Napoleon plays whist

‘Since General Buonaparte’s arrival at St Helena I have been so occupied that I have seen but little of him. . . but in the evenings I understand he has regularly invited himself to join the family party in the house, where he plays at whist with the ladies.’ This is from a diary kept by Sir George Cockburn while he was in charge of Napoleon, in transit to, and residing on, the island of St Helena. Apart from such daily details, the diary is also full of Napoleon’s recollections of various military campaigns. Cockburn, born 250 years ago today, was a highly successul British sailor who rose through the ranks to become Admiral of the Fleet and First Naval Lord.

Cockburn was born on 22 April 1772 in London, the second son of Sir James Cockburn and his second wife Augusta Anne Ayscough. Educated at schools in Marylebone and Margate, he also attended the Royal Navigational School in London. Aged 14, he went to sea, and rose rapidly in the Royal Navy, being promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1793. He was appointed to the Victory, Lord Hood’s flagship off Toulon, and then to the sloop Speedy, the frigate Meleager under the orders of Captain Nelson, and to the Minerve, a large frigate captured from the French, which was later present at the battle of Cape St Vincent.

In 1803, Cockburn was appointed to the Phaeton, which he commanded for two years in the East Indies, and to the Captain, then to the Pompée, which took him to the West Indies. After taking part in the capture of Flushing in 1809 (part of the otherwise disastrous landing of British forces in the Low Countries), he returned to Britain, and married his cousin Mary Cockburn with whom he had one daughter.

Further promotion to rear-admiral followed Cockburn’s service on the Indefatigable around Spain. In 1814, on the Marlborough he battled against the American militia, cruising along the Chesapeake Bay to seize shipping and raid ports. In 1815, he was summoned back to Europe and given the task of escorting Napoleon, who had been defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, to St Helena. Cockburn remained there for some months as island governor before being relieved. Napoleon, though, would remain confined there until his death in 1821.

Cockburn was first elected as a Tory MP in 1818, and remained an MP for different constituencies until 1847 with one long gap in the 1830s. He was knighted in 1815, and elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1820. He served two terms as First Naval Lord (1833-1836 and 1841-1846) and as Commander-in-Chief, North America and West Indies Station between 1832 and 1836. He was appointed a full admiral in 1837. In 1852, he inherited the family baronetcy from his elder brother, before dying a year later. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, The History of Parliament, or the book, Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition by Roger Morriss, which can be partially read at Googlebooks.

There is no evidence that Cockburn regularly kept a diary, but he did keep one for a short period while charged with transporting and looking after the prisoner, Napoléon Bonaparte. A first edition appeared in the US in 1833 (published by Lilly, Wait, Colman and Holden) compiled from the original manuscript in the handwriting of Cockburn’s private secretary. This was titled Buonaparte’s Voyage to St Helena; comprising the diary of Rear Admiral Sir G Cockburn, during his passage from England to St Helena, in 1815.

In the book’s preface, the publishers explain: ‘There is another copy of this manuscript in existence, which was, at one period, in the course of publication in England, but considerations, which may be obviously inferred from the character of the production itself, then led to its suppression, and must continue to prevent its appearance from that quarter.’

Indeed, it was not until 50 years later, in 1888, that Cockburn’s journal was published in the UK (by Simpkin, Marshall & Co.) as Extract from a Diary of Rear-Admiral Sir George Cockburn with particular reference to Gen. Napoleon Buonaparte on Passage from England to St Helena, in 1815 on board HMS “Northumberland”.

This version’s preface says: ‘The manuscript, from which this “Extract” has been printed, was found, in his own hand-writing, among the papers of my late father; attached to it being a note, also in his own handwriting, to the effect that it is a reproduction of a copy found at St Helena, in 1824 or 25, among the effects of one who had held an official position as Admiral’s Secretary or Captain’s Clerk on board the “Northumberland” on her voyage to St Helena, where he died, and who had no doubt made it as a matter of pardonable curiosity and satisfaction for himself; and it is now published in the belief that it’s intrinsic interest, as closing a gap in the later career of the great soldier, will be deemed sufficient excuse for it’s seeing the light.’

Both the earlier US edition and the later UK edition are freely available at Internet Archive. Here are two extracts from the start and end of the diary.

