opportunities to travel, to see, to learn, & afterwards to make use of that learning. But I expect to go to Washington yet – very soon, in fact – when I am seventy, when you have forgotten me, when the dear old Republican party is dead, & the Democracy only knows who is President!
Something reminded me of you the other night & made me laugh. I was polishing up my dull old brains with a little French & dipped into Fénélous Télémaque. About the middle of the book there is a scene – well, it is too long to quote, but it amounts to this: that excellent old man – or woman – Mentor undertook to give the impetuous king, Idoménée, what crude Americans would call “a blowing up.” He – or she – said that he was too much accustomed to flattery, it was necessary that he should hear things called by their right names, etc, etc. And what do you think Idoménée answered? Why, he wept & embraced Mentor – according to French accounts the ancient Greeks were very emotional – & he exclaimed, that, in all his life, he never, never, never had met anybody who loved him so much, as to be willing to offend him, for the sake of letting him know the truth! How very different from a certain potentate, with whom we are acquainted, who expressed a wish to cut his little Minerva’s head off!!! But then it must be admitted that Idoménée did not know that he was talking to a woman. That, of course, makes a great difference. For a man will forgive a woman for telling a lie, even if it break his heart, but he will never forgive her for telling the truth, if it happens to wound his vanity. Is not that so? You know – & you are a man. Therefore I do not expect you to forgive me – far less to take Idoménée’s heavenly view of the case – but if, for the rest of your administration, you will do what is for the good of the country, honestly & earnestly, & not be turned from it by any smaller considerations, I will be your friend always – even if you persist in that odd little notion of being offended with me. Do you remember last summer? You came to see me, just when I had given you up – & you said that I ought to have known that you were coming. Will you surprise me that way again? Will you do at last what I have asked you from the first? And will you say – to yourself, for we never meet – “She ought to have known that I would do it.” How much faith do you expect me to have in you? Have I not had almost too much already? The saddest disappointments in life are the disappointments in human nature. For your own sake – if no other sake will move you – please do not let the good I have believed of you be all a mistake. And so to you & this sad old year, goodbye.
J. I. S.