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 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 Gift of 
 Samuel B. Bird '21 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 141.H19 1901 
 
 American authors and their honies;persona 
 
 3 1924 021 964 279 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021964279 
 
<iAmerican Authors 
 
 & 
 
 T'heir Homes 
 
Note 
 
 rHESE papers were printed originally in The 
 New York Times, and all but two of them in 
 The New York Times Saturday Review of Books 
 AND Art. They are reprinted here by the courtesy 
 of The New York Times Company. 
 

 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 05 
 
 
 C3 
 
 V 
 
American Authors 
 and Their Homes 
 
 Personal Descriptions & Interviews 
 
 Edited with an 
 Introduction and Additions ^ 
 
 By 
 
 FRANCIS WHITING HALSET n^ ^ 
 
 Eighteen Illustrations 
 
 NEir roRK 
 
 JAMES POrr & COMPJNT 
 
 MCMI 
 
Copyright, 1898, 1899, 1901, by 
 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1901, by 
 JAMES POTT & COMPANY 
 
 Entered at Stationers* Hall, London 
 
 First Impression September 15, 1901 
 Second Impression October zo, 1901 
 
Preface 
 
 IT has not seemed practicable to attach 
 to these articles the names of those 
 •who originally wrote them, so many 
 changes and such material additions, due to 
 new conditions, have been made by the editor. 
 A few of the articles are reprinted as 
 they were written; for example, the one 
 on Joaquin Miller, by George Hamlin Fitch, 
 the literary editor of the San Francisco 
 Chronicle ; the one on nomas Nelson Page, 
 by William Wallace Whitelock, and those 
 on John Burroughs and Henry M. Alden, 
 by Ernest Ingersoll, the naturalist, who is 
 Mr. Burroughs' s neighbor and has often been 
 Mr. Alden s contributor ; but others, like 
 the one on Edmund Clarence Stedman, by 
 Henri Pene DuBois, the one on Henry van 
 Dyke, by Stanhope Sams, those on Paul 
 Leicester Ford and Frank R. Stockton, by 
 Cromwell Childe, and most others, have 
 been so radically altered because of the re- 
 
 [v] 
 
Preface 
 
 moval of authors to homes elsewhere, as well 
 as for other new and imperative causes, that 
 to undertake to give the names would involve 
 specifications as to where a contributor' s work 
 ended and the editor's began, which would 
 seem to be an act of supererogation. 
 
 The editor has prepared for each sketch 
 a list of the author's better-known books, 
 with the dates of their original publication. 
 In some cases the lists are nearly complete, 
 but in others, notably Mr. Howells and Mr. 
 Stockton, scarcely half the total number of 
 works is given. In a volume of this char- 
 acter anything approaching a full bibliogra- 
 phy would seem to be quite out of place. 
 Readers seeking further titles may find them 
 in Allibone {the Supplement comes down to 
 i8gi) and in the catalogues of publishers. 
 
 While each paper treats of a separate 
 and distinct topic, within clearly defined 
 limits, the editor has thought it would be 
 well for him to prepare an analytical index, 
 in order that the range of subjects touched 
 upon might become more apparent and refer- 
 ences to them be made easy. 
 
 [vi] 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction : The Author and His 
 
 Home 1 
 
 I, Richard Henry Stoddard in 
 
 East Fifteenth Street, New York 1 7 
 
 II. John Burroughs in West-Park- 
 
 on-the-Hudson, N. Y. . . . 29 
 
 III. Henry van Dyke in Princeton, 
 
 N.J 45 
 
 IV. Frank R. Stockton near Charles 
 
 Town, W. Va 59 
 
 V. Hamilton W. Mabie in Summit, 
 
 N.J 75 
 
 VI. Thomas Bailey Aldrich in Mount 
 
 Vernon Street, Boston ... 89 
 
 VII. William Dean Howells in Cen- 
 tral Park South, New York . 99 
 
 VIII. Paul Leicester Ford in East Sev- 
 enty-Seventh Street, New York, 
 
 and in Brooklyn m 
 
 [vii] 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 IX. John FiSKE in Cambridge, Mass. 123 
 
 X. George W. Cable in North- 
 ampton, Mass 135 
 
 XI. Joaquin Miller on the Heights 
 
 back of Oakland, Cal. . . . 143 
 
 XII. Edmund Clarence Stedman in 
 Lawrence Park, Bronxville, 
 N. Y 157 
 
 XIII. Thomas Nelson Page in Wash- 
 
 ington, D. C 173 
 
 XIV. F. HoPKiNSON Smith in East 
 
 Thirty-fourth Street, New York 187 
 
 XV. Donald G. Mitchell at Edge- 
 wood, in New Haven, Conn. . 195 
 
 XVI. Thomas Wentworth Higgin- 
 
 SON in Cambridge, Mass. . . 209 
 
 XVII. George E. Woodberry in East 
 
 Seventeenth Street, New York 221 
 XVIII. Andrew Carnegie In West 
 
 Fifty-First Street, New York . 235 
 
 XIX. Brander Matthews in West 
 
 End Avenue, New York . .247 
 
 XX, John Kendrick Bangs in Yonk- 
 
 ers, N. Y 257 
 
 [ viii ] 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 XXI. Henry M. Alden in Metuchen, 
 
 N.J 269 
 
 XXII. Ernest Seton - Thompson in 
 
 Bryant Park, New York . . 279 
 
 INDEX 295 
 
 [ix] 
 
Illustrations 
 
 Interior of the Authors' Club in the 
 Carnegie Building, New York Frontispiece 
 
 Facing 
 page 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe 2 
 
 His cottage in Fordham. 
 
 R. H. Stoddard 18 
 
 His home in New York. 
 
 John Burroughs 30 
 
 Slabsides, his summer home in West-Park- 
 on-the-Hudson. 
 
 Henry van Dyke 46 
 
 A corner in his library. 
 
 Frank R. Stockton 60 
 
 Claymont, his new home in West Virginia. 
 
 Hamilton W. Mabie 76 
 
 His home in Summit. 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich ..... 90 
 His "den" in Boston. 
 
 W. D. Howells ........ 100 
 
 At his desk in New York, 
 [xi] 
 
Illustrations 
 
 Facing 
 page 
 
 Paul Leicester Ford . . . . . .112 
 
 His new house in New York. 
 
 John Fiske 124 
 
 His home in Cambridge. 
 
 Joaquin Miller 144 
 
 His estate near Oakland, California. 
 
 E. C. Stedman 158 
 
 His home in Lawrence Park. 
 
 F. Hopkinson Smith 188 
 
 His studio in New York. 
 
 Donald G. Mitchell 196 
 
 His library at Edgewood, New Haven. 
 
 T. W. HiGGINSON 210 
 
 His home in Cambridge. * 
 
 John Kendrick Bangs 258 
 
 His home in Yonkers. 
 
 Ernest Seton-Thompson 280 
 
 His studio in New York. 
 
 [xii] 
 
Introduction 
 
 "The Author and His Home 
 

 ^ 
 
 
Introduction 
 'The Author and His Home 
 
 THE changes which have occurred in 
 economic conditions in this country 
 during the past fifty years, while pro- 
 ducing many interesting results, have led to 
 none more gratifying than the improvement 
 brought about in the worldly state of the 
 author. An enlargement in individual incomes 
 has probably occurred in most walks of life, but 
 with the author the improvement has probably 
 been more striking than in any other of the 
 so-called learned professions. Not only does 
 Grub Street belong to a very remote past, but 
 even a hall bedroom seems now to suggest con- 
 ditions that have forever ceased to exist. The 
 pictures which illustrate this volume will forci- 
 bly remind the reader of this improvement. 
 Here is seen the cottage which, fifty odd years 
 ago, was the home of Edgar Allan Poe. Fol- 
 lowing it are pictures showing houses in which 
 authors dwell to-day. 
 
 At the top of a steep hillside, along whose 
 crest runs an ancient highway called the Kings- 
 [3] 
 
Introduction 
 
 bridge Road, and at a point distant perhaps 
 half a mile eastward from Jerome Avenue, on 
 which runs a trolley to and beyond the gates of 
 Woodlawn Cemetery, still stands in Fordham, 
 in primal simplicity, the cottage of Poe. It is 
 quite the humblest dwelling, old or new, in all 
 that neighborhood. Beneath its roof when 
 writing " The Bells," " The Cask of Amontil- 
 lado/' " Eureka," some of the " Marginalia," 
 and other papers, this gifted man of letters 
 found his home from the spring of 1846 until 
 his death in October, 1849. " Although at the 
 best, a mean dwelling," says Mr. Woodberry, 
 his biographer, " it was the pleasantest retreat 
 he had known." Mr. Woodberry describes 
 the interior — 
 
 Within on the ground floor were two small apart- 
 ments, a kitchen and sitting-room, and above up a 
 narrow stairway two others, one, Poe's room, a low, 
 cramped chamber lighted by litde square windows like 
 port-holes, the other a diminutive clpset of a bedroom, 
 hardly large enough to lie down in. The fiirniture 
 was of the simplest : in the clean, white-floored kitchen 
 were a table, a chair, and a little stove, and in the 
 other room, which was laid with checked matting, 
 were only a light stand with presentation volumes of 
 the Brownmgs upon it, some hanging shelves with a 
 few other books ranged on them, and four chairs. 
 [4] 
 
I^he Author and His Home 
 
 Friends called on him and found him anxious over the 
 one great trouble of his poverty, or inspirited by the 
 compliment of a letter from Mrs. Browning, or en- 
 deavoring to distract his mind with his pets — a bobo- 
 link he had caught and caged, or a parrot someone 
 had given him, or his favorite cat. 
 
 When Poe went to Fordham, he was already 
 famous, not only in his own land, but across 
 the sea. In the autumn following his arrival, 
 his tales had been the subject of an extended 
 and laudatory article in the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes. Rival newspapers in Paris had been 
 engaged in legal proceedings as to their rights 
 to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Sev- 
 eral other of his best stories at the same time 
 had found a French translator. But in spite of 
 this recognition and fame, Poe was miserably 
 poor. Friends on one occasion had privately 
 raised for him the sum of ;^6o, and on another. 
 New York newspapers had publicly secured 
 ^100. His wife, whom he adored, meanwhile 
 was dying in this cottage at Fordham, and 
 here is an eyewitness's description of the bed 
 on which she lay : 
 
 There was no clothing on the bed, which was only 
 straw, but a snow-white counterpane and sheet. 
 The weather was cold and the sick lady had the 
 [5] 
 
Introduction 
 
 dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of con- 
 sumption. She lay on the straw bed wrapped in her 
 husband's greatcoat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in 
 her bosom. The wonderftil cat seemed conscious of 
 her great usefiilness. The coat and the cat were the 
 sufferer's only means of warmth, except as her husband 
 held her hand and her mother her feet. Mrs. Clemm 
 was passionately fond of her daughter, and her dis- 
 tress on account of her illness and poverty and misery 
 was dreadful to see. 
 
 Poe's greatcoat, which thus had kept his 
 wife warm, was a military garment. It served 
 to cover his own frame early in February, 1847, 
 when, with a few friends attending him, he 
 followed his wife's body to its burial-place. In 
 the following winter Poe was writing " Eureka;" 
 and " night after night in the coldest weather," 
 says Mr. Woodberry, " he would wrap himself 
 in this great military coat and pace the little 
 veranda of the cottage, through long hours of 
 solitary meditation, elaborating thought by 
 thought his theory of the eternal secret." 
 
 In those dreary scenes was to be observed 
 something of the deepest pathos in human life. 
 Other times have brought upon the scenes other 
 authors — poets some of these, essayists some, 
 story-tellers others, but none gifted as was Poe 
 in all three forms of composition ; few, indeed, 
 [6] 
 
'^he Author and His Home 
 
 gifted as was he in any one of them. Our liv- 
 ing authors often dwell in what are called cot- 
 tages, but they are not of the Fordham type. 
 They are houses, spacious in dimensions, with 
 lands about them that are to be described in 
 acres, a stable in the rear, and not infrequently 
 a coachman in attendance. 
 
 Fame and a great following of readers have 
 brought rewards somewhat adequate to per- 
 formances. It is not fame for many authors of 
 the kind that Poe secured, for his still increases 
 with the years and must long endure, but theirs 
 is certainly wider in their own lifetime than 
 ever his was. In the number of readers Poe 
 has been far, very far, outdone, simply because 
 of the enormous increase in the people who 
 now read books. 
 
 Not only has the author in our day acquired 
 a home commensurate in its dignity with his 
 importance in the world, but his personal rank 
 among the professional men of his time has 
 otherwise risen. He no longer foregathers with 
 his fellows in a Broadway basement as did the 
 good men and brave of forty years ago at 
 Pfaff's. He has real and substantial social dis- 
 tinction. He makes addresses at college com- 
 mencements, lectures or gives readings from 
 [7] 
 
Introduction 
 
 Maine to California, and presides at great pub^ 
 lie dinners where an ex-President of the United 
 States may be seated on his right and the Bishop 
 of New York on his left. He has successfully 
 passed the familiar test of membership in the 
 best clubs of the great city, and even that final 
 test in clubland — membership in the Century, 
 where some score of his guild do gather. 
 
 Indeed, the author has a club all his own, 
 prosperous and well housed, to which no man 
 can enter except he be an author in good re- 
 pute. Within the walls of that club he has 
 bestowed the honors of a reception upon men 
 whose names are familiar to all ears — men who 
 were just going out as ambassadors to the Porte, 
 to the German Empire, to the French Republic, 
 and to the Court of St. James's. There also he 
 has gathered all that possesses national distinc- 
 tion in the world of literature, to attend recep- 
 tions to Mr. Stedman and Mr. Stockton, to Mat- 
 thew Arnold and Frederic Harrison. He has 
 originated a dinner to one of his own guild at 
 the most palatial club-house in New York, and 
 the throng which came together to honor Mr. 
 Mabie embraced rank and distinction, not only 
 in the world of letters, but in those of law and 
 finance, of commerce and journalism, of medi- 
 [8] 
 
The Author and His Home 
 
 cine and the bench, of publishing and printing. 
 No men of any class, indeed, are more welcome 
 than his class within walls where festive gather- 
 ings assemble. Millionnaires give him homage, 
 and Mr. Carnegie, one of the chief magnates 
 among them all, must have had in mind the 
 author's mental resources for idle hours when 
 he lamented that rich men in this country have 
 so much to retire from and so little to retire to. 
 
 The causes for these improved conditions for 
 the author are not far to seek. Our American 
 world in the thirties and forties was a very small 
 world, confined to this side of the Mississippi, 
 with Chicago a mere village and men just begin- 
 ning to build railroads beyond the Alleghenies 
 and the Ohio. Not only has our population 
 more than trebled since 1840, but the wide 
 influence of education has raised up thousands 
 of readers where in Poe's time existed a hun- 
 dred, so that a single popular novel finds in one 
 year more readers than all Poe's books acquired 
 during his entire lifetime. 
 
 International copyright has been another fac- 
 tor to be reckoned with. It is no longer possi- 
 ble to reprint in this country, in cheap form and 
 without royalties, the writings of popular Eng- 
 lish authors and thus to supply the public with 
 [9] 
 
Introduction 
 
 the great bulk of its reading from abroad, to the 
 detriment of American authors, to whom royal- 
 ties would have to be paid. In the past ten 
 years much greater demands, accordingly, have 
 existed for American writings, while the sales of 
 English books have correspondingly declined. 
 
 Coincident with these circumstances, and 
 largely because of them, has been the growth of 
 periodical literature, with its enormous influence 
 in popularizing books and creating markets for 
 authors' wares. Among the pitiful struggles of 
 Poe was none more pitiful than his repeated 
 attempts, and as frequent failures, to establish or 
 maintain periodicals. Tasks that have since 
 succeeded again and again would have been im- 
 possible to anyone in his day. Of all our cur- 
 rent popular magazines — and the number is 
 legion — not one, I believe, dates back to the 
 last years of Poe's life, and the most of them 
 have come into being since the Civil War. 
 
 With this development has occurred a very 
 marked concentration of literary and publishing 
 activity in one centre — New York. To New 
 York more and more have drifted the great 
 publishing industries of the whole country. 
 Here, houses that were formerly small, have 
 grown to be large ones; here have settled 
 
 [10] 
 
Hhe Author and His Home 
 
 houses from other cities, either with branches 
 or coming bag and baggage, and here have been 
 founded new and prosperous ones. Indeed, 
 here are to be seen branches of many famous 
 London houses. And they all desire manu- 
 scripts from which to make new books. 
 
 And so it has followed that in New York, or 
 within easy reach of the New York publishers, 
 dwell, for at least part of the year, nearly all 
 the writers who to-day are prominent in litera- 
 ture, and who, as an eminent publisher has re- 
 marked, enable the men of his calling "to feed 
 the hopper." Mr. Aldrich remains in Boston 
 an almost solitary figure. Now that John Fiske 
 has died, he and Edward Everett Hale are in- 
 deed solitary, in so far as we may look for 
 others of the same rank or of equal achieve- 
 ments — a striking change since the time of Poe, 
 when to Boston and its environs belonged Haw- 
 thorne, Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, 
 Thoreau, Prescott, and Holmes. 
 
 In these facts we find the sources of those 
 enlarged incomes for authors which have made 
 cottages like Poe's unknown in our day as 
 homes for gifted men of letters. In its place 
 have risen edifices which to Poe would have 
 been palaces, and which, to any man moderately 
 [n] 
 
Introduction 
 
 ambitious, ought to ' afford space, shelter, and 
 comfort ample for all his needs. 
 
 Let no man begrudge to authors their better 
 material rewards. No class of men among our 
 toiling millions ever earned money more hon- 
 estly. None has labored more zealously, more 
 disinterestedly, more patiently, or to nobler 
 uses. Not through what we call fortunate cir- 
 cumstances, not through influential friends, not 
 through what the law gave them, not by know- 
 ing how to use , the brains of other men, have 
 authors won success in the world. There 
 never was a republic or a democracy so pure, 
 so elemental, as this one of letters. It is a fair 
 field and there are absolutely no favors. It is 
 always the best man who wins, and he wins or 
 loses by his own acts, and none can help him 
 otherwise. 
 
 And yet if we have regard for relative things, 
 the pecuniary rewards even now of successful 
 authors would seem unduly small. None surely 
 has ever yet from his own writings risen to be 
 a millionnaire. None has risen even to the 
 rank of what I may call opulent independence. 
 They toil all their days and so must toil — for 
 subsistence. Their accumulations, when they 
 have made any, scarcely ever would suffice to 
 
 [12] 
 
T^he Author and His Home 
 
 maintain them in the scale of living to which 
 they have risen. They must constantly keep 
 on earning in order to dv^ell in these better 
 homes. 
 
 From the law greater incomes constantly are 
 derived, and so from the engineering profes- 
 sions, from the medical and the ministerial. 
 The authors in this country whose incomes 
 from their books alone have risen to an average 
 of ;^5,ooo for a score of years, probably num- 
 ber less than a hundred. The lawyers, doc- 
 tors, engineers, ministers, whose incomes have 
 reached that sum, probably, in each class would 
 number at least a thousand. This disparity we 
 should not trouble ourselves to deplore, in the 
 hope of correcting. It is the result of remorse- 
 less conditions, immovable now and probably 
 permanent. 
 
 For at least a hundred years books have been 
 about the cheapest things that men can buy. 
 Few cost more than a pair of gloves, a ticket to 
 the theatre, or a handful of cigars. It is well 
 that these things are so, since whatever makes 
 for man's spiritual welfare should be easily pro- 
 cured. But it is essentially at the author's ex- 
 pense that these conditions exist. The author 
 may spend a year or more in writing a book 
 [13] 
 
Introduction 
 
 from which his income will scarcely equal the 
 charge which a skilled surgeon or a corporation 
 lawyer may make for a few hours of work. 
 Corporations with a volume of business rising 
 to many millions a year clearly can and will pay 
 more for professional services than a public 
 which probably never buys from any one pub- 
 lisher's " trade list " enough books in a year to 
 swell the volume of transactions to more than 
 one million dollars. These inexorable facts 
 must account for the inequalities in professional 
 rewards. It is not a question of the importance 
 of the services rendered or the talents which 
 render them. It is purely an economic ques- 
 tion, and economic laws are stubborn. 
 
 But of other rewards what a store have not 
 been gathered in by men who write books that 
 live — rewards impossible to all other forms of 
 success among men. Even now the generation 
 of school-children who learn, and who will re- 
 member to their dying day, the weird music of 
 "The Raven" and "The Bells" cannot tell 
 who were our Presidents when Poe wrote those 
 words, any more than they can tell who was 
 Prime Minister of England when Charlotte 
 Bronte wrote "Jane Eyre" — cannot tell and 
 do not care. 
 
 [14] 
 
T'he Author and His Home 
 
 Among the authors included in this volume 
 are men whose writings will long delight a pub- 
 lic that has grown indifferent to old campaigns 
 for the Presidency, to the war with Spain, and 
 to gossip about millionnaires. The lawyer's 
 fame, meanwhile, will perish, being as epheme- 
 ral as the actor's, and perhaps more so ; it will 
 be enshrined in reports and be known, when 
 known at all, to his successors in the profession 
 only. Of engineers, physicians, and preachers 
 it is ever the same. But the author who writes 
 books which the world will not let die achieves 
 the most certain immortality it is possible to 
 gain. If he seldom achieves financial independ- 
 ence, he acquires something to him worth more 
 — security against speedy oblivion. 
 
 Another reward, and not the least agreeable 
 to him while he lives, is the personal relation he 
 is made to feel that he bears toward his readers. 
 It is true that a personal relation arises in all 
 professional occupations — something closer and 
 more friendly than trade can bestow ; but with 
 authors, those persons with whom it is enjoyed 
 compose a far larger company ; they are usually 
 persons whom the author has never met ; some- 
 thing of the relation will remain until his death 
 and so long thereafter, in fact, as his books are 
 [15] 
 
Introduction 
 
 read. It is the biographies of authors, unevent- 
 ful as are the lives of authors, that become the 
 most widely read of all personal records ; when 
 written by a Boswell, more widely read than the 
 author's own books, and hence the constant in- 
 terest the reading public has in the daily pursuits 
 of authors, their methods of work, and their 
 homes. 
 
 This experience, in the absence of larger pe- 
 cuniary rewards, may be accepted as compen- 
 sation rich enough. Clearly it is one form of 
 gratitude, and perhaps gratitude never shows its 
 face in form more sincere — this gratitude for 
 several delightful hours, obtained for the price of 
 a pair of gloves, or for less, through a subscrip- 
 tion at the library ; a gratitude responding to 
 those who, by their writings and for a modest 
 pecuniary recompense, have spread learning, de- 
 veloped culture, consoled sorrow, and assuaged 
 pain. 
 
 Francis W. Halsey. 
 
 [16] 
 
Richard Henry Stoddard 
 
 In East Fifteenth Street, New York 
 
BY MR. STODDARD 
 Born in 182^ in Hingham, Mass. 
 
 Poems. 1852. 
 
 Adventures in Fairy-Land. A boolc for young people. 1853- 
 
 Songs of Summer. 1857. 
 
 The King's Bell. 1862. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln : An Horatian Ode. 1865. 
 
 The Book of the East, and Other Poems. 1871. 
 
 The Bric-a-Brac Series. [Editor of] Ten vols. 1874-76. 
 
 Anecdote Biography of Shelley. 1876. 
 
 Poems. [Complete Edition.] 1880. 
 
 The Lion's Cub, and Other Verses. 1890. 
 
 Under the Evening Lamp. [Prose essays.] 1892. 
 
I 
 
 Co 
 
Richard Henry Stoddard 
 
 In East Fifteenth Street, New Tork 
 
 EVEN among those who know their 
 New York, there are many to whom 
 the neighborhood of Stuyvesant Square 
 is not famihar. For anyone who prefers the 
 old to the new, it is, however, one of the most 
 attractive parts of the city. The past quarter 
 of a century has touched it Hghtly ; indeed, 
 there are standing not a few landmarks of the 
 town of fifty years ago. On the corner of 
 Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue is the 
 house where WilHam M. Evarts long lived and 
 recently died. Not far away, the families of 
 Fish, Rutherford, Stuyvesant, and De Voe still 
 live. Richard Grant White dwelt for a time 
 in Stuyvesant Square, and several well-known 
 artists have had homes and studios in that 
 neighborhood. 
 
 Gramercy Park itself is not more than a few 
 blocks distant, though a little more modern. 
 This park has always been a favorite with liter- 
 ary people, not only those who frequent The 
 Players, but with others — for example, W. D. 
 [19] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 Howells, who once had a house in that locality. 
 It has had its charm, too, for Samuel J. Tilden, 
 Cyrus W. Field, Abram S. Hewitt, Spencer 
 Trask, and John Bigelow. Before going to 
 the house to which we are bound, if we walk 
 down Second Avenue to Tenth Street, we may 
 note St. Mark's Church, in which rest the 
 bones of Peter Stuy vesant, who in dim Colonial 
 days built a chapel on the very site now occu- 
 pied by the church. At the corner of Eleventh 
 Street is the New York Historical Society, 
 with its fine collection of books, portraits, and 
 manuscripts, housed in a building which has 
 stood for fifty years. Returning to Stuyvesant 
 Square, we may see the famous St. George's 
 Church, a noble edifice now bereft of its twin 
 steeples, but still offering contrast with the old 
 Friends' Meeting-House, standing close at 
 hand. 
 
 It is a pleasant, old-fashioned, remote, and 
 altogether quiet region, in which cable cars and 
 telephone wires almost seem anachronisms. It 
 is, and it is not, the East Side. When at last we 
 have reached the object of our pilgrimage, the 
 home of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Henry Stoddard, 
 we have in part reconstructed in our minds the 
 New York of two generations ago. On the 
 
 [20] 
 
Richard Henry Stoddard 
 
 north side of East Fifteenth Street, at No. 329, 
 not far from the southeast corner of Stuyvesant 
 Square, these two writers for more than twenty- 
 five years have had their dwelling-place. The 
 house is one of a row of three-story brick edi- 
 fices, with a covered veranda along the front. 
 
 This quiet home is within a short distance of 
 the busiest part of New York, and yet the street 
 is as secluded as those of small suburban towns. 
 At the left of the hall one enters a large room, 
 not exactly library and not exactly parlor. It 
 has bookcases as well as easy-chairs, bric-a-brac, 
 and pictures. An unmistakable womanly touch 
 seen in the arrangements makes the visitor at 
 once feel at home. 
 
 Over the mantel hangs a full-length oil por- 
 trait of an officer in uniform. Colonel Wilson 
 Barstow, a brother of Mrs. Stoddard, who was 
 on General John A. Dix's stafF. Opposite is 
 T. W. Wood's portrait of Mr. Stoddard. Here, 
 also, are paintings by Sanford Gifford, Eastman 
 Johnson, Bierstadt, Smillie, and many others. 
 One small landscape, a view near Mattopoisett, 
 was a gift from Bayard Taylor. Alexander 
 Laurie's noble head of Mr. Stoddard is also 
 seen. In the lower room hangs one or two 
 paintings by Lorimer Stoddard, the playwright, 
 [21] 
 
American Authors & l^heir Homes 
 
 a son of these parents who, like the son of the 
 Brownings, has artistic talent also. Through 
 the half-drawn portiere the visitor has a glimpse 
 of the dining-room beyond, with its old-fashioned 
 furniture and open fireplace. 
 
 The poet's study, on the second story, is a 
 genuine workshop. Here, in an easy-chair be- 
 fore the open fire, Mr. Stoddard may be found 
 on almost any winter morning, with Mrs. Stod- 
 dard reading or writing at the quaint old desk 
 between the windows. The apartment is an 
 ordinary square room, made more spacious and 
 more attractive by a deep alcove, in which 
 stands a large bookcase. Other bookcases are 
 seen in the room, and almost every inch of ex- 
 posed wall-space is covered with framed etch- 
 ings, photographs, and other pictures having 
 some personal association. Under a copy of 
 Lawrence's portrait of Thackeray hangs an au- 
 tograph of the great English writer. A fine 
 etching of Victor Hugo is accompanied also by 
 an autograph. Over the mantel hangs a rare 
 print of Blake's " Canterbury Pilgrimage," and 
 near by an etched portrait of Edmund Clarence 
 Stedman, one of Stoddard's best-loved friends. 
 A series of photographs in one frame shows 
 Lorimer Stoddard in the costumes of parts in 
 
 [22] 
 
Richard Henry Stoddard 
 
 which he has acted. The success of Lorimer 
 Stoddard's dramatization of " Tess of the D'Ur- 
 bervilles," and still later his dramatization of 
 Crawford's " In the Palace of the King," are 
 still fresh in many minds. 
 
 Wherever the eye falls in this pleasant room, 
 with its old-time air and comfortable furnish- 
 ings, there is something characteristic to be 
 seen. We need not wait for Mr. Stoddard to 
 sa' he prefers old poets to new, for we recog- 
 ' .ze in bookcases the old English poets, with 
 names faintly lettered on black or brown backs, 
 and the later ones in the familiar blue and gold 
 of a generation ago. Mr. Stoddard's collection 
 of old poets has often been consulted by those 
 who have made a special study of them. 
 
 Many volumes are first editions, such as 
 Drayton's poems of 1619 and Milton's of 
 1645. Many have belonged to famous men 
 like Waller, Gray, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Cole- 
 ridge, Keats, Wordsworth, Lamb, Southey, and 
 Byron. Mr. Stoddard has a lock of hair from 
 Milton's head, the genuineness of which is un- 
 disputed, and a lock of the hair of Washington. 
 Of manuscripts and autographs, he has speci- 
 mens from Shenstone, Burns, Cowper, Sheri- 
 dan, Southey, Scott, Moore, Campbell, Dickens, 
 [23] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, Taylor, Irving, 
 the Brownings, and Whittier. 
 
 These masters of literature in the bookcases 
 emphasize the enthusiasm with which Mr. and 
 Mrs. Stoddard speak of their favorite authors. 
 We recall many of Mr. Stoddard's appreciations 
 in " Under the Evening Lamp," as well as his 
 admirable critique on Burns in the " Library of 
 the World's Best Literature." As we listen to 
 Mrs. Stoddard expressing her fondness for Scott 
 and Miss Austen, we remember that it was one 
 of the joys of her girlhood to browse in the 
 library of the Rev. Thomas Robbins at her Mas- 
 sachusetts home, where she had access to the old 
 English classics. When we look at the heaps of 
 new books on the tables, we realize that few men of 
 Mr. Stoddard's age have kept themselves so thor- 
 oughly in touch with the new as well as the old. 
 