7 August 1815
‘On reaching the deck [Buonaparte] said to me, “Here I am, Admiral, at your orders!” He then asked to be introduced to the Captain, then asked the names of the different officers and gentlemen upon deck, asked them in what countries they were born and other questions of such trifling import, and he then went into the cabin with Lord Keith and myself, followed by some of his own people. After I had shown him the cabin I had appropriated for his exclusive use and requested him to sit down in the great cabin, he begged me to cause the Lieutenant of the ship to be introduced to him; as, however, at this time his own followers came to take leave of him, I thought it best to leave him for a little while to himself, and I found soon afterwards advantage was taken of this for him to assume exclusive right to the after, or great cabin. When I therefore had finished my letters I went into it again with some of my officers and desired M. de Bertrand to explain to him that the after cabin must be considered as common to us all, and that the sleeping cabin I had appropriated to him could alone be considered as exclusively his. He received this intimation with submission and good humour and soon afterwards went on deck, where he chatted loosely and good-naturedly with everybody.

At dinner he ate heartily of almost every dish, praised everything and seemed most perfectly contented and reconciled to his fate. He talked with me during dinner much on his Russian Campaign, said he meant only to have refreshed his troops at Moscow for four or five days and then to have marched for Petersburg, but the destruction of Moscow subverted all his projects, and he said nothing could have been more horrible than was that campaign; that for several days together it appeared to him as if he were marching through a sea of fire owing to the constant succession of villages in flames which arose in every direction as far as his eye could reach; that this had been by some attributed to his troops but that it was always done by the natives. Many of his soldiers however, he said, lost their lives by endeavouring to pillage in the midst of the flames. He spoke much of the cold during their disastrous retreat, and stated that one night, after he had quitted the army to return to Paris, an entire half of his Guard were frozen to death.

He also told me in the course of this evening that previous to his going to Elba he had made preparations for having a Navy of 100 sail of the line; that he had established a conscription for the Navy, and that the Toulon Fleet was entirely manned and brought forward by people of this description; that he ordered them positively to get under weigh and manoeuvre every day the weather would permit of it, and to stand out occasionally and to exchange long shots with our ships; that this had been much remonstrated against by those about him and had cost him at first a good deal of money to repair the accidents that occurred from the want of maritime knowledge, such as from the ships getting aboard of each other, splitting their sails, springing their masts, &c., but he found that even these accidents tended to improve the crews and therefore he continued to pay his money and oblige them to continue to exercise. He said he had built his ships at Antwerp in rather too great a hurry, but he spoke highly in praise of the port and said he had already given orders for a similar establishment to have been formed on the Elbe; and had fortune not turned against him he hoped to have sooner or later given us some trouble, even on the seas. He stated that the reason he had over-hurried the ships at Antwerp, before mentioned, was because he was anxious to press forward an expedition from thence against Ireland.

After taking his wine and coffee he took a short walk on deck and afteryards proposed a round game at cards; in compliance with which we played at vingt-un until about half-past ten, won from him about seven or eight napoleons, and he then retired to his bedroom, apparently as much at his ease as if he had belonged to the ship all his life. I afterwards disposed of his whole party for the night, though not without some difficulty; the ladies with their families making it necessary I should provide them with adequate room and accommodation, and yet each other person of the suite asking for and expecting a separate cabin to sleep in and in which to put their things.’

22 October 1815
‘Since General Buonaparte’s arrival at St Helena I have been so occupied that I have seen but little of him. I went with him, however, one day to Longwood, and he seemed tolerably satisfied with it, though with his attendants he has since been complaining a good deal; and having stated to me that he could not bear the crowds which gathered to see him in the town, he has, at his own request been permitted to take up his residence (until Longwood should be completed) at a small house called the Briars, where there is a pretty good garden, and a tolerably large room, detached from the house, of which he has taken possession, and in which and the garden he remains almost all day; but in the evenings I understand he has regularly invited himself to join the family party in the house, where he plays at whist with the ladies of the family for sugar-plums until his usual hour of retiring for the night.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 22 April 2012.

