John Trumbull was by no means a great man.

Second-rate in everything he did, except in the his
lovely little historical scenes, Trumbull blundered his
way through life, wishing for greatness, clinging desperately
to relationships with greater men in the hope that he might
shine in reflection. But he was somehow twisted; there was
a flaw in him somewhere. And the light he reflects is dull.

Poor man, he had not a hint of humor in him. There
were only two jokes in the whole course of his life, and one
of them was not of his making. The first came in 1828, when
he anticipated an expected challenge from John Randolph with
a refusal, saying that there could be no reciprocity in a duel
between a fat man and a thin man. The other, much the better
joke, was on Yale. In 1831, when Trumbull was seventy-five
years old, the college entered into an agreement with him,
stipulating that in return for most of his pictures, they would
pay him annually one thousand dollars. Of course Yale thought
it a good bargain, for Trumbull could not possibly weather
many more months; but with a worthy tenacity he collected his
annuity for eleven years! His lack of humor not only kept
Trumbull from being an amusing man: it precluded his warding
off the bars of life.

It would take close examination to find, any more
than humor, individuality in Trumbull. His thoughts, curse
them, are all second-hand, and even his paintings, his great
paintings, are in direct line of descent from West's
historical works. He says, in his letters, exactly what you

expect him to say. Son of a not-too-successful New England
merchant, he is a true Yankee: conservative, hand on packet-
book, suspicious, mind on honour, and ambitious, eyes on a
comet. But withal Trumbull was sadly impractical, almost always
in debt, invariably unsuccessful in money-making ventures.

Perhaps his faults had their basis in physical
weakness. Certainly his defects in painting are directly
attributable to the loss of clear vision in his left eye. He
was often sick, often melancholy, often frightened. Perhaps
a fundamental psychic weakness (though I profess to no
knowledge in this realm) was indicated in infant symptoms,
though Dr. Cushing is inclined to suspect mistakes in nutrition.
But he could not, of course, have lived to a much riper age
than eighty-six.

Trumbull was by no means a great man. The few
paintings that are true gems do not warrant a biography of
the man. His inaccurate, romanticized *Autobiography* is more
than he deserves.

What a conclusion to come to at the end of a year's
work!

Yet I would not trade my experience for that of
any History Honors student I have talked with.

Though I may not have accumulated as much soon-to-
be-forgotten knowledge as I would have in more orthodox
channels, I am sure I have learned as much or more: for
both practical and recreational purposes, infinitely more.
I have learned, in the first place, method, and though my
learning has taken perforce a purely hit-or-miss route, I
believe I finally hit, shortly after Christmas, and I now
know excatly how I shall proceed on every fresh problem of

investigation. I have learned, secondly, what I want to do
in life; this item alone would justify my exertion of energy!
I have learned, in the third place, so much about myself, and,
through John Trumbull, so much about man that I feel ready,
nay eager, to face the world.

If I had followed the pack, I would be handing in
at this time a much more readable essay, I am sure, a
compendium of brilliant passages from several books by other
men. But I have read from the book of a life. I would not
trade my experience.

—-

My subjective experience, bad to say, is not
reducible to the medium of black marks on paper: nor even to
that of words. But I must have something to show.

I have begun, then, with Trumbull's departure
to fight in the American Revolution, and have ended with his
final crossing of the Atlantic in 1815. This, though less than
half his life, overs the span of his active correspondence on
current affairs. I have included only such letters concerning
Trumbull's personal experience as represent a manifest comment
on his times.

I regret that the mechanical process of culling these
exerpts from the mass of his letters took so much time. I have
thrown them together with as much continuity as possible, but
have inevitably included in the running account, all of which
is derived either from Trumbull's letters and *Autobiography*
of from volumes of general knowledge (including all the history
text-books I have used at Yale), somewhat that seems extraneous,
irrelevant. And yet I included these things in the belief that
they had bearing either on the time or on the man's makeup.