Read Online 1876 by Gore Vidal - Free Book Online Page B

unduly cynical about Bigelow. Despite his great unchannelled ambition, he has always been scrupulously high-minded. During the time he was at the Evening Post , he made it a financial success. Then he helped found the Republican party; was given diplomatic posts; wrote books.
    If Bigelow is remembered, it will be for his resurrection of Benjamin Franklin. Until Bigelow, no one had ever thought to save that wicked old creature from the bowdlerizers. Bigelow’s editing of the original texts of Franklin’s works as well as the biography of Franklin he published last year have made him a fortune. Would that I could find a similar subject.
    “Must you live at Albany?” I stayed his reminiscences of a thousand dragons slain in the name of good government.
    “The secretary of state is supposed to spend some time there.”
    “Doing what?”
    “I shall tell you next month.” Bigelow smiled; smoothed his heavy white side whiskers not unlike my own: he eschews the full beard of most Americans, as does Tilden.
    “What,” I asked, only because it has been preoccupying me since my arrival yesterday, “has happened to the American voice?”
    “Voice?” Bigelow was startled by the question; his own is resonant and clear, like Bryant’s.
    “Yes, voice. The way Americans speak.”
    “You mean the immigrants? Well, it takes time ...”
    “No, I mean the Americans. Like us. When I lived here, people spoke like you, like me ...”
    “But you had a Dutch accent, Charlie, which you’ve gone and lost in Paris!”
    I don’t know why that should have made me want to blush, but it did. In my youth, Dutch-ness was a sort of prickly virtue to us and an occasion for dull mockery to others.
    “Certainly I never ... we never spoke through our noses. Or made that curious flat whining sound. One hears it everywhere. And the women! Is there anything more dreadful than an American woman’s laughter?”
    Bigelow was amused. After some thought, he agreed that there has been a change in the way our countrymen speak. He thinks it might be the influence of those popular fundamentalist church groups that go in for “canting”—the word for praying aloud in a whining nasal voice.
    I thought that this might make an interesting article for Harper’s , but Bigelow thought not. “No one may criticize American manners, except at a safe distance like Paris. When do you go back?”
    “In a year’s time.” My heart’s beat was now audible to me; blood pounded in my ears. I have never found it easy to ask for anything important. “I shall want to write about the election. I am also—just today—commissioned to write about the last days of General Grant, for the Herald .”
    The Herald was sharply analyzed for some minutes. Predictably, Bigelow did not like that paper’s Personal Topics , its salacious gossip, its sharp attacks on anyone—that is to say, everyone—guilty of hypocrisy. But he agreed that in the end Jamie Bennett would doubtless support good government if obliged to choose. “Certainly having someone of your distinction writing about that swamp at Washington will have a powerful effect on him, not to mention on his readers.”
    I looked as though power was something that each day I exert like the sun its rays. Then I said, very carefully, “One of the reasons for my straying into such foreign territory is a desire to be of use to Governor Tilden.”
    Bigelow set down his cup; sighed; looked for a time at the fire in the grate. “Charlie, I must tell you in all confidence that I am deeply concerned about the Governor.”
    “Politically?”
    “Never! Politically he is incorruptible. No, I fear for his health. Last February he had—” Bigelow stopped abruptly. I am fairly certain from the set of his mouth that he intended to say “a stroke,” But he quickly shifted to: “He cannot stop working ...”
    “Isn’t that considered admirable in this country?”
    “Not the way he works. Hour after hour until he is hardly