Our spirits were overflowing

‘Yesterday was one of the happiest I have ever passed. It was a yachting party. I love the water, the day was perfect, the people were nice, the race was sufficiently interesting, the lunch was delicious, our spirits were overflowing.’ This is from the vivacious diaries of a teenage Gertrude Vanderbilt. She was an American heiress who would go on to become an important sculptor and art patron. She died  80 years ago today, but a decade or so earlier had founded the now-famous Whitney Museum of American Art.

Vanderbilt was born in 1875 in New York City, into a rich familywith a large house on Fifth Avenue. Her great-grandfather was Cornelius Vanderbilt, a very wealthy railroad and shipping magnate. She was educated by private tutors and at the exclusive Brearley School, spending summers in Newport, Rhode Island, at the family summer home. From an early age she drew and painted, but after her marriage in 1896 to Harry Payne Whitney (with whom she had  three children), she began to pursue sculpture seriously. She studied in New York and in Paris, and began to focus on large-scale public works. 

Whitney’s first public commission was Aspiration, a life-size male nude in plaster, which appeared outside the New York State Building in 1901. Although initially she produced work under an assumed name, by 1907 she had opened a studio in Greenwich Village, and the following year she won her first prize, for a sculpture entitled Pan. Paganisme Immortel was shown at the 1910 National Academy of Design, Spanish Peasant was accepted at the Paris Salon in 1911, and Aztec Fountain was awarded a bronze medal in 1915 at the San Francisco Exhibition. She opened her first solo show in New York City in 1916. In parallel with her artistic career, she also became a major patron of the arts, promoting the advancement of women in the arts, and organising exhibitions for promising artists. As early as 1914, she had organised her first charity exhibition, the 50-50 Art Sale.

During the First World War, Whitney dedicated a great deal of her time and money to various relief efforts, establishing and maintaining a fully operational hospital for wounded soldiers in Juilly, outside Paris. While there, she made drawings of the soldiers and these evolved into plans for her post-war memorials in New York City. She also completed a series of smaller pieces realistically depicting soldiers in wartime. These smaller works were not seen as particularly significant during her lifetime, only  recently have critics rated them more highly. During the 1920s her works received  critical acclaim both in Europe and the US, particularly her monumental works. Her major and lasting accomplishment, though, was the founding, with her husband, of the Whitney Museum for American Art in 1930. She died on 18 April 1942.  See Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica or the New Netherland Institute for further information.

Whitney kept diaries and journals of varying kinds throughout her life. These and most of her other papers have been full digitised in the Archives of American Art. The website provides this summary of the diaries : ‘[Whitney’s] personal journals range from ones she kept as a child and adolescent to ones she kept during her engagement and honeymoon to ones she kept as an adult, and include travel journals, impression books, diaries, confessions album, writing journals, and “A Line A Day” books. Personal journals record Whitney's trips abroad and time spent in Newport as a young girl, her impressions of people, her experiences with friends, her honeymoon trip to Japan, certain early writing efforts, her “thoughts relating to art, subjects for statues, composition symbols, all manner of substances which affects [her] artistic life” (from Art Journal, 1906-1907), her work with the Juilly Hospital in France during the First World War, trips to Spain in 1920 and 1928-1929, and daily events and impressions for certain periods of time.’

Here are a few extracts from her 1894-1895 diary as transcribed by volunteers.

3 August 1894.
‘Last night I dined out. After dinner Mr. Porchon talked to me. It was not quite as nice as on the piazza the surroundings were not as “agreeable, but we got on very well, laughed a lot and enjoyed ourselves generally, that is I enjoyed myself. I don’t know if he enjoyed it. I think we are getting to be very good friends. He is always impressing it on my mind that he is so old and so experienced that I have a wild desire to ask his advice in some imaginary conditions. For instance when I am alone with him the next time I will very seriously tell him that at last his plan has succeeded. He has impressed upon my mind that his grey hairs make him a fit confident for so young and inexperienced a child as myself. Will he listen to what I have to say? Yes, well then he realized that there are things one does not even like to ask ones parents, an old family friends, grey haired and care worn is just the person to apply to’

11 August 1894.
‘Yesterday was one of the happiest I have ever passed. It was a yachting party. I love the water, the day was perfect, the people were nice, the race was sufficiently interesting, the lunch was delicious, our spirits were overflowing.

