REALIZATION A. C. L. Night fades. The breath of morning stirs the waste. From out the gloom uncouth the mountain creeps And lo! The western crests are drenched with blood. Vast shadows stretch beneath the widening glare; The paling glow spreads down the farther slope; An evanescent fragrance scents the air, And silence broods the universal hope. Then shades and colors all are quenched in haze; A FRENCH FRIEND AND INSPIRER RÉGIS MICHAUD In the winter of 1827, Ralph Waldo Emerson, broken in health and, partly, in spirits, emigrated to Florida. Having been approved, the year before, to preach as a Unitarian minister, he was resorting to Saint Augustine for mental and physical relaxation. In the early days of April, 1827, he wrote from Charleston to his brother William the following letter: My dear brother, I arrived here yesterday after a direful passage of nine days from Saint Augustine. The ordinary one is one or two days. We were becalmed, tempest-tossed, and at last well nigh starved, but the beloved brother bore it not only with equanimity, but pleasure, for my kind genius had sent me for my ship-mate, Achille Murat, the eldest son of the old King Joachim. He is now a planter at Tallahassee and at this time on his way to visit his uncle (Joseph Bonaparte) at Bordentown. He is a scholar, a man of the world; very skeptical, but very candid, and an ardent lover of truth. I blessed my stars for my fine companion and we talked incessantly. Much more of him when I shall see you. A few days later Emerson notes in his Journal: A new event is added to the quiet history of my life. I have connected myself by friendship to a man who, with as ardent a love of truth as that which animates me . . is, yet, that which I had ever supposed only a creature of the imagination-a consistent atheist-and a disbeliever in the existence, and, of course, in the immortality of the soul. My faith in these points is strong and, I trust, as I live, indestructible. Meantime I love and honour this intrepid doubter. His soul is noble, and his virtue, as the virtue of a Sadducee must always be, is sublime. In a letter to his confidante, Mary Moody Emerson, Emerson reflects upon his journey. He will never be an enthusiastic traveler, as is well known from his books: "Nevertheless, I shall not deny," writes he, "that" there are some who take such a strong hold of my attention that I am fain to quit my stoic fur, and fairly go out of my circle and shake hands and converse with them. Now I know, my kind Aunt, with her electrical imagination, will think I am talking of women. Alack-a-day! it surely is not so. . . . . No, I was speaking of men, and another time I will give you an account of one whom it was my good fortune to meet in East Florida, a man of splendid birth and proud advantages, but a humble disciple in the school of truth. This first of Emerson's representative men, a fine type of the philosopher and the man of action, was the son of the unfortunate king of Naples, Joachim Murat, shot by his own subjects in 1815. After the murder of his father, young Achille had been taken to Frohsdorf, Austria, by his mother, Queen Caroline, Napoleon's sister. When he reached his majority, Achille Murat, "inspired with the love of freedom," sailed for the United States, and joined his uncle, Joseph Bonaparte. Murat settled near Tallahassee, Florida, as a planter. He became an American citizen and no one seems to have pronounced with greater pride than that member of the French imperial aristocracy, the Civis americanus sum. As a planter, a lawyer, a traveler, and a soldier, Murat's life was full of experiences and adventures. The love of liberty which took him to the new world recalled him to Europe, a few years after his meeting with Emerson, as a colonel in a regiment of Belgian lancers. The jealous fears of the Holy Alliance forced him to resign. He lived in England for a while, then came back to the United States, where the Seminoles brought him again to the warpath. In 1825, he greeted Lafayette in America, and through his friendship met a grandniece of Washington, whom he afterward married. He died in 1847, and was buried at Tallahassee. Murat was one of the first, since the days of Saint John Crêvecoeur, the author of the Letters of an American Farmer, to relate his impressions of America for the French public. In 1828, the year after he met Emerson, he addressed to his friend Count Thibeaudeau, who thought of following Murat to this country, some Lettres d'un citoyen des Etats-Unis à un de ses amis d'Europe. This series of ten letters became in 1832 the Esquisse morale et politique des Etats-Unis de l'Amérique du Nord. The book was translated into English in 1849 by Henry J. Bradfield, a former officer under Murat in the regiment of Belgian lancers. It was dedicated to King Leopold, of Belgium, under the title America and the Americans. An enthusiastic American citizen by adoption, by birth an aristocrat, by tradition a "philosophe," Murat is the worthy initiator of a long series of French writings on the United States from Tocqueville to Paul Bourget and after. His book is inscribed to Count Thibeaudeau. It begins with a clear-cut comparison of the European and American forms of government. Since the days of the Renaissance, Europe has been looking for a form of government similar to that which America offers. Europe has been misled into seeking a metaphysical notion of liberty, while liberty in the practical sense is found only in the United States. "At the present epoch, the American Union affords us the best model of Government." It is self government, in which "all is rational, and open to the comprehension of the simplest mind. What alone surprises me," writes Murat, "is, that the nations of Europe are not governed by the same principles." Murat knows his subject; different from "superficial" travelers, he has lived nine years in this country, has married here, has traveled much and held official position. (Prince Murat acted even as a United States post-master and was proud of it.) To quote his own words: "I have become an American citizen by habit and in heart; and feel honored in bearing the title of citizen of the United States, as also in the proofs of esteem and attachment which I have everywhere experienced on the part of a people the most reasonable, and the least susceptible in the world of being dazzled and led away by appearances." Murat's book on America and the Americans is a survey of American institutions, parties, religion, arts, letters, and manners. Though much less systematic and profound than Tocqueville, Murat is a keen psychologist and a very clever observer. He evidently misses the mark when he prophesies that the United States will be an agricultural and not an industrial nation, a prejudice natural to a Southern planter in those days. On the other hand, his chapters on the settlements in the West, and on pioneer life, are of great interest both for description and insight. Murat's United States are most concrete. He does not present them in globo, but keeps to each region its specific character. Here are his views of New England: The six states of New England are what the rest of the Union calls "Yankees," a term which the English very erroneously, and more from ignorance, apply to all Americans without distinction. . . . . The character of their people in general is remarkable, and distinct from every other on earth. The most gigantic enterprises daunt them not; argument as to the consequence disheartens them not, while they are characterized by a spirit truly sui generis. These men appear born for calculation from the uttermost cent and rising progressively up to millions, without losing one particle of exactitude and ordinary insight. They are eager to amass wealth and will frankly confess like Petit-Jean (in Racine's comedy of The Pleaders): "Que sans argent l'honneur n'est qu'une maladie." ("Without money honour is a disease.") |