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THE CRISIS
By WINSTON CHURCHILL T HE scene is laid chiefly in St. Louie between 1857 and 1865. Stephen Brice, of the Brahmin class of Boston, after his father's business failure and death, came with his mother to St. Louis, there to study and practise law in the office of his father's friend, Judge Silas Whipple. Virginia Carvel, the only child of Col. Comyn Carvel, was beautiful and distinguished. The colonel was of an old Mary-land family. He was the leading dry-goods merchant of St. Louis and a veteran of the Mexican War. Judge Whipple was taciturn and abrupt. He concealed a generous heart under a for-bidding exterior. He slept in his office. He was a "black" Republican. He secured clients because they needed his professional ability. He took Sunday dinner at Colonel Carvel's, where the discussion over slavery in Virginia's hearing went on with a plainness of speech that only the lifelong friendship of the two men could have made possible. Colonel Carvel was the highest type of a Southern gentleman. Mrs. Brice, Stephen's mother, bore her reduced fortune with dignity and with high hope in her son's future and a spirit of sacrifice in his interest. Eliphalet Hopper was a New-Englander in Colonel Carvel's employ. Industrious and saving, he was unscrupulous and mean, valuing only financial success and cherishing jealousy of others' good fortune. Clarence Colfax, the son of a rich widow, was Virginia's cousin. He ran race-horses, he fought game-cocks. He had "a commanding indolence." He believed society based on slavery was divinely appointed. Masterful, courageous, adventurous, athletic, and handsome, he was a true cavalier, useless except for war. The events of the story sport with the natural antagonism, in tradition and convictions, of the Puritan Stephen Brice and the lady of the Cavaliers, Virginia Carvel. They met first at a slave-market. A beautiful quadroon is put up for sale. With all his savings of nine hundred dollars Brice determines to buy the girl from a life of shame with an intending bidder and then free her. Virginia, through Colfax, also bids for the girl to use her as a maid. Brice, in sympathy for the pleading mother of the slave, persists in his purpose and, to Virginia's great disgust, outbids the other two and manumits the girl. Soon after, on her father's insistence, Virginia protestingly invites Brice to her first party. She snubs him, but finally dances with him. They meet again at a fancy-dress party in which she appears in the costume of her Colonial great-grandmother, and he in that of his grandfather, a Revolutionary colonel. She had only gone on the assurance he would not be there. His appearance prevents her giving way to the wooing of Clarence Colfax. They meet again at the country-place of the Carvels, where Judge Whipple is convalescent, and there measure each other in discussion. Through Judge Whipple and her girl friends news of Brice is constantly thrust on her. Silas Whipple knew and felt Lincoln's greatness and leadership. Whipple noted Brice's ability and high qualities, but regretted his Boston narrowness. He sought to broaden him by subjecting him to Lincoln's personality. Under pretense of a business errand, he asked Lincoln to let the young man hear his debate at Freeport with Douglas. Brice was with Lincoln the night before in a tavern, where, hatless, coatless, vestless, he discussed the wisdom of asking Douglas the great question, the answer to which made Douglas Senator and Lincoln President. Lincoln's limpid intellectual honesty, his pure logic, his lucidity of soul and purpose, impress themselves on young Brice and profoundly affect his point of view. Missouri was saved for the Union by Frank Blair and Nathaniel Lyon. Under their leadership the Germans of St. Louis captured a camp of the golden youth of St. Louis mobilizing as Confederates. Colfax was among those taken, but refused a parole and escaped to the Southern army. These disturbing events brought Brice and Virginia together again. He sought to render the Carvels service, which Virginia resented. Mrs. Brice and Virginia, however, soon became interested in the nursing of wounded soldiers and of Judge Whipple, whom a fatal illness had overtaken. Brice as a lieutenant was in the battle about Vicksburg and found Colfax badly wounded in the captured city. He sent him north to St. Louis, where he was nursed by Virginia. Colfax had distinguished himself by daredevil exploits of great usefulness to his cause. Virginia was enthused by his patriotic devotion to the cause she loved and their engagement was the result. Brice was wounded in the campaigns after Vicksburg and also returned to St. Louis. The climax of the story comes at the death-bed of Judge Whipple. Colonel Carvel, though in the rebel army, returns to see his daughter. Hearing of Whipple's illness, he visits Whipple's office, where he finds Virginia and Colfax. In the latter's hurried withdrawal to chase a spy who proves to be Eliphalet Hopper, Virginia and Brice, unexpectedly to each, are thrown together. She is surprised into a betrayal and full realization of her interest in him. Hopper eludes Colfax and creeps into Whipple's outer office. By corrupt transactions with Federal quartermasters he has become a rich man and the real owner of the Carvel business. He finds Virginia alone and threat-ens, unless she marries him, to betray her father to the Union authorities as a spy. Brice appears, strikes Hopper down, defies him with a counter-threat of prosecution for corruption. This rids the story of Hopper. Colfax goes South after Virginia has broken their engagement. He is subsequently captured as a spy. Brice identifies him and then intervenes with Sherman to save his life. Meantime, Brice is sent by Sherman to City Point with despatches. There he meets Lincoln again. Lincoln remembers him and invites him to become his aide. The story closes with the visit of Virginia to Lincoln at the White House, for the pardon of Colfax. Lincoln had heard of the circumstances, sees Virginia, and brings in Brice. After a conversation in which there is revealed to Virginia the constant sorrow of Lincoln's soul and his deep sympathy for the Southern people, he pardons Colfax and leaves Brice and Virginia to that mutual confession of love of which each had long been conscious. They were married at once, but their honeymoon was darkened with the sudden taking off of the Great American. The story is well told. The plot is not forced and maintains one's interest to the end. Stephen Brice is almost too perfect. The author speaks feelingly of the anxiety of novelists to avoid this danger. Virginia's character is perhaps better done, because easier to endow with attractive failings. Judge Whipple and Colonel Carvel are admirably drawn. The story weaves in an accurate and valuable description of the causes of the war and of the kind of people that fought the war. St. Louis, the confluence of the two streams of western immigration from the North and the South, was the place to study the mixing but conflicting elements of our people before the Civil War. It was the author's home. He reveals their faults and their virtues with impartial pen. He maintains the just balance. He avowedly and really takes the Lincoln view of the contest, which, as he truly says, has now become the American view both North and South. The picture of Lincoln is inspiring. The glimpses of Sherman, Grant, and Lyon are vivid and true to life. The book is written in a most entertaining style. It is charming and sustained in its interest as a love story. It is a great historical novel. |