We met down at the landing at 9.45. There were lots of parties given so of course a great crowd was there. Different people came up and talked and suddenly looking up who should I see in front of me but Regi Renalds. We shook hands said “howd’y do” and that was all. He did not go on the Nournahae, that was the only cloud in my sky all day. It began by being a pretty big one but dwindled down surprisingly as the day went on. To-night I dine at the Cushings Oh Joy! joy! A thousand times joy. Prepare.’

25 August 1894
‘The last week has been such a busy one that I have had to neglect you shamefully. Adele & Emily Sloane who came on the 15th left yesterday. While they were here there was always something to do and the time went by before I knew it. One amusement followed another, but what has given me most pleasure is that I feel I have gotten to know a good many people better than ever before. In the first place I know the Sloane’s themselves better, and it has done me an enormous amount of good. Then I feel now as if I were really getting on with Bobbie Sands. We have had one walk together when we talked of something besides balls etc. and if we are alone again together I am sure we will go still farther. To-night we may have a chance. I do hope so. I am dining on the Electra and so is he. I wish we would “sit” outside it would be what I most want. I would talk of himself, or rather make him talk of himself.

9 September 1894
‘Such rubbish as I have been writing! Such sentimental bosh. To-night for a little I want to think serious by about the future. If I live the chances are there will be some one who will love me only for myself. Of course I will have a good many opportunities of marrying in the next few years. A big heiress! And all that sort of think. I hope it will not effect me. I hope it will not change me for the worse but rather improve me. If I should marry people will say: “Oh for her money”. I don’t care what people say, if it is not true, but suppose it is true? What then? This will be terribly unhappy. The chances are ten to one, I would be married for my money, therefore why marry? How can you discuss it so in cold blood. Suppose you fall in love. What then? I will not fall in love except with the right man. But the right man, who is he? A rich man, a very rich man. But the rich man will he love me? Ten to one - no. What then? Why even if he were rich he would marry you to be richer. No, no, there are true, honest, good men who would not care about the money. But they would not care about me either. You will come to nothing this way, you will not get deeper and deeper. Leave it all to God, he knows what is right & best and good for you. Trust in him and all will be well. Amen.’

17 November 1894
‘When I last wrote I was not feeling at all well. On Saturday I was quite sure I was going to have typhoid fever. I had a miserable pain which had gone on getting worse for several days and was feeling altogether horribly. Sunday I still kept up but as I had not eaten a single thing (without exaggeration) and had consumed glasses of water since Thursday, Mama noticed it and asked me if I was not well. The end of it was the next morning the doctor came and said he thought I had jaundice. And as it proved to be, I was yellow and the pain kept on, and there were the other symptoms. Saturday for the first time I was allowed to get up for a little. That is today, but I have not yet been out of my room. We are going away on Tuesday if I am able, to see Alfred first and then to go to New York. It will be nice getting back for some reasons, but I am very sorry the autumn is over. If I had only not been sick this week Mo & I might have had some of the most delightful rides and walks. I am terribly disappointed about it as I was looking forward to the last week here. Mo has been so nice lately. That is he was especially nice the last time I saw him, the 8th. He was going away till Tuesday & he would have given anything to get out of it. He said how hard it was to go, not as Mo usually says things. Anyway he never says things unless he means them. And he acted as if it were really hard. Of course I said I was awfully sorry and wish he could stay etc, but at last he did say “good bye” after a very nice long talk and off he went. Saturday I received from New York a beautiful box of flowers from him, an enormous bunch of violets just like some I had seen when he was there and that Mr Stewart had sent me a few days before. He wrote in a card he wished he were in Newport & hoped I would wear the flowers, which of course I did. We had planned to ride on Tuesday but of course I could not, so I wrote & thanked him for the flowers and on Wednesday, no Thursday he sent me some more flowers and a letter. Friday he came to see me but I was still in bed. I hope today, oh I do hope I can see him.’

A man with qualities

The Austrian author, Robert Musil, died 80 years ago today. His most famous work and one of the masterpieces of 20th century European literature - The Man Without Qualities - preoccupied him for much of the latter part of his life, but even so was never completed. He was an inveterate keeper of notebooks, only a few of which, though, read like conventional diaries.

