GOBINEAU TO TREE

Since our talk at Christiana I have read All you referred me to concerning Lincoln: His speeches and the story of the struggle Which ended in your war, not civil really But waged between two nations—but no matter! To me whose life is closing, and whose life Was spent in struggle, much of misery, In friendship with De Tocqueville then at odds With him and his philosophy, who knew Bismarck, who saw the wars of Europe, saw Great men come up and fall, and systems change, Who probed into the Renaissance and mastered Religions and philosophies and wrote Concerning racial inequalities— To me I say this crisis of your time And country seems remote as it might be Almost in far Australia, trivial In substance and effect, or world result. And now your letter and these documents Concerning Douglas yield but scanty gold. Perhaps I’ve reached an age where I cannot Digest new matter, or resolve its worth, Extract its bearing and significance. But since you ask me I am writing you What I’ve arrived at. From the photographs And the descriptions of your Illinois, Where Lincoln spent his youth, I almost sicken: Small muddy rivers flanked by bottom lands So fat of fertile stuff the grossest weeds Thrive thriftier than in Egypt, round their roots Repulsive serpents crawl, the air is full Of loathsome insects, and along these banks An agued people live who have no life Except hard toil, whose pleasures are the dance Where violent liquor takes the gun or knife; Who have no inspiration save the orgy Of the religious meeting, where the cult Of savage dreams is almost theirs. The towns Places of filth, of maddening quietude; Streets mired with mud, board sidewalks where the men, Like chickens with the cholera, stand and squeak Foul or half-idiot things; near by the churches, Mere arch-ways to the grave-yard. Nothing here Of conscious plan to lift the spirit up. All is defeat of liberty in spite Of certain strong men, certain splendid breeds, The pioneers who made your state; no beauty Save as a soul delves in a master book. And out of this your Lincoln came, not poor As Burns was in a land of storied towers, But poor as a degenerate breed is poor Sunk down in squalor. Yet he seems a man Of master qualities. The muddy streets, And melancholy of a pastoral town, And sights of people sick, the stifling weeds Which grew about him left his spirit clean, Save for an ache that all his youth was spent In such surroundings. And observe the man! Do poverty and life among such people Make him a libertarian? Let us see. At twenty years he is a centralist, Stands for the bank which Andrew Jackson fought, And lauds protection, thinks of Washington Much more than Springfield. That is right I say— But call him not a democrat. Look here! This master book of Stephens which you sent me Accuses Lincoln of imperial deeds, And breach of laws, and rightly so, in truth. That makes me love him, but the end he sought Is something else. At first that was the Union, Straight through it was the Union, but at last The strain of Christian softness always his Which filled him full of hate for slavery Cropped out in freedom for your negro slaves, Which was an act of war, and so confessed, Not propped by law, but only by a will. Thus he became a man who broke all law To have his law. He killed a million men For what he called the Union, what he thought Was truth of Christian brotherhood. I say He killed a million men, for it is true Your war had never come, had he believed All government must rest in men’s consent. What have we but a soul imperial? A brother to me, standing for the strong, For master races, blindly at the work Of biologic mount? The cells of him That make him saint for radicals and dreamers Are but somatic, but the sperm of him Will propagate great rulers. See his face! Its tragic pathos fools the idealist— But study it. First, then, observe the eyes, And tell me how within their gaze events Or men could lose their true proportions! Here No visions swarm, no dreams with flashing wings Throw light upon them. No, they only look Across a boundless prairie, that is all. And in that brow and nose we see a strength Slow, steady, wary, cautious—why this man Is your conservative, perhaps your best, Which is one reason why he loved the Union, And even said at last that government Of the people meant the Union—how absurd!— Would perish, if it perished, clearly false! And if ’twere true would be the better. Read My Renaissance, and other books, you’ll see How I’d protect the master spirits, keep The master races pure; how I detest The brotherhood of man, how I have shown The falseness of these Galilean dreams, These syrups strained in secret, used to drug The strong and make them equal with the weak. Such things are of the mind which weaves in space,— A penalty of thought. Come back to earth, Live close to nature. Do not sap a rose To nourish cabbages, and call it truth! Well, then, your negro’s freed! But what of that? You do not want him for a friend or spouse. I would not see him whipped, or made a bond. But tell me what you’re thinking of who say His freedom is a gain for liberty? To buy men’s labor is to buy their bodies. Your country now has entered on a course Of buying labor, wait and see what comes! I see processions filing through your land. They carry banners bearing Lincoln’s face. And there are hordes who think the kingdom’s coming: As Lincoln freed the slaves, one will arise To free all men! The signs before the war Are come again, portentous stars appear Which prophesied the war! All revolutions Are so announced, the world is rising higher Through ordered revolutions, preordained! Well, certain men look at these mad processions From well-protected windows, with a smile— They are your millionaires, they think they know The soul of Lincoln better than the crowds That carry banners with his picture on them. Yes, all they have they owe to Lincoln, they Grew strong through Lincoln. But are you content To have your negroes free, and millionaires In mastership of your republic? Where Are men to overlord your millionaires? You know Out of the eater comes forth meat, who will Exhaust the strength of those whose strength was gained From blood of boys shed on the battle field? What can you do to have a Renaissance That with a terrible light will drive to covert Owls, bats, and mousing hawks, that neither know What life is, whence they come, nor what they are, Who live by superstition, codes of slaves, Fear truth, are weak, and only hunger know— You must have such a Renaissance or die While slipping smugly, self sufficiently Along a way unvisioned, while you play The hypocrite as it was never played In any place, in any time on earth! These things I see. But let me in conclusion Point to your Lincoln as a man who makes For power and beauty in your country, call it Republic if you will, the name is nothing. I say the vitalest force is love, not hate. I say that all great souls are lovers, but of what? Why, what great Goethe loved! Your master men Should learn of Goethe, hold the crowd through him. And Lincoln was a lover, but of what? Well not the cesspool of the black man’s slavery. He loved the mathematics of high truths, And heightened spirituality, that’s the reason Only a man like me can know him, that’s The reason that your crude American thought Misses the man.