 The personal reminiscences which he is 
 writing, and the critical department which he 
 has conducted for years in a leading New York 
 journal, speak forcibly of Mr. Stoddard's present 
 activity. For many years he has devoted him- 
 self to work with great regularity, being en- 
 gaged four or five hours during the day. He is 
 a believer in night-work, but semi-blindness from 
 cataract in later years has obliged him to alter his 
 [24] 
 
Richard Henry Stoddard 
 
 habits. In reading his writings we realize how 
 little the inner vision has been impaired, while 
 his conversation shows him keen-sighted as ever. 
 It is a long time since Mr. Stoddard's first 
 printed poem appeared in The Rover, then 
 under the editorship of Seba Smith. Stern ne- 
 cessity in early youth after his father's death at 
 sea, obliged him to take up occupations far 
 from congenial. It was a fortunate chance, 
 perhaps, that took the mother and son to New 
 York. Bayard Taylor was the first literary 
 friend of his own age whom he made. The 
 friendship 9f these two continued strong until 
 the last. Mr. Stoddard was twenty-eight years 
 old and already married, when, through Na- 
 thaniel Hawthorne's influence with Franklin 
 Pierce, he received an appointment in the 
 New York Custom-House, which he held for 
 seventeen years. Editorial and other duties 
 have kept him in the city ever since, although 
 with genuine feeling he has said : 
 
 Me whom the city holds, whose feet 
 Have worn its stony highways. 
 
 Familiar with its loneliest street — 
 Its ways were never my ways. 
 
 My cradle was beside the sea. 
 
 And there I hope my grave will be. 
 [25] 
 
Jmerican Authors & T'heir Homes 
 
 Hingham, the birthplace of Mr. Stoddard, 
 is still one of the most attractive of Massachu- 
 setts seaport towns, and it is an interesting fact 
 that, though Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard met first in 
 New York, the latter also claims a Massachu- 
 setts town — Mattapoisett — as her birthplace 
 and early home. Mrs. Stoddard was long a 
 contributor to Putnam's Magazine and to Har- 
 per's Monthly from its earliest numbers. Her 
 three novels, " Two Men," " Temple House," 
 and " The Morgesons," are strong in character- 
 ization and wonderfully fine portrayals of New 
 England life. A new edition came out only a 
 few years ago, and another is now in prepara- 
 tion. " The Morgesons " is particularly valua- 
 ble, for, though it may not be entirely autobio- 
 graphic, it is so to a large extent. When Mrs. 
 Stoddard's scattered poems were collected in a 
 volume a few years ago, they received high praise. 
 
 Mrs. Stoddard is devoted to her home, and 
 still finds love of books a great resource. She 
 would rather read the old than the modern poets. 
 She is not fond of women's clubs, although her 
 views on most subjects are broad and progres- 
 sive, and her conversation shows the cultured 
 mind that has made her friendship valuable to 
 men of letters and her companionship precious 
 
 [26] 
 
Richard Henry Stoddard 
 
 to her husband. So thoroughly abreast of the 
 times have Mr. and Mrs, Stoddard kept them- 
 selves that to call them " venerable " seems al- 
 most a misapplication of terms. It is probably 
 true, however, of them as of others, that 
 
 There are gains for all our losses. 
 There's a balm for every pain. 
 But when Youth, the dream departs. 
 It takes something from our hearts. 
 And it never comes again. 
 
 In spite of these lines, Mr. Stoddard would 
 probably admit that age possesses many charms 
 that do not belong to youth. The poem in 
 which they occur, "Youth and Age," is to 
 many the most representative of all Mr. Stod- 
 dard's lines. One of his other famous poems 
 is " Abraham Lincoln," which he has called an 
 " Horatian ode." It was struck ofF at white 
 heat just after Lincoln's death. Its noble lines 
 have held their place to the present. 
 
 Mr. Stoddard has a fine prose style. Much 
 of his best work is found in his collected essays, 
 and in introductions to many books he has 
 edited — Poe and Swinburne, and volumes of se- 
 lections from English writers. As a poet it will 
 be long before any shall successfully dispute his 
 place as our leading lyrist. 
 
 [27] 
 
yohn Burroughs 
 In West Park-on-the-Hudson 
 
BY MR. BURROUGHS 
 
 Born in iS^y in Roxbury, N. Y. 
 
 Wake Robin. 1871. 
 
 Winter Sunshine. 1876. 
 
 Birds and Poets, with Other Papers. 1877. 
 
 Locusts and Wild Honey. 1879. 
 
 Pepacton : Notes of a Wallcer, 1 88 1. 
 
 Fresh Fields. 1884. 
 
 Signs and Seasons. 1886. 
 
 Indoor Studies. 1889. 
 
 Riverby. 1 894. 
 
 Whitman : A Study. 1896. 
 
 The Light of Day. 1898. 
 
 Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers. 1900. 
 
s 
 s 
 
 
 a 
 
 ^ 
 
 =o 
 
II 
 
 John Burroughs 
 In West Park-on-the-Hudson 
 
 JOHN BURROUGHS " at home " may 
 be in either of two places, but they are 
 not far apart. When some twenty-five 
 years ago Mr. Burroughs quitted Washing- 
 ton, he purchased a farm of about a dozen acres, 
 now increased to twenty, on the high western 
 bank of the Hudson, opposite Hyde Paric, in a 
 district then inhabited by the Astors and now 
 called West Park. His object in settling here 
 was not only to get into a congenial region, but 
 into one favorable to fruit-growing, and his first 
 care was to plant a great vineyard on the river- 
 ward slope of the hill and to lay the foundations 
 of a house built of bluestone, quarried near by, 
 which is now one of the ornaments of the river. 
 A large part of it was the work of the owner's 
 hands, as it is pleasant to think a homestead 
 should be. A semi - circular driveway leads 
 from the vine-draped entrance to the old Albany 
 turnpike that bounds the property on the west, and 
 about the rear and more familiar side of the house 
 lies a great orchard, between whose trunks and 
 [31]. 
 
American Authors & 'fket'r Homes 
 
 foliage one catches glimpses of the river, the 
 palatial country-seats of Hyde Park, and the 
 Duchess Hills beyond. 
 
 To profit by the inspiration of this picture, 
 with its singular and suggestive blending of rus- 
 tic quiet and the world's activities as displayed 
 by the ever-moving panorama of the Hudson, 
 and also to secure privacy for himself and his 
 cronies, Mr. Burroughs afterward built on the 
 brow of the slope a small study sheathed with 
 chestnut bark, whose inner walls are covered 
 with books, except where the fireplace ofFers its 
 good cheer ; but from these books — so miscel- 
 laneous and diverse are they — it would be im- 
 possible to say what was the especial bent of the 
 owner, for never did writer use his books as 
 tools less than this one. In this cozy retreat 
 have been penned some of the sweetest of our 
 author's essays on outdoor themes and some of 
 the most effective of his critical articles. 
 
 " Fresh Fields " was the first of his books to 
 be made there — the fifth in a series that began 
 with " Wake Robin." This latter was a book 
 that to me (as a typical reader) was like a cup 
 of water to a thirsty mind. I was a boy in a 
 Western town, ardently interested in animal 
 life, especially birds, but without companionship 
 
 [32] 
 
yohn Burroughs 
 
 in this pursuit, and owning only a single book 
 of reference, when I chanced upon " Wake 
 Robin." The beauty of its style appealed to 
 me, of course, in an unconscious sort of way, 
 but it was as information that I took and valued 
 it. It seemed to me that the author must have 
 grown up in the woods much as I was doing, 
 for I felt a kinship with him that must arise 
 from a similar mental experience. 
 
 This was largely true. Born on a farm in 
 the beautiful region west of the Catskills, the 
 chance sight of an unusual and brilliant bird ar- 
 rested Burroughs's attention and set him study- 
 ing the creatures themselves, for books then 
 were unattainable. This has remained the 
 characteristic of the man's knowledge of Nature 
 — what he has seen, not what he has read. 
 Books of zoology fill the smallest shelf in his 
 library, and they relate to the local fauna. He 
 finds all the material he wants close at hand, 
 and his method of utilizing it calls for little 
 consultation of " authorities " or cabinets. He 
 is never concerned about making contributions 
 to science, directing his attention rather to the 
 poetic and moral aspects of the incident — the 
 human relations it possesses. 
 
 It was natural enough that his dominant 
 [33] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 tastes and the influences of fresh knowledge 
 should have made the first book from his pen 
 distinctively one of facts from the woods ; but 
 the very next one, " Winter Sunshine," showed 
 a diversion toward more general themes, and in 
 its successors this diversion has increased until 
 the literary view has taken long precedence of 
 the scientific, 
 
 Mr. Burroughs composes largely from notes 
 and memoranda. An observation of some fact 
 or incident met in his rambles or about the farm 
 is immediately written down with the comments 
 it suggests. Many of his magazine articles and 
 subsequent book chapters, such as " Notes of a 
 Walker," are simply these jottings strung to- 
 gether, and owe their verve and fragrance of the 
 fields to their origin. Thus the actual prepara- 
 tion of a manuscript — Burroughs never dictates 
 nor uses a typewriter — is rapid and sure. An- 
 other habit is that of filling the books he reads 
 with marginal notes or pencilling upon the fly- 
 leaves giving the total impression left upon his 
 mind by the volume. 
 
 The beautiful home on the Hudson, which is 
 
 named " Riverby," gives a title to one of Bur- 
 
 roughs's books, and a commercial name to that 
 
 more profitable branch of merchandise, his table 
 
 [34] 
 
John Burroughs 
 
 grapes. It is a good enough summer-home for 
 Mrs. Burroughs and Julian, the only son, who 
 has been educated at Harvard and seems to in- 
 herit the tastes and hterary tendencies of his 
 father. Mrs. Burroughs has never written for 
 publication, and has no ambition to do so ; but 
 she is a woman of vigorous intellect and excel- 
 lent judgment, whose comments have been of 
 great value to her husband, especially in the ear- 
 lier part of his career. His debt is greater, how- 
 ever, to her thrift and good management, oppos- 
 ing to the easy optimism of her husband an 
 alert sense of the necessities of the future and of 
 the proprieties of things. 
 
 As for housekeeping, the like of her's was 
 never seen. Her kitchen and dining-room, look- 
 ing out into the orchard, are like other folks' 
 parlors for continuous, unblemished neatness, 
 and woe to John, or you, or me, or any other 
 thoughtless wight who disturbs their man-of-war 
 tidiness and discipline. 
 
 This picturesque, well-ordered home is quite 
 enough summer-resort for Mrs. Burroughs, but 
 Mr. Burroughs likes something more camp-like 
 for warm weather, where he may " lie round " 
 when he feels like it, and give his guests that 
 taste of the country in its wilder aspects which 
 [35] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 everyone seems to expect of him. When, there- 
 fore, he took possession a few years ago of a 
 tract of land behind the rocky hills that run par- 
 allel with the Hudson at West Park, and be- 
 gan to open it to cultivation, he also decided to 
 build a summer-house, and this is the second of 
 the two homes of which I spoke, and the one 
 where he may usually be found from April to 
 November. 
 
 The road to it takes a pleasant, roundabout 
 course of a mile- and a half through the woods, 
 but when Burroughs is guide, one will probably 
 be led over the short cut — a climb of several 
 hundred feet up a rough path through the 
 woods covering the ridge. It is a heart-break- 
 ing reception for many of his visitors, but as it 
 is in keeping with their ideal they pretend to 
 like it, and their host is grimly unobservant of 
 their distress. It is the price of hero-worship. 
 At the end one comes out suddenly upon a 
 bowl-like depression, rimmed round by reefs 
 and walls of blue-white rock, which on the east 
 rise in brush-covered ledges to the crest of the 
 Schaafenberg. 
 
 The bottom of the bowl was a bog overgrown 
 with small woods until three years ago, when 
 Burroughs and his men began to clear, drain, 
 [36] 
 
John Burroughs 
 
 and grub it out, and now it is an absolutely 
 level area of black peat soil covered with celery- 
 plants and onions. At its very edge, shielded 
 from the east wind by overlooking cliffs, stands 
 " Slabsides," a house built of stones culled from 
 the near-by ledges and of timbers cut in the 
 surrounding woods. It is covered with rough- 
 barked slabs laid horizontally as if they were 
 real logs, and has a broad, elevated porch, whose 
 posts are rough cedar-trunks shrouded in grow- 
 ing vines. Into this house Mr. Burroughs put 
 days and weeks of labor, with such help as he 
 could get ; but it is the massive chimney — rough 
 stone outside and in — that is his special pride. 
 Of this the present writer has said elsewhere : 
 
 Few are the philosophers who could have done 
 it, for the hardened muscles of a man familiar with 
 outdoor work were needed to handle these heavy 
 stones. ... No wonder, then, that Mr. Bur- 
 roughs talks with pride of his chimney and conjures up 
 recollections of adventure with each old rock that 
 faces him as he sits before a blazing fire, watching his 
 black tea-kettle hissing on its crane, and the gnarled old 
 peat roots consume into coals above the roasting potato 
 from his dooryard patch. By the warmth and light 
 of this great fire the inside of the house was finished 
 by the writer's own hands — finished to suit himself. 
 From the deep ravine at the head of the swamp he 
 [37] 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 brought dozens of large, straight sticks of the beautifiil 
 yellow birch, whose bark consists of thin, papery 
 layers that are greenish-gray and silvery and golden 
 and reddish, according to the light, and as lustrous as 
 satin. Straight and smooth are these beautiful golden 
 birches, and of their trunks, standing side by side, he 
 built a partition, half hiding his birchwood bunk, a 
 stairway to the capacious loft, and an ornamental 
 mantel-shelf. Two sumachs, branching into tripods, 
 were cut off and set upside down as legs for a study- 
 table of plain boards, and out of curiously twisted 
 stems and elbows from the woods were constructed a 
 settee and other quaint bits of ftirniture. 
 
 Such is " Slabsides," and here in summer the 
 master lives in carpetless ease and such bachelor 
 comfort as he can provide for himself, carrying 
 on his daily affairs and now and then accom- 
 plishing a few hours of literary work, but work 
 is always cheerfully laid aside when visitors 
 come — and when do they not ? — men and 
 women from distant corners of the country, 
 friends from near by, picnic parties of young 
 people from along the river, bands of school- 
 teachers and student girls from Vassar Col- 
 lege, slow-moving farm neighbors, redolent in 
 person and speech of hay, celery, and fruit. 
 Few authors have so many friends. His books 
 seem to carry him into cordial relations with his 
 [38] 
 
John Burroughs 
 
 readers, and countless letters come from every 
 part of the land expressing delight and grati- 
 tude, discussing facts or views, offering and ask- 
 ing information. 
 
 I am betraying no secret when I tell you that 
 the most of these letters are from women. 
 Burroughs has been called " a woman's author," 
 and it is certain that more of his readers and 
 admirers are of that sex than of the masculine. 
 It is the nature articles, moreover, not the 
 literary ones, that interest them. Why this 
 marked and unsolicited homage by womankind 
 should arise in this case is hard to explain, for 
 as often as not the woman heard from with 
 enthusiasm knows or cares little as to natural 
 history. Is it that these delightful essays ask 
 little of the intellect, but appeal to the senses, 
 the emotions, the poetic, sensuous aspect of 
 the world and the things that are in it ? 
 This amounts to saying that on the average 
 women do not think and wish only to feel-; and 
 also that they intuitively detect in this writer a 
 man sympathetic with them and their views — 
 an epicure of the epicureans, who in his heart 
 shuns exertion, hates facts, and is satisfied with 
 passions and impressions. This is the part of a 
 poet, not that of a naturalist. 
 [39] 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding this poetic suscepti- 
 bility and his facility and refinement in compo. 
 sition, Mr. Burroughs has never printed but one 
 poem that anybody remembers, but this is fast 
 becoming familiar household verse wherever 
 English is spoken. It is entitled " Waiting," 
 and begins : 
 
 Serene, I fold my hands and wait. 
 Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea. 
 
 Published first in The Knickerbocker in 1862, 
 it lay buried in that magazine until Whittier 
 resurrected it and embalmed i^ in his " Songs of 
 Three Centuries." This set the poem going, 
 and it daily grows more popular. The verses 
 are not remarkable for poetic merit, but they 
 awaken a grateful response in the hearts of per- 
 sons of a certain religious cast who no longer 
 find comfort in the doctrines of their fathers as 
 an expression of faith and confidence inherent 
 in all thoughtful men. The Theosophists have 
 made it one of their hymns, and it goes into 
 most of the religious anthologies. It is inter- 
 esting to recall that Burroughs's parents were 
 old-school, or " Hard-Shell," Baptists, in whose 
 creed predestination was a corner-stone and iron- 
 clad Calvinism the bulwark, and this is the result 
 [40] 
 
John Burroughs 
 
 of their teaching as filtered through the mind of 
 their more broadly visioned son — Calvinism sub- 
 limated. 
 
 To be able to entertain pilgrims interested in 
 his individuality alone, where their coming would 
 not be a tax upon his family, was one of the pur- 
 poses in building " Slabsides," but a higher 
 thought was to " get near to nature " in that 
 most literal meaning of a phrase which has taken 
 on a touch of cant recently. 
 
 Mr. Burroughs once confessed that he had 
 grown tired of the Hudson, with its elegantly 
 cliffed shores and smoothly gliding surface. 
 "Everything in and about Riverby," he said, 
 " is in ' good form,' and it is all too tame and 
 domestic. The daintiness and trimness and 
 self-consciousness of the landscape all along the 
 river weary me. There is so little of the really 
 human and living about it that a man who likes 
 wild berries and weeds and a chance to take 
 his coat and collar ofF in hot weather and 
 get cool on the front porch when that hap- 
 pens to be the breezy place, gets perfectly 
 sick of the whole villa side of rural civiliza- 
 tion. I felt that I must go somewhere and 
 get a reviving draught from nature's breast 
 and forget confectionery, and so I came to 
 [41] 
 
American Authors & 'iheir Homes 
 
 this rock-girt swamp, where I am face to 
 face with something savage unhacknied and 
 elemental." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Burroughs does not like 
 civilization, largely because of its troublesome- 
 ness in the way of conventions and restraints. 
 He enjoys travelling about to see his friends in 
 New York and other cities (and it is noteworthy 
 that almost all his friends are citizens of great 
 towns), but the ordinary attractions and amuse- 
 ments of the city beckon to him in vain. He 
 doesn't own a " dress suit," and does not wish 
 to, and simply would not enjoy the sort of 
 sociability in which one is required. No man 
 was ever more sociable, but ceremonies and late 
 hours, and the eating and drinking of fancy 
 things are no part of his notions of enjoyment. 
 Hence he is rarely seen after dark in any city, 
 save in some quiet back parlor, where one may 
 talk and smoke — but Burroughs does not even 
 smoke ! 
 
 Mr. Burroughs is, in fact, a true, consistent, 
 and natural democrat. I never saw but one 
 man to whom his demeanor was in the least dif- 
 ferent, so far as I could perceive, from that with 
 which he greeted his farmer neighbors or city 
 friends, and I have seen him when Ralph 
 
 1 42] 
 
yohn Burroughs 
 
 Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 and Julia Ward Howe and a score of other 
 revered men and women were in the same 
 room; and this exception was a man who 
 might have been Burroughs's running mate — 
 John Muir of California ! He is a Democrat in 
 politics, also — a Cleveland man, a free-trader, a 
 tremendous hater of monopolies and trusts, and 
 came so near voting for Bryan that if he escaped 
 at all it was only because he could not quite 
 take the silver medicine for the social ills we 
 find so many and so noxious. That was a little 
 too much for a man who spent his earlier years 
 in charge of the Government bureau for the 
 organization of National banks ! 
 
 Mr. Burroughs has at least three more books 
 in mind to be added to the beautifully made, 
 uniform Riverside Edition of his works, now 
 numbering ten volumes. He is still vigorous 
 in body as well as mind, and is likely to be 
 heard from for many years to come. During 
 the present year he has contributed many nature 
 poems to the leading magazines. 
 
 [43] 
 
Henry van Dyke 
 In Princeton, N. J. 
 
BY DR. VAN DYKE 
 
 Born in i8^2 in Germantoivny Fa. 
 
 The Reality of Religion. 1884, 
 
 The Poetry of Tennyson. 1 889. 
 
 Sermons to Young Men. 1893. 
 
 The Christ-Child in Art. 1894. 
 
 Little Rivers. 1895. 
 
 The Story of the Other Wise Man. 1896. 
 
 The First Christmas Tree. 1897. 
 
 The Builders, and Other Poems. 1897. 
 
 The Lost Word. 1898. 
 
 Fisherman's Luck. 1899. 
 
 The Toiling of Felix, and Other Poems. 190O. 
 
 The Ruling Passion. 1 90 1. 
 

 ■-ft; 
 
 <3 
 
 a 
 
Ill 
 
 Henry van Dyke 
 
 In Princeton, N. J. 
 
 DR. HENRY VAN DYKE lives in 
 an intellectual atmosphere largely of 
 his own choosing and his own crea- 
 tion. The power to do this is becoming rare in 
 an age that accepts the new scientific gospel of 
 heredity, both as a faith and as a limitation of 
 life. High thinking, which is independent 
 thinking, is one of the things which have been 
 lost with the " homely beauty of the old cause " ; 
 but Dr. van Dyke has preserved his mental 
 freedom, and is neither a " product " nor a dis- 
 ciple. In an era of formula, he has wrought 
 out his own system of philosophy and his own 
 intellectual ideals. 
 
 His life, for more than twenty years, has been 
 clearly divided into two well-defined and almost 
 equal parts, although the same purpose lies at 
 the foundation of both. He has been known 
 both as a clergyman and a scholar, but he was 
 neither a pedant in his pulpit nor a preacher in 
 his books, and now he is Professor of Eng- 
 lish Literature in Princeton University. The 
 [47] 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 scholar's half of his hfe has been spent in 
 labor among his books — poems, stories, es- 
 says, philosophies, and breezy, wholesome, in- 
 spiring volumes on travel and sport — that are 
 sheltered in his library at Princeton, where, 
 somewhat more than a year ago, he became a 
 professor. 
 
 Here, of course, went his library, his papers, 
 his literary accumulations all, when he departed 
 from what he called the " Manse," that house 
 in East Thirty-seventh Street occupied by him 
 while pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church. 
 In his pastoral days the clerical half of Dr. 
 van Dyke's time, at least its workshop part, 
 was passed in the company of the Fathers and 
 of erudite commentators, in the snug library be- 
 hind the church. 
 
 Avalon, Dr. van Dyke's Princeton home, 
 lies only a step from the main thoroughfare of 
 that university town. Across the road from the 
 hedge that guards the lawn, stands the home of 
 Grover Cleveland, and from the semi-circular 
 porch jutting out from the piazza through which 
 one passes to enter, are seen the roofs and 
 towers of the University, scarcely more than 
 gun-shot away. It is an edifice of Colonial de- 
 sign and Colonial date, its erection going five 
 [48] 
 
Henry van Dyke 
 
 years back of the fight at Lexington, and a 
 plot ample in acreage surrounds it. After pur- 
 chasing it, Dr. van Dyke made considerable re- 
 pairs and improvements to the house, both out- 
 side and in, so that one scarcely understands at 
 first that it has come down from a time so early. 
 The great elm which shades the front terrace 
 is more than ninety years old, and spreads its 
 branches over lOO feet. 
 
 A wide and full-length hall is entered from 
 the porch, with the winding stairway at the far- 
 ther end. From the right one enters the parlor, 
 a room of spacious proportions ; and adjoining 
 this is the dining-room. From the hall on the 
 left a doorway leads into the library, to which 
 has been accorded the entire width of that end 
 of the structure — a room forty feet long, 
 warmed by a fireplace framed in with the origi- 
 nal Colonial mantel, with bookcases set along 
 the walls, here and there in the form of alcoves, 
 a great table at one side from the centre, an 
 ample sofa near the fireplace ; and oj>ening out 
 from beyond the table, where steps rise to a plat- 
 form, is a sun-parlor, from which one goes to 
 the study, an apartment so concealed, even in 
 the entrance to it, that no stranger ever would 
 suspect its existence — and in which, except to 
 [49] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 his secretary and the most favored friends, Dr. 
 van Dyke is never at home. 
 
 When some favored visitor has gone down 
 to Princeton for a night at Avalon, he will 
 probably arrive in time for a drive with Dr. 
 van Dyke through the University grounds and 
 to the battle-field a few miles away. On return- 
 ing he will find himself again in this library with 
 a cigar at his disposal before dressing for dinner. 
 Later on, when he has descended the stairway, 
 prandially attired, and is once more seated before 
 the fireplace, the door will softly open and in 
 the subdued light will appear a gracious figure, 
 not as he has known her in books, but arrayed 
 for festive hours, though still the same, "My 
 Lady Greygown." 
 
 Tennyson is the first thought that comes 
 into mind upon entering the library, which is 
 a storehouse of Tennyson treasures and of lau- 
 reate memories. Carved in white marble, the 
 great crowned singer, from a point between the 
 large windows, looks kindly down upon you and 
 upon rows of books in many mahogany cases 
 and alcoves — that noble face, which looks, as 
 Tennyson said of Milton's, " like a seraph 
 strong." Many of these books have a peculiar 
 charm from having been held in the hands of the 
 [50] 
 
Henry van Dyke 
 
 master himself. There, too, are all the volumes 
 of which Tennyson has been the prolific 
 cause, for he was not only fruitful in himself, 
 but was " the cause that " fruitfulness " is in 
 other men." Among these is the volume of 
 essays with which Dr. van Dyke has indissolu- 
 bly joined his own name to that of England's 
 famous laureate, who, like his predecessor in 
 the same office, " uttered nothing base." 
 
 But Tennyson is not the only thought that 
 rises here, nor the last. There are other treas- 
 ures and other life. This scholar has labored 
 in many fields and has forged many ideals in 
 various intellectual workshops. A dozen vol- 
 umes reveal the fecundity of his own mind. 
 The range of subjects shows that if in early life 
 he hitched his literary wagon to a star, he has 
 not been content to make this his only claim to 
 recognition. If it can be said that Tennyson 
 helped him in making his early career, it can be 
 said as truthfully that Dr. van Dyke has more 
 than requited this by services which have made 
 the laureate's claim more enduring, for they have 
 led to a better understanding and deeper appre- 
 ciation of his poetry. 
 
 Dr. van Dyke has written several books on 
 religious subjects — ^" The Reality of Religion," 
 [51] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 "The Story of the Psalms," "Sermons to 
 Young Men," "The Gospel for an Age of 
 Doubt," " The Christ-Child in Art." But his 
 best known work is in books that belong dis- 
 tinctly to literature. These latter are " The 
 Poetry of Tennyson," " Little Rivers," " The 
 Story of the Other Wise Man," "The Lost 
 Word," « The First Christmas Tree," two vol- 
 umes of verse entitled " The Builders," and 
 " The Toiling of Felix," and that latest, already 
 famous volume, " Fisherman's Luck." 
 
 " Little Rivers " is, in truth, the harvest of 
 many an angling. On its title-page the author 
 has placed Colonel Robert Venable's saying con- 
 cerning the Experienced Angler, that " suppose 
 he take nothing, yet he enjoyeth a delightful 
 walk by pleasant Rivers, in sweet Pastures, 
 amongst odoriferous Flowers, which gratifie his 
 senses and delight his Mind," and has added 
 Robert Louis Stevenson's sentiment, "There is 
 no music like a little river's." 
 
 The doctor's fondness for angling has led him 
 along the upper courses of many a stream, and 
 he has taken many things besides fish. He has 
 brought back from the Restigouche, the Grande 
 Decharge, La Belle Riviere, and the Saranac not 
 only baskets brimming over with silvery trout, 
 [52] 
 
Henry van Dyke 
 
 but a mind weighted down with pastoral 
 thoughts and a wholesome, fragrant philosophy 
 of the woods. All through its pages the 
 heather bloorns again, the fish leap glittering in 
 the sweet inland waters, and birds sing in the 
 woods. 
 
 Dr. van Dyke last summer completed his 
 first year at Princeton. At the close of his final 
 lecture an interesting demonstration was made 
 by one of his classes, the " elective " one. A 
 study of Browning having been finished, he an- 
 nounced that he should never again have the 
 privilege of addressing the men then before him 
 as students in Princeton, and added : " Speed on 
 into life's work ; fight its battles ; be men ; 
 good-by." Someone at that moment started a 
 rousing " locomotive " cheer, which every stu- 
 dent throat took up until the air reverberated 
 with vocal thunder. 
 
 During the year Dr. van Dyke had given out 
 to his seniors a rather severe course of collateral 
 reading in English poetry. It was purely op- 
 tional with the students to piursue it or not, but 
 he tells with much pride that five-sixths of the 
 class followed the entire course. Out of 150 
 men, only four failed to pursue some part of it. 
 Besides his university work, Dr. van Dyke was 
 [53 J 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 a very active man all that year. He visited 
 many other colleges and universities, delivering 
 addresses, lecturing, and preaching — considera- 
 bly more than two dozen visits in all. The 
 commencement season took him on a tour 
 through the South, where he addressed several 
 collegiate bodies. 
 
 Returning home, he prepared at once for his 
 long-wished-for salmon-fishing trip to Canada 
 of a fortnight's duration, after which he was to 
 resume work on a new book which he expected 
 to have ready for the present season — " The 
 Ruling Passion." Of this book he said : " It 
 is fiction, pure and simple ; out-of-door studies, 
 showing plain humanity in action on nature's 
 stage. What I want to do is not to paint a 
 historical period, or a section of the country, 
 but just to get hold of the real drama of a few 
 men and women. After all, they are very much 
 alike ; whether the actors dress in silk or home- 
 spun, ' the play's the thing.' " 
 
 " The Builders, and Other Poems " was Dr. 
 van Dyke's first book of verse. It is a slender 
 volume, likely to be enlarged and enriched. 
 Two, at least, of its songs have already become 
 popular favorites, " The Fall of the Leaves " 
 and " An Angler's Wish." These poems ex- 
 [54] 
 
Henry van Dyke 
 
 press the extremes of Nature's moods — the birth 
 of Spring with its inspiring fire in the heart, and 
 the death of Autumn with its chill and gloom. 
 In the one the angler panteth, like the hart after 
 the water of the brooks — 
 
 When tulips bloom in Union Square, 
 
 And timid breath of vernal air 
 
 Goes wandering down the dusty town. 
 