Musil was born in Klagenfurt, Austria, in 1880, the only son of an engineering professor. He studied at a military academy and then moved to Vienna university where his father taught. Later in his 20s, though, he went to study philosophy and psychology in Berlin. His first novel, published in 1906 (later translated as Confusions of Young Torless), was a great success.

In 1911, Musil married Martha Marcovaldi, an older Jewish woman who had already been married and had children. From that same year until 1914 he worked as a librarian in Vienna. During the war he served in the Austrian army. After being hospitalised in 1916, he edited an army newspaper, and, subsequently, worked in the defence ministry until he was made redundant in the 1920s. Thereafter, he became a full-time writer, achieving some success with plays.

While trying to write what he hoped would become his masterpiece, The Man Without Qualities, Musil fell into financial difficulties; and, in 1929, he suffered a mental breakdown. The first parts of Qualities were published in the early 1930s (but not in English until the late 1950s and early 1960s). He moved again to Berlin in the early 1930s, and then back to Vienna. In 1938, he and his wife fled to Switzerland, where they settled in Geneva. He died on 15 April 1942. For further biographical information see Wikipedia, New World Encyclopedia, or Jerry van Beers’ website on Musil.

Musil kept notebooks for much of his life, but most of these are not recognisably diaries. They were first edited by Adolf Frisé and published in their original German in the early 1980s by Rowohlt (Hamburg). An English translation by Philip Payne followed in 1998 (Basic Books, New York) entitled simply Diaries, 1899-1941.

The chapters in the published book relate to individual notebooks kept by Musil, the highest numbered one being 35 - but there are not 35 notebooks included in Diaries, nor are they all in numerical order. Furthermore, the notebooks rarely reveal material that looks or reads like a conventional diary. There are some dated entries in some of the notebooks, but, for the most part, the contents resemble a writer’s notes not a diary. According to Mark Mirsky, who wrote an introduction for the English edition, the diaries are ‘angry, at times pathetic, but always thinking, aware, vulnerable’ and, through them, thus, ‘Musil lets us approach him’.

November 1913.
‘Waiting: I look at my work. It is motionless; as if of stone. Not without meaning, but the sentences do not move. I have two hours, in round terms, before I can leave. Every fifth minute I look at the clock; it is always less, not than I had estimated but than I hope - as if by some miracle - it will be. I see for the first time the furniture in my room standing quietly there. This way is different from the way one sees five points as a five in a game of cards. The table, the two chairs, the sofa, the cupboard. This is what it must be like for people without ideas when their day’s work is done. An excess of joyful expectation rises in me. An excess of joy like the end of the day on 24 December before everything gets under way.

Someone is whistling on the street, someone says something, goes on by. Many sounds come at the same moment; someone is speaking, in the upper storey someone is playing the piano; the telephone is ringing. (While I write this down, time tears past.)’

2 April 1905
‘Today I’m beginning a diary; I do not usually keep one but I feel a distinct need to do so now. After four years of diffusion it will give me the opportunity to find that line of spiritual development again that I consider to be properly mine. . . I shall try to carry forward into it “banners from a battle that has never been fought.” Thoughts from that time of great upheaval are to be re-examined, sorted through and developed. One or other of my scattered notes is to be taken up in this process but only when it captures my attention again.’

6 January 1930
‘Since the start of the year I’ve been wanting to write things down. Aim: to record how my 50th year of life turns out! But also, in a quite aimless fashion, to record facts. I have become too abstract and would like to use this method to help me retrain as a narrator by paying attention to the circumstances of everyday life.’

8 February 1930
‘Art has to have an immediate effect! This is one of the most dangerous prejudices. Yet it remains a goal that one constantly tries to achieve. After all, it wouldn’t be difficult to analyze what is required of something to have an immediate effect. The most difficult thing about this is somewhat like a meeting. The immediate impression that some people give is that of peace, sublimity, etc., and this is what is demanded of art. People want to be won over from the very first word, etc. This is not completely unjustified but leads to neglect of books that are demonic, Titanic, (unpleasant) and so forth.’

