Arts and Letters

In the bright ages of the nineteenth century, when I was a sophomore at Yale, we had an instructor in Latin, Mr. Ambrose Tighe, who made his subject so interesting that the Faculty refused to reappoint him. I remember many of his obiter dicta. He said there were two qualities in a literary style that, when united, produced masterpieces. These two qualities were Sincerity and Luminosity. Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic and on the Civil Wars had more sincerity than luminosity, and Cicero's orations had more luminosity than sincerity. At about that time, for my own pleasure, which is the best reason for reading anything, I was reading late at night Mommsen's History of Rome. And I found that Mommsen made a somewhat similar comparison between the oratory of Caesar and that of Cicero. He said that Cicero's speeches had the eloquence of rounded periods, whereas those of Curio, the brilliant lieutenant of Caesar, had, like those of his master, the eloquence of deeply felt thought. I have ever since applied those two tests to written and oral work.

Charles Downer Hazen was born in Vermont on the 17th of March, 1868, and died on the 18th of September, 1941. He took his bachelor's degree at Dartmouth, and pursued advance studies, frequently catching up with them, at Johns Hopkins, Gottingen, Berlin, and Paris. He was professor of History at Smith College for ten years, and in 1916 became professor of History at Columbia University. In 1920-21, he was professor of History at Strasbourg, which then was a city in France. He was a member of many learned societies in Europe and in America, was elected to our National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1918, and to the American Academy in 1924. To enumerate his honorary degrees and decorations would take too much of those realities, space and time; but it should be remembered that no American was more beloved in France. He was a member of the Societé d'Histoire Moderne (in Paris), of the Institut International d'Histoire de la Révolution Française, and was Chevalier Légion d'Honneur.

The subject to which he devoted the most of his time as a scholar appears in his first published work in 1897, Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution, although he never forgot his own native New England, as is shown by his next book, Old Northampton. His publications were numerous and important and gave him a well-earned international reputation: Europe Since 1815, The French Revolution, Alsace-Lorraine under German Rule, Fifty Years of Europe, etc. In addition to many papers showing special research, two of his books were studied by many thousands of American undergraduates, Modern European History and Modern Europe.

Much of his writing not only shows literary distinction united to scrupulous research; it exhibits those qualities recommended to me by my teacher and by the great German historian; Dr. Hazen did succeed in combining luminosity and sincerity, and his stirring pages often reveal the eloquence of deeply felt thought.

Apart from natural gifts increased by faithful and devoted application, there is a reason for the excellence of his style. It was an emanation of a beautiful personality. I do not hesitate to describe his character by this adjective. I had the honor of knowing Dr. Hazen very well. No one could come into contact with him without feeling the beauty of his mind and heart. He had a masculine modesty, a kindness of temper, a consideration for others, a gentleness of temperament. These qualities not only gave a radiance to his conversation, they illuminated his books.

No wonder the French scholars and men of letters, who understand and recognize the finest shades of art and of character, respected him and loved him. He was equally at home in Vermont and Paris; because he was always the same man.

He was extremely fortunate in his marriage to Sara Sefton Duryea in 1901. Her grace and charm are felt by all who meet her.