 And in the other, among fallen leaves, 
 
 We turn on gala days to tread 
 Among the rustling memories oi the dead. 
 
 " The Poetry of Tennyson " brought Dr. 
 van Dyke his first fame as an author. It rep- 
 resents in some measure the entire span of his 
 literary life. It was in fact begun in college 
 when his mind first turned to Tennyson. He 
 has studied the poet and added every year some- 
 thing to the store of knowledge and thought he 
 has gathered. He has recently enlarged the 
 bibliography for the ninth edition. 
 
 Dr. van Dyke's literary workshop, just off 
 the library proper, is in no sense a lair or den. 
 Its aspect is bright, wholesome, and stimulating. 
 Its windows look out upon the lawn where sky 
 and " sunny spots of greenery " can be seen, 
 [55] 
 
American Authors & I'keir Homes 
 
 and through which come floods of light and air. 
 The study is further brightened by pictures on 
 the walls and books which speak and smile 
 from comfortable covers. On the desk lie the 
 disjecta membra of essays, poems, stories, and 
 possibly books which await articulation and the 
 last informing touch of life. A wood-thrush has 
 built her nest in the tree that shades the window, 
 and her mate sings, morning and evening, from 
 the tall pine near by. 
 
 The Tennyson case of books is the most 
 valued treasure of the house. On one shelf is 
 a set of Tennyson's poems as they appeared — 
 all first editions and rare. There is to be seen 
 the "Poems of Two Brothers," published in 
 1826, which contains the first-fruits of Tenny- 
 son's mind. There, also, is a slender book, 
 esteemed above all its fellows. It is the 
 poet's second volume, published in 1832, and 
 bears on its fly-leaf the autograph of " Barry 
 Cornwall." Pencil marks throughout indicate 
 the passages and lines that most pleased its 
 former owner. Another early edition w>as 
 owned by Mark Pattison, but this cautious 
 scholar did not risk any compromise of his 
 judgment by indicating his favorite lines. Other 
 first editions are in the same case — a Lamb, a 
 [56] 
 
Henry van Dyke 
 
 Coleridge, a Wordsworth, and a full set of Rob- 
 ert Louis Stevenson. 
 
 Of Tennyson himself Dr. van Dyke has 
 many souvenirs. He visited the poet by invita- 
 tion at his home in 1892, shortly before his 
 death, and brought back the portrait that now 
 hangs on the library wall. " I wanted the poet 
 to write something of his own under the pict- 
 ure," said Dr. van Dyke, "and asked him to 
 write for me the two famous lines from the 
 ' Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington ' : 
 
 • Not once or twice in our rough island story 
 The path of duty was the way to glory. ' 
 
 When he handed me the picture I glanced at the 
 bottom to see what he had written, and read there : 
 
 ' Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the 
 chords with might ; 
 Smote the chord of self that, trembling, passed in 
 music out of sight.' 
 
 He had chosen as a sentiment the unselfishness 
 of love rather than the reward of fame. This 
 was only six weeks before the poet's death." 
 
 Tennyson impressed Dr. van Dyke as, per- 
 haps, the greatest personality he had ever seen ; 
 although in a very different way he felt the 
 force and greatness of Bismarck, Grant, and 
 [57] 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 Robert E. Lee. This portrait was the one the 
 poet liked best, and reveals more than any other 
 the fire of song and prophecy aglow behind 
 great luminous eyes. 
 
 Dr. van Dyke has no set time for literary 
 work, but goes to his tasks when opportunity, 
 apart from his University duties, offers, or when 
 the mood calls him. Above all pleasures he 
 prefers that of angling, and, like Dr. Paley, is 
 quite ready to put aside almost any work until 
 " the fly-fishing season is over." His desk is 
 close to the window, and he says that when the 
 green leaves come forth on the shrubs of the 
 lawn stretching, away to the roadway which 
 divides this home from the home of Grover 
 Cleveland, his heart immediately takes flight to 
 the forests and streams. 
 
 " I watch those trees closely," he said, " for 
 the first touch of spring. I can see the first 
 buds that burst through their rough winter cov- 
 ering, and then I know that spring is abroad in 
 the mountains, and that fish are running in a 
 hundred clear streams. It is very hard, then, to 
 stay at home, and I generally manage so I can 
 get out to spend a day close to nature's heart, 
 for my real study and workshop are in the 
 woods — not here." 
 
 [5S] 
 
Frank R. Stockton 
 
 Near Charles Town, W. Va. 
 
BY MR. STOCKTON 
 
 Barn in 1834 in Philadelphia 
 
 Rudder Grange. 1879. 
 
 The Lady or the Tiger ? 1884. 
 
 The Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine. i886. 
 
 The Late Mrs. Null. 1886. 
 
 The Great War Syndicate. 1889. 
 
 Ardis Claverden. 1890. 
 
 Pomona's Travels. 1890. 
 
 The Squirrel Inn. 1 89 1. 
 
 The Adventures of Captain Horn. 1895. 
 
 Mrs. Cliff's Yacht. 1896. 
 
 The Girl at Cobhurst. 1898. 
 
 The Great Stone of Sardis. 1898. 
 
 The Associated Hermits. 1 899. 
 
 The Vizier of the Two Horned Alexander. 1 899. 
 
IV 
 
 Frank R, Stockton 
 
 Near Charles Town, W. Va. 
 
 MR. STOCKTON'S home in West 
 Virginia lies three miles from Charles 
 Town, founded by General Wash- 
 ington's brother Charles. Here the visitor finds 
 himself in the valley of a stream otherwise his- 
 toric, since it is forever linked with the fame ot 
 Sheridan — the Shenandoah. Claymont is the 
 name of Mr. Stockton's home. It stands nearly 
 a mile back from the road, and the drive to its 
 doorway runs through a beautiful wood. Law- 
 yers who have searched the title have traced it 
 back to George Washington, its 150 acres being 
 part of an estate of 3,000 which the first Presi- 
 dent once owned. Indeed, the house itself has, 
 in a sense, come down from Washington. It 
 was he who planned it, although its actual con- 
 struction was the achievement of a grand-nephew 
 of his. The name came from an estate in 
 England associated with the Washington family. 
 The house is built of brick, light yellow in 
 color, and in size is spacious, having a roof 
 pierced by dormer windows, two deep and lofty 
 [61] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 verandas, an ample portico, and a conservatory. 
 To the east and west stand smaller structures, 
 one occupied by servants, the other utilized by 
 visitors when the main building is fully in re- 
 quisition, the two being connected with the house 
 by brick-walled court-yards. The view takes in 
 a noble prospect of meadow and mountains, 
 the Blue Ridge stretching away for twenty miles 
 to the South. 
 
 Within, one finds a spacious hall panelled in 
 oak, out of which open parlor, dining-room, and 
 library, the latter room leading to another, which 
 is the study, lighted by six double windows. 
 Near one of these windows stands an open 
 desk, and in the centre of the room a large 
 table laden with books of reference. Here Mr. 
 Stockton usually spends three of the morning 
 hours, and here were read the proofs of the new 
 complete edition of his writings to which he has 
 given the name of Shenandoah. 
 
 But this house has been his home for not 
 more than two years. For a long time previous 
 he had lived in that beautiful region of high and 
 rolling land which stretches from Summit to 
 Morristown in New Jersey, where man and 
 nature have joined hands in creating an earthly 
 paradise. His New Jersey home stood near 
 
 [62] 
 
Frank R. Stockton 
 
 Convent Station, and there all his recent books 
 have mainly been written. 
 
 It is in a hammock swung in a piazza adjoin- 
 ing his study, or when not in a hammock in the 
 easiest of easy-chairs, that Mr. Stockton likes to 
 work. From a room on the other side of his 
 " study-garden " (for Mr. Stockton dislikes the 
 typewriter's clicking and has banished the ma- 
 chine as far as possible) the secretary comes, and, 
 notebook in hand, quietly seats herself. Silence, 
 long drawn out and perhaps never broken, ex- 
 cept by Mr. Stockton's voice, then prevails, the 
 secretary finally leaving at the announcement of 
 luncheon. From the hammock's depths or from 
 the recesses of a great chair, a measured, vibrat- 
 ing voice has spoken out, and down in the note- 
 book has gone the first draught of the latest of the 
 thousand and one curious tales with which Stock- 
 ton has been delighting America and England, 
 the Continent, the colonies, and even the tropics, 
 for at least a quarter of a century. 
 
 In all probability this remarkable man stands 
 alone in his methods of work. Without making 
 a note, without a scrap of synopsis, he carries 
 his novels in his head, oftentimes letting the 
 story build itself up over a period of years. 
 When ready to write he calmly speaks it off to 
 [63] 
 
American Authors & T'heir Homes 
 
 the young girl. This first draught, made from the 
 head alone, for he never touches pen to paper, 
 becomes practically the final draught. Mr. Stock- 
 ton seldom cares to touch, in the way of correc- 
 tion, the typewritten sheets. 
 
 There is nothing more striking about Mr. 
 Stockton than his simplicity. His sanctum, 
 whence novel after novel has gone forth, 
 has nothing that savors of the " shop." As the 
 writer stood in the centre of the study it seemed 
 what also might have been the very delightful 
 " morning-room " of a British country gentle- 
 man of leisure and means. There was no litter 
 of proofs and manuscripts ; there were no heaps 
 of reference-books, none of the things usually 
 thought to be the stock-in-trade of the modern 
 author. Not many books were to be seen ; but 
 easy-chairs, a great settee, a desk for corre- 
 spondence, a table or two, a cabinet of pipes, 
 and some bookcases, one of which holds the va- 
 rious editions of his own works, and another an 
 encyclopedia. 
 
 A roomy chair spread its depths at his caller's 
 side. " My year," said Mr. Stockton, " is eight 
 months long on the average. I am just back, 
 after having been in New York and Washington 
 for some months. All my extended work is 
 [64] 
 
'Frank R. Stockton 
 
 done in this study, though I frequently write 
 short stories and do other ' immediate ' work 
 during the winter." 
 
 A personahty more winsome and delightful it 
 would be difficult to find. A small man sits be- 
 fore you, keen-eyed — those eyes' that miss noth- 
 ing — his mustache and hair iron gray. Photo- 
 graphs give no hint of the man ; they do not 
 even mirror his personal appearance. Nothing 
 save a talk with him gives you that. 
 
 Here — and you realize it as you watch his 
 eyes — is the " funster " of two continents, not 
 the swashbuckler comedian or the gross funny 
 man that plasters his wit and delivers it crude; 
 but the comedy man of human life, who even 
 in serious moments notices the humor and the 
 merriment, and tells it with dehcacy and wit 
 that set old men and severe matrons, young 
 girls and men of affairs, laughing at they know 
 not what. Always on the watch for curious 
 phases of human life, he builds up from what 
 he sees, travelling to refresh his mind, meeting 
 new men and women, parts and portions of 
 whose characters he will weave some day into 
 one of his novels. 
 
 Historians of literature will never find out 
 where Mr, Stockton gets his most delightful 
 [65] 
 
American Authors & 'Thetr Homes 
 
 characters, for Mr. Stockton scarcely knows him- 
 self. They grow in his mind, and are variations 
 of people he has met. They are so real that men 
 and women constantly write to him about them. 
 The correspondence regarding " The Lady or 
 the Tiger ? " has not yet ceased. " I answer 
 only those letters that seem to me to be worth 
 answering," said Mr. Stockton. " I would 
 have little time to do anything else if I should 
 undertake to answer them all. Do you know 
 that at one time I seriously thought of having a 
 printed slip saying that I really did not know 
 which it was — this being for the Lady or the 
 Tiger controversy ! Requests came in so 
 rapidly, and they still come. Only the other 
 day I got a package of opinions from the schol- 
 ars of a literature class in a Western school." 
 
 Mr. Stockton was soon in full conversational 
 swing. We were standing by the bookcase 
 taking out volumes of his works, early and late 
 — " Ting-a-Ling " in the oldest of old-fashioned 
 bindings, a collection of fairy stories written 
 about 1870 ; the first edition of "Rudder 
 Grange," which has one baby in it (the origi- 
 nal papers in the old Scribner's Monthly had 
 no baby, and when the book was made up a 
 final " baby chapter " was tacked on) ; the 
 [66] 
 
Frank R. Stockton 
 
 second edition, which has three babies ; and the 
 third, that has only two. Pomona's baby was 
 finally dropped out of existence, for the reason 
 that the author wanted Pomona and Jonas to 
 have a series of adventures in Europe, and with 
 a baby these adventures would have been im- 
 possible. 
 
 " I can tell you a story about Pomona," said 
 Pomona's creator, "and this baby. I had 
 planned out the book of Pomona's travels and 
 was about ready to write it. I was in Phila- 
 delphia at the time, and had a business appoint- 
 ment with my dentist, an old friend. By the 
 way, you should never change your dentist any 
 more than you should your plumber. Both will 
 want to take out the work of their predecessors, 
 swearing that it was done very badly. Well, 
 while in the chair I got to talking with this 
 friend about my new book. I told him I had 
 serious thoughts of killing that baby. He was 
 much interested. We talked over the advisa- 
 bility of doing this, and while he was not quite 
 convinced he in the main agreed with me. 
 
 " I had been finished with, and clasping his 
 
 hand went into the waiting-room on my way 
 
 out. This waiting-room was filled with women. 
 
 As I passed through the door I heard him call : 
 
 [67] 
 
American Authors & ^heir Homes 
 
 ' Then you have positively decided to kill that 
 baby ? ' ' Positively,' I replied. You should 
 have seen the w^omen stare. It was not until 
 I got w^ell out in the hallw^ay that I realized 
 w^hat they must, of course, have been thinking. 
 
 " Pomona actually existed in real life. She 
 was a charity girl we employed (she was about 
 fourteen), and she had precisely the same taste 
 for books and reading aloud to herself, as the 
 Pomona of the story. She had a name that I 
 now forget, but I know it was an assumed one, 
 it was so romantic. We finally had to send 
 her back to the institution, she was so untidy. 
 What became of her we never heard. She al- 
 ways said she would go upon the stage. Of 
 course, Pomona ' happened ' years ago, possi- 
 bly," and Mr. Stockton's face took on an in- 
 scrutable expression ; " she may now be one of 
 the popular actresses under another name. 
 
 " Only Pomona as a young girl is real, how- 
 ever. Pomona grown up is purely imaginary. 
 So are the doings of Mrs. Leeks (some people, 
 I regret to say, will call her Mrs. Leeks) and 
 Mrs. Aleshine. I thought Mrs. Aleshine's 
 name was simple enough, but I got many letters 
 asking if her name was not pronounced Al-e- 
 shi-ne. It is, really. Ale-shine. Well, they are 
 [68] 
 
Frank R. Stockton 
 
 two old ladies I knew that I started ofF and im- 
 agined a series of adventures for. They actually 
 did exist. 
 
 " It is much more to my liking to write 
 about middle-aged women than young women. 
 The older ones have more character ; you can 
 make them do more amusing things. 
 
 And so Mr. Stockton in a simple way ran on 
 with his anecdote and description. He told of 
 the pressing offers that came to him to rewrite 
 his " Great War Syndicate " and put Spain in 
 the place of England in that story, altering it so 
 as to kill some people (for the " War Syndicate " 
 tale is a remarkable battle story in that there is 
 only one man killed in all its pages — and he by 
 accident). This offer he refused. He told how 
 " Rudder Grange " is still selling, and how fresh 
 generations of young people discuss " The Lady 
 or the Tiger ? " Also how that truly great story 
 has been twice translated into Japanese ; once 
 literally, and again told in the words of a Jap- 
 anese story-teller. Neither of these Japanese 
 editions has Mr. Stockton ever been able to get. 
 None of his English friends in Japan can find 
 them. As Mr. Stockton remarks, " They 
 really wouldn't know them if they saw them, 
 you know." 
 
 [69] 
 
American Authors & I'kei'r Homes 
 
 " Ardis Claverden," he said, in response to a 
 question, " is, I think, my favorite woman char- 
 acter. She is probably the least well known of 
 my women, however. But I am very fond of 
 her. I had a hard time to find her, as you 
 shall hear. I couldn't seem to run across the 
 type I wanted. I hunted and hunted. At 
 last, talking about it to the principal of a girls' 
 school, I got permission from her to go through 
 the school and talk to the older girls. But it 
 was in vain. None of the girls, of course, 
 knew of my quest, but I couldn't find my char- 
 acter. One day I was talking my problem over 
 with a certain eminent authoress — no, I will 
 not say who she was — and an idea struck me. 
 The idea grew upon me. Ardis Claverden was 
 finally modelled upon her." 
 
 " The Late Mrs. Null," Mr. Stockton said, 
 was his best selling book; that is, it had the 
 greatest number of sales within a few months 
 of its issue. This, it will be remembered, was 
 his first long novel. Before its appearance 
 everyone had said he was a short-story man 
 alone, and could never write anything more 
 than that. 
 
 " The hardest work I have," Mr. Stockton 
 went on in his magnetic way, " is naming my 
 [70] 
 
Frank R. Stockton 
 
 characters. Many of them are completely 
 made up, others are suggested by something, 
 others are slightly changed from real names. I 
 seldom use a name that in itself is a description 
 of the character. That was Dickens's way, 
 you remember. Nevertheless, sometimes one 
 of my names does describe the character. Take 
 Tippengray of ' The Squirrel Inn.' Tippen- 
 gray was a man whose hair was slightly tipped 
 with gray. I always liked that name. Chip- 
 perton in ' A Jolly Fellowship ' is very descrip- 
 tive also. Ardis in ' Ardis Claverden ' is an old 
 family name of mine. My mother was a Vir- 
 ginian, and I had lived a great deal down South 
 before coming to Charles Town." 
 
 Here and there diversions in this conversa- 
 tion were caused. Mrs. Stockton now and 
 then appeared. Plumbers were in the house, 
 and Mr. Stockton was appealed to. He made 
 answer, but would not budge from the room. 
 Any other mechanic he will follow up ; a car- 
 penter and a paperhanger he will meet on open 
 ground ; but plumbers, he says, work too much 
 underground and under floors ; they are alto- 
 gether too mysterious, and he will have naught 
 to do with them. 
 
 At last the writer came to a question he had 
 [71] 
 
American Authors & T'kei'r Homes 
 
 long feared to ask, for it was the question Stock- 
 ton has been asked ten thousand times. How- 
 ever, when well nerved up for the task, the 
 question came. " Was it — " and then Mr. 
 Stockton smiled kindly, though a shade wearily, 
 and responded : " I do not know. I really 
 have never been able to decide whether the 
 Lady or the Tiger came out of that door. Yet 
 I must defend myself. People for years have 
 upbraided me for leaving it a mystery; some 
 used to write me that I had no right to impose 
 upon the good-nature of the public in that 
 manner. However, when I started in to write 
 the story, I really intended to finish it. But it 
 would never let itself be finished. I could not 
 decide. And to this day, I have, I assure you, 
 no more idea than anyone else. 
 
 " Only the other day some young ladies up in 
 Maine dramatized it, and sent me costume pho- 
 tographs and a copy of the little play. 
 
 " Perhaps the most interesting thing about 
 ' The Lady or the Tiger ? ' is its great popu- 
 larity among savage races. It has been told 
 again and again by the story-tellers of Burmah. 
 The Burmese say its ' local color ' is correct. 
 A missionary once told the story to a tribe of 
 Karens up in the north of Burmah. When she 
 [72] 
 
Frank R. Stockton 
 
 came back a year later the tribe surrounded her 
 and wanted to know if she had found out yet 
 whether — I cannot answer the question," 
 and a twinkle appeared in Mr. Stockton's eye, 
 " for I have no earthly idea myself." 
 
 [73] 
 
Hamilton Wright Mabie 
 In Summit, N. J. 
 
BY MR. MABIE 
 Born in 184S '" '-"''^ Spring, N. T. 
 
 Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas. 1882. 
 
 My Study Fire. 1 890. 
 
 Old New England. 1890. 
 
 Short Studies in Literature. 189I. 
 
 Under the Tree and Elsewhere. 1891. 
 
 Essays in Literary Interpretation. 1892. ,' 
 
 Essays on Nature and Culture. 1896. 
 
 Books and Culture. 1896. 
 
 Essays on Work and Culture. 1898. 
 
 In the Forest of Arden. 1898. 
 
 The Life of the Spirit. 1899. 
 
 William Shakespeare, Poet, Author and Man. 1900. 
 

V 
 
 Hamilton Wright Mabie 
 
 In Summit, N. J. 
 
 A JERSEY suburban town, high among 
 the hills that stretch westward of 
 New York, at the very top of the up- 
 lands and so far above the other towns of the 
 region that from time immemorial it has borne 
 the name of Summit, is the home of one of the 
 brightest, most sympathetic, and widely read 
 essayists of our time — Hamilton Wright Mabie. 
 Since George William Curtis laid down his pen, 
 Mr. Mabie has risen to be, perhaps, America's 
 best admired and most influential writer of what 
 may be called the literature of criticism and in- 
 terpretation. 
 
 The home is typical of the man. It lies on 
 the outer border of Summit. It is not an old 
 Jersey mansion, but a newly built house of Co- 
 lonial character, planned on the most modern 
 American lines. Its windows look out on 
 groves of hickory that are gray and picturesque 
 in the springtime. Within, it has peculiar 
 charm. The wide hallway is hung with photo- 
 graphs and prints of makers of books and scenes 
 [77] 
 
American Authors & I'ket'r Homes 
 
 connected with them, several of especially 
 famous men bearing interesting autographs of 
 presentation. A reception-room that is practi- 
 cally part of the hall is entered at the left. To 
 the right, for drawing-room read library, for, 
 beside the great fireplace, there is not an inch 
 of the walls that is not covered with books. 
 
 Here stand poetry and prose, in serried 
 shelves that rise to the ceiling and seem jealous 
 of the space the windows take. It is not a 
 household of the sciences or the ologies. These 
 books stand for precisely what Mabie, the essay- 
 ist, is — a representation of that broad culture 
 which is mind-training, while soul-training, that 
 does not stop at bald figures and bare facts, but 
 takes the lesson out of each, and from all builds 
 up a life. But Mr. Mabie's philosophy of cult- 
 ure needs no explaining; and if there are some 
 for whom such need exists, let them learn it in 
 our essayist's own words, " My Study Fire," or 
 in " Under the Trees," or in " Work and Cult- 
 ure," or elsewhere in any one of the many 
 volumes he has penned — a long line and the 
 most notable of them all, the most recent, the 
 volume on Shakespeare, in which he is believed 
 to have put his finest work. 
 
 Mr. Mabie is the essence of cheer, and greets 
 [78] 
 
Hamilton fFright Mahie 
 
 you with a merry smile. He is of two sides, 
 this man, of sun and shade, of shadow and light, 
 now deep, serious, reflective, and now witty and 
 sparkling. The light, airy trifle, nevertheless, 
 has no place in his make-up. Behind his droll- 
 ing there is a substantial thought always — a 
 thought that sticks. It is this characteristic 
 that has made him one of the best after-dinner 
 speakers of his time, and a conversationalist who 
 never plays verbal battledoor and shuttlecock, 
 but has always something to say, and says it well. 
 His fame as an after-dinner speaker has gone to 
 the ends of all towns where he has been heard. 
 
 At Mr. Mabie's home you drop into one of 
 the easy-chairs of the library, and, the day being 
 chilly, Mrs. Mabie, who has appeared, touches 
 a match to the heap of logs with kindling-wood 
 and paper that need no coaxing to rouse them 
 into flame. A roar and the fire darts up be- 
 tween the dull red bricks. Little shoots of 
 warmth steal out, and the blaze is grateful. 
 You recall — you cannot help it — these words 
 from the first of the essays in " My Study Fire " : 
 " Rosalind always lights the fire, and one of the 
 pleasant impressions of the annual ceremonial is 
 the glow of the first blaze upon her fair face 
 and waving hair." 
 
 [79] 
 
American Authors & "^heir Homes 
 
 " This is not the original •• My Study Fire,' " 
 says Mr. Mabie, in answer to a question, 
 " though it has been pictured with that title. 
 The original 'Study Fire' was in Greenwich, 
 Conn., where I lived some years ago. 
 
 " Those essays, by the way," he went on, 
 "were nearly all first printed in The Outlook. 
 The most of my essays have been, you know. 
 But that was not my first book. I had been be- 
 tween covers before, though I suppose that is 
 not generally known. It seems to be the popu- 
 lar idea that I started with ' My Study Fire.' 
 ' Norse Stories,' however, came several years 
 before — a series of tales from Northern mythol- 
 ogy, written for children. It sells, perhaps, 
 better than ever of recent years. 
 
 He placed the little book — a new edition of 
 it — in my hand. So this was Hamilton Wright 
 Mabie's first venture into the realm of book- 
 dom, an essay of printed pages, wherein gods 
 and giants clashed and contended ! How differ- 
 ent these pages of Norse myths, of doughty 
 deeds, from the calm philosophy of Mabie of 
 recent years, brimful of the message of culture 
 for the lowest as well as for the highest. 
 
 Some men are long in finding their proper 
 niche in the world, and some discover their mis- 
 [80] 
 
Hamilton Wright Mabie 
 
 sion early. For a dozen years and more Mr. 
 Mabie has been spreading his gospel of literature 
 and education. How he came into his realm is 
 best told in his own words : 
 
 " I started ofF," he said — and the study fire 
 (which one can think of only as the embodi- 
 ment of the thoughts of Mr. Mabie, the very 
 phrase is wound so closely about him) danced 
 up more brightly — " as a lawyer, like many an- 
 other young man. I chose law because I did 
 not know what else to choose. But a few 
 months at it showed me that I was not meant 
 for an attorney. Just then it happened that I 
 had a chance to go on The Christian Union^ 
 now The Outlook. I have been there ever 
 since." 
 
 " And how — " I began. A smile stole 
 around the corners of Mr. Mabie's mouth. It 
 is as useless to attempt to describe that whole- 
 souled smile that irradiates continually with uni- 
 versal kindness as it is to try to picture the 
 charm of an hour with him. His words — 
 should they be set down literally in cold type — 
 would not make a tithe of the impression that 
 they do when spoken. This charm he has is 
 elusive and intangible. It is like a view of 
 meadow upland on a day that is touched with 
 [8i] 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 an impalpable mist. The eye takes in all its 
 sensuous charm, but a photograph, while it gives 
 the form and outlines, fails to catch the spirit 
 and color. 
 
 It is the great forces of the day that appeal to 
 Mr. Mabie, the onward movements that are 
 pushing this country rapidly to the fore, and, 
 though he writes from a secluded, plainly fur- 
 nished study up near his dwelling's eaves, he is 
 no recluse, but a man keenly alive to events 
 and the currents of the nation's life. Though 
 books crowd his library, though the compressed 
 thought of the world through the centuries is at 
 his hand, he spends only a fraction of each day, 
 week, and month with them, seeking his 
 thoughts and inspirations from the lives of men 
 and women, the lives of those, in the main, who 
 are struggling for a fuller existence. 
 
 " Has it ever struck you," he says, leaning 
 back in his chair, " that the great mass of the 
 literary men of America have been more than 
 mere students, that they have been in touch 
 with actual American life ? " Whether or no 
 this be true, it is certain that this individual 
 American literary man is and has been in close 
 touch with the life of his times. A boundless 
 optimism is apparent in every word he utters. 
 
 [82] 
 
Hamilton bright Mabie 
 
 He sees the elevation of America through the 
 years to a higher and yet higher plane, and this 
 will come about, he sturdily declares, through 
 the spread of culture. 
 
 " I have been surprised," he says, there being 
 now no smile on his lips, but a magnetic ear- 
 nestness that carries weight with it, " at the 
 spread of culture in America. We of the East 
 have the impression that culture is largely con- 
 fined to the East, that it has made little headway 
 elsewhere. Never was there a greater error. 
 The men and women, especially the younger 
 generation, of the South and West have a large 
 amount of culture, and they are continually add- 
 ing to it. In the towns and villages of these 
 regions the interest taken in literature and edu- 
 cation is astonishing. The people study for 
 study's own sake. They keep abreast of the 
 intellectual times, and give their minds to the 
 classics of literature as well. 
 
 " All this is immensely encouraging. It 
 speaks well for the future of the country, and 
 is an inspiration in itself. It is a joy for me to 
 travel over the West and South, as I have had 
 occasion to do a number of times these past few 
 years, and to address schools, academies, and 
 colleges. Everywhere I find it the same and 
 [83] 
 
American Authors & l^heir Homes 
 
 everywhere the closest attention. There is the 
 keenest enthusiasm to know ; the greatest am- 
 bition is seen, and the tastes of the people are 
 being formed on a firm foundation. 
 
 " Why, I know one little Western city where 
 an old minister has been conducting a class in 
 Plato for twenty years, and the interest has 
 never once flagged. Now, people cannot listen 
 to Plato for years without having culture, come 
 to them in some small measure at the very 
 least. And this is only an instance of the en- 
 thusiasm of the West and South. People who 
 can do no better are teaching themselves — 
 crudely, perhaps, but yet they learn. They are 
 learning at many a sacrifice and the loss of 
 many a personal comfort. Whole families are 
 concerned in these movements, and the activity 
 of the culture that is widely spreading is un- 
 bounded." 
 
 It was not for Mr. Mabie to' say, but it can 
 be told here by another, how much he himself 
 in his addresses and lectures has stimulated this 
 activity. One thing you note about this man 
 is that, interesting as he is as a writer, an even 
 greater charm attaches itself to his thoughts 
 when you hear them direct from his lips. As 
 regards his personality, for the benefit of people 
 [84] 
 
Hamilton Wright Mabie 
 
 that have never seen him, it is worth telling 
 that the familiar picture of him, wherein he is 
 shown in an easy-chair, reading, is a striking like- 
 ness. The posture is his very own, and for once 
 photography has made a complete success with 
 the subject. 
 