9 March 1930
‘Yesterday evening I had the following train of thought: I’m correcting a passage in the proofs, get stuck, and note down around 5 variants, none of which pleases me. After a walk, the whole thing - which has already upset me - seems a matter of no consequence, and I feel I’ll probably find the right course without difficulty. The same experience, writ large, when one sets aside a completed piece of work for a few weeks. It is evident that one then looks down upon the work, as it were, from on high. What is the psychological significance of this?

In emotional terms, it means freedom from ambivalence. One had started to be uncertain, beset with a host of little vacillations that eventually made a disproportionate impression - very similar to hesitating for too long before going along a dangerous path. One has, so to speak, subjected the situation to emotional overload. One frees oneself by renouncing the situation?

But it appears that an intellectual process takes effect in the same sort of way. An insight that eluded one in the course of the day may come during the night; or, generally, the way a reflection “sits itself down and sorts itself out.” This even seems to be something physiological, for the same thing happens when one learns new movements. In other words switch the brain to a state of rest; introduce spells of relaxation according to the Kogerer method; take one’s mind off things? But at which point? Make oneself indifferent. Clearly this only works when one has come halfway to achieving something.’

26 August 1930
‘This evening I finished [proofreading] the manuscript of Vol. I [of The Man Without Qualities]’.

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 15 April 2012.

Kaiser behind the haystack

Alfred Ludwig Heinrich Karl Graf von Waldersee, a German soldier who rose to become (briefly) Chief of the Imperial German General Staff, was born 190 years ago today. He left behind plenty of written material, including diaries, much of which was published in a three-volume biographical life. In one diary entry (see below), Waldersee recalls the Kaiser (Wilhelm I) confessing to him that he’d eaten some chocolate ‘in secret behind the haystack’.

Waldersee was born on 8 April 1832 in Potsdam into a military and aristocratic family, his father being a cavalry general. He graduated from artillery and engineering school at the age of 20, and joined the Prussian General Staff as an adjutant during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. He later served in Paris as military attaché and spy, and was selected in 1869 as Aide-de-Camp to Kaiser Wilhelm I. He acted as chief of staff to the military governor of Paris in 1871, and in 1873 he became the commanding general of X. Army Corps in Hannover. The following year, he married Mary Esther Lee, daughter of wealthy New York City merchant David Lee and widow of Prince Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein.

In 1882, Waldersee was chosen by Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder as his principal assistant on the General Staff at Berlin with the rank of Generalquartiermeister, a position that gave him military and political influence. Developing strategies for a preventative war against Russia and France brought Waldersee into confrontation with the Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, but also paved the way to a friendship with Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II who ascended the throne in June 1888. In August, Waldersee was appointed to succeed Moltke as Chief of General Staff. Rather quickly, however, the new young sovereign lost confidence in a scheming Waldersee and demoted him to command IX Army Corps at Hamburg-Altona.

In 1900, Waldersee was promoted field marshal and given command of an international expeditionary force sent to China aimed at quelling the Boxer Rebellion. Back in Germany in 1901 he was named an honorary citizen of Hamburg, one of many honours he received during his lifetime.  He died in 1904. See Wikipedia or the Prussian Machine for more information.

A ‘life-and-letters’ biography of Waldersee was first published in German in three volumes in 1922-1923. The entire work was edited by Heinrich Otto Meisner, with the approval and assistance of the Waldersee’s  nephew, Lieut.-General George Count von Waldersee. A single-volume English translation by Frederic Whyte appeared in 1924 as A Field Marshal’s Memoirs From the Diary, Correspondence and Reminiscences of Alfred, Count Von Waldersee (Hutchinson). Modern reproductions of the original can be previewed at Googlebooks and Amazon. Here are few extracts from Waldersee’s diaries as found in the translated work.

4 August 1870, Commercy
‘Bismarck, who had a suite of his own, has three four-horsed carriages. He himself travels in a heavy conveyance with four horses which cannot keep up with the King’s stallions. For this reason - so it is said - there is intriguing in progress on his part against long marches. He maintains, moreover, that the King ought not to travel through the land alone in this way, but should keep with the army on the march. I don’t think that is necessary, though some more thought might perhaps be given to his safety.’

