Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-06-01
THE DEATH OF J. LOTHROP MOTLEY

S'-O
NOUS for his relations to the diplomatic ser
vice of the United States, died Of a stroke OF
paralysis at Kingston House, Dorsetshlre, on
Tuesday. Here was a scholar who did some
excellent searching in his time, and some m
dustrious reporting and collation. of old facts.
Somebody once said, rather complacently, if
not supercilhously, that Dickens very
good reporter. Analyse the averment and
one reaches the solid truth No doubt Dick
ens's splendid success was largely the result
of the fulness and faithfulness of his notes.
He was an almost unequaled observer and
he never forgot to sketch his impressions.
Horace Greeley used constantly, to dot down
his ideas as they struck him, day and night.
When he wrote he enlarged his sketches. 4
historian is d record searcher. Some record
searchers get at their work to find the history
of conveyances and wills and such like. A
history writer has less of individualistic pur
pose. He makes up a case relating to whole
people and not mere limited clientaTe.
Motley was exceedingly faithful at this work.
His novels were failures. Nobody knows
anything about them. They are as little
known as the works of the obscurest of men
Captain Ingraham and Sylvanus Cobb have
found more readers and better recollection Of
their work, III the romance line, than Motley.
Some foolish friends of the dead historian,
Sumner, notably at the head, urged Motley
on Grant for the office of Minister to Eng
land He represented New England culture
they said We thinl, he did represent a too
large class of the cultured men of the New
England States There is a good deal Of the
savage left in all broad shouldered men. 1t
is the animal part asserting itself. In robus-
tious communities these physical proportions
hold their own. England for example.
There is too much danger of the upper hand
of the pusillanimous III strictly New Eng
land college breeding. Harvard puts brawny
men who are encumbered with shy self
doubling out of conceit of themselves. Mot
ley got saturated with this arrogant unmanli-
ness of Harvard scholarship. He had no more
business in England as the representative of
the brusque life and temper and purpose of
American citizenship than any other dllet-
NtlSDCSA'"'SN'
scholarship with anything endurable in the
every day life of his countrymen. So he lis
tened to that colossal snob, Sumner, and
paid no attention to the State Department.
He was recalled for sort of supercillious
mutiny against Grant and Fish. He ven
tured into politics with pair of tongs He
thought it well enough to get himself a
place near the palaces and the peerage of Eng |
land, but he had sickly distaste for touch |
ing his work with his bare hand. He thought |
it would befoul the dehcacy of his DER nice |
scholarship. SO Grant quietly set him one
side and put stout Bob Schenck with his
practical, unethereal heartiness and virility-
greatly acceptable to the English-in his
place. The diplomatic service, which permits
even the snubbing of ones countlymen, and
the apish disregard of homespun democracies,
in the interests of society, is as thn-skinned
as any fop over any practical uses of the dip
lomatic place; and so, because Schenck let
his name get associated with a mining ven
ture which the Lombard street sharpers
wanted to bear" he was bowed out, and
queyism was injected into his place We sup
pose that blunt old Grant said to himself,
- well, if you must have manikin and not a
man, take the best American specimen of the
political dandy, - Edwards Pierrepont.
Motley was our elegant and accomplished
scholar He is entitled to be so regarded,
and will doubtless rank high. But there is
solid substantial manhood which bookishness /
does nothing with but weave into the warp :
and wool of literature. The manhood which j
makes history is stronger than the scholarship I
which seeks to photograph it. Napoleon and a
not Madame Junot Cromwell and not Car
lyle Grant and not his biographer make the +
great events in whose recording letters and c
words and historians are useful. 1t is because b
MIR. Motley discovered not pleasant DISPOSE =
ion to set himself above the fullest actors in :,
he great events of his country that lesser o
men, resenting his attitude, are half inclined C.
o do themselves the injustice of also resent u
NC his fame. He was splendid scholar, a .
most useful worker and thorough devotee 81
% his own high chosen calling.
OF the death warrant of Crozier, the muir a
lerer of Montana Charley, the Silver State of d
Wednesday says
The death warrant of r Fl Crozier sirnad