 There is a rather interesting little anecdote 
 about this portrait. Mr. Mabie was sitting for 
 a picture, and the several poses that had been 
 " snapped " did not suit the operator, who there- 
 upon chanced to go out of the room. While he 
 was away, Mr. Mabie picked up a book, and in 
 the same chair in which he had been posed with 
 ill-success started to read. He became so ab- 
 sorbed that he did not notice the photographer's 
 return. The pose was there, however, and bet- 
 ter than it could ever have been planned, and 
 with rapid movements the photographer made 
 ready. " Don't move — not a muscle," was all 
 he said at the final moment. It is doubtful if 
 Mr. Mabie fully understood him. At all events, 
 he remained motionless, and the picture is the 
 result. 
 
 With a charming home — in which it must 
 
 not be forgotten, en passant^ there stand several 
 
 admirable pieces of antique furniture — an ideal 
 
 household, success in his chosen branch of liter- 
 
 [85] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 ature reached, and his temperament of optimism 
 that sees only good coming from out the stress 
 and storm of America, Hamilton Wright Mabie 
 is one of the happiest of men. He shows this 
 each moment in his face. In tastes, once his 
 task for the day is finished — which it always is 
 by luncheon time — he is a normally constituted 
 man, with a love for out-of-door sports. He 
 rides the bicycle and plays golf, and both pas- 
 times he enters into with the pleasure he shows 
 in everything he undertakes. 
 
 No finer testimony to the esteem in which he 
 is held in his own circle could be desired than 
 the dinner given to him at the University Club 
 early in the spring of 1901. No society, club, 
 or organization of any kind started the project. 
 Merely a few of his most intimate friends sent 
 out notices of what they had undertaken to do, 
 with an invitation to be present. The responses 
 were immediate and general. It was, indeed, 
 such a gathering as literary and professional 
 New York had not often seen. Distinction of 
 some kind — literary, legal, medical, ministerial, 
 financial, commercial, journalistic — sat in almost 
 every chair. Dr. van Dyke presided. Among 
 those who spoke were Mark Twain, E. C. Sted- 
 man, Brander Matthews, F. Hopkinson Smith, 
 [86] 
 
Hamilton Wright Mabie 
 
 and Dr. James H. Canfield — speeches that 
 charmed and held captive a large gathering. 
 After the third speech Dr. van Dyke was 
 moved to rise and say, w^ith a wearied air, 
 " Well, gentlemen, after what you have been 
 listening to, I wonder how I ever got this job." 
 
 [87] 
 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
 In Mount Vernon Street, Boston 
 
BY MR. ALDRICH 
 
 Born in 1836, in Portsmouth, N. H. 
 
 The Ballad of Babie Bell, and Other Poems. 1856. 
 
 The Story of a Bad Boy. 1869. 
 
 Marjorie Daw, and Other People. 1873. 
 
 Prudence Palfrey. 1874. 
 
 The Queen of Sheba. 1877. 
 
 The Stillwater Tragedy. 1880. 
 
 Poems. Complete Edition. 1882. 
 
 From Ponkapog to Pesth. 1883. 
 
 Mercedes, and Later Lyrics. 1883. 
 
 Wyndham Towers. [Poem.] 189O. 
 
 The Sisters' Tragedy, with Other Poems. 1891. 
 
 An Old Town by the Sea. 1893. 
 
 Unguarded Gates, and Other Poems. 1895. 
 
s 
 
 :! 
 ^ 
 
VI 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
 In Mount Vernon Street., Boston 
 
 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH is 
 the one poet of pre-eminent standing 
 now left to Boston, once so rich in 
 its Hterary possessions. Gone are Longfellow 
 and Holmes, gone is Lowell — long since gone. 
 Mr. Aldrich remains as a connecting link be- 
 tween a generation of accomplishment and a 
 generation of hope. His productiveness is now 
 fitful and far too occasional for those who take 
 pride in him as a man of letters and a fellow- 
 citizen, but it is good to know that he is still an 
 active figure in the world. Perhaps we may ex- 
 pect that almost any day there may come from 
 his pen one of those graceful and beautifully 
 polished poems that have made him famous in 
 many a land and beloved in many a heart. 
 
 He wears his sixty-odd years with surprising 
 elasticity. His short but stalwart frame is full 
 of vigor, his fine face is as fresh as that of many 
 a man a dozen years his junior, and his whole 
 bearing instinct with bodily strength and mental 
 activity. To say that he is a cultured gentle- 
 [91] 
 
American Authors & T'heir Homes 
 
 man and a thorough man of the world, in the 
 best sense, is merely to repeat what all who 
 have met him know without the telling. To 
 see him in his beautiful home — either the home 
 in Mount Vernon Street, Boston, or his sum- 
 mer dwelling-place at Ponkapog — s. courteous 
 and entertaining host, is to learn anew the les- 
 son that men of note are easy of approach, 
 quick of sympathy, sincere and unpretentious. 
 
 From the very crest of Beacon Hill, where 
 stands the almost painfully new marble of the 
 straggling addition to the Bulfinch State House, 
 there slopes swiftly to the water's edge a street 
 whose counterpart is not to be found in America. 
 It is lined with the noblest houses of Boston, 
 the most of them at least half a century old. 
 They were built by the rich and courtly gentle- 
 men of that time, and many are still occupied 
 by descendants of those merchant princes and 
 statesmen who made Mount Vernon Street a 
 place of extraordinary vogue and exclusiveness ; 
 but the butterflies of fashion have now taken 
 wing to other regions. On the right as you 
 descend is a group of eight or ten tall bow- 
 fronted mansions set considerably back from the 
 sidewalk, each with its grass plot and ornate 
 iron fence. This semi-retirement gives them 
 [92] 
 
'Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
 
 an indescribable air of dignity and richness, and 
 strangers always gaze upon them with admira- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Aldrich's house, No. 59, is the second 
 of this group. It is particularly noticeable by 
 reason of its doorway of white marble framework 
 and Grecian pillars set into the brick, a curious 
 but striking arrangement. From the steps one 
 can see the blue waters of the Charles, that om- 
 nipresent river in and around Boston, and the 
 long curve of Back Bay houses, whose rear view 
 is that of the water. A son of George Bancroft, 
 the historian, is Mr. Aldrich's next-door neigh- 
 bor, and beyond him recently has lived ex-Gov- 
 ernor Claflin. On the other side of the street 
 and not quite so far down is the house of the 
 Hon. Robert Treat Paine. It will be seen, 
 therefore, that the neighborhood still has dis- 
 tinction, even if the blaze of fashion has been 
 extinguished. 
 
 The interior of this fine old mansion is en- 
 tirely in keeping with its outside nobility. If 
 one enters on such an errand as that which called 
 the writer of this chronicle to it, he gets a mo- 
 ment's impression of a richly furnished drawing- 
 room, where a fire of logs is cheerfully blazing 
 and a gray African parrot is enjoying a place 
 [93] 
 
American Authors & 'Their Homes 
 
 of honor, a large hall, a great circular stairway 
 sweeping its broad spiral to the very top of the 
 house ; vistas of beautiful rooms at each landing, 
 and at last, on the fourth floor, the " den " of 
 the poet, the true abiding-place of an author at 
 home. 
 
 This room is large, but not too much so to 
 be inviting and comfortable, and it has its fire- 
 place, like all the others. From its bow-windows 
 a splendid panorama of the southwestern part 
 of Boston, dominated by the campanile of the 
 Providence Station, greets the eye. At night 
 myriad lights give the view still greater beauty. 
 From the roof of the house, the islands of the 
 harbor can be seen, and even the sea beyond, 
 for at this point one finds himself as high as the 
 dome of the Capitol. 
 
 The noticeable feature of this snuggery is its 
 antique furniture — escritoires, chairs, and tables 
 that would make a collector green with envy. 
 Nothing here, with the exception of two im- 
 mense modern, velvet-cushioned rockers and a 
 large centre desk, is of later date than i8i2. 
 This furniture forms part of the valuable heri- 
 tage its owner derived from his grandfather, who 
 lived in Portsmouth — the veritable grandfather 
 of the hero of that delightful classic, "The 
 [94] 
 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
 
 Story of a Bad Boy," which (and the reader 
 may take " Tom Bailey's " word for it) is auto- 
 biographic and true in its essential elements. 
 
 The centre desk was once owned by Charles 
 Sumner, and was used by him for many years. 
 In various odd corners are half a hundred things 
 picked up all over the world, such as Buddhist 
 deities, Arabian gems, and a very valuable piece 
 of Moorish tiling from the walls of the Alhambra. 
 There are book-shelves in plenty, of course, and 
 a semi-literary collection of pipes on a curious 
 table at one of the windows. Good pictures 
 hang on the red-toned walls, although to the 
 bookman the most interesting object of that sort 
 is an old print of Dr. Johnson, framed with an 
 autograph letter of that worthy. 
 
 Seated here, in one of the big rockers, Mr. 
 Aldrich enters upon the role of entertainer with 
 an easy charm that delights the younger man. 
 He sketches his own life with vivid touches, 
 telling how he found the beginning of his career. 
 He talks of foreign lands most entertainingly (a 
 book of travel Mr. Aldrich has written bears the 
 odd title " From Ponkapog to Pesth "), and of his 
 own with a keen appreciation of the best things 
 that pertain to it. Being led to the subject, he 
 describes the amusing pitfalls that are dug for 
 [95] 
 
American Authors & I'kei'r Homes 
 
 unsuspecting authors by the professional and mer- 
 cantile hunters of autographs. 
 
 Some of the expedients of these gentlemen 
 are almost incredible. On one occasion he re- 
 ceived a pathetic letter in a feminine hand, an- 
 nouncing the death of a little daughter, and asking 
 the poet if he would not send, in his own hand- 
 writing, a verse or two from " Babie Bell " to 
 assuage the grief of that household. His sym- 
 pathies were touched and he wrote out the whole 
 poem and sent it on its comforting mission. A 
 few weeks later he saw the identical thing in a 
 well-known autograph dealer's store with a good 
 round price attached thereto. This is only one 
 of many tricks that now are mostly attempted 
 in vain. Their intended victim has grown ex- 
 pert in detecting them at first sight. 
 
 Mr. Aldrich's amusing dissertation on the 
 autograph fiend and his practices led naturally to 
 an exhibition of the most striking collection of 
 original manuscripts in this country. During 
 the ten years of his editorial guidance of The 
 Atlantic Monthly, he had the rare foresight to pre- 
 serve the contributions of all the famous writers 
 for the magazine. There were giants in those 
 days. In magnificently bound volumes are 
 preserved manuscripts of Longfellow, Lowell, 
 [96] 
 
'Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
 Holmes, and the whole coterie of poets and es- 
 
 « 
 
 sayists of whom New England was proud. 
 
 These manuscripts are " inlaid," as it is called, 
 a process so delicate and cunning that the very 
 paper of the authors seems a part of the larger 
 page, permitting also the reverse side — they did 
 not always obey the rule of " one side of sheet 
 only," the great ones of that day — to be read 
 with perfect ease. Included are numerous man- 
 uscripts of English writers of renown. These 
 books are of almost priceless value now. What 
 they will be worth in fifty years it would be im- 
 possible to conjecture. To the commercially 
 inclined they might become a more profitable 
 heirloom than a house on Beacon Street, " river 
 view " included, or a block of Calumet & 
 Hecla, which is to-day the staff and support of 
 more than one family in Boston with close liter- 
 ary associations. 
 
 The poet has his moods in writing; he con- 
 fesses it without reserve. He must be surrounded 
 by the things he has grown to know and cherish, 
 or the genius of inspiration may not flutter down 
 upon his paper. " I could not create a large 
 work in a small room," he says, and he tells of 
 attempts to set up his desk in other parts of the 
 house, all to no purpose, until the present spacious 
 [97] 
 
American Authors & I'hei'r Homes 
 
 and beautiful study was evolved. And if there 
 is a tenth muse whose special care is Boston, as 
 all good dwellers of the Hub must believe, or 
 depart into the outer darkness, she could not fail 
 to delight in such a place. 
 
 [98I 
 
William Dean Howells 
 
 In Central Park South, New York 
 
BY MR. HOWELLS 
 
 Born in 1837, in Martin's Ferry, 0. 
 
 Venetian Life. 1866. 
 
 Italian Journeys. 1 867. 
 
 Their Wedding Journey. 1871. 
 
 A Cliance Acquaintance. 1874. 
 
 The Lady of the Aroostook. 1879. 
 
 The Undiscovered Country. 1880. 
 
 A Modern Instance. 1882. 
 
 The Rise of Silas Lapham. 1885. 
 
 Poems. 1885. 
 
 April Hopes. 1887. 
 
 A Hazard of New Fortunes. 1890, ] 
 
 The Coast of Bohemia. 1893. 
 
 A Traveller from Altruria. 1894. 
 
 My Literary Passions. 1895. 
 
 The Landlord of Lion's Head. 1897. 
 
 Their Silver Wedding Journey. 1899. 
 
 Literary Friends and Acquaintance. 1901. 
 
Mr. Howells at his Office Desk. 
 
VII 
 
 W^illiam Dean Howells 
 
 In Central Park South, New Tork 
 
 THE eyes of William Dean Howells, as 
 one views them in a clear light, are 
 large and blue with silvery reflections. 
 In their clear pupils is something infinite and 
 vague as the tranquil sea. He lowers his head 
 that he may the better listen to the voice of 
 reverie, and his vast forehead appears in the 
 majestic simplicity of its design. His face, 
 which when in repose is expressive of serenity, 
 certitude, and invincible faith, reproduces all the 
 shades of his thoughts in their sadness or gayety. 
 He is observation itself. Those who have really 
 interviewed him know that he has penetrated 
 them more than they him. 
 
 Men of letters, and aftists, even those whom 
 all opinions divide, are united in affection for his 
 personality. When one reads in the margin of 
 a magnificent etching by Rajon, which is in his 
 drawing-room at 48 West Fifty-ninth Street, 
 the words " To my dear Howells," one feels 
 that they were not written as a conventional 
 formula. The inscription is in the handwriting 
 [loi] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 of L. Alma-Tadema, artist of the painting etched 
 by Rajon. 
 
 Other pictures in the drawing-room are an 
 old painting of a Venetian lady, dressed in 
 silks and paniers, like a personage of Wat- 
 teau, wearing a mask and posed in the most 
 graceful figure of a minuet imaginable ; an ex- 
 cellent example of Fortuny's art in the figure 
 of a guitar-player in brilliant costume, and an 
 ancient Venetian engraving of a series of plates 
 descriptive of Italian life in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 The walls of the library are lined with books, 
 modern and collected without bibliomania. 
 Above the shelves are two wide paintings of an- 
 gels, the effect of which is enchanting. They 
 were painted by a pupil of Veronese. The 
 colors, forms, facial expression, and restfulness 
 exhaled from the composition, made by an in- 
 spired artist in an age of naive religion, are im- 
 pressive. The long library table, made after a 
 design by Mrs. Howells, is graceful and deli- 
 cately ornamented with severely artistic carv- 
 ings. It is unencumbered with books or pa- 
 pers. The inkstand reproduces in bronze the 
 wild boar of the great fountain at Florence. 
 
 The window opens on Central Park, the 
 
 [ 102] 
 
William 'Dean Howells 
 
 green trees, the flowery plains, and a vast, im- 
 mense extent of sky, as the author might have 
 w^ished to cut in azure for his personal use. In 
 the spring, the forest of lilacs — white, blue, and 
 pink — appears as a happy and triumphant festi- 
 val. It vanishes only to make place for flowers 
 of gold and snow. 
 
 " If Aristides Homos, your Altrurian travel- 
 ler, were imprisoned here," a young man said to 
 Mr. Howells, " perhaps he would not adversely 
 criticise American architecture." Mr. Howells 
 laughed in good-humor, and replied : " He says 
 that gracious structures in our great cities do 
 not redeem, but are lost and annulled in their 
 environment. Will you have an evidence of 
 this ? " and then Mr. Howells bent his body out 
 of the window, and pointed with his right hand 
 to a mixed landscape. 
 
 " There is the handsomest of clubhouses," 
 said he. " It is pure Florentine Renaissance. 
 The new brick building adjoining it is — what ? 
 Then there is a two-story liquor store, then a 
 plain brick building, then this monstrosity, a clifF 
 of brick and sandstone, so many stories higher 
 than its neighbor." 
 
 " Is not the effect picturesque ? " he was 
 asked. " It is picturesque," Mr. Howells re- 
 [103] 
 
American Authors & T^ket'r Homes 
 
 plied, as he sat on a pretty ottoman, " but it is 
 not beautiful. A savage is picturesque." 
 
 The library-room is not the author's work- 
 shop. His workshop is in the rear of the 
 apartment — a little room severe as an ascetic's 
 cell, where there is a typewriter. Mr. Howells 
 writes with the machine easily since the time 
 when an injury to his wrist made it difficult for 
 him to write with a pen. He works in the 
 morning, and takes his constitutional in the 
 park in the afternoon. 
 
 Have you visions of analytical essays, of brill- 
 iantly truthful stories written with the facility 
 that a fluent talker has in conversation ? Mr. 
 Howells hesitates between the dramatic and the 
 historical form in his plan of every story. How 
 natural, how life-like is the dramatic ! How 
 satisfying is the historical ! Like Penelope he 
 undoes in the evening the tapestry carefully 
 woven in the day. If one asks of him the 
 form that he prefers, he says : " One must sac- 
 rifice in dramatic writing the last degree of in- 
 timacy. The author may say to the reader 
 things which no other person may say. This 
 is the advantage of the historical form." 
 
 " I saw you at the performance at the Berke- 
 ley Lyceum of Maeterlinck's 'L'Intruse.' I 
 [ 104 ] 
 
William Dean Howells 
 
 have always wished to ask your opinion of the 
 play," said the young man. " Maeterlinck is 
 one of our deities," Mr. Howells replied. " Was 
 it not grand ? How the text lifted the players, 
 who were amateurs, to the grade of great players !" 
 
 " I thought ' L'Intruse' was as good as the deep- 
 ly moving Greek chorus in the play by which it 
 was preceded," the young man observed, timidly. 
 " It was better," Mr. Howells said, with enthusi- 
 asm. " ' L'Intruse ' is Greek and modern. It 
 is Shakespeare. Do you remember the thrill of 
 the first scene in ' Hamlet' ? " 
 
 " But Maeterlinck's plays are literary," the 
 young man said, " and the great dramatic critics 
 insist that the drama should be dramatic first and 
 literary afterward." " There is no difference 
 between the drama and literature," Mr. Howells 
 replied. " In the Puritanical times writers avoided 
 the stage, but this was a temporary separation. 
 The drama must be literary to be dramatic. 
 Observe the effect of Heme's ' Shore Acres,' a 
 magnificent play, wherein the literature sup- 
 presses the mechanical, the rude, and the com- 
 monplace." 
 
 " Have you a theory of literary criticism ? " 
 the young man asked. " I think that the art of 
 criticism is to discover the truth about a book, 
 [105] 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 and tell it," Mr. Howells replied, with an inter- 
 rogative look. 
 
 " Yes, but there are all kinds of truths," the 
 young man insisted. " And an endless amount 
 of different moods. The personal equation has 
 a large part in the practice of criticism. But 
 there are general principles ; there is progress," 
 Mr. Howells continued. " When I wrote essays 
 on fiction and was adversely criticised for my 
 opinion of Thackeray, I had simply declared that 
 Thackeray was the foremost man of his time. 
 I greatly admired him. But Tolstoi and Balzac 
 have made the progress of the novel only too 
 rapid for the Anglo-Saxons. The realistic novel 
 is the novel of the present and of the future." 
 
 " You know that there is a reactionary school 
 of literature in France," the young man said, with 
 much assurance. 
 
 "I do not know its work," Mr. Howells 
 replied, placidly. " I think there may not be a 
 reaction, but a change of subjects. Instead of 
 describing the coarser, the new novelist will 
 describe some of the finer, phases of life." 
 
 " How can they ? The finer phases are not as 
 easily realized. What novelist will write realis- 
 tic novels of maidens ? " he was asked. " Those 
 who shall be as pure as they," Mr. Howells 
 [io6] 
 
William Dean Hoxvells 
 
 replied. " There cannot be a revolution in the art 
 of fiction which may be a change in the nature 
 of the novel as a faithful representation of our 
 experiences of life." 
 
 " Was your faculty of observation innate or 
 acquired ? " asked the young man, in a catechisti- 
 cal tone, which surprised even him. " I suppose 
 I have developed it," Mr. Howells replied. " But 
 most of my observations have been unconscious ; 
 I verify them wherever it is possible. I never 
 write anything without asking myself, ' Is it 
 true ? ' " 
 
 Mr. Howells replied so affably that his ques- 
 tioner persisted unrelentingly. " I would give 
 the palm to Hawthorne among all the prose 
 writers," he said in one of his replies. " Haw- 
 thorne wrote pure romance. This is perfectly 
 legitimate in fiction, and not to be confounded 
 with the mixture known as the romantic novel. 
 I sometimes think ' Evangeline ' could be proved 
 the great poem of the century. It is the supreme 
 tragedy of pathos. I have been passionately 
 fond of Longfellow, but my first love was Heine. 
 I read Heine at seventeen, in the village where 
 my father had his printing oiBce. A Ger- 
 man bookbinder, who had gone into exile af- 
 ter the Revolution of 1848, had the works of 
 [107] 
 
American Authors & T'hei'r Homes 
 
 the poet, and I learned German with him in my 
 ardor to read them. I shall never lose the im- 
 pression which they made on me. It was Heine 
 who freed my hand in writing." 
 
 " I prefer the ' Intermezzo ' rather than *• Ro- 
 meo and Juliet,' " the young man said, with an 
 apologetic air, " because Heine's work is a pure 
 poem without a story." " Heine," Mr. Howells 
 said, " never had to give a reason for his lyrical 
 emotion. He had the wisdom never to render 
 an account." 
 
 " Could you not be persuaded to become a 
 partisan of the theory of art for art's sake ? " the 
 young man asked. " No," Mr. Howells an- 
 swered, very decidedly. " The theory is excus- 
 able only on the plea of necessary protest against 
 too materialistic surroundings." 
 
 To a question about the works of Poe, Mr. 
 Howells replied that they had not impressed him 
 and that he could not understand why the French 
 were enthusiastic about them. Of Walt Whit- 
 man, he said : " He was like Columbus. He dis- 
 covered an island, instead of the continent. He 
 knew the slavery of the poetic form, but he made 
 his work formless. Form is indispensable to 
 poetry. I think it should not be everything, but 
 the true art is in a middle ground. At a sub- 
 [108 1 
 
William Dean Howells 
 
 lime height in his work Whitman had form. 
 Then he ceased to be nebular and became stel- 
 lar." 
 
 " Are you a believer in the mind as a meta- 
 physical entity ? " the young man asked. 
 
 " No," he replied, " but I find great consola- 
 tion in the thought that a third principle besides 
 mind and body makes us think. Do you re- 
 member Cassio, the most charming character in 
 literature, and the part of himself which he lost 
 in the second act of ' Othello ' ? Now what 
 was it ? " 
 
 " People say that you are a Socialist." " I 
 should not care to wear a label," Mr. Howells 
 replied. " I do not study the question — the 
 question studies me. In great cities one does 
 not easily avoid it. But socialism is not immi- 
 nent. If the people wanted it they would have 
 it, and without any revolution. Have you no- 
 ticed that in our civilization, the artist who is 
 the only person in the right is apparently the 
 only person in the wrong ? " 
 
 [log] 
 
Faul Leicester Ford 
 
 In East Seventy-seventh Street, New York, 
 and in Brooklyn 
 
BY MR. FORD 
 
 Born in i86j, in Brooklyn 
 
 The Writings of Jefferson [Editor of]. 
 
 Hon. Peter Stirling. 1894. 
 
 The True George Washington. 1896. 
 
 The Story of an Untold Love. 1897. 
 
 The Great K. and A. Train Robbery. 1897. 
 
 Janice Meredith. 1899. 
 
 The Many-sided Franklin. 1899. 
 
Mr. Ford'' s New House in New York, 
 
VIII 
 
 Paul Leicester Ford 
 
 In East Seventy-seventh Street, New York, 
 and in Brooklyn 
 
 THE library of Paul Leicester Ford, 
 whether we visit the new one he has 
 just entered into occupancy of at 37 
 East Seventy-seventh Street, or recall the old one 
 in the spacious Brooklyn mansion, where his 
 fame was first won, impresses the visitor as 
 " dukedom large enough." When Mr. Ford's 
 reputation had grown broad in the land, but 
 with other irons in the fire, notably with " Jan- 
 ice Meredith," which first saw the light in a 
 periodical and in book form leapt to continental 
 popularity, he gave up his Brooklyn home, where 
 he had dwelt from childhood, and went to New 
 York to live. Here he had bachelor quarters in 
 the centre of the town, and went to many liter- 
 ary gatherings in the winter, not infrequently ris- 
 ing to address an assemblage of diners from his 
 place at the guest-table. He seemed, indeed, to 
 have become a confirmed bachelor man-of-the- 
 world, and yet men and women wondered how 
 a man so apparently indiiFerent to love in the 
 [113] 
 
American Authors & 'iheir Homes 
 
 concrete could have written such fiction as 
 his. 
 
 Not less delightful than startling, therefore, 
 was the announcement in the summer of 1900, 
 that he would remain a bachelor no more. A 
 new source of happiness was thus to enter into 
 his singularly fortunate career. It came from 
 the hand and heart of a beautiful Brooklyn girl, 
 her home not far from his own father's man- 
 sion — Miss Grace Kidder. Mr. Ford at the 
 same time set about the building of a New York 
 house on that upper east side near Central Park, 
 where dwell so many of the worldly prosperous 
 of New York's population. 
 
 Not content with a house as one in a row of 
 similar structures, he purchased land on which 
 to rear a thirty-five-foot-front edifice, with am- 
 ple space on the west for light through side- 
 windows. An American basement edifice is 
 this, constructed in the first story of Indiana 
 limestone, with Harvard brick for the upper 
 ones — a rather impressive - looking structure, 
 with its most notable feature a storage-room for 
 automobiles, the doorway of which divides with 
 the main entrance a large part of the frontage. 
 
 But a further word must be written here of 
 that Brooklyn home. First among impressions 
 [114] 
 
Paul Leicester Ford 
 
 as one used to be ushered through the long 
 hallway on Clark Street, Brooklyn Heights, and 
 paused at the top of the flight of steps that form 
 the threshold to the library, was one of ampli- 
 tude. The house itself is curious enough, with 
 its broad drawing-rooms on the second floor, its 
 plain, unassuming front, and its general air of a 
 dwelling that has come down from half a cen- 
 tury ago. The library was by far the crowning 
 feature. No picture of Paul Leicester Ford, 
 historian and novelist, at home, would be com- 
 plete, or even suggested, without a word as to 
 that workshop, where " Peter Stirling " was 
 forged and some of the best American historical 
 work of the past twenty years was done. 
 
 It was a great, almost square apartment that 
 you peered down into from the top of these steps 
 at the end of the hall, a room fifty by sixty feet, 
 reared aloft by building over the entire yard. A 
 huge, square skylight in its centre pours in a 
 flood of sunlight, and side-windows add to the 
 illumination. Along the four walls, in a line 
 practically unbroken, stretched lengths of high 
 bookcases, their bases honey-combed with shal- 
 low, broad, and deep pasteboard boxes contain- 
 ing rare autographs, pamphlets, and memoranda. 
 In this room, and in " stacks " in an apartment 
 [115] 
 
American Authors & T'kei'r Homes 
 
 of equal size below, was housed perhaps the 
 largest and oldest private library of Americana 
 in what is now Greater New York. Here, and 
 elsewhere about the house, were at least loo,- 
 ooo volumes and pamphlets. 
 
 Book-racks, cases, tables, and four great desks 
 and writing-tables were parts of the furniture. 
 All were heaped high with books and the stock- 
 in-trade of the delver into history. Desks and 
 writing-tables supported piles of ancient books, 
 proofs, memoranda, pamphlets, and manuscripts. 
 This historian with his wealth of space, his au- 
 thorities and references, believes in heaping up 
 material and keeping it in view, reserving each 
 desk and table for its own piece of work. 
 
 So this library, in comparison with others, was 
 indeed a " dukedom." One never knew in 
 which corner of it, at which desk, he might find 
 its master. Here, in the midst of one volume 
 or another there sat each morning the man who, 
 having risen toward the top in one branch of lit- 
 erature, has gained success in another almost at 
 one single bound — the success of " Peter Stir- 
 ling" amplified vastly in the success of "Janice 
 Meredith." Paul Leicester Ford's extraordi- 
 nary versatility, his skill at driving two steeds 
 without losing his hold on either, is the second 
 [n6] 
 
Paul Leicester Ford 
 
 thought that aroused you. The third is the 
 man's conversational cleverness, his wit, his 
 pithy, concise sentences, his ease in argument 
 and retort. 
 
 The noonday sun had very nearly reached its 
 traditional point, w^hen this writer was greeted 
 by the author, who at the moment had the un- 
 exampled honor of having three books almost at 
 the top among literary successes in America. 
 " Peter Stirling," though on the market for sev- 
 eral years, still stood among the best-selling 
 books of the day ; " The Story of an Untold 
 Love " had a place in similar category ; " The 
 True George Washington " had proved the best- 
 bought book of history issued for many a year. 
 And now on top of those successes has come 
 one greater still — that of " Janice Meredith." 
 
 An Angora cat stretched itself lazily on a 
 cushioned chair, a black-frocked stenographer 
 clicked at the typewriter, and two uniformed 
 maids noiselessly swept off the rugs and the pol- 
 ished floor and " redded up " (in good, honest 
 Scotch phrase) as Mr. Ford sat at the most 
 crowded of all his desks. If ever an author 
 was " at home " in its broadest, truest sense, it 
 was this man. As he returned to his chair after 
 his guest had seated himself, the writer saw 
 I "7] 
 
American Authors & 'Their Homes 
 
 clearly outlined the genuine master of a domain, 
 the man to whom books and yellowed records 
 were a power. Books were not all ; beyond 
 them, he had studied men and affairs at near 
 range. This library was merely the crucible for 
 testing the hidden springs of life and types. 
 