16 September 1870, Meaux
‘Yesterday evening Councillor of Embassy von Kendell came to me on behalf of Bismarck and asked me whether I would be Prefect of Paris, supposing we got in. The question came to me rather as a surprise. I said that there were two Prefects there, a so-called Prefect of the Seine and a Prefect of Police - which did he mean? He said that no notice was being taken of this, that I could amalgamate both offices, and that I should be pleasing the Chancellor very much if I decided to do so. No other suitable person was available. I had the great advantage of knowing the conditions of Paris. The President of Police in Berlin, Von Wurmb, would, indeed, be the right man for the post, but the Chancellor regarded him as too untrustworthy. After thinking it over for a while, I said yes, but raised the question whether the King would like one of his aides-de-camp to have a police post. Kendell said we should soon find out that and thanked me for my readiness to accept.’

20 September 1870, Ferrières
‘Yesterday I saw Paris stretched out before my eyes, exactly two months after I left it. The King rode through Aulnay up to the height of Le Blanc Mesnil. From this point a good view of Paris was to be had, so we came to a halt. The King showed how pleased he was to have got so far, and could not tear himself away from the place. He lingered for a good two hours. Once he went behind a haystack for a few minutes. Today he said to me: “Didn’t you give me some bits of chocolate at Rezonville?” I said yes, and he went on: “I had one piece left, and yesterday I ate it in secret behind the haystack!” ’

28 December 1870, Versailles
‘An excellent measure has been taken in hand during these last two days. The management of the attack on Paris, which is now to be undertaken in real earnest, has been entrusted to Lieut.-General von Kameke in his capacity as an Engineer, and to Major-General Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen as an Artillerist. Now at last some life will be introduced into things. . .’

I whipped the first boy

‘In the afternoon I whipped the first boy I have had occasion to. It was a bad business, perfectly disgusting to me, but I found it was absolutely necessary.’ This is from the youthful diary of Edward Everett Hale, a celebrated American writer and minister, born two centuries ago today. Although Hale’s diaries have not been published, his son published a ‘life and letters’ biography which includes some extracts from them. 

Hale was born on 3 April 1822 in Boston, Massachusetts, son of the proprietor and editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser. He was also a nephew of Edward Everett, the orator and statesman, and grand-nephew of Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War hero. Hale was considered a child prodigy, studying at Boston Latin School, and entering Harvard College aged 13, where he excelled, before moving on to Harvard Divinity School. 

Having become licensed as a Unitarian minister, Hale became, in 1846, pastor of the Church of the Unity in Worcester. The following year, he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and he would remain involved with the society for the rest of his life. In 1852 he married Emily Baldwin Perkins, the niece of Connecticut Governor and U.S. Senator Roger Sherman Baldwin. They had nine children. From 1856 until 1899, he was pastor of Boston’s South Congregational Church.

Having long written for his father’s publication, it was not until 1859 that his literary work attracted wider attention, this was thanks to a short story - My Double and How He Undid Me - in the Atlantic Monthly. Many other stories followed - often marked by a style dubbed realistic fantasy - for a variety of other publications. His best known work, however, was The Man Without a Country, published in the Atlantic in 1863, which rallied support for the Union cause in the North. Another of his stories - Hands Off in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (1881) - is considered to have been influential in the emerging genre of science fiction.

Hale was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1865 and of the American Philosophical Society in 1870. He helped found two social reform magazines - the Christian Examiner, Old and New (1870-1875) and Lend a Hand (1886-1897), and he was generally regarded an important leader of the Social Gospel movement being a forceful advocate of emigrant aid, African American education, worker's housing, and world peace. In 1903 he became chaplain of the U.S. Senate in Washington and did not return to Boston until shortly before his death there in 1909. Further information is readily available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, and Harvard Square Library.

Hale kept diaries through much of his life, and wrote many letters. When he was still alive, he had it mind to publish some of the letters with the help of a friend, but this project felt through. However, one of Hale’s sons, Edward E. Hale, Jr., decided to edit and publish his fathers letters and diaries. The amount of material placed in his hand, he says in a preface to the published work, ‘was very great’. ‘There were thousands of letters, many diaries and day-books covering almost the whole of my father’s life.’ Two volumes of The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale - including a significant number of diary extracts - were published by Little, Brown, and Company in 1917 - they are both freely available online through Internet Archive. Here are several sample extracts from his diaries - though it’s hard to tell he was only 15-17 years old! 

