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Daniel Webster. Henry Cabot Lodge
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Автор произведения Henry Cabot Lodge
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
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The first thing to be done was to gain admittance to some good office. Mr. Webster was lucky enough to obtain an introduction to Mr. Gore, with whom, as with the rest of the world, that wonderful look and manner, apparent even then, through boyishness and rusticity, stood him in good stead. Mr. Gore questioned him, trusted him, and told him to hang up his hat, begin work as clerk at once, and write to New Hampshire for his credentials. The position thus obtained was one of fortune's best gifts to Mr. Webster. It not only gave him an opportunity for a wide study of the law under wise supervision, but it brought him into daily contact with a trained barrister and an experienced public man. Christopher Gore, one of the most eminent members of the Boston bar and a distinguished statesman, had just returned from England, whither he had been sent as one of the commissioners appointed under the Jay treaty. He was a fine type of the aristocratic Federalist leader, one of the most prominent of that little group which from the "headquarters of good principles" in Boston so long controlled the politics of Massachusetts. He was a scholar, gentleman, and man of the world, and his portrait shows us a refined, high-bred face, suggesting a French marquis of the eighteenth century rather than the son of a New England sea-captain. A few years later, Mr. Gore was chosen governor of Massachusetts, and defeated when a candidate for reëlection, largely, it is supposed, because he rode in a coach and four (to which rumor added outriders) whenever he went to his estate at Waltham. This mode of travel offended the sensibilities of his democratic constituents, but did not prevent his being subsequently chosen to the Senate of the United States, where he served a term with much distinction. The society of such a man was invaluable to Mr. Webster at this time. It taught him many things which he could have learned in no other way, and appealed to that strong taste for everything dignified and refined which was so marked a trait of his disposition and habits. He saw now the real possibilities which he had dreamed of in his native village; and while he studied law deeply and helped his brother with his school, he also studied men still more thoroughly and curiously. The professional associates and friends of Mr. Gore were the leaders of the Boston bar when it had many distinguished men whose names hold high places in the history of American law. Among them were Theophilus Parsons, Chief Justice of Massachusetts; Samuel Dexter, the ablest of them all, fresh from service in Congress and the Senate and as Secretary of the Treasury; Harrison Gray Otis, fluent and graceful as an orator; James Sullivan, and Daniel Davis, the Solicitor-General. All these and many more Mr. Webster saw and watched, and he has left in his diary discriminating sketches of Parsons and Dexter, whom he greatly admired, and of Sullivan, of whom he had a poor opinion professionally.
Towards the end of the year 1804, while Mr. Webster was thus pleasantly engaged in studying his profession, getting a glimpse of the world, and now and then earning a little money, an opening came to him which seemed to promise immediate and assured prosperity. The judges of his father's court of common pleas offered him the vacant clerkship, worth about fifteen hundred dollars annually. This was wealth to Mr. Webster. With this income he could relieve the family from debt, make his father's last years comfortable, and smooth Ezekiel's path to the bar. When, however, he announced his good luck to Mr. Gore, and his intention of immediately going home to accept the position, that gentleman, to Mr. Webster's great surprise, strongly urged a contrary course. He pointed out the possible reduction of the salary, the fact that the office depended on the favor of the judges, and, above all, that it led to nothing, and destroyed the chances of any really great career. This wise mentor said: "Go on and finish your studies. You are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty; live on no man's favor; what bread you do eat, let it be the bread of independence; pursue your profession, make yourself useful to your friends and a little formidable to your enemies, and you have nothing to fear." Mr. Webster, always susceptible to outside influences, saw the wisdom of this advice, and accepted it. It would have been well if he had never swerved even by a hair's breadth from the high and sound principles which it inculcated. He acted then without delay. Going at once to Salisbury, he broke the news of his unlooked-for determination to his father, who was utterly amazed. Pride in his son's high spirit mingled somewhat with disappointment at the prospect of continued hardships; but the brave old man accepted the decision with the Puritan stoicism which was so marked a trait in his character, and the matter ended there.
Returning to Boston, Mr. Webster was admitted to the bar in March, 1805. Mr. Gore moved his admission, and, in the customary speech, prophesied his student's future eminence with a sure knowledge of the latent powers which had dictated his own advice in the matter of the clerkship. Soon after this, Mr. Webster returned to New Hampshire and opened his office in the little town of Boscawen, in order that he might be near his father. Here he devoted himself assiduously to business and study for more than two years, working at his profession, and occasionally writing articles for the "Boston Anthology." During this time he made his first appearance in court, his father being on the bench. He gathered together a practice worth five or six hundred a year, a very creditable sum for a young country practitioner, and won a reputation which made him known in the State.
In April, 1806, after a noble, toiling, unselfish life of sixty-seven years, Ebenezer Webster died. Daniel assumed his father's debts, waited until Ezekiel was admitted to the bar, and then, transferring his business to his brother, moved, in the autumn of 1807, to Portsmouth. This was the principal town of the State, and offered, therefore, the larger field which he felt he needed to give his talents sufficient scope. Thus the first period in his life closed, and he started out on the extended and distinguished career which lay before him. These early years had been years of hardship, but they were among the best of his life. Through great difficulties and by the self-sacrifice of his family, he had made his way to the threshold of the career for which he was so richly endowed. He had passed an unblemished youth; he had led a clean, honest, hard-working life; he was simple, manly, affectionate. Poverty had been a misfortune, not because it had warped or soured him, for he smiled at it with cheerful philosophy, nor because it had made him avaricious, for he never either then or at any time cared for money for its own sake, and nothing could chill the natural lavishness of his disposition. But poverty accustomed him to borrowing and to debt, and this was a misfortune to a man of Mr. Webster's temperament. In those early days he was anxious to pay his debts; but they did not lie heavy upon him or carry a proper sense of responsibility, as they did to Ezekiel and to his father. He was deeply in debt; his books, even, were bought with borrowed money, all which was natural and inevitable; but the trouble was that it never seems to have weighed upon him or been felt by him as of much importance. He was thus early brought into the habit of debt, and was led unconsciously to regard debts and borrowing as he did the sacrifices of others, as the normal modes of existence. Such a condition was to be deplored, because it fostered an unfortunate tendency in his moral nature. With this exception, Mr. Webster's early years present a bright picture, and one which any man had a right to regard with pride and affection.
CHAPTER II.
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
The occasion of Mr. Webster's first appearance in court has been the subject of varying tradition. It is certain, however, that in the counties where he practised during his residence at Boscawen, he made an unusual and very profound impression. The effect then produced is described in homely phrase by one who knew him well. The reference is to a murder trial, in which Mr. Webster gained his first celebrity.
"There was a man tried for his life, and the judges chose Webster to plead for him; and, from what I can learn, he never has spoken better than he did there where he first began. He was a black, raven-haired fellow, with an eye as black as death's, and as heavy as a lion's,—that same heavy look, not sleepy, but as if he didn't care about anything that was going on about him or anything anywhere else. He didn't look as if he was thinking about anything, but as if he would think like a hurricane if he once got waked up to it. They say the lion looks so when he is quiet…. Webster would sometimes be engaged to argue a case just as it was coming to trial. That would set him to thinking. It wouldn't wrinkle his forehead, but made him restless. He would shift his feet about, and run his hand up over his forehead, through his Indian-black hair, and lift his upper lip and show his teeth, which were as