 Talk started with Peter Stirling, that splen- 
 did figure of American fiction that portrays a 
 hitherto unthought-of ideal in politics and has 
 aroused much guesswork as to its " original." 
 The guest told Mr. Ford the story of the State 
 Senator of New York City who talked the book 
 ardently at every political club in town for 
 months. The man who made Peter Stirling 
 laughed. " Do you know where the demand 
 for that book first came from ? " he queried. 
 " You could never imagine. It was very curi- 
 ous. ' Peter Stirling ' was published late in the 
 fall of 1894. It lay on the shelves practically 
 unsold for four months, and looked like a fail- 
 ure. One day I went to my publisher's and, 
 much to my surprise, he said : ' We're just get- 
 ting ready to print a new edition of " Peter 
 Stirling," and shall make a new set of plates.' 
 ' I'm very glad to hear that,' I replied. He 
 went on : ' Look over those proofs and make 
 any changes you wish.' " 
 [118] 
 
Paul Leicester Ford 
 
 " It was such a surprise to me that the next 
 time I saw him I asked how it happened that 
 the book had jumped so suddenly in sales. 
 Then it all came out. San Francisco was the 
 place where ' Peter Stirling ' really started to 
 sell. Without any warning an order came in 
 from that city one day for 300 copies. The 
 man that ordered them was A. M. Robertson, a 
 bookseller of San Francisco, and they thought in 
 the office that he must be crazy. (I remarked 
 to my publisher when he told me this, that that 
 wasn't a high compliment for the book.) How- 
 ever, Robertson not only sold those 300 copies, 
 but a little later ordered 300 more. It was after- 
 ward learned that he had happened to read the 
 book and was so ' taken ' with it that he made 
 up his mind to sell those 300 copies before he 
 did anything else. 
 
 " Orders began to come in from Michigan 
 and Wisconsin. Why from those States no one 
 knows to this day, but these are the facts. 
 Meanwhile, the book was not selling at all in 
 Chicago or in New York. The demand in 
 these and other cities did not start until ' Peter 
 Stirling' had pretty widely spread throughout 
 the Middle West." 
 
 In this anecdotal, discursive way Mr. Ford 
 [119] 
 
American Authors & ^heir Homes 
 
 wandered on. The " original " of " Peter Stir- 
 ling " ? A chance to get at the truth of that, 
 and so settle a literary controversy, was too 
 precious to lose. Mr. Ford went into a brown 
 study at once. " I don't blame people for think- 
 ing that Peter Stirling is Grover Cleveland," 
 he said, " for, really, there are many points of 
 resemblance. But the fact is that Peter Stir- 
 ling is no one in particular. He grew out of 
 my political experiences in the First Ward of 
 Brooklyn some years ago. 
 
 " I worked in politics quite a time, and I came 
 to find out that no man of the better class could 
 succeed against the little or big bosses, for the 
 simple reason that he would never give the time 
 to handling and entering into the lives of the 
 people. Take my own experience. I was liked 
 and was treated well, but I was without influ- 
 ence, except," and here there was a sly twinkle 
 in Mr. Ford's eye, " with a plumber who had 
 done work on several of our houses for some 
 years. His support I could always count on at 
 the primaries, even if he really wanted to vote 
 the other way. I suppose," and Peter Stir- 
 ling's creator grew more jovial, " that I could 
 have controlled the ward if I had employed 
 enough workmen. 
 
 [120] 
 
Paul Leicester Ford 
 
 " No, Peter Stirling is a composite of four 
 great American statesmen. I had in mind 
 Washington, Lincoln, and two others. It is an 
 attempt to show how a man of the noblest aims 
 can get close to the people and rule them." 
 
 Mr. Ford chatted of his surprise at the pop- 
 ular success of " An Untold Love," which he 
 expected would be liked only by the few, and he 
 told how he came to write his " Great K. and 
 A. Train Robbery." (" The reason most rail- 
 road robbery stories fail is because people do 
 not like to have their hero a villain, so I had to 
 devise a way of holding the interest while making 
 my hero moderately good.") He was merry as 
 he related how women had told him he could 
 not draw a woman that was real and that they 
 liked, facts which must have put him to his 
 spurs when writing " Janice Meredith." 
 
 Mr. Ford is still young. He is thirty-six. 
 Until a few years ago his work was solely his- 
 torical. Ill-health in childhood and early man- 
 hood prevented him from going to school or 
 college. He was simply turned loose in his 
 father's library — the library of Gordon L. Ford. 
 At the age of eleven he was an editor and 
 printer. He and his brother, Worthington C. 
 Ford, formerly Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, 
 
 [121] 
 
American Authors & Thet'r Homes 
 
 editor of " The Writings of Washington," and 
 author of a " Life of Washington," actually 
 " set up " his first work. Mr. Ford's histor- 
 ical publications, big and little, many of them 
 reprints of scarce writings edited by him, num- 
 ber an easy hundred. Under the imprint of 
 the Historical Printing Club he and his brother 
 Worthington issued books and pamphlets. His 
 hand, in the main, has been on men and affairs 
 of the Revolutionary period. Into Colonial 
 records he has seldom ventured. Few readers of 
 " Janice Meredith " have understood how ample 
 was the historical knowledge out of which Mr. 
 Ford wrote that book. 
 
 [122] 
 
yohn Fiske 
 
 In Cambridge, Mass. 
 
BY MR. FISKE 
 
 Born in l8^3 in Hartfordy Conn. Died in East Gloucester in 
 July, igoi 
 
 Myths and Myth Makers. 1872. 
 
 The Destiny of Man. 1884. 
 
 American Political Ideas. 1885. 
 
 The Beginnings of New England. 1887. 
 
 The Critical Period of American History. 18S8. 
 
 The American Revolution. i8gi. 
 
 The Discovery of America. 1892. 
 
 History of the United States for Schools. 1894. 
 
 Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. 1897. 
 
 A Century of Science. 1899. 
 
 The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in Ameiica. 1899. 
 
s 
 
 ^5 
 
IX 
 
 John Fiske 
 
 In Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 IT is not likely to be disputed that the man 
 who to-day has stood pre-eminently for the 
 best Boston traditions in moral and social 
 life is John Fiske, essayist, philosopher, his- 
 torian, and lecturer. In everything that makes 
 for culture and the higher kinds of public activ- 
 ity his voice commanded great attention. The 
 cause was poor indeed that could not enlist him 
 as a zealous and eloquent champion. "The 
 Old South Church and John Fiske inside it are 
 a combination that can make an honest patriot 
 of anyone," was the remark of a certain Boston 
 statesman. Those words only reflect the public 
 estimation in which this big, hearty, clear-minded 
 teacher of the people has been held. Parkman, 
 Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Fiske — these are our 
 best writers of history. Greatest of these is 
 Parkman, and not the least is Fiske, who was 
 stricken dead early in July, 1 901, in what seemed 
 to be his prime. 
 
 It is an ever-debated question which exerts 
 the greater influence — the environment on the 
 [125] 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 man or the man on the environment. In John 
 Fiske's case the matter may be said to be very 
 nicely balanced. Undoubtedly Cambridge, where 
 he lived, by the richness of its culture and the 
 splendor of its institutions, moulded and stim- 
 ulated him ; just as he made his impress upon 
 the life of that beautiful town and, indeed, far 
 beyond its confines. So the visitor who sought 
 him felt a double sense of satisfaction — that of 
 the place and that of the dweller. 
 
 If you would follow in the steps of the book- 
 ish pilgrim who writes this sketch and, finding 
 yourself some fine day in Harvard Square, where 
 two centuries of learning and the newest thing 
 in golf suits look out upon you from the " yard," 
 proceed to that shaggy but still virile sentinel, the 
 Washington elm, you will then strike into Con- 
 cord Avenue, a long famous thoroughfare down 
 which the British marched back to Boston after 
 their troublous day at Lexington and beyond. 
 After a little, you will reach Craigie Street, which 
 you may recognize by the loveliest archwork of 
 elm branches that one may see in many a day. 
 It is only a step to Berkeley Street, where stands 
 John Fiske's house. Had he lived this house 
 would not have long remained his home. He 
 was just ready to move into another in Brattle 
 [126] 
 
John Fiske 
 
 Street near the Craigie mansion. Indeed he 
 had begun to have his books packed for the re- 
 moval — 12,000 books. And then death came. 
 
 Cambridge is fine and classic ground. In one 
 direction, under the tops of stately trees, lies the 
 lovely Longfellow estate, now^ somewhat more 
 crowded than of yore by the addition of two 
 new houses to its grassy expanse. In another 
 lies the Worcester domain, of which Mr. Fiske's 
 land was once a part. The old dictionary-maker 
 was a famous owner of acres in his day, and 
 many are the house-lots that have been carved 
 out of his holdings. There is a considerable 
 tract still inviolate, but its value inevitably fore- 
 tells its dismemberment. 
 
 No. 22 Berkeley Street is a substantial square 
 house of the mansard-roofed type, so popular 
 twenty years ago. It is quiet drab in color, and 
 its chief characteristic from the street is the large 
 covered stoop, generously disposed, and in sum- 
 mer set off with ferns, cacti, and palms. Back 
 of the dwelling is a trim, green space, whose 
 chief glory is a great silver poplar of at least a 
 century's growth. Baby evergreens are scat- 
 tered about, as well as a number of stiff and 
 lean poplars. Here, or rather to the long piazza 
 overlooking the place, Mr. Fiske would probably 
 [127] 
 
American Authors & 'Their Homes 
 
 first take you if the day were warm, and from a 
 huge rocking-chair chat pleasantly about your 
 errand or any other subject you might care to 
 suggest. 
 
 Nothing could be simpler or more sincerely 
 kind than was this big-brained man's reception. 
 He told you how he selected his ground a score 
 of years ago ; how he added to it to prevent some 
 too-neighborly house from rising; how a family 
 of crows had for years maintained a home in the 
 trees yonder, unterrified by the building opera- 
 tions that have gone on in Berkeley Place, a 
 charming little no-thoroughfare that runs by one 
 side of his estate ; how the other birds came and 
 went, and what vines - thrived best along the 
 piazza. 
 
 Then you perhaps took a quick, mental photo- 
 graph of the man. He was big, tall, and burly. 
 His head was large, and his florid face fittingly 
 girt with a full, brown beard, touched with gray, 
 rather long and rather careless. The whole 
 make-up suggested the Norseman. But the calm 
 and deliberate speech betrayed the philosopher, 
 the man who would not deliver an opinion in a 
 rush. " I hate to go off half-cocked," was his 
 very characteristic remark in the course of some 
 conversation on the Philippine Question. Mr. 
 
 [128] 
 
John Fiske 
 
 Fiske, while not an imperialist by instinct, was 
 somewhat of a believer in "national destiny," 
 and incUned to think that policies often shape 
 themselves wisely in spite of us. He regarded 
 the holding of Philippine territory and expansion 
 in the East as something to which we might be 
 compelled to adapt ourselves, and saw no great 
 danger therein to the moral prestige of the 
 country. 
 
 Mr. Fiske's hbrary and working-place was just 
 the spot where one might expect notable histori- 
 cal works to be born. It was a large, high, and 
 raftered room, elegantly sombre in design and 
 finish. Its pictures and ornaments were of dig- 
 nity and value. Thousands of books lined its 
 walls from end to end and from floor to ceiling. 
 Ponderous tomes were scattered about on tables 
 and revolving cases. Everything had the air of 
 a place where research was made. Over the 
 ample fireplace — a practical one, where big 
 logs glow in winter — was this motto, which had 
 no idle meaning there : Dtsce ut semper victurus ; 
 vive ut eras moriturus. 
 
 The historian's writing-place was an interest- 
 ing example of household evolution. It stood 
 in a large, square bay-window, originally thrown 
 out from the library as a means of observation 
 [i2g] 
 
American Authors & l^heir Homes 
 
 and rest. Finding the light in the main room 
 not exactly satisfactory, Mr. Fiske bethought 
 himself of the aforesaid nook and moved all his 
 literary paraphernalia into it with most excellent 
 results. 
 
 With great windows on three sides, the light 
 is perfect, and in summer a fine breeze is always 
 wafted through. Here, on a plain table piled 
 high with manuscripts and reference books, have 
 been written the different volumes comprising 
 the monumental History of the United States, 
 which was still in progress. His latest contribu- 
 tion to the series was " The Dutch and Quaker 
 Colonies," which included New York, New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. 
 
 The making of histories is never rapid work, 
 and Mr. Fiske was content with an average of 
 twelve or fifteen hundred words a day. At one 
 time he worked a great deal at night, and even 
 into the morning hours, but he said he found such 
 labor exacted payment next day, and he then 
 used the forenoon instead. Besides mere writ- 
 mg, there was involved in his work an immense 
 amount of reading, research, and journeying to 
 and fro in preparation for writing. What with 
 his lecturing and the thousand and one demands 
 made upon his time as a citizen of prominence, 
 [130] 
 
John Fish 
 
 he was a busy man indeed. He rarely took a 
 vacation, although he sometimes enjoyed a day's 
 outing down Boston Harbor with a jolly party 
 of friends on a quest for fish. 
 
 It would be the merest commonplace to say 
 that in his death American historical literature 
 has met with a distinct loss. The event means 
 far more than that — means so much, indeed, 
 that words will fail to express it. Better than 
 any man writing for this generation, he held up 
 the standard so long maintained by Parkman — a 
 standard to which Parkman gave the noblest 
 qualities and permanent lustre. Mr. Fiske's 
 published tribute to Parkman, fine as it is in 
 other ways, possesses nothing more interesting 
 than the revelation it aiFords of his own ideals of 
 excellence in the historian — ideals toward which 
 he strove with an intelligence and application 
 that have made each succeeding book from his 
 hands seem finer than any that preceded it. 
 
 John Fiske had many qualities that will secure 
 for his name long remembrance and a continuous 
 following of readers. Above all things, he knew 
 his theme and was a perfect master of his mate- 
 rial, being never in any way in subjection to it. 
 Conspicuous also was his style — clear and limpid 
 always, picturesque where the occasion was fit 
 [131] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 for it, and constantly delightful. Simply as a 
 force in elementary education, his influence has 
 been far-reaching and will long last. That su- 
 perb school history he wrote of this country has 
 exerted wide sway and is fit for still wider. In 
 it we have a classic. 
 
 John Fiske was not an old man. Such vital- 
 ity seemed to be in him, with that imposing per- 
 sonality, that inexhaustible power for work, that 
 he surely was thought destined to live out the 
 Psalmist's term or beyond it. The books he 
 might have written, and of which the plans must 
 have been in his head, if not in his note-books ! 
 — what a loss all these reflections mean, what 
 additions impossible now to that splendid series, 
 which, taken together, must eventually have 
 formed a complete history of the lands we call 
 the United States. 
 
 But here surely is not the place to estimate 
 the work John Fiske has done, or the extent of 
 our debt to him, a debt we shall understand all 
 the better now that he is gone. It is rather the 
 place to record the deepest sorrow at his un- 
 timely departure from a world he made so much 
 wiser and richer. 
 
 The work he might have done, and the joy 
 he would have had in doing it, in that new 
 [ 132] 
 
yohn Fish 
 
 Brattle Street home, to which, since his death, 
 the entire collection of his books has been taken 
 — in all 1 2,000 of them ! There, in a room 
 fifty feet by twenty in size, finished in antique 
 oak, with an oaken floor and windows of leaded 
 glass set in diamond shapes, stands this collec- 
 tion which its owner was never to set glad eyes 
 upon in the new shelter he had planned for it. 
 A broad fireplace opens itself at one side of the 
 room. Above it, and just beneath the oaken 
 mantel-top, stands a slab, brought from the 
 Berkeley Street house, bearing in letters of gold 
 the inscription in Latin already mentioned : 
 " Learn as if to live forever ; live as if to die 
 to-morrow." Surely we have here one of the 
 finer examples of the pathos of human life. 
 
 [133] 
 
George W. Cable 
 
 In Northampton, Mass. 
 
BY MR. CABLE 
 
 Born in 1844, in New Orleans 
 
 Old Creole Days. 1879. 
 
 The Grandissimes. 1880. 
 
 Madame Delphine. 1881. 
 
 Dr. Sevier. 1882. 
 
 The Creoles of the South. 1884. 
 
 The Silent South. 1885. 
 
 Bonaventure. 1888. 
 
 Strange True Stories of Louisiana. I^ 
 
 The Negro Question. 1890. 
 
 John March, Southerner. 1894. 
 
 Strong Hearts. 1899. 
 
X 
 
 George W, Cable 
 
 In Northampton, Mass. 
 
 THERE are few literary men who have a 
 sweeter and more congenial home than 
 George W. Cable. Every visitor to 
 " Tarryawhile " carries away a feeling of hav- 
 ing seen a truly happy home. " Tarryawhile " 
 is in Northampton, Mass., a mile away from 
 what bustle there is in this quiet old town. You 
 come to it after walking up the hill past the 
 Smith College buildings, passing groups of girls 
 with books under their arms, and after walking 
 up grand old Elm Street, broad and winding, 
 shaded by great trees, and flanked by fine old 
 residences on either side, each with its little park 
 of trees around it. Your guide will direct you 
 to turn to your left, while you are still among 
 these comfortable homes, and will point out at 
 the end of the side street Mr. Cable's house. 
 This street is newer and contains in the main 
 modern houses, although Mr. Cable's house is 
 of the old-fashioned type you have met on your 
 way. Standing as it does at the head of the 
 street, its hospitable door faces you on your 
 [137] 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 way down. Where the houses end are daisy 
 fields. 
 
 Here the author of " Old Creole Days," 
 " Madame Delphine," and " Bonaventure," and 
 other books that have touched men's hearts, 
 lives and writes. It is a beautiful spot, and one 
 that is appropriate to the man whose creation it 
 is. The house stands back from the street on an 
 embankment. It is Colonial in architecture, 
 plain, but attractive. A stoop flanked with new- 
 els forms a fratnework for the old-fashioned 
 doorway, with its swinging halves and oldtime 
 brass knocker. 
 
 On the east side of the house extends a wide 
 piazza. The whole aspect of the place is pictu- 
 resque. The house, painted yellow and bufF, is 
 backed by a grove of magnificent pines that 
 plunge suddenly downward to a brook, a few feet 
 from the rear of the house, a spot which for 
 nearly a century has been named Paradise. From 
 the veranda one can see far into the distance to 
 the Holyoke Hills and Mount Holyoke, and 
 farther to the south its twin and comrade, Mount 
 Tom. Between these two bluffs flows the Con- 
 necticut. 
 
 The visitor will have no difficulty in finding 
 the master of the house. The Cables are 
 [138] 
 
George W. Cable 
 
 the most hospitable folk, and nobody is ever 
 denied entrance to the house or audience with 
 the novelist, no matter who he may be. Dur- 
 ing a summer spent with him the writer learned 
 lessons of the finest humility and the most whole- 
 souled human sympathy. From the neighbor 
 who runs in to ask a favor, or the humblest work- 
 man of Northampton who wants a penny or a 
 job at weeding the garden, to Mr. Cable's peers 
 in literature, everybody is welcome. No one is 
 made to feel that he has intruded at any hour of 
 the day or night. 
 
 It is this quality that has endeared the novelist 
 to everyone in Northampton, though undoubt- 
 edly many good folk wonder what an able-bodied 
 man can think of himself who doesn't do a stroke 
 of work, but writes books and goes skylarking 
 around the United States giving lectures. If 
 you meet Mr. Cable in society you are im- 
 pressed with his intellect, his humanity, his wit 
 and poetry in expression ; but if you see him 
 at home, you see all that and much besides. 
 There he is the husband and the father, the 
 lover and the friend, gay, bright, and happy, 
 the soul and spirit of the family, the leader in 
 all the fun. 
 
 At the right of the wide hallway, the floor 
 [ 139] 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 covered with rugs, are the sitting-room and 
 library, the one behind the other, with a broad 
 door between, where he sees his friends. The 
 first is a small, corner room, with a cheerful 
 fireplace, several rocking-chairs and a book-rack, 
 and here he will meet you and talk by the hour, 
 rocking back and forth in his chair. It looks 
 like a literary workroom — wide and low, and 
 strewn with books and papers in endless dis- 
 array. Low bookshelves run on all sides, and 
 in the middle is a table, piled with magazines 
 and papers. The walls are hung with portraits 
 and paintings. 
 
 But behind the house and across the lawn, in 
 the edge of the pine grove, is the real workshop, 
 a red-tiled cottage of two rooms, one above the 
 other, and here in his working-hours nobody is 
 admitted except Mrs. Cable. Here a typewriter 
 stands near one of the windows and for Mr. 
 Cable himself there is the inevitable rocking- 
 chair. Here Mr. Cable sits for hours each day, 
 writing. He has acquired the habit of writing 
 on "every available and unavailable place except 
 a table. 
 
 Mr. Cable's favorite posture is in his rocking- 
 chair, with the pad on the arm, or with one leg 
 thrown over the other, writing on his knee. He 
 [ 140] 
 
George W. Cable 
 
 writes with a pencil on the backs of envelopes, 
 with which his pockets are crammed, or on 
 the edges of newspapers. Through habit, he 
 saves scraps of paper, and at the end of a day 
 many of these will bear some of his finest sen- 
 tences. 
 
 Mr. Cable is most delighted when showing a 
 visitor his trees. He has made paths down to 
 the small river at the rear of his house, and cut 
 away the underbrush, so that Paradise, clear 
 down to " Lovers' Lane," is a most beautiful 
 spot. Mr. Cable counts more than seventy 
 varieties of trees on his small domain ; next to 
 being a novelist, he is a lover of trees. Around 
 his house are many small trees set out by fa- 
 mous men who have visited him. 
 
 Mr. Cable has always been engaged more or 
 less in philanthropic work, to the loss of his 
 literary output, as some fancy, but this is very 
 doubtful, as in any case he would, and will, 
 always be, by avowed choice, a slow worker 
 and sparse producer. He has been intensely 
 interested in work among people of barren 
 homes, and has purchased in Northampton a 
 church, which he has fixed up as a young 
 men's and Women's club-house for the impar- 
 tation of many sorts of " Home-Culture " club. 
 [141] 
 
American Authors & li'heir Homes 
 
 The actual working of the club has been given 
 over to a general secretary, but Mr. Cable still 
 visits it often in the evening, and is forever 
 working on new schemes to help the youth of 
 Northampton. 
 
 [142] 
 
yoaquin Miller 
 On the Heights back of Oakland, Cal. 
 
BY MR. MILLER 
 
 Earn in 1841, in the Wabash District of Indiana 
 
 Songs of the Sierras. 1871. 
 
 Songs of the Lowlands. 1873. 
 
 The Ship in the Desert. 1875. 
 
 The First Families of the Sierras. 1875. 
 
 The Baroness of New York. 1877. 
 
 Songs of Italy. 1878. 
 
 Shadows of Shasta. 1881. 
 
 The Gold-Seekers of the Sierras. 1884. 
 
 Songs of the Mexican Seas. 1887. 
 
 Songs of the Soul. 1896. 
 
XI 
 
 yoaquin Miller 
 
 On the Heights hack of Oakland, Cal. 
 
 TO see a poet near at hand, to see him in 
 his own home, is generally matter for 
 disillusion. One recalls that amusing 
 confession by Howells of his first meeting with 
 Charles Warren Stoddard and his deep disap- 
 pointment that the author of" Chumming With 
 a Savage " should have been so diiFerent from 
 his ideal. Even Tennyson, when he growled 
 over Max Miiller's mutton chops, showed the 
 feet of clay. 
 
 But one who sees Joaquin Miller, the Pcet 
 of the Sierras, in his own home on the heights 
 back of Oakland, need not fear any disappoint- 
 ment ; for Joaquin is a living embodiment of 
 his poetry. Absolutely unlike, in his work, any 
 other poet of his day and generation, he is equally 
 unlike his brethren in his personal traits and in 
 his home. For years that home, overlooking 
 the Golden Gate, had been his dream, and even 
 as far back as twenty years ago, when he was ' 
 the literary lion of London for a season and was 
 the favorite of Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti, 
 [145] 
 
American Authors & I'kezr Homes 
 
 Swinburne, and William Morris, he saw as in a 
 vision the place which he was to create for a 
 hermitage : 
 
 " I know a grassy slope above the sea. 
 The utmost limit of the Western land. 
 
 Here I shall sit in sunlit life's decline 
 Beneath my vine and sombre verdant tree. 
 Some tawny maids in other tongues than mine 
 Shall minister. Some memories shall be 
 Before me. I shall sit and I shall see 
 That last, vast day that dawn shall re-inspire. 
 The sun fall down upon the farther sea. 
 Fall wearied down to rest, and so retire, 
 A splendid sinking isle of far-off fading fire." 
 
 With slight poetic license this will serve as 
 an accurate description of the Heights, Joaquin 
 Miller's home, which is about eight miles back 
 of the little village of Fruitvale, a suburb of 
 Oakland. It is reached by the electric cars and 
 a stiff walk of a mile and a half up a winding 
 foothill road, much of the way under the pleasant 
 shade of eucalyptus and acacia trees. Before one 
 is the first high ridge of hills, which forms the 
 oase of a spur of the coast range of mountains. 
 At every turn of the road superb glimpses of 
 Oakland and of San Francisco Bay are caught, 
 [146] 
 
"Joaquin Miller 
 
 framed in the vivid green foliage of the Austra- 
 lian gum-trees. 
 
 When at last the crown of the hill is reached 
 and one stands before the poet's home, a splendid 
 prospect is unrolled, such as may be seen from 
 only a few of the great mountains of California. 
 The elevation is only a few hundred feet, but 
 the spot commands an enormous range. All 
 around are rolling hills, flanked by tawny moun- 
 tains, fading into the purple-blue of the distant 
 horizon, crowned by Mount Diablo. Below 
 and on clear days, seemingly only a gunshot 
 away, are Oakland and Alameda and the green 
 marshes and lagoons that form the crescent 
 shore of San Francisco Bay. For fifty miles 
 the eye takes in the superb sweep of this incom- 
 parable bay, and then it rests with delight on the 
 distant city of San Francisco, piled high on its 
 hundred hills, its windows flashing back the 
 brilliant sunshine. Beyond, to the right, one 
 looks through the nearly clasped arms of leaden- 
 colored land — through the famous Golden Gate- 
 — out to the deep, blue Pacific, which has never 
 lost its mystery since Balboa first beheld it, 
 " Silent upon a peak in Darien." 
 
 The contour of hills is such that one seem? 
 cut off from the world and left to the fellowship 
 [147] 
 
American Authors (3 '^heir Homes 
 
 of mountain, sea, and sky. Turning, however, 
 from this great panorama, the poet's home is 
 seen. It consists of several small houses, half 
 hidden among trees and vines and flanked by 
 winding, tree-shaded paths, walled up with stones, 
 which reach clear to the summit of the little hills 
 behind. Entering the gateway, one passes over 
 a little bridge which spans a ditch of clear, run- 
 ning water and comes to the poet's own house, 
 a Gothic cottage, with small porch and wide- 
 open door. 
 
 A little way up the steep hillside are three 
 other houses, all half concealed in a maze of 
 roses, passion flowers, acacia, climbing ivy, cedar, 
 spruce, pine, and eucalyptus. Regular thickets 
 are here of the Cherokee rose and tangles of La 
 France and other beautiful roses, with the varied 
 greens of the cedar, the olive, and the pine. 
 When Henry Irving and Ellen Terry visited 
 Miller about four years ago, the pathway from 
 the road to the house over which the famous 
 actors walked was covered with the choicest of 
 roses. Through all this shrubbery run ditches 
 with life-giving water, that water which, with 
 the California sunshine, like that of Palestine, 
 makes a desert blossom as the rose. 
 
 Miller did not have the desert to transform, 
 [148] 
 
Joaquin Miller 
 
 but he did have a high, dry, rocky hillside. He 
 has converted it into a little paradise of rich 
 blooms and sweet odors. Welcome as the 
 shadow of a great rock in a weary land is the 
 sight of this flower-garden, set in the brown 
 bosom of the hills. More than a dozen springs 
 have been developed, and by means of pipes 
 and ditches the poet has fountains and fish-ponds 
 at his very door. 
 
 It was a hot afternoon when the writer 
 climbed the road to the Heights, and, entering 
 the Gothic cottage, found the poet enjoying the 
 coolness of an adjoining room, upon the roof of 
 which an artificial shower was descending. In 
 a rainless season the effect of this patter of the 
 drops on the roof was delightful and soothing. 
 The miracle was performed by the simple means 
 of a perforated pipe leading over the house. 
 The poet was seated on a pallet in the corner. 
 In his usual afternoon garb, he was as pictu- 
 resque as his surroundings. 
 
 Imagine a man of tall, athletic build, with 
 fine, dome-shaped brow; long, tawny hair 
 streaked with gray ; a tangle of yellow mustache 
 and beard ; a strong, large nose, sunburned like 
 his cheeks, and clear, flashing, gray-blue eyes 
 that look out from under heavy, bushy eyebrows 
 [ 149] 
 
American Authors 'their Homes 
 
 with the quickness and the eagerness of a boy's. 
 Something there is of the scout and the plains- 
 man in the eyes, face, and movements. He 
 looks as one fancies Kit Carson looked when 
 he guided Fremont the Pathfinder through the 
 hostile Indian country out to the Western sea. 
 Miller was dressed in a corduroy coat, trousers 
 in boots, pongee shirt, with loose Japanese silk 
 neck-scarf, and broad sombrero. The whole 
 appearance of the man suggested his revolt 
 against any restraint of costume, just as his talk 
 suggests his warfare on conventionality and his 
 delight in what is free and spontaneous in nature 
 and life. 
 
 The poet's workroom is the main apartment 
 of the Gothic cottage. The sun streams in 
 through the open door. The walls are ceiled 
 with the California redwood, unstained and with- 
 out touch of shellac or oil. On the bare floor 
 are a few fine skins, and on the bed in the 
 corner are other robes. The remainder of the 
 furniture consists of a bureau, with a wide-open 
 top drawer, mainly used as a receptacle for 
 " copy," and a couple of chairs. On the walls 
 are many photographs and engravings of famous 
 men — Tennyson, Browning, Morris, Sir Walter 
 Besant, Garibaldi, Napoleon, and many others, 
 [150] 
 
"Joaquin Miller 
 
 with some ideal heads from the English weekly 
 papers. On the bureau is a glass with some 
 beautiful roses. 
 