9 January 1837
‘Met Meyer at Farwell’s, and he agreed to join the German section, which Sam. Guild and I were attempting to raise. Spoke to Longfellow at dinner about the German, and he said that he thought perhaps his brother, who had just returned from Europe, would take it, so he agreed to say nothing to Bokum till that was settled. After French wrote Latin exercise. In the evening went into Williams’ rooms and got the Oedipus. This lesson finished Oedipus Tyrannus. Came home, finished exercise, got Horace and went to bed.’

10 January 1837
‘Longfellow told me this morning that he had not seen his brother, but the President had told him that his election for the Prof’ship must be confirmed by the Senate as a part of the board of overseers. They will meet on Thursday and I suppose will settle it then. If Longfellow will take the section, we had rather recite to him than to Bokum.’

16 January 1837
‘After reciting to Channing today walked down to the bridge with Donaldson, talking about the I. O. H., the interests of which he has a good deal at heart. Came home and read some in Rev. Mr. Emerson’s ‘Nature.’ It is an odd sort of book, but I like it better than most everyone else seems to, though to be sure there is a good deal in it that I can’t understand. In the evening Nathan undertook to Animal Magnetize me. I got horribly sleepy but I believe it was the natural effect of sitting still five minutes without speaking, and feeling his hands stroking me down so.’

23 February 1837
‘All day Nathan was making experiments in sound, which I inspected and assisted in. In the afternoon finished woodcut, upon which I put so much time that I did not get the lesson in Mechanics in time to recite, and so had to say ‘not prepared’ which vexed me horribly, particularly as it was my own fault. In the evening went to Dawes’ room to meet the rest of the Library committee [of the I. O. H.]. We decided on buying Pope’s Homer, Ion, Clarence, Cooper’s Sketches of Switzerland 2 Part, Abercrombie’s Intellectual faculties, &c. &c.’

3 March 1837
‘Slept over prayers this morning and did not get up till nearly breakfast time. First time I have missed for a long time. Found at breakfast that we had a miss in Greek, so that my absence did not hurt me or anybody else, in respect to that. The cause of the miss seems to be that Felton went in to the theatre last night with Profs. Pierce and Longfellow, so that he could not get up in time to give the 1st section an exercise, and we had none in consequence.’

20 November 1838
‘After (evening) prayers I went to Morison’s room where the astronomical forces were to collect, previously to an attack on Mr. Lovering. We did not get ready for a start till 5 o’clock. Mr. Lovering explained to us his fancy, as he modestly called it very intelligibly. In the evening went to a lecture at the Warren St. Chapel by Uncle Edward on the Northmen. It was a short abstract of the history of their discovery of this country with a good deal about Dighton rock which Uncle supposed to have been sculptured by the natives, for various reasons, the principal of which was the fact, which Mr. Catlin told him, that he had seen thousands of such inscriptions in the Indian countries, in tribes which had not, as well as those which had, the use of instruments of steel.’

25 November 1838
‘The President requested “the members of the seminary” to remain after prayers and he then announced that two of the commons waiters had been found insensible, having imprudently slept last night with charcoal in the room. At breakfast some one came from the kitchen to get some of the Davy Club to go down stairs and see the doctors about making oxygen for these men. I went down and they said they wished to try the effect of oxygen. With two or three others I came into the Davy Club room and went to work. I was there most all day, we made as much oxygen as we could, getting the furnace going and using an iron retort. The men were insensible all day.’

20 October 1839
‘I staid to the Sunday School and took a class; not that I have any more faith than ever as to my qualifications as a teacher, or in the beneficial effects of a Sunday School in such a parish as ours, but because in the introduction of the new system there is a dearth of men teachers and as I think it ought to be tried I was willing to give my hand.’

24 October 1839
‘In the afternoon I whipped the first boy I have had occasion to. It was a bad business, perfectly disgusting to me, but I found it was absolutely necessary. The boy was decidedly the worst boy in the room, and utterly regardless of the ordinary machinery of marks, etc. and having run up to ten marks in the first three days in the week, I told him that for the next offence he should be ‘punished’ as the phrase is. And so he was.’