“The country without a past cannot be intoxicated by visions of the past of other lands.  Upon this absence of the past it seems to us that much of the security of our institutions depends.  Nothing interferes with the development of what is now felt to be the true principle of government, the will of the people legitimately expressed.  To establish that great truth, nothing was to be torn down, nothing to be uprooted.  It grew up in New England out of the seed unconsciously planted by the first Pilgrims, was not crushed out by the weight of a thousand years of error spread over the whole continent, and the Revolution was proclaimed and recognized.”

VIII.

1847-1849.  AEt. 33-35.

Joseph Lewis Stackpole, the friend of Motley.  His sudden death.—­Motley in the Massachusetts house of representatives.—­Second novel, “Merry-Mount, A romance of the Massachusetts Colony.”

The intimate friendships of early manhood are not very often kept up among our people.  The eager pursuit of fortune, position, office, separates young friends, and the indoor home life imprisons them in the domestic circle so generally that it is quite exceptional to find two grown men who are like brothers,—­or rather unlike most brothers, in being constantly found together.  An exceptional instance of such a more than fraternal relation was seen in the friendship of Mr. Motley and Mr. Joseph Lewis Stackpole.  Mr. William Amory, who knew them both well, has kindly furnished me with some recollections, which I cannot improve by changing his own language.

“Their intimacy began in Europe, and they returned to this country in 1835.  In 1837 they married sisters, and this cemented their intimacy, which continued to Stackpole’s death in 1847.  The contrast in the temperament of the two friends—­the one sensitive and irritable, and the other always cool and good-natured—­only increased their mutual attachment to each other, and Motley’s dependence upon Stackpole.  Never were two friends more constantly together or more affectionately fond of each other.  As Stackpole was about eight years older than Motley, and much less impulsive and more discreet, his death was to his friend irreparable, and at the time an overwhelming blow.”

Mr. Stackpole was a man of great intelligence, of remarkable personal attractions, and amiable character.  His death was a loss to Motley even greater than he knew, for he needed just such a friend, older, calmer, more experienced in the ways of the world, and above all capable of thoroughly understanding him and exercising a wholesome influence over his excitable nature without the seeming of a Mentor preaching to a Telemachus.  Mr. Stackpole was killed by a railroad accident on the 20th of July, 1847.