 Miller works wholly in bed. When he 
 wakes in the morning he has his coffee. Then 
 he makes a bolster of his pillows, gets out a 
 large manila pad, and goes to work. He usu- 
 ally writes in pencil, in big hieroglyphics, which 
 only those trained to the peculiarities of his pen- 
 manship can decipher. These sheets are after- 
 ward typewritten. He waits for this transcript 
 before making any corrections. As a rule, he 
 works steadily till noon. Then he dresses, 
 has lunch with his family, and devotes the re- 
 mainder of the day to labor or recreation out of 
 doors. 
 
 With Miller the gift of song came by nature ; 
 it has never been developed by art. The lyric 
 faculty, which one of our best critics declares 
 that he has in greater measure than any American 
 poet except Poe, he uses with the same freedom 
 that a great singer uses his voice. Words come 
 to him without effort, and language becomes 
 plastic under his hand as it has only been in this 
 age under the hands of Tennyson and Swin- 
 burne. 
 
 His best work breathes his love for the moun- 
 [151] 
 
American Authors & I'keir Homes 
 
 tains and the forests of the Sierras, the home of 
 his boyhood ; and these songs, which malce the 
 exiled Californian homesick, were written while 
 he was in Europe. In him also is a great long- 
 ing to reproduce the splendid courage and the 
 spiritual power of the early navigators — Magel- 
 lan, Drake, Vancouver, Hawkins, and all that 
 noble crew — half adventurers and half pirates 
 — who solved the mystery of the unknown 
 Pacific. He believes that here is the field 
 for the future poet and romance writer, rather 
 than in the past of the Old World, which 
 has been dug over until all its freshness is 
 gone. 
 
 Joaquin does not care to talk of the work he 
 has done. He looks forward to greater and 
 finer work in the future. His noblest poems 
 have been written within five years. One is on 
 the death of Tennyson, the other on Colum- 
 bus. Either would serve to assure fame for a 
 poet. On returning from Alaska two years 
 ago he long felt the physical effects of the enor- 
 mous strain of life under the Arctic Circle, but 
 his mind eventually became clearer and stronger, 
 and his impressions took shape. 
 
 When he talks of the scenery of the Far 
 North his eye lights up with enthusiasm. " My 
 [152] 
 
Joaquin Miller 
 
 old loyalty to the Sierras," he says, "is gone. 
 Those Northern mountains dwarf our Shasta 
 and our Yosemite. No words can describe 
 their grandeur ; it weighs on the soul. Clothed 
 in perpetual snow, with great sabre gashes down 
 their sides, they give one the impression of a 
 tremendous force which menaces man and 
 makes all his work seem puny and contempt- 
 ible. The world has no scenery like that which 
 meets the traveller on the way to the Klondike. 
 Then, too, the coloring of the mountains, the 
 effects of the midnight sun on fields of ice and 
 snow, the long arctic night — 'these are things 
 which would make the greatest artist in words 
 realize how poor is his skill." Joaquin put his 
 impressions of the Yukon country and his ex- 
 periences as a prospector on the Klondike into a 
 lecture, which he has delivered throughout the 
 East. 
 
 After this talk we went out and strolled up 
 the hill to look over the poet's possessions. In 
 the nearest cottage was his favorite daughter. 
 Miss Maud Miller. Farther up the hill, in the 
 best sheltered spot, is the prettiest cottage — the 
 home of the poet's mother. He calls her " My 
 Queen," and for her everyone else must give 
 way. This love and reverence for his mother 
 [153] 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 reveals Miller's best traits — the tenderness of 
 his nature and the kindness which has survived 
 many harsh experiences. Though over eighty, 
 the old lady is still bright in mind and active in 
 body. She takes a keen interest in current 
 affairs, and talks well. In her pleasant recep- 
 tion-room is the art treasure of the Heights — a 
 superb portrait of John C. Fremont, painted by 
 Jewett in 1852. It shows the fine eyes of the 
 Pathfinder, with the curve of the eyebrow that 
 betokens courage and will, and it seems to me 
 to reveal more of the real character of the man 
 than any other picture. It was painted on a 
 tablecloth of one of the Panama steamers, and 
 its genuineness is fully attested. 
 
 Everyone on the Heights has a separate 
 dwelling-place where privacy may be enjoyed. 
 Joaquin believes in personal seclusion. He 
 thinks that the world loses much from its ten- 
 dency to gregariousness. He believes that a 
 man should not be too familiar even with the 
 members of his own family, and that there are 
 times when solitude is a necessity. His sys- 
 tem may seem odd, but it has much to recom- 
 mend it. 
 
 Over beyond Miller's cottage is a trout-pond 
 filled with pretty fish, and farther up the hill a 
 [154] 
 
'Joaquin Miller 
 
 Doric gateway which leads to the higher paths., 
 Joaquin has demonstrated on this steep hillside 
 how many beautiful walks one may make by 
 planting a few trees. The lower sides of the 
 paths are walled up with stone, and are thus 
 protected from washing by heavy rains. Far up 
 on the summit of the hill is a solid stone mauso- 
 leum or funeral pyre, eight feet high, ten feet 
 long, and ten feet broad. It is made of black 
 flint rock, and will endure for ages. The poet 
 has left instructions that his body shall be cre- 
 mated upon it, and the ashes flung to the four 
 winds of heaven. Near at hand is a huge 
 bowlder on which is graven, " To the Un- 
 known." Upon the summit of another hill is a 
 pyramidal pile of rocks dedicated to Browning, 
 while not far away the poet hopes to erect a 
 monument to Fremont, by the side of a huge 
 bowlder which marks the site of the Pathfind- 
 er's camp when he passed over these hills in 
 1843. 
 
 Returning from the summit, one is impressed 
 more strongly than before with Miller's success 
 in transforming this stony, barren hillside into a 
 garden of roses and pleasant, shaded paths. 
 Under his own vines and olives I took leave of 
 the Poet of the Sierras, who has been able to 
 [155] 
 
American Authors & I'hetr Homes 
 
 put his yearning for beauty into practical form 
 and to make an ideal home on this Western 
 shore, where — 
 
 " The bland 
 Still air is fresh with touch of wood and tide." 
 
 [156I 
 
Edmund Clarence Stedman 
 In Lawrence Park, Bronxville, New Tork 
 
BY MR. STEDMAN (i 
 
 Barn in l8j^ in Hartford, Conn. 
 
 Poems Lyrical and Idyllic, i860. 
 Poems. [Complete Edition.] 1874. 
 Victorian Poets. 1875. 
 Hawthorne and Other Poems. 1877. 
 Lyrics and Idylls. 1 879. 
 Poets of America. 1885. 
 
 Library of American Literature. [Editor of, with Miss Hutchin- 
 son.] Eleven vols. 1887-90. 
 The Nature and Elements of Poetry. 1892. 
 Victorian Anthology. 1895. 
 Poems Now First Collected. 1897. 
 American Anthology. 1901. 
 

 =o 
 
XII 
 
 Edmund Clarence Siedman 
 
 In Lawrence Park, Bronxvilky New York 
 
 ANYONE who looks into the beautiful 
 home of Mr. Stedman must regard it 
 as in a sense a literary centre of New 
 York. This was eminently true when he dwelt 
 in Fifty-fourth Street, and later in Thirtieth 
 Street. It is still true now that his home is in 
 Lawrence Park, Bronxville, which lies a few 
 miles north of the city confines on the Harlem 
 Railroad. Before Mr. and Mrs. Stedman began 
 to gather their literary friends about them many 
 years ago, it had pleased the humor of Boston 
 to speed its arrows of wit at New York for its 
 pretensions to establish literary circles and co- 
 teries. But when literary Boston was invited 
 by the Stedmans to dinner, the satirical arrows 
 seemed of a sudden to lose their edge. 
 
 During the four or five years that Mr. and 
 Mrs. Stedman occupied their house in Fifty- 
 fourth Street, New York acquired a distinct lit- 
 erary centre. On Sundays — their evenings at 
 home — there was such a varied assemblage of 
 guests as only a metropolis can bring together. 
 [159] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 Not only authors and artists, critics and profes- 
 sional men, but such of fashion as really pos- 
 sessed culture, found their way there. At the 
 weekly dinners were to be met the distinguished 
 foreigner, the latest successful novelist or young 
 poet, and the wittiest and most beautiful women. 
 Since the formation of that literary centre New 
 York has made good its claim to literary su- 
 premacy. Boston meanwhile has fallen to the 
 rear. At the house of the Stedmans in Law- 
 rence Park, a literary centre still exists, and at 
 receptions the wise, the witty, and the successful 
 are present. 
 
 This Lawrence Park home is a fine two-story 
 structure, architecturally suggestive of the man- 
 ors of the well-to-do forefathers. It is situated 
 in the centre of a literary and artistic colony. 
 Lawrence Park comprises ninety acres, and the 
 dozen or so artists and writers who have their 
 homes there are all distinguished in their kind. 
 There are no fences. The wide-rolling lawn 
 is common property. 
 
 From the windows of this twenty-roomed- 
 dwelling are landscape pictures almost without 
 number. The balcony from the second floor 
 looks over the tree-tops to where the Convent of 
 St. Joseph, on the shore of the Hudson, miles 
 [i6o] 
 
'Edmund Clarence Stedman 
 
 away, lifts its towers to the sky — a sea of green 
 in summer, a vale of many colors in autumn, and 
 a hollow of leaden frosted twigs in winter. 
 Lawrence Park is a colony set on a hill, and on 
 the crown of the hill stands the house of the 
 Stedmans. 
 
 Once across the wide lawn and broad piazza 
 and within the ample front door, the sense of 
 light, breadth, and comfort irresistibly takes 
 hold of one. The feeling is that the place 
 is pleasantly equipped with rarities in art 
 and literature. The furnishings are neither 
 heavy nor gorgeous, but light, warm in color, 
 pleasing in outline, and above all, abundant and 
 serviceable. The reception - room displays a 
 broad staircase to the floor above, with doors 
 leading into the library, dining-room, and poet's 
 study. 
 
 One is immediately made aware by the most 
 pleasing devices that in this house the arts and 
 not the upholstery are called upon to do the 
 honors. These admirable results are due al- 
 most entirely to the taste and skill of Mrs. 
 Stedman, who possesses a genuine artistic in- 
 stinct for grouping and effect. A tour of the 
 house is a passing in review of trophies won 
 at sales, bits picked up in foreign travel, a pur- 
 [i6i] 
 
American Authors (S 'T!heir Homes 
 
 chase now and then from some choice collection, 
 either of glass or china, prints or etchings. 
 
 In the poet's study is a noted portrait of 
 Miss Fletcher, the author of " Kismet " and 
 " Vestigia," painted by her step-father, Mr, Eu- 
 gene Benson. Here also is one of the very 
 earliest of Wyant's paintings, " An Irish Bog," 
 which was the first work of that talented 
 painter sold in the East. Mr. Stedman bought 
 it when the artist was very much unknown. 
 There are paintings of Poe and medallions of 
 Bayard Taylor and Stedman by Donovan, and 
 mementoes of departed authors in large num- 
 bers. 
 
 The halls and walls of every room show 
 treasures. Among the paintings are " A Lion 
 and Lioness," by George Butler ; Winslow 
 Homer's " Voice from the Cliff," with the in- 
 spiring trio of faces and magnificent sweep of, 
 arms of women ; Longfellow's " Wayside Inn," 
 by Bellows ; one of Bayard Taylor's aquarelles, 
 and a sketch by Henry Bacon. And of books 
 there stands a legion from the elect, auto- 
 graphed and otherwise made sacred by ties of 
 friendship. They are principally poems, in- 
 cluding scarce first editions collected without 
 bibliomgnia. 
 
 [162] 
 
'Edmund Clarence Stedman 
 
 Those who loved Eugene Field would de- 
 light in the little pamphlet of original poems 
 written and illustrated in pen and ink by Field, 
 and sent to Stedman with the most friendly 
 dedication. The two men were good friends 
 during Field's life and this Horace of Sabine 
 Farm never forgot the kindly service Stedman 
 did him in securing a Boston publisher for his 
 first volume. 
 
 Of a different shade but similar texture were 
 Mr. Stedman's relations with Bayard Taylor, 
 George H. Boker, Richard Henry Stoddard and 
 all those who were with him in the early days. 
 William Dean Howells in his " Impressions of 
 Literary New York " touches upon the time 
 in question and tells how he found Stedman. 
 Says Mr. Howells : " He had a worldly dash 
 along with his supermundane gifts which took 
 me almost as much, and all the more because 
 I could see that he valued himself nothing 
 upon it." 
 
 Seemingly, Mr. Stedman's life lies down in 
 Wall Street, where his banking-house exists 
 amid the hurrying throng of money-makers and 
 the excitement of the Stock Exchange. Yet, 
 either by nature or through force of circum- 
 stances, he is the typical literary man of the 
 [163] 
 
American Authors & iTieir Homes 
 
 day. He is the man of his epoch, of the mo- 
 ment — of the very latest moment. There is 
 that in his make-up which gives him the air of 
 constantly pressing the button which puts him 
 in relation with the civilized activities of the 
 world. 
 
 He was born man of the world as well as 
 poet, with a sensitive response to his age and 
 surroundings that has enabled him to touch 
 the life of his day at many points. He owes it 
 to an equally rare endowment, to talent for lead- 
 ing two quite separate lives, that he has been 
 enabled to maintain his social life free from the 
 influences of his career as an active business 
 man. The broker is a separate and distinct 
 person from the writer and poet. The two, it 
 is true, meet as one on friendly terms on the 
 street or at the club ; but it is within the four 
 walls of the poet's house that his true life is 
 led. 
 
 And his has been an eventful life. While 
 his mother and stepfather were living abroad, 
 the latter being Minister to Italy, he was a war 
 •correspondent in the Civil War, which inspired 
 one of his finest poems, " How Old Brown 
 Took Harper's Ferry." Then he saw how 
 men make money, and supported himself as a 
 [164I 
 
'Edmund Clarence Stedman 
 
 stock-broker and banker. If every writer whom 
 his labors have placed under obligations to him 
 should send a violet to his house, it would be 
 filled with those tributes. 
 
 He is sixty-eight, and in his features, pure 
 as those of a Greek sculptured in the time 
 of Pericles, there are marks of scarcely two- 
 thirds as many years. At thirty, his blue 
 eyes, the shade of which has an Oriental 
 warmth, cannot have been clearer or braver. 
 The asperities of life, severe trials, exacting 
 popularity and triumphs arduously attained, have 
 not darkened his forehead ; an elevated idea or 
 the shadow of some dream is always reflected 
 there. 
 
 He is lithe and erect, and his white wide 
 beard is Atlantean, and as if intended to sig- 
 nify that Stedman shall remain eternally young 
 and that old age shall always seek in vain 
 for an appearance in him. Mr. Stedman is 
 an emblem of the distinction which lies in the 
 soul of all poets. He is a visible sign that the 
 race of thinkers and the race of men of action 
 are not essentially different, but one and the 
 same. 
 
 In his library, the walls of which are lined 
 with books, paintings, and art objects, a little 
 [165] 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 clock on the mantel rings the hour with a 
 crystal voice. There are tables covered w^ith 
 books and papers. There are letters in piles 
 high as the Tower of Babel and as confused in 
 languages, leaning as the Tower of Pisa, in spirals 
 as the Tower of Sidon — invitations to festivals, 
 verses of a score of good poets, requests for lit- 
 erary advice, communications from authors, 
 artists, publishers, friends. Mr. Stedman replies 
 courteously, with poetic unselfishness. His cor- 
 respondents do not know all the sacrifices he 
 makes for them. He renounces his heroes, his 
 thoughts, his dreams, and his real life for 
 them. 
 
 Some correspondents wish to know what is 
 the most direct road to fame, others the road 
 to wealth. These wish that he would teach 
 them his art ; others ask for his autograph. 
 He may not be in love with the angels of 
 mechanical progress. Perhaps he prefers the 
 time when Michael Angelo carved a colossus 
 out of a block of stone, and wnen Rembrandt 
 scratched his sublime etchings, rather than the 
 time when ingenious processes are invented 
 to reproduce masterpieces. But he lives in 
 an age of progress, deserves to enjoy its ad- 
 vantages, and should be exonerated from the 
 [i66] 
 
Edmund Clarence Stedman 
 
 duty of replying to letters. The visitors ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Why do you not let your secretary reply to 
 letters, or use a printed form, or simply refuse 
 to reply, or announce that you are in a monas- 
 tery impenetrable to correspondents ? " " Be- 
 cause," Mr. Stedman replies, " many of them 
 are letters like this, and this, and this." He 
 shows such as a king would answer at length 
 in his own handwriting. 
 
 Among the books is a copy of " Vignettes in 
 Rhyme " by Austin Dobson, edited by Stedman 
 and published in 1880, which tells a pretty tale. 
 In his dedication of the book to OHver Wendell 
 Holmes, Dobson had written the phrase "made 
 me very pleased and proud." Stedman, object- 
 ing to the use of "very" before a participle, 
 changed the phrase to " made me proud and 
 very happy," advised Dobson of his act, and 
 received from him the following letter : 
 
 Dear S. — The error is allowed ; 
 'Tis clear I can't be "pleased" and "proud" ; 
 So if it give your scruples ease. 
 Let me be " proud " and what you please. 
 Indeed, I'm rather glad I said it ; 
 It shows how carefully you edit ; 
 And if I break the head of Priscian, 
 I hope you'll always be physician, 
 [167] 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 Since you so cleverly can cut 
 
 A plaster for his occiput — 
 
 Making it plain how close you follow. 
 
 In all his attributes, Apollo, 
 
 Who, with a musical degree. 
 
 Like Holmes, was also an M.D. 
 
 To these lines it is only fair to add verses 
 from Stedman himself. The following were 
 written as another stanza to " The Old Picture 
 Dealer" in Mr. Samuel P. Avery's copy of 
 " Songs and Ballads " published in 1884 for the 
 members of the Book Fellows Club : 
 
 And yet, — and yet might time decree 
 
 That Avery should my fame restore. 
 That hovering shade would smile to see 
 
 His Virgin shrined as ne'er before ! 
 Then, for one votary at my throne. 
 
 The world should worship in his stead. 
 And with its proiFered gold atone 
 
 For long neglect through centuries sped. 
 
 Mr. Stedman has augmented his copy of 
 " The Poets of America " by the insertion of 
 portraits and autographs of the poets mentioned 
 in the work. " It is not a hand-book," he says ; 
 " I wrote it to set forth my ideas of poetry. It 
 was ever my wish to express my opinions in 
 this way, if I became independent. I wrote 
 [168] 
 
Edmund Clarence Stedman 
 
 passages of the ' Victorian Poets ' while in 
 college." 
 
 " What is your masterpiece ? " he was asked. 
 " It is not yet written," he replied. " I trust it 
 will come one day. But I never write a poem, 
 a poem writes me." 
 
 The charm of his conversation is irresistible. 
 His voice is rhymic and well tuned ; his eyes, 
 even in the fixity which his introspective moods 
 provoke, are expressive of the most delicate 
 shades of thought. At the Authors' Club or at 
 his Sunday evening reunions young men gather 
 around him. 
 
 " Never was attack more unjust than Hannay's 
 on Stoddard about Poe," Mr. Stedman said, con- 
 tinuing the conversation. " You see," he said, 
 as he opened a little book, " Hannay quotes a 
 line, ' His faults were many, his virtues few.' 
 Now listen to Stoddard's ' Miserrimus.' Mr. 
 Stedman recited from memory ; 
 
 He has passed away 
 From a world of strife. 
 Fighting the wars of Time and Life. 
 The leaves will fall when the winds are loud 
 And the snows of winter vdll weave his shroud. 
 But he will never, ah, never know. 
 
 Anything more 
 
 Of leaves or snow. 
 [169] 
 
American Authors & 1'ket'r Homes 
 
 The summer tide 
 
 Of his life was past. 
 And his hopes were fading, falling fast. 
 His faults were many, his virtues few, 
 A tempest with flecks of Heaven's blue. 
 He might have soared to the gates of light. 
 
 But he built his nest 
 
 With the birds of night. 
 
 " How beautiful it is ! " he exclaimed. " The 
 young men of to-day do not read Stoddard 
 enough. There are not five men able to w^rite 
 blank verse like his. Writing blank verse is 
 like standing nude. Everybody may do it, but 
 few may stand the test. Do you remember 
 the lines : 
 
 Where wild Laconia juts into the sea 
 
 The fisher Diotimus had his home. 
 
 Between the waters and the woods it stood, 
 
 A wattled hut, whose floor was strewn with leaves 
 
 And crisp, dry seaweed ; when the tide came in. 
 
 The surf ran up the beach even to the door. 
 
 " It is ' The Fisher and Charon ' which made 
 me an enthusiastic admirer of Stoddard," said 
 he as he took from a shelf a copy of "The 
 Songs of Summer." Several of its pages were 
 dog-eared. The book had been often read. 
 " It is marvellous," he said, " that a poet wrote 
 [170 J 
 
Edmund Clarence Stedman 
 
 thus in New York forty years ago. If Stod- 
 dard had been in Cambridge among those who 
 were advertised, he would have been instantly 
 recognized as one of the world's poets. Lin- 
 ton and Stoddard — have you ever seen them 
 together ? Linton with his Christ-like forehead, 
 and Stoddard with his large eyes that are full of 
 light and wit. They are like two ancient kings 
 of poetry and romance." 
 
 Mr. Stedman, by the way, has a Chamber of 
 Horrors where are packed books of mediocre 
 poems. It would be amusing to visit it, but 
 it would be lamentable if his humor changed. 
 " Do you like the new poets ? " he was asked. 
 " The average of art in modern poems," he 
 replied, " is higher than that of imagination. 
 Many persons have mastered the technique of 
 poetry. I suppose that if there were clay in 
 every road-bank there would be as many good 
 sculptors as there are good poets. Only I am 
 convinced that the true poet is not made by 
 study. He is poet born and he lisps in numbers." 
 
 The conversation turned to the liberality of 
 Mr. Stedman's human sympathies, and Mr. 
 Stedman said : " I have lived in Bohemia. The 
 idea that I was born with a silver spoon in my 
 mouth is a false one. My relatives were well 
 [171] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 situated, but I had to shift for myself at fifteen. 
 At thirty I went into the Stock Exchange 
 because I needed to be independent in order 
 to write and study. A school-teacher or a 
 newspaper man has not my advantage for lit- 
 erary work, because his constant occupation is 
 of the same nature as the one he desires. My 
 quotidian five hours at the Exchange are hours 
 of card or chess playing. To turn from this 
 to literature is relaxation. I could not write 
 when I was managing editor." 
 
 Referring to his " Library of American Lit- 
 erature " he said American literature was dis-, 
 tinctively American and in a more promising 
 condition now than ever. 
 
 [172] 
 
Thomas Nelson Page 
 
 In Washington, D. C. 
 
BY MR. PAGE 
 
 Born in 18^3 '" Oakland, fa. 
 
 In Ole Virginia. 1887. 
 
 Two Little Confederates. 1888. 
 
 Meli Lady. 1 893. 
 
 Pastime Stories. 1894. 
 
 Polly ! A Christmas Recollection. 1 894. 
 
 Unc' Edinburgh. 1 89 5. 
 
 The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock. 1897. 
 
 Social Life in Old Virginia Before the War. 1897. 
 
 Red Rock. 1898. 
 
 Two Prisoners. 1898. 
 
XIII 
 
 Thomas Nelson Page 
 
 In Washington, D. C. 
 
 MR. PAGE has known poverty, his 
 family having been ruined by the 
 Civil War. In consequence he has 
 never lost sympathy with struggling humanity, 
 nor interest in the affairs of those less fortunate 
 than himself, although he to-day occupies one 
 of the most beautiful houses in Washington, and 
 is, of course, to be counted among the most 
 successful American writers. 
 
 His house, which is in the Colonial style of 
 architecture, stands in the northwestern section 
 of the city, the portion of most rapid growth and 
 also of greatest fashion. It is difficult to believe 
 that the land upon which it stands was only a 
 few years ago still unreclaimed from the general 
 wilderness of vacant lots and rural ponds. 
 
 His workshop, or " den," is on the top floor, 
 so that in order to reach him the writer had to 
 climb three long flights of stairs. It was, how- 
 ever, interesting climbing. Part of the way up 
 the wall is draped with beautiful tapestries, and 
 then come a number of framed originals of the 
 [175] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 illustrations for his earliest stories — '■'■ Marse 
 Chan," " Meh Lady," and " Edinburg's Drown- 
 ing." On the first landing hangs a proof of 
 Mr. C. D. Gibson's pen-and-ink cover design 
 for " Soldiers of Fortune," and through the 
 doorway one catches a glimpsq of the library, 
 with its big, easy chairs and long ranges of 
 books. The vision is tempting, but the pleas- 
 ure must be deferred. 
 
 Mr. Page stands in the doorway waiting to 
 receive his guest, who enters the house with 
 somewhat of the deprecating feeling that one 
 necessarily experiences in bearding a celebrity 
 in his den ; but before his old-fashioned South- 
 ern welcome all doubts of impertinence vanish. 
 In fact, before leaving, the stranger has reached 
 the pleasant conviction that it is he, and not Mr. 
 Page, who is conferring the favor. Great is 
 the power of hospitality ! 
 
 One glance shows that the room is plain, al- 
 most severe. It is evidently the abode of a 
 worker, but of just what kind an unadvised 
 stranger might be puzzled to tell. The book- 
 shelves which line the walls are well filled, but 
 it is a motley collection. Thackeray, Dickens, 
 Scott, Congressional Reports of the Ku-Klux 
 Trials, history — all find a place. A number of 
 [176] 
 
'Thomas Nelson Page 
 
 volumes of a collection of Mr. Page's stories are 
 unceremoniously displaced from a chair to make 
 room for their author and creator. There 
 seems a certain fitness in this, although one 
 cannot help thinking that his chivalry would 
 not have allowed him to do it, had he stopped 
 to remember the ladies within their pages. 
 
 Somehow the usual stock of " interview " 
 questions with which the writer was primed did 
 not get themselves asked. Mr. Page is, when 
 the spirit moves him, a talkative man, and be- 
 fore long was engaged in an animated discussion 
 of the principles of art, that, in catholic impar- 
 tiality, covered the fields of literature, painting, 
 and sculpture, and the entire range of history. 
 The chair by right belonging to " Pastime Stor- 
 ies " was abandoned, and the host took to pac- 
 ing the floor, stopping now and then to listen 
 respectfully to opposing arguments. 
 
 He is a medium-sized man, quick and decided 
 in movement, with strongly marked features. 
 His accent distinctly denotes the Virginian, but 
 not in a disagreeably pronounced manner. It is 
 evident "that he is a keen observer. On first 
 meeting a stranger, he seems to seek to take 
 him in at one glance ; then for some time he 
 watches closely for the slight, but important, 
 [177] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 indications of character that are revealed in 
 manner and expression. After gaining an esti- 
 mate, however, of his interlocutor, he lays him 
 aside, so to speak, as an artist his sketch, for 
 future leisurely amplification. 
 
 In certain respects Mr. Page is distinctly old- 
 fashioned ; the simple, direct ideas of Scott, 
 Dickens, and Thackeray regarding honor and 
 morality satisfy him entirely; the modern 
 " problem " novel has no attraction for him. 
 Even in conversation he is a good deal of an 
 idealist. For this reason he turns for a demon- 
 stration of his views to classic art, with its ex- 
 position of the type, the principle, rather than 
 to modern art, with its dominant individualism. 
 An engraving of Cabanel's " Birth of Venus " 
 hangs above his fireplace, and even this beauti- 
 ful conception came in for his criticism as the 
 glorification of a particularly beautiful woman, the 
 most beautiful in Paris, rather than a presentation 
 of the idea of beauty expressed in the human form. 
 Cover up the hovering cupids, he urged, shut 
 out the poetic idea, leaving only Venus, and we 
 see how much of the carnal is present. 
 
 As a natural corollary to these views springs 
 disapproval of the methods of realism. It is 
 not necessary, he argues, even were it possible, 
 [178] 
 
'Thomas Nelson Page 
 
 to put us in the exact position of the tempted 
 one, as the realists strive to do. It is sufficient 
 that we grasp the situation intellectually, with- 
 out knowledge of all the details. 
 
 As an ending to this somewhat abstruse dis- 
 cussion came the characteristically modest re- 
 mark : " Of course I realize that I don't really 
 know a thing about what I'm talking about ; I 
 am only giving a personal opinion." There- 
 after dogmatic assertion of one's views had 
 somewhat lost its charm. 
 
 There are a number of very interesting ar- 
 ticles in the workshop of the author of " In 
 Ole Virginia," among others an odd-looking 
 pen-rack, which it seems was originally a cav- 
 alry horse-bit, with the letters U. S. on it, 
 captured at Bull Run, and thereafter used 
 throughout the war by his father, and a bat- 
 tered army-chest, which was also in the pos- 
 session of his father, a major in the Confederate 
 Army. As tiles for the facing of the fireplace 
 serve the electrotype plates of his first book of 
 stories, the ones that made him famous. 
 
 The object, however, from which he seems 
 
 to derive the greatest diversion is a battered 
 
 green bronze head, whose former home was 
 
 the bed of Father Tiber, As he himself was 
 
 [179] 
 
American Authors & 'Hheir Homes 
 
 " taken in " by this " antique," he hugely en- 
 joys repeating the process on unwary visitors ; 
 the only adequate safeguard is the knowledge of 
 an expert or complete ignorance ; a little knowl- 
 edge is a dangerous thing. Carefully, tenderly 
 he lifts down this bronze caryatid head, and 
 hands it to his unsuspecting victim. " Now, 
 how many centuries old do you think this is ? " 
 he asks, as a child seeking information ; " would 
 you place it before the Christian era ? " You 
 have been in Rome, and the temptation is too 
 strong. You are not quite certain, but, ahem ! 
 the treatment of the head is distinctly pagan, 
 especially the hair ; it can hardly be later than 
 the age of Marcus Aurelius. Mr. Page looks 
 thankful for the information, naively remarking, 
 however, that it is strange how authorities dif- 
 fer, the great experts Lanciani and Castellani 
 having said on seeing the head : " It ees gude ; 
 but it ees not olt, feefteen year, perhaps." Yes, 
 it is strange how authorities difFer. 
 
 Those who imagine that because an author's 
 style is easy and flowing the amount of labor 
 put upon his works has therefore been small 
 should see the numerous bundles of manuscript 
 in Mr. Page's study marked variously — Orig- 
 inal Draft of Red Rock, Discarded Manuscript 
 [i8o] 
 
'thomas Nelson Page 
 
 of Red Rock, Red Rock Rewritten, etc. This 
 story, which ran through Scribner's Magazine^ 
 had, it seems, been a long time in the making, 
 about three years, including idle months. After 
 writing the first cast, he came to the conclus- 
 ion that politics had been allowed to play too 
 prominent a part, and to rectify this fault the 
 entire book was rewritten in shorter form. No 
 amount of pains is spared by him to bring his 
 work to perfection. 
 
 Interesting in connection with this subject 
 is his account of methods pursued while giving 
 public readings. In accordance with his theory 
 that never was story written not permitting of 
 advantageous shortening, he would carefully 
 watch for signs of flagging interest on the part 
 of audiences, and then immediately skip to a 
 more interesting part, marking the oiFending 
 paragraphs for future elimination. His pub- 
 lished volumes have profited by this heroic 
 surgical procedure. 
 
 At last curiosity about the library was to be 
 satisfied ; the two left the study and descended 
 to the first floor. On entering the vast room a 
 book-lover gives an involuntary gasp of delight. 
 Everything, apparently, necessary to happiness 
 is in sight — writing - table, easy - chairs, drop- 
 [i8i] 
 
American Authors (S I'keir Homes 
 
 lights, and, above all, books in regiments of 
 yellow, red, and white. In this room it seems 
 perfect contentment should be found if any- 
 where. Yet in answer to a remark that from 
 such beautiful surroundings one should draw 
 inspiration, Mr. Page observed that comfort 
 may serve but to lull the soul to sleep. " I 
 often say," he added, " that whenever the time 
 comes when one poses as a successful man, on 
 that day every spark in him that is worth any- 
 thing has gone out. A man must keep in touch 
 and sympathy with life, and draw inspiration 
 from what is going on about him, not from 
 his material surroundings." 
 
 To nearly all of us some one author has 
 come in early youth as a revealer of the won- 
 derful, inexhaustible field of romance, casting 
 over us an enchanted spell from which we 
 have never afterward escaped. To some it 
 has been Dumas, to others Victor Hugo. The 
 necromancer of Mr. Page's boyhood days was 
 Scott. To him the name of the great writer 
 of Abbotsford is one to conjure with, to 
 call up delicious memories of lazy sunny days 
 in Virginia under the trees, or cold winter 
 nights by the fire when he pored over the 
 pages of "Kenilworth" or " Quentin Dur- 
 [182] 
 
'ihomas Nelson Page 
 
 ward " by the fitful light of a pine knot, to 
 save the cost of candles. 
 
 It is but natural, therefore, that he should to- 
 day cherish as his most precious possession a 
 small battered copy of Cowper's poems contain- 
 ing on the fly-leaf a page of French in Sir Wal- 
 ter's own handwriting. As he took down the 
 quaint old book, whose cover is threatening to 
 fall apart, his face fairly shone. Comparatively 
 unmoved he had shown other treasures — a book 
 from the library of Boswell, Wordsworth's copy 
 of Landor's poems, containing original manu- 
 script poems by Landor to Wordsworth, all 
 sank into insignificance beside the volume which 
 Scott had once held in his hands. 
 
 In his treatment of Virginia and her people 
 Mr. Page has, consciously or unconsciously, 
 followed the methods of the great Scotchman — 
 before commencing to write he steeped himself 
 in the traditions of the people, living among 
 them and learning to know them intimately at 
 first hand. Again like Scott, his literary career 
 at the start was accidental. In fact, it is hardly 
 correct to speak of the start of his literary " ca- 
 reer " at all, as not for years after the publica- 
 tion of " Marse Chan " did he take the final 
 plunge and definitely abandon law for literature. 
 [183] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 He simply allowed himself to drift with open 
 eyes from one profession into the other, until at 
 last the time came when he had argued his last 
 case and received his last fee. The law, as 
 Blackstone observed, is a jealous mistress, and 
 in Mr. Page's case this is freshly illustrated, for 
 he is at present turning his attention to the study 
 of international law, in which, he considers, lie 
 great opportunities. 
 
 The popular author is never left long unmo- 
 lested. Even though possessing agility in avoid- 
 ing reporters acquired by long practice, it is im- 
 possible to escape the United States mail ; letters 
 are no respecters of persons — they force them- 
 selves into a man's house and upon his attention. 
 On the present occasion a large, official-looking 
 document arrived to claim Mr. Page's notice, 
 together with several others of more modest 
 appearance. The large envelope, it turns out, 
 contained a voluminous " original " manuscript, 
 which the author sent for "consideration and 
 criticism." The mere sight thereof made one 
 appreciate anew the inestimable advantages of 
 obscurity. One of the smaller envelopes was 
 addressed in this fashion : 
 
 Thomas Nelson 
 Page of the Washington Post. 
 [ 184 ] 
 
'Thomas Nelson Page 
 
 This peculiar superscription, however, was 
 made clear by perusal of the letter. The writer 
 proceeded to state that he had had a brother by 
 the name of Thompson Neilson, who had emi- 
 grated with him to this country from Sweden, 
 but of whom he had since lost track. Seeing 
 Mr. Page's poem apropos of the Maine disaster, 
 entitled " The Dragon of the Sea," in The 
 Washington Post, he had thought that perhaps at 
 last his search might prove successful. The 
 grammar and spelling of the letter were at the 
 least irregular, but its naivete and simple trust- 
 fulness were touching. " I was oiFel glad when 
 I seen your name," it closed ; " let me know 
 from you. I was glad if.you was my brother." 
 
 " There, I shall write that man the nicest 
 letter I know how," said Mr. Page, as he laid 
 the letter away for future use, with quite broth- 
 erly tenderness. It was evident that the inci- 
 dent had impressed him. The exact meaning 
 of the line, " Page of the Washington Post," 
 we were forced to leave undetermined. 
 
 As the two men descended the stairway one 
 of them was reminded of Robert Browning's 
 " Duchess " when the Duke points out his treas- 
 ures to his parting guest — here a landscape, 
 yonder an old Sedan chair, and again a Lapland 
 [185] 
 
American Authors & l^heir Homes 
 
 bride's side-saddle, transformed into a hall chair 
 by the simple addition of legs. The last curi- 
 osity on view was an old-fashioned grinning 
 negro who was busily cutting the grass in front 
 of the house. On observing that he was the 
 object of our conversation he grinned approval. 
 " Jack " had, it seems, been employed as hod- 
 carrier during the construction of Mr. Page's 
 house several years previous. Fortunately for 
 Jack, in a moment of absent-mindedness, he 
 had fallen from the second story and lit on his 
 head. This member had saved his life and he 
 had then been permanently retained as servant, 
 thus proving, as Mr. Page explained, that he 
 had fallen on his feet, after all. 
 
 [i86] 
 
F. Hophinson Smith 
 In East Thirty-fourth Street,' New Tork 
 
BY Mr. smith 
 
 Born in 1838 in Baltimore 
 
 Well-worn Roads in Spain, Holland, and Italy. 1 885. 
 
 A White Umbrella in Mexico. 1889. 
 
 Colonel Carter of Carterville. 1 89 1. 
 
 A Day at Laguerre's, and Other Days. 1892. 
 
 A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others. 1895. 
 
 Tom Grogan. 1896. 
 
 Gondola Days. 1897. 
 
 Venice of To-day. 1896-98. 
 
 Caleb West, Master Diver. 1898. 
 
a 
 
 ■^ 
 a 
 
 •^ 
 
 
XIV 
 
 F. Hopkinson Smith 
 
 In East 'thirty-fourth Street, New Tork 
 
 ON the slope of the hill between Lex- 
 ington and Third Avenues and on the 
 south side of Thirty - fourth Street 
 stands a house which may be distinguished from 
 its fellows by a studio window rising above its 
 roof. If on a winter's evening a ruddy light 
 warms this particular window, making of it an 
 illuminated square in the surrounding darkness, 
 one may assume almost with certainty that its 
 owner, Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith, is entertain- 
 ing some of his friends with his very newest 
 story or otherwise dispensing his hospitality. 
 
 For twenty years this house has been the 
 New York home of the artist-author, and the 
 room at the top on evenings and Sunday after- 
 noons has been the pleasant resort of many men 
 distinguished in literary and art work. The fire- 
 place, which casts a red glow on book-shelves 
 and pictured walls, on easels and easy-chairs, is 
 rimmed by a cool blue border of tiles, a sou- 
 venir of a club of small membership and unlim-. 
 ited good-fellowship which left its impress on 
 [189] 
 
American Authors & l!heir Homes 
 
 the magazines and on the hearts of the people 
 of more than a decade ago. 
 
 Here are the loving tributes of hands that are 
 cold as well as of hands still warm with work 
 — a Reinhart, a Quartley, a Sarony — among 
 tiles by Abbey, Chase, Wier, Swain GifFord, and 
 others. A portrait of Elihu Vedder looks down 
 from one side of the chimney-piece and the face 
 of Mark Twain from the other, and a conspic- 
 uous place on the wall is occupied by a crayon 
 portrait of Ned Holland in the character of Col- 
 onel Carter. This studio is a resting-place rather 
 than a workshop, for few pictures have been 
 painted in it, while many collections from afield 
 and abroad have halted here for a critical exam- 
 ination and a slight retouching on their way to 
 the exhibition room. 
 
 Crayons and water-colors are seen here and 
 there to line the stairway as we descend into the 
 body of this house we have so burglariously entered, 
 and sunny bits of Venice and Spain hang on the 
 walls of the family rooms over against the mill- 
 sails of Holland and the minarets of the Turk. 
 In the dining-room is a portrait of Francis Hop- 
 kinson, the Signer, great-grandfather of Francis 
 Hopkinson Smith. There is a striking absence 
 on every hand of souvenirs of travel, such as are 
 [ 190] 
 
F. Hopkinson Smith 
 
 collected by the ordinary tourist. Mr. Smith 
 himself, in his pursuit of studies in color and in 
 character, is in too deadly earnest to be turned 
 aside after vases or idols, and the other mem- 
 bers of his family are never going abroad for 
 the last time and would as soon think of carry- 
 ing souvenirs of Newf York to the banks of the 
 Bosporus. 
 
 If, however, there is a noticeable absence of 
 curios, there is a suggestive prevalence of open 
 desks by sunny windows, and yet there is not a 
 room in this house, not even the den at the top, 
 not a desk or a chair, that can be particularly 
 identified with the production of one of Mr. 
 Smith's books. His workshop is where he 
 finds an hour's release from the business of the 
 day, and his power of concentration is such and 
 his literary work is mapped out with such ad- 
 mirable system that he can utilize that hour to 
 as good advantage as if it occurred in the middle 
 of an undisturbed morning devoted to authorship. 
 
 The leisure hour may be the hour before din- 
 ner, the hour before a train, or four weeks of 
 waiting in Constantinople, as once occurred, for 
 permission to set up his easel. More often this 
 opportunity for literary work occurs at his busi- 
 ness office near Wall Street, where Mr. Smith 
 [191 J 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 goes daily when in this city, and where indeed 
 much of his writing has been done in a little 
 dingy private office, surrounded by specimens of 
 granite and samples of cement. Whatever Mr. 
 Smith does he does with the enthusiasm of a 
 boy, and with an indifference to his surround- 
 ings that makes it possible to believe that, if 
 necessary, he could write his books as he paints 
 his pictures, seated on a camp-stool in the street 
 surrounded by a chattering crowd. 
 
 Although born and reared in Baltimore, Mr. 
 Smith suggests the New Englander rather than 
 the Southerner. Even New York has failed to 
 assimilate his restless personality, and among 
 strangers he would be taken for a Yankee from 
 Boston or a "hustler" from Chicago. His 
 capacity for work is unlimited, and he never 
 thinks of dropping one line of work because 
 taking up another, but with increasing facility 
 he exacts from himself an increase of output. 
 Since he has become an author, a lecturer, and 
 a reader of his own works, instead of showing a 
 half-dozen pictures at the annual exhibition of 
 the Water Color Society, as formerly, he makes 
 a yearly exhibition of his own, going to Venice, 
 Constantinople, and Holland for his subjects. 
 The secret of his accomplishing so much lies 
 [ 192] 
 
F. Hoph'nson Smith 
 
 always in the perfect system that governs his 
 work. His manuscripts are mapped out after a 
 method all his own in skeleton chapters in blank- 
 books ruled for the purpose. He always knows 
 what the ending will be before he begins a story, 
 and business method lies behind every pen stroke. 
 
 In short, he writes a book as he paints a 
 picture or builds a light-house : a little plotting 
 with charcoal, a rectifying of lines with the 
 brush, and then the floating on of color. In 
 the old days it was a bucketful of water and a 
 flooding of the japanned box to wash away im- 
 purities and traces of body color, hard work by 
 day and exhaustion at night. Mr. Smith will 
 never outgrow his boyish enthusiasm for the 
 picturesque in nature or in character. In this 
 respect the years have wrought no change in 
 him. 
 
 In the Tile Club days, when he paid his first 
 visit to Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, 
 having arrived by stage after dark, the writer took 
 him on the water in the moonlight. Arthur 
 Quartley and Stanley Reinhart were in the boat. 
 There were stars above and stars below, and 
 trailing phosphorus and rocking schooners 
 against velvet-black masses of foliage and shad- 
 ow, and, as we come out from under the great 
 [193] 
 
American Authors & '^heir Homes 
 
 willows, our new arrival stood up in the boat 
 and announced to the land and the water in a 
 fine burst of enthusiasm : " I'll let you know 
 I'm here in the morning." 
 
 In those days it was a favorite assertion of 
 his that it required two men to paint a picture — 
 one to do the work and the other to club ofF 
 the artist when it was done. Perhaps he was 
 conscious that he existed in a sort of dual per- 
 sonality for the carrying out of this very prin- 
 ciple, having Francis H. Smith, the business 
 man, always at the elbow of F. Hopkinson 
 Smith, the artist. So the sentences of the au- 
 thor are never wiggled or pottered over until 
 their virility and freshness are destroyed by 
 over-elaboration. 
 
 The development of the writer after fifty, 
 in which vocation Mr. Smith has achieved his 
 best success, may at first seem to indicate a 
 misconception of his talent at the outset of his 
 career. May it not, fortunately for himself and 
 for his admirers, have been an evolution of ri- 
 pening along unconsciously methodical lines, 
 through the stages of artist and story-teller up 
 to author, in which the other half of the dual 
 personality was controlled and evolved for the 
 best .? 
 
 [194 1 
 
Donald G. Mitchell 
 
 At Edgewood, in New Haven, Conn, 
 
BY MR. MITCHELL 
 
 Born in 1822 in Noriuichj Conn. 
 
 Fresh Gleanings. 1 847. 
 
 The Battle Summer. 1848. 
 
 The Lorgnette, z v. 1850. 
 
 Reveries of a Bachelor. 1850. 
 
 Dream Life. iSjI. 
 
 My Farm of Edgewood. 1863. 
 
 Seven Stories with Basement and Attic. 1864. 
 
 Wet Days at Edgewood. 1864. 
 
 Dr. Johns. 1866. 
 
 Out-of-Town Places. 18S4. 
 
 About Old Story-Tellers. 1877. 
 
 Bound Together. 1884. 
 
 English Lands, Letters, and Kings. 4 v. 1889-90. 
 
 American Lands and Letters. 2 v. 1897-99. 
 
^'••'MW?'' 
 
XV 
 
 Donald G, Mitchell 
 
 At Edgewood, in New Haven, Conn. 
 
 MR. MITCHELL has himself enter- 
 tainingly informed us of the circum- 
 stances of his settlement at Edge- 
 wood, and the public has probably gained, 
 through the medium of his various books, an 
 intimate acquaintance with his country home. 
 It is the Edgewood of 1863, however, at that 
 time one of the most flourishing of our New 
 England farms — the Edgewood of Mr. Mitch- 
 ell's charming books, with its beehives, its lilac 
 bushes, its evergreen coppices, its indispensable 
 eastern slope, its sunny frontage, its strip of 
 sea, and its twinkling light-house barely discern- 
 ible from the library window — with which all 
 lovers of literature have been familiarized dur- 
 ing the past forty years. 
 
 " My Farm of Edgewood," which appeared 
 in 1863, formed one of the chief literary de- 
 lights of the older generation, and still makes 
 innumerable friends among the new. It bids 
 fair, indeed, to take permanent rank with those 
 works of the ancient farmers — such as Xeno- 
 [197] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 phon and Horace and Cato and Pliny, and later 
 Pietro di Crescenzi, Izaak Walton, Lord Ba- 
 con, and Lord Karnes — in whom Mr. Mitchell 
 himself years ago recognized a kindred spirit. 
 It seems a rather melancholy turn of fate, 
 however, that, though Mr. Mitchell's book 
 itself is likely to have a perennial youth, its 
 subject, the farm, seems hardly destined to 
 so pleasant a fortune. Edgewood, or at least 
 its environs, already begins to bear evidence 
 of that oncoming old age of which Mr. Mit- 
 chell's works have not given the slightest in- 
 dication. 
 
 It must not be assumed from this that there 
 are any signs of dilapidation about Edgewood ; 
 for everything still possesses that trimness and 
 neatness which its proprietor has taught us to 
 regard as the prime requisite of successful farm- 
 ing. The principal point, however, is that it 
 is almost impossible now to regard Mr. Mitch- 
 ell's home as a country place. It is every day 
 losing its rural aspect, and beginning to assume 
 the doubtful characteristic of surburban things. 
 " Surburban " is a terrible word to the artistic 
 soul, suggestive of the keen-eyed real estate 
 broker, imaginary corner lots, skeleton thorough- 
 fares, a smattering of frame houses of cheap 
 [198] 
 
Donald G. Mitchell 
 
 architectural splendor, an occasional electric 
 light, and a solitary trolley-car. 
 
 " The house," said Mr. Mitchell nearly forty 
 years ago, " lay on the edge of the wood, and it 
 seemed to me that if it should be mine it should 
 wear the name of Edgewpod." It still Hes on 
 the edge of the wood, but it lies on the edge of 
 the city, too. New Haven is slowly creeping 
 about Mr. Mitchell's farm, and from his li- 
 brary window, in addition to the many delight- 
 ful things he saw forty years ago, he can now 
 watch the " development " of urban real estate, 
 under the smart manipulation of city financiers. 
 Land in that region is still, we believe, sold 
 and assessed by the acre, but it cannot be 
 many years before it will be reckoned by the 
 front foot. 
 
 The scattered farm-houses in which the old 
 Edgewood found a congenial companionship 
 have almost disappeared in the numerous ten- 
 ements that have sprung up in the past few 
 years. These are in every respect modern af- 
 fairs, are frequently of flaring architecture, 
 with no end of gables and bow windows ; kept 
 constantly crisp and fresh painted, with a vig- 
 ilant eye to the prospective tenant. There are 
 many other attractions that Mr. Mitchell did 
 [ 199 ] 
 
American Authors & T^heir Homes 
 
 not include in his famous advertisement for a 
 country place; the all-penetrative trolley-car, 
 for example, now stops almost at that genial 
 philosopher's door. 
 
 He can take a short stroll to the east and 
 catch a glimpse of the asphalt, and the wind- 
 ing stream which was one of the delights of 
 the early landscape has, by some strange and 
 not too irreproachable freak of municipal en- 
 terprise, been straightened into a long, lank, 
 utterly useless canal. The meadows surround- 
 ing the stream — perhaps through Mr. Mitchell's 
 own promptings — now form part of a park 
 reservation, which has passed into the keeping 
 of the city authorities. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest change of all is in the 
 house itself. The " grayish-white " farm-house, 
 in which the author of the " Reveries " lived 
 for several years, and which he describes in 
 " My Farm of Edgewood," has long since dis- 
 appeared. It has been replaced by a low, two- 
 story building, in whose construction its ar- 
 chitect evidently utilized much of the experience 
 gained in the erection of the little farm cottage 
 at the foot of the hill about a quarter of a mile 
 from the main dwelling. We remember the 
 ridicule which this " milkmaid's " domicile re- 
 
 [ 200 ] 
 
Donald G. Mitchell 
 
 ceived at the hands of the country " Squires " 
 — by the way, Mr. Mitchell's neighbors do hot 
 refer to each other now as " Squires " — and 
 the persistence with which he maintained that he 
 had hit upon a happy idea. The scheme worked 
 so well, indeed, that it proved serviceable in the 
 construction of the present farm-houses. 
 
 The first story is built of rough stones, 
 gathered from the author's own fields. These 
 have not been smoothed or chipped in any way, 
 but cemented together in their original state. 
 A concession has been made on the corners, 
 where Mr. Mitchell has consented to use plain 
 red bricks. The second story is of conventional 
 clapboard, painted a dull yellow, and is sur- 
 mounted by a slate roof, from which projects an 
 occasional dormer window. On the east end 
 is the indispensable porch, and in the rear a large, 
 sunny living room. The artificial fountain, to 
 which Mr. Mitchell's book refers, has disap- 
 peared, but the well-kempt English hedge, fol- 
 lowing the rise and fall of the roadway, the 
 snug coppices of evergreens, the silent pool over- 
 hung by willows, still remain. From his win- 
 dows, too, the view is still as engaging as on 
 the brilliant June morning when Mr. Mitchell 
 paid his first visit to his future home. 
 
 [201] 
 
American Authors & 'Thet'r Homes 
 
 To the north the range of blue hills begins 
 and ends in the two beetling clifFs, East and 
 West Rock, both of which have now been trans- 
 formed into city parks. In front of the house 
 the eastern stretch of farm country, though occa- 
 sionally disturbed by one of the modern houses 
 referred to, has lost little of its early beauty, and 
 the immediate neighborhood of the residence 
 is still under zealous cultivation. The white 
 church spires of the surrounding villages and 
 city still project above the elm-trees, and to the 
 south the harbor of New Haven, with its several 
 breakwaters and light-houses, furnishes that 
 glimpse of the sea which Mr. Mitchell regards 
 as indispensable to a country home. On clear 
 days he can plainly distinguish the sailing craft 
 and steamers, and on a few especially favored 
 occasions the white bluffs of Long Island shore. 
 
 The road in front of the house leads north- 
 erly to the quaint hamlet of Westville, which 
 has undergone few changes during the past forty 
 years, and to the south to West Haven, a more 
 progressive and thriving village. The whole 
 landscape, a not incongruous mixture of coun- 
 try and town, is closed in by purple hills, the 
 broad stretch of the sea overcoming any sense 
 of confinement or oppression, 
 
 [ 202 ] 
 
Donald G. Mitchell 
 
 Mr. Mitchell purchased Edgewood in 1855, 
 and it has therefore been his home for almost 
 fifty years. Before his settlement there, he had 
 spent a somewhat rambling life, had crossed the 
 ocean several times, had been present at Paris 
 during the outbreaks in 1848, had had a brief 
 political career as United States Consul at Ven- 
 ice, and had written one or two volumes of 
 sketches not now included in his collected works. 
 He had always a leaning toward farming — 
 he came, indeed, of old Connecticut farming 
 stock. He spent a few years after his gradua- 
 tion from Yale in work of this kind, and when 
 the time came for him to make a permanent 
 settlement in life there was no hesitation as to 
 his course. 
 
 It will be remembered, however, that he did 
 not take up the farm from the purely romantic 
 point of view. He would have found it impos- 
 sible to settle in an unattractive place, whatever 
 might have been its agricultural advantages; 
 but, for all that, he proposed to take up farming 
 as a serious vocation. Does farming pay ? was 
 not so serious a question in Connecticut in 1855 
 as it has since become; there are now many 
 snug fortunes in the State that were accumu- 
 lated by the industry of old-time farmers. When 
 [ 203] 
 
American Authors & T!heir Homes 
 
 Mr. Mitchell took hold of Edgewobd, Connect- 
 icut farming had not become a lost art, and he 
 had every hope of a satisfactory return. 
 
 He worked at his property for several years 
 with some success. He never became a money- 
 making farmer, indeed, but still he did not run 
 largely behind. He provided for his own table, 
 had many little landscape luxuries unknown to 
 his neighbors, and — if we may trust the story of 
 " The Farm " book — a modest profit at the end 
 of each year. But from the general collapse of 
 New England agriculture — due to the great 
 economical and social phenomena of the past 
 thirty years, Mr. Mitchell and his Edgewood 
 farm have not been exempt. 
 
 He long ago solved the problem what to do 
 with the farm by deciding to give over its 
 management to those who are better traders — if 
 not better cultivators. He is no longer annoyed 
 by his Irish " milkmaids," by his scientific agri- 
 culturists from the town, by his quietly sarcastic 
 country neighbors, or his commercially minded 
 city friends, with their ever-iterated query, " Do 
 you get your money back ? " For several years Mr. 
 Mitchell has leased his farm lands, and has thus 
 had the pleasure of watching the processes of 
 culture without sharing any of the anxieties as to 
 [ 204 ] 
 
Donald G. Mitchell 
 
 the financial outcome. The change has not been 
 unwelcome to the public, for it has given him 
 more time to cultivate the books of a carefully 
 stocked library and to w^rite. 
 
 Mr. Mitchell, in his book on Edgewood, de- 
 plores the fact that farming is too exacting a 
 vocation to give sufficient opportunity for per- 
 sonal culture, but during the past few^ years he 
 has found ample time to devote to literature. 
 His connection w^ith his Alma Mater — ^Yale — 
 has been pleasantly maintained through his 
 forty odd years' residence in New Haven. He 
 has lectured from time to time before the Uni- 
 versity, and in 1878 his position in American 
 literature was recognized by the degree of LL.D. 
 
 Mr. Mitchell is now in his eightieth year. 
 He has naturally reached the age of well- 
 earned leisure, and when he may regard the 
 most important part of his life-work as com- 
 plete. During the past few years, indeed, he has 
 written his " English Lands, Letters, and Kings," 
 and his " American Lands and Letters," and has 
 made revisions of work done many years ago. 
 He is as regular in his habits to-day as when he 
 first engaged in the serious business of farming 
 at Edgewood. He rises at a seasonable hour 
 and devotes most of his morning to work. He 
 [205] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 writes, attends to his correspondence, and relig- 
 iously denies himself to all callers, and even to 
 his own family. In the early part of the after- 
 noon he takes a nap, followed by a stroll about 
 his farm or a drive into the surrounding country. 
 He is a great advocate of walking as a method of 
 healthful exercise, and vigorously practises his 
 own preaching. From 4.30 to 6 o'clock are his 
 only free hours, and these he devotes to his 
 friends and an occasional caller. Mr. Mitchell, 
 however, sees few casual visitors these days, 
 preferring to spend what time he has with old 
 friends. 
 
 When it is remembered that the most well- 
 known part of Mr. Mitchell's work was done 
 before he came to New Haven, and that the sales 
 of his two most famous books, the " Reveries of 
 a Bachelor " and the " Dream Life," are still un- 
 remitting, it would hardly seem extravagant to 
 assume that one of the permanent figures of 
 American literature is spending his final years 
 in the comfortable retirement of Edgewood. 
 Mr. Mitchell was in early life a friend of Irving 
 and a visitor at Sunnyside, and he is to-day the 
 representative of the Irving literary tradition. 
 
 A mere glance at his books shows that he be- 
 longs to a generation of literature with which 
 [206] 
 
Donald G. Mitchell 
 
 modern authors have little to do. It seems as- 
 sured that his books will survive, in spite of 
 their highly colored romantic qualities, for the 
 same reason that the works of Irving find 
 thousands of readers in an age of realism and 
 literary finesse — because of the wholesome hu- 
 man feeling by which they are inspired, and the 
 dulcet, mellow English in which they are writ- 
 ten, for their charms are everlasting. Mr. 
 Mitchell's quiet life at Edgewood among his 
 books and his recollections are suggestive re- 
 minders of the fact that the world has not yet 
 entirely lost its spirit of romance. It has not 
 yet outgrown its early love for old-fashioned 
 books and old-fashioned authors. 
 
 [207] 
 
Thomas Wentworth Higginson 
 
 In Cambridge, Mass. 
 
BY COLONEL HIGGINSON 
 
 Born in 1823, in Cambridge, Mass, 
 
 Woman and Her Wishes. 1853. 
 
 Out-door Papers. 1863. 
 
 Army Life in a Black Regiment. 1869. 
 
 Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 1884. 
 
 The Monarch of Dreams. 1887. 
 
 Women and Men. 1888. 
 
 Life of Francis Higginson. 1891. 
 
 Concerning All of Us. 1892. 
 
 Book and Heart. 1 89 7. 
 
 Cheerful Yesterdays. 1898. 
 
 Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic. 1898. 
 
 Contemporaries. 1899. 
 
 Old Cambridge. 1899. 
 
"a; 
 
 c3 
 
XVI 
 
 Thomas Wentworth Higginson 
 
 In Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 VISITORS to Cambridge who know 
 only the college yard and its immedi- 
 ate neighborhood think of the old city 
 as, topographically, one of the flattest of places. 
 There are even Cambridge citizens who are un- 
 acquainted with the ridge of high land at the 
 summit of which stands the observatory of 
 Harvard, and where, at the head of Buckingham 
 Street, not a stone's throw from the observatory, 
 is seen the house Thomas Wentworth Higgin- 
 son built for himself nearly twenty years ago. 
 At one side is a group of tall spruces that al- 
 most hide it from the eyes of those approaching 
 from Concord Avenue. At the back is a little 
 grove, while at the other side is an open lawn 
 with a tennis-court. It is in this house that 
 Colonel Higginson a few years ago celebrated 
 his seventy-fifth birthday. 
 
 To speak of Colonel Higginson as the Nes- 
 tor of American letters might be true. It is a 
 sentence that sounds fairly well in print and 
 would pass unchallenged by those who have 
 
 [211] 
 
American Authors & I'ketr Homes 
 
 never seen Colonel Higginson. Those who 
 know him, however, must at once object to the 
 word, since the term summons up the vision of 
 an aged man with snowy locks. He may have 
 gray hairs, but his hair as a mass is not gray, 
 nor is his tall, athletic figure much less vigorous 
 than twenty years ago. His complexion, his 
 eye, his expression are those of a young man, 
 and a young man he is in manner and feeling. 
 Each birthday since his seventieth has been 
 made a special gala day by his friends. 
 
 The old brass knocker and the door-plate with 
 the name " S. Higginson " came from the Kirk- 
 land Street house of Colonel Higginson's father. 
 The hall into which the visitor steps, and the 
 broad stairway inside were modelled somewhat 
 after those of an historic Portsmouth house be- 
 longing to a Wentworth ancestor. For Colonel 
 Higginson (through his mother, Louisa Storrow) 
 is a direct descendant of the first Governor 
 Wentworth of New Hampshire, and collaterally 
 is related to other governors of the same name. 
 A portrait in oil of Governor Wentworth, a copy 
 of an original painting, hangs at the head of the 
 stairway, and the easy-chair in which Colonel 
 Higginson does most of his writing is an heir- 
 loom. 
 
 I 212] 
 
'Thomas IVentworth Higginson 
 
 Over the stairway hang two other interesting 
 portraits. Though the painter is not definitely 
 known, it is thought that one, if not both por- 
 traits, came from the brush of Sir John Thorn- 
 hill. Their date is about 1700, and their style 
 is altogether excellent, with a certain quaint 
 stiffness, suggesting Copley, though belonging 
 to an earlier period. One shows Nathaniel 
 Higginson, Governor of Madras, and his wife 
 seated at a table, while a young man, Stephen 
 Ainsworth, who afterward married their daugh- 
 ter, is entering the room. Through the open 
 door is a distant view of Fort St. George. The 
 other portrait shows a deer park in the back- 
 ground, with portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Ains- 
 worth and the sister of the latter, Deborah Hig- 
 ginson, who became Mrs. Jeffries. Governor 
 Nathaniel Higginson was a brother of Colonel 
 Higginson's ancestor. Colonel John Higginson 
 of Salem. 
 
 Beside these paintings hangs a portrait of 
 Colonel Higginson in his youth by Eastman 
 Johnson. Near by is a head of Colonel Hig- 
 ginson's young daughter — his only child — and 
 portraits of his father and grandfather, Stephen 
 Higginson, a member of the Continental Con- 
 gress of 1783. Another small portrait of con- 
 [213 J 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 siderable interest is that of the first Mrs. Long- 
 fellow, aunt of the present Mrs. Higginson. 
 
 Hanging in the lower hall near the stairway 
 is an oil-painting with an unusual history. It is 
 a life-size portrait of Pope's Man of Ross, by 
 whom painted, or in what way it came to this 
 country is not known. It was sent anonymously 
 to Colonel Higginson's father by some friend 
 who concealed his identity. On the back is a 
 long inscription stating that it was sent to a 
 man who " so eminently copys the fair original." 
 Colonel Higginson has had thorough inquiries 
 made in the village of Ross, England, only to 
 learn that neither of the two portraits, once 
 known to exist of the hero of Pope's poem, is 
 now there. This is believed to be one of the 
 two. 
 
 Other interesting things in the hallway are 
 the first flag ever carried by a colored regiment, 
 a sword given to Colonel Higginson by the 
 Freedmen of Beaufort, S. C, and the one he 
 himself carried in the war. At the left of the 
 hall is a room which combines a drawing-room 
 with a library. It is thoroughly homelike, with 
 open fireplace, high book-cases, grand piano, 
 and old-fashioned furniture. Old portraits are 
 on the walls, as a Madonna by Luca Delia 
 [ 214] 
 
Ihomas Wentworih Higgmson 
 
 Robbia, and many photographs and souvenirs of 
 travel. 
 
 Opening from this room is a small study 
 where formerly Colonel Higginson did all his 
 w^ork. Book-cases reach from ceiling to floor, 
 and a large desk stands near a window. Colonel 
 Higginson has a slip of paper pasted in each vol- 
 ume with his name plainly printed in large capitals. 
 
 Within late years there have gone from his 
 shelves about i,ooo volumes, which he had been 
 thirty years in collecting, and to which he had 
 given the name of "The Galatea Collection." 
 They are now in an alcove of the Public Li- 
 brary of Boston, a gift from Colonel Higginson, 
 v/ho hopes that those who are interested in the 
 social, industrial, and educational condition of 
 women, will consult them frequently. Many 
 are rare and curious, especially those in other 
 languages than English. 
 
 Colonel Higginson no longer does' the most 
 of his writing in the cosey little down-stairs study. 
 When he started work on his " Naval and Mili- 
 tary History of Massachusetts in the Civil 
 War," a large room became necessary for his 
 secretaries, and an apartment up-stairs was set 
 apart. Comparatively little of his work is dic- 
 tated. He gives his mornings to writing and 
 [215] 
 
American Authors & I'het'r Homes 
 
 seldom leaves the house or sees visitors before 
 three o'clock. Always fond of out-door life, he 
 still continues to take long walks. A few years 
 ago he was devoted to bicycling, and was often 
 to be met in Cambridge streets or on adjacent 
 roads accompanied by his little daughter. 
 
 Out-door exercise for men and women has 
 had no stronger advocate than he. No reader 
 of " Out-door Papers " needs to be told this. 
 In his boyhood he was fond of swimming, skat- 
 ing, foot-ball, cricket, and other open-air sports, 
 and in war times of fencing and military drill. 
 This love of out-door life and an optimistic spirit 
 have combined to keep youthfulness alive. 
 
 It is to him a source of joy that the home of 
 his later years is hardly ten minutes' walk from 
 the house built by his father in Kirkland Street, 
 which was his birth-place. The old house is 
 standing at the head of Professors' Row under 
 the shadow of Memorial Hall. Its ancient 
 neighbor, the first home of Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, long since disappeared. New and 
 magnificent college buildings are crowding on 
 houses at the upper end of the stately avenue. 
 Yet enough of the old dwellings remains to pre- 
 serve the identity of the street, and to give it 
 much the same character that it had in Colonel 
 
 [216] 
 
'Thomas Wentworth Kigginsm 
 
 Higginson's youth. In that ideal autobiography, 
 " Cheerful Yesterdays," he has told us that the 
 earliest documentary evidence which he has of 
 his own existence is a note from Edward Ever- 
 ett, then a neighbor, inquiring after the health of 
 " the babe." 
 
 Stephen Higginson, his father, had been a 
 prosperous Boston merchant, a liberal enter- 
 tainer, and was noted for benevolence. After 
 JeiFerson's embargo had deprived him of his fort- 
 une, his friends procured for him the post of 
 Stewart (bursar) of Harvard. In the Kirkland 
 Street house, with its Ubrary of eighteenth-cen- 
 tury books, there was a decided literary atmos- 
 phere. Andrews Norton, John Gorham Palfrey, 
 George Ticknor, and Jared Sparks were among 
 its visitors. Washington Irving, a connection 
 by marriage, once came within its walls. Long- 
 fellow, too, and his sister ; John Holmes and 
 his more distinguished brother, Christopher 
 Pearse Cranch, John S. Dwight, and various 
 members of the Harvard faculty, of whom a 
 number reached decided eminence, knew this 
 home well. Colonel Higginson's mother was a 
 woman of culture, and his father was bookish. 
 His grandfather, Stephen Higginson, published 
 several political pamphlets. 
 [217] 
 
American Authors & T'heir Homes 
 
 It would have been strange if a thoughtful 
 boy with such an environment and ancestry had 
 not drifted into a literary career. On gradua- 
 ting from Harvard when not quite eighteen, he 
 first tried teaching, and later entered the Har- 
 vard Divinity School. His first parish was that 
 of the First Religious Society at Newburyport, 
 over which he was placed in 1847, and his sec- 
 ond the Free Church of Worcester, to which 
 he went in 1852. During these years he be- 
 came very outspoken in espousal of the anti- 
 slavery cause. This was the more remarkable 
 on his part, as by ancestry and social connec- 
 tions he naturally belonged in the more con- 
 servative society of Boston and Cambridge. 
 Not only his pen but his muscular strength was 
 put at the service of the Abolitionists. His 
 part in the Anthony Burns aiFair and his efforts 
 to rescue other escaped slaves are well known 
 as well as the practical help he gave in the 
 Kansas troubles. 
 
 When the war broke out he offered his ser- 
 vices to Governor Andrew, and spent some 
 time drilling part of a regiment near Worcester. 
 When the offer came from General Rufus Sax- 
 ton of the colonelcy of a black regiment — the 
 first to be raised — he gladly accepted it and has- 
 [218] 
 
'Thomas Wentworth Higginson 
 
 tened to South Carolina, where it was forming. 
 In August, 1863, he was seriously wounded at 
 Wilton Bluff, and a few months later, on ac- 
 count of illness, resigned his command. His 
 " Army Life in a Black Regiment " gives an 
 account of his military experience. 
 
 After the war, while living at Newport, Col- 
 onel Higginson devoted himself entirely to lit- 
 erature. Before this he had been an occasional 
 contributor to the Atlantic Monthly. The 
 charm of his style is felt at the first reading. 
 Every word is so carefully chosen, and every 
 sentence so well placed, that no change or re- 
 arrangement seems possible. His vigorous and 
 graceful thought touches a wide range of sub- 
 jects, and its prevailing characteristics are re- 
 finement and patriotism. 
 
 Years ago he was a popular lyceum lecturer. 
 He became most agreeable on the platform, and 
 was a favorite presiding officer and after-dinner 
 speaker. No one who has ever heard him can 
 forget the grace of his manner, the quick flash 
 of his wit, or the force of his argument. Among 
 the optimistic beliefs of Colonel Higginson is 
 one that the scholar makes himself much more 
 often of value in politics than the world in gen- 
 eral believes. 
 
 [219] 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 Three years ago the degree of LL.D. was 
 conferred upon him by Harvard. The same 
 degree had been given to him some years before 
 by the Western Reserve University. Five of 
 his books have been translated into French, 
 three into German, one into Italian, and one 
 into modern Greek. In various journeys abroad 
 he has met many of the most interesting figures 
 prominent in the social and literary life of Eng- 
 land and France — Browning, Tennyson, Her- 
 bert Spencer, Rossetti, Alma Tadema, Lord 
 Houghton, Lord Lyttelton, Thomas Hughes, 
 Aubrey de Vere, James Bryce, and many others. 
 
 Besides his pleasant Cambridge house Col- 
 onel Higginson has a cottage at Dublin, N. H., 
 where he spends several months every year. 
 This is at the very foot of Mount Monadnock, 
 overlooking Monadnock Lake. Here he can 
 indulge his love of nature and of natural history 
 — for years ago he became a careful student of 
 entomology. Severe illness several years ago 
 left him a little less strong than formerly, but 
 he has continued to enter with zest into the 
 pursuits of his young daughter — the child of the 
 second Mrs. Higginson — and his friends are in 
 earnest when they beg him to tell them the se- 
 cret of perpetual youth. 
 
 [ 220 ] 
 
George E. Woodberry 
 In East Seventeenth Street ^ New Tork 
 
BY MR. WOODBERRY 
 Born in iSjS '" Bcaerly, Mass. 
 A History of Wood Engraving. 1883. 
 Edgar Allan Poe. 1885. 
 
 The North Shore Watch and Other Poems. 1890. 
 Studies in Letters and Life. 1 890. 
 The Heart of Man. 1 899. 
 Wild Eden. 1899. 
 Makers of Literature. 1900. 
 
XVII 
 
 George E. VFoodberry 
 In East Seventeenth Street, New Tork 
 
 WHEN the Players, on an afternoon 
 in November, 1893, held their me- 
 morial service for Edwin Booth in 
 the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall, it 
 was some lines entitled "The Players' Elegy" 
 which, more than all else, voiced the prevailing 
 sentiment of the throng : 
 
 Such was our Hamlet, whom the people knew, 
 A soul of noble breath, sweet, kind, and true ; 
 Our flesh and blood, yet of the world ideal. 
 So native to immortal memory 
 That to the world he hardly seems to die. 
 More than the pdet's page, where buried lie 
 The form and feature of eternity. 
 
 *>t *if %^ «t^ *lf kL* 
 
 ^JH ^<m *y* ^% >J^ ^1^ 
 
 For us the vacant chair. 
 For us the vanished presence from the room. 
 The silent bust, the portrait hung with gloom — 
 
 He will not come, not come ! 
 
 The writer of this " Elegy " was George E. 
 Woodberry, poet, essayist, biographer, critic, pro- 
 fessor of literature, whom, a little more than ten 
 [223] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 years ago, Columbia University called to one o,"* 
 its chairs. He has ever since been quietly living 
 in the heart of New York, busied with lectures, 
 books, and pen. The gay world and active club- 
 land hardly know him, though, indeed, his name 
 has been set down in one of the year books of 
 the time. He prefers to spend his days among 
 books and his students on Morningside Heights. 
 His evenings are passed in work or reverie in his 
 rooms in an old bachelor apartment-house at 5 
 East Seventeenth Street, where in old dwellings 
 still survives a bit of the New York of twenty- 
 five, and, perhaps, forty, years ago. 
 
 An interesting tradition marks this bachelor 
 dwelling-place — that a man once established in 
 it never departs permanently from its doorway 
 except to lead a bride to the altar. These, at 
 least, are the tales that are told. Maids of New 
 York may profit by this suggestion and hence- 
 forth have an eye on bachelors of literature who 
 dwell in that edifice. It is in an old-fashioned, 
 high-ceilinged room that Professor Woodberry is 
 " at home." 
 
 For that matter — to speak with absolute ex- 
 actness — he is only in part at home here. More 
 than half the volumes that make up his library, 
 for convenience sake, are kept in his rooms at 
 [224] 
 
George E. IVoodberry 
 
 Columbia. When the college occupied its old 
 quarters it was an easy matter for him to go baqk 
 and forth. But the distance nowadays is too 
 great for that. On four days in the week Pro- 
 fessor Woodberry travels up-town to spend both 
 morning and afternoon on the university grounds. 
 
 It is in the evening, therefore, that one may 
 best look in upon him and learn to know the 
 man. A strong type of university breeding is 
 he, this man of fine attainments and broad cult- 
 ure, who speaks quietly and half deprecatingly of 
 his achievements, and yet makes you feel that 
 he quite understands what he has accomplished. 
 He has capabilities which would have given him 
 rank in anything intellectual if his taste had run 
 elsewhere than to literature. But you cannot 
 quite imagine him in commercial life. He must 
 have been a round .peg in a square hole had he 
 tried business. He is rather the thoroughly 
 capable college man of that class of such in 
 whom, taken in a body, lies so much hope and 
 promise for this country. 
 
 Not at once do you feel all this, for Professor 
 Woodberry is not to be analyzed on the instant. 
 But, little by little, it opens up before the visitor. 
 Despite the fact that you know this to be an age 
 of young men, it is somewhat confusing, at first, 
 [22s] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 to realize that the thick-set, fresh-complexioned 
 man, whose age is not far above forty, lying 
 opposite you in an easy-chair, holding a cigar as 
 if it were the most interesting thing in the world, 
 is really one who can write verse glowing with 
 sentiment, is an expert in many forms of litera- 
 ture, and has proved himself the most notable 
 biographer and editor of Poe. Such endow- 
 ments seem rather to speak of a man middle- 
 aged, gray of hair, with a touch of the poet in 
 his aspect. 
 
 Professor Woodberry does not disappoint you, 
 however. An hour with him and all is clear. 
 Under the young head there is an old brain, an 
 old reasoning faculty, with all the youthful im- 
 agination, sentiment, and enthusiasm. Fortu- 
 nately, not one single dash of pedantry has gone 
 into the mixture. The man is one of those 
 rare beings who, in talking " shop," can do it 
 delightfully. In his very modern point of view, 
 in his optimism, there is a hint or a reminder of 
 Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 Books line one end of this room in tall book- 
 shelves, in the bookman's orderly disorder. The 
 visitor will have dipped into them here and there, 
 and will have been favored with a sight of a bun- 
 dle of manuscript poems, many of which have 
 [226] 
 
George E. Woodherry 
 
 already seen the light of day in The Century ; 
 a glimpse, perhaps, of the page-proofs of a book 
 of essays. When the professor and his caller 
 are both back in their chairs, with fresh cigars, 
 the professor may at last be found talking of his 
 work and himself. 
 
 " I was a free lance in literature in the begin- 
 ning," he said. " I started in, after being grad- 
 uated from Harvard, writing for The Atlantic 
 and The Nation. While still in college I really 
 began my Atlantic work. I took a poem to 
 Mr. Howells, and he asked me if I thought I 
 could do a review. I tried it, and it was printed. 
 Another book was given to me for review, and 
 then another. Thus, by the time I was out of 
 college, my work was begun. 
 
 " When Mr. Aldrich came to The Atlantic^ he 
 went over the numbers of the past two or three 
 years, to discover who had been writing for the 
 magazine, and soon after that he sent for me to 
 come and see him. We talked matters over, 
 and I found that he wanted me to continue 
 writing. The most of my work at that time 
 went into The Atlantic and The Nation, and very 
 little of it will ever be collected by me into book 
 form. It was too much of the time, and taken 
 out of its place has little meaning. 
 
 [ 227 1 
 
American Authors & Hheir Homes 
 
 " This work that is nameless, after all, ad- 
 vances a man very little. I have found that out," 
 and Mr. Woodberry smiled writh appreciation. 
 " I have not much of a name now, but more 
 than I had. That which brought me into no- 
 tice — the Poe biography — was mere chance. It 
 started, practically, as a piece of ' hack work,' a 
 commission that I accepted because it was offered 
 to me. In the same way I published, through 
 the Harpers, two years before I wrote the Poe 
 biography (that is, in 1883; the book on Poe 
 was published in 1885), a ' History of Wood 
 Engraving.' This was an amplification of two 
 articles I had written for Harper's Magazine. 
 There was no ' history ' of this sort beyond a 
 very costly and technical history, and the Har- 
 pers thought a shorter, simpler, and less expen- 
 sive volume would be worth issuing. I started 
 out on Poe precisely as I had on the ' History.' 
 
 " Now, I had no special interest in Poe and I 
 knew nothing especial about him. With just as 
 much reason any other American man of letters 
 might have been given to me. It simply hap- 
 pened to be Poe. Charles Dudley Warner was 
 arranging his ' American Men of Letters ' series, 
 and he wrote and asked if I would do Poe for 
 him. I think it must have been James Russell 
 [228] 
 
George E. Woodberry 
 
 Lowell that suggested me to Mr. Warner, 
 though I do not know positively. While at 
 Harvard I had catalogued Mr. Lowell's library 
 for him, and came to know him very well. He 
 showed me many kindnesses." 
 
 Mr. Woodberry did not say so, nor did he 
 touch upon the subject, but there is good reason 
 to believe that he also owes his present professor- 
 ship at Columbia to Lowell's kindly offices in 
 the matter of some few words dropped shortly 
 before that famous man's death. 
 
 " But it was not long," went on Professor 
 Woodberry, as we both sat quietly, thinking 
 over the little book that so suddenly gave him 
 fame, " before Poe became something new to 
 me, the details of his life something more than 
 perfunctory. I began to study his life carefully, 
 and looked into the charges that had been made 
 against him. The more I studied them, the 
 more I came to believe these were true. By 
 correspondence with Lowell I got at the Lowell 
 letters, which were of great value. I visited 
 New York (I was then living at Beverly, Mass.), 
 Washington, and Richmond. I saw the con- 
 nections of the Allan family, who brought up 
 Poe. 
 
 " There were in existence, too, and they had 
 [229] 
 
American Authors & 'Their Homes 
 
 never yet been examined, the private papers of 
 Griswold, Poe's executor, and one who was 
 closely identified with him. Griswold's execu- 
 tor was the late George H. Moore, Librarian of 
 the Lenox Library. I wrote to Mr. Moore, 
 and received a very pleasant letter, asking me to 
 come and see him. I went, and we talked the 
 matter over, but Mr. Moore was inflexible. 
 The Griswold papers and letters could not be 
 examined by anyone. This evidence was not 
 available, therefore, for the biography. It has 
 since come to light, however. Mr. Moore after- 
 ward died, and his son put the material at my 
 disposal. It confiirmed what the biography had 
 said. Nearly all of the Poe documents and evi- 
 dence are in, and little other material is known 
 to exist, with the exception of the John P. Ken- 
 nedy letters, which are sealed up until 1920. 
 
 " Poe's character, after months of study, came 
 to me in only one light. I could see him only 
 in the light in which I portrayed him, and every- 
 thing new that came into my hands only con- 
 firmed this view. What I said of him attracted 
 attention, and it seems to hold attention yet. 
 Even now I keep hearing from people. It was 
 this book, of course, that called forth the edition 
 of Poe's works some years later, [this, the reader 
 [230] 
 
George E. tfoodherry 
 
 will remember, was edited by Mr. Stedman and 
 Mr. Woodberiy,] which gave Poe for the first 
 time an adequate edition, worthy of his genius, 
 such as the other great American authors have, 
 and Poe until then lacked." 
 
 And thus Mr. Woodberry went on. It is 
 quite impossible to reproduce the interesting 
 way these facts were told. The words them- 
 selves, as set down here, fail to give the discur- 
 sive manner, the side remarks, at times the ex- 
 act language, and likewise the charm of the 
 personal narration. Lovingly the professor took 
 another volume down from shelves where stood 
 scores of titles in general literature. 
 
 " People, in general, know me little for my 
 Shelley," he said. "Yet Shelley, from back in 
 my college days, has always been one of my 
 enthusiasms. This is the Centenary Edition of 
 his poems, which I edited in 1894, giving, as 
 you will notice, all the variations, line for line, 
 with complete notes. Much of my examina- 
 tion studies for this I did in the private hbrary 
 (since dispersed) of Mr. Frederickson, then a 
 famous collector living in Brooklyn. This old 
 gentleman had the finest Shelley library to be 
 found anywhere. He was a familiar and pop- 
 ular frequenter of auction sales and shops where 
 [231] 
 
American Authors & T^heir Homes 
 
 old books are sold. Everybody knew him as 
 'Fred.' He had collected in Shelleyana over 
 2,000 volumes, including the very earliest and 
 rarest editions." 
 
 As a poet, altogether too few know Professor 
 Woodberry. His work in other forms of liter- 
 ature has, to an extent, overshadowed his verse- 
 making. It may not be out of place here to 
 quote from one of his love-songs : 
 
 Now, ere the long day close. 
 That has been so full of bliss, 
 
 I will send to my love the rose. 
 In its leaves I will shut a kiss ; 
 
 A rose in the night to perish, 
 
 A kiss through life to cherish ; 
 
 Now, ere the night-wind blows, 
 
 I will send unto her the rose. 
 
 His university duties Professor Woodberry 
 finds interesting, and he has settled into them 
 composedly. It was a new field for him when 
 he took his chair of literature, and he has dis- 
 covered how true it is, as Lowell told him back 
 at Harvard, that while hundreds of students pass 
 and repass, leaving no impression, the few 
 bring keen attachments, and these repay the 
 worker. 
 
 A volume of essays from his pen, published 
 [232] 
 
George E. Woodberry 
 
 two years ago is " The- Heart of Man," and 
 comprises four papers that vary greatly. One 
 on " Democracy," is an optimistic analysis of the 
 people and affairs of a republic. No treatise 
 more cheering has of late years come from the 
 pen of any man of culture. It shows this poet 
 and biographer in a new light, as a philosopher. 
 It is a good document for those who have faith 
 in Democracy working out her own salvation. 
 Professor Woodberry said : " I wrote it because 
 I thought something of that sort needed to be 
 written." 
 
 A later book of essays, and one that probably 
 contains the finest work in criticism that Pro- 
 fessor Woodberry has ever done, is the volume 
 which came out in 1900, under the title 
 " Makers of Literature." It has been widely 
 recognized as unsurpassed by anything in Amer- 
 ican criticism since Lowell wrote. It was 
 a collection of miscellaneous papers written for 
 periodicals and books in the last twenty years. 
 The author showed how he has been touched 
 by the very soul of literature. 
 
 He has still in hand a series, of which he is 
 the editor, entitled " National Studies in Amer- 
 ican Letters." Several volumes are already out, 
 and many more may be added, though the num- 
 [ 233] 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 ber is not as yet made known. This series will 
 cover the literature of America by sections, 
 having due regard to the importance and extent 
 of the entire subject. It will comprise a novel 
 set of volumes, and will include much new ma- 
 terial. 
 
 When the hour is late a turn in the fresh 
 night air is proposed. Together with this very 
 modern bookman, the " prof." of many a Col- 
 umbia boy, the writer may find himself strolling 
 up Fifth Avenue, under the shadow of publish- 
 ing houses and piano shops. But these are 
 unheeded in the companionship of such a man. 
 
 [234] 
 
Andrew Carnegie 
 In West Fifty-first Street, New Tork 
 
BY MR. CARNEGIE 
 
 Born in 183'J in Dunfermline, Scotland 
 
 Triumphant Democracy ; or, Fifty Years' March of the Repub- 
 lic. 1886. 
 Round the World. 1888. 
 An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. 1888. 
 The Gospel of Wealth. 1900. 
 
XVIII 
 
 Andrew Carnegie 
 
 In West Fifty-first Street, New York 
 
 MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE has 
 one hobby — it is libraries. He has 
 founded many libraries — how many 
 need not be said. Two years ago he had 
 founded six, but the number now is some mul- 
 tiple of six, and this need not include the sixty 
 odd buildings for library purposes which he has 
 given to New York. The library in his New 
 York house is the most spacious and luxuriously 
 appointed room in the establishment. Refer- 
 ence is here made to the house he has long lived 
 in — not to the spacious mansion nearing com- 
 pletion on upper Fifth Avenue. His library 
 occupies the entire front of the second story 
 of the house in West Fifty-first Street, or, 
 more properly, three rooms thrown into one 
 form the library. Here "The Gospel of 
 Wealth " was written and many of the college 
 lectures. 
 
 As a rule, Mr. Carnegie, when in New York, 
 enters his library every morning at ten o'clock 
 and remains until one o'clock, engaged in writ- 
 [237] 
 
American Authors & T'heir Homes 
 
 ing, studying, or reading. After luncheon he 
 takes a short stroll in the Park, or a drive, to 
 return again to his books for several hours 
 longer. His secretary is alv^ays in attendance. 
 Readers and admirers of " Triumphant Democ- 
 racy ; or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic " 
 may be interested to know that Mr. Carnegie's 
 own particular copy of the book — one of a 
 small edition made for distribution among his 
 friends — is beautifully bound, and upon the 
 cover, stamped in gold, is the reversed crown 
 which forms so conspicuous a feature of his coat 
 of arms ; it is emblazoned also upon his li- 
 brary wall, high up between the front windows. 
 The cap of liberty surmounts the reversed crown, 
 which forms the crest. Upon the escutcheon 
 are a weaver's shuttle and a shoemaker's knife. 
 The supporters are the American and Scotch 
 flags, with the legend beneath, " Death to Privi- 
 lege." The whole design is a worthy sugges- 
 tion of Mr. Carnegie's democratic ideas. 
 
 The mammoth table standing in the centre of 
 the room looks very business-like, and is cov- 
 ered with various literary impedimenta. Of 
 course there are books and books everywhere. 
 They reach from the floor to the ceiling and 
 cover three sides of the room, as well as en- 
 [238] 
 
Andrew Carnegie 
 
 croach upon the fourth side, which is the bright 
 spot in the hbrary, with its fireplace. On either 
 side of the mantel are numerous shelves, where 
 are stored away precious mementos and pleasing 
 reminders of interesting occasions — trowels, for 
 example, of which Mr. Carnegie has quite a 
 collection. 
 
 They are well worth examining. One is of 
 silver gilt, with an oaken handle, and was used 
 by Mr. Carnegie in laying the corner-stone 
 of the library which he presented to the City 
 of Edinburgh in 1887. Another, of silver, 
 with an ivory handle, bears the following in- 
 scription : 
 
 Presented by the Library Committee to Mrs. Car- 
 negie on the occasion of her laying the memorial stone 
 of the Carnegie Free Library, the gift of her son, An- 
 drew Carnegie, Esquire, to his native city of Dunferm- 
 line, 27 July, 1 88 1. 
 
 Still another beautiful trowel is the one used 
 by the wife of Mr. Carnegie at the laying of the 
 corner-stone of the Carnegie Music Hall, New 
 York, on May 30, 1890. Within the walls of 
 the huge structure of which the Music Hall 
 forms a part, is the home of the Authors Club. 
 Housed elsewhere in inferior quarters for some 
 [239] 
 
American Authors & T'keir Homes 
 
 years, this club with a national reputation, now 
 has apartments suitable to its needs and worthy 
 of its name. Mr. Carnegie is one of its mem- 
 bers. 
 
 Another cherished souvenir is the small oak 
 and silver casket in which the freedom of the 
 City of Edinburgh was presented to Mr. Carne- 
 gie on the occasion of his gift of a quarter of a 
 million dollars to found the Edinburgh library. 
 A silver plate bears the inscription : 
 
 This box is made of oak from the house of Sir 
 Thomas Hope, King's Advocate, of Scotland, 1626- 
 46, who ably upheld the cause of civil and religious 
 liberty in Covenant times. Presented by the Corpora- 
 tion of Edinburgh with the Burgess ticket conferring 
 the freedom of the city on Andrew Carnegie, Esquire, 
 U. S. A., 8th July, 1887. 
 
 Silver lions, unicorns, and thistles in relief 
 form the decorations of this pretty little casket. 
 While Scotch heather is Mr. Carnegie's favorite 
 flower, the thistle holds a large share of his 
 affections and appears conspicuously in the dec- 
 orations of the library. Upon the ceiling are 
 painted clusters of thistles, while one easy-chair 
 which invites you in a painted legend to " Rest 
 awhile," is also resplendent in painted thistles. 
 The plaid of the Clan Carnegie — dull blues and 
 [240] 
 
Andrew Carnegie 
 
 greens with a thread of yellow — appears here 
 and there for sofa-pillow coverings. If Mr. 
 Carnegie wants to rest awhile or take a siesta, 
 there is a comfortable lounge with the rollicking 
 motto above, " There's a good time coming, 
 boys." 
 
 When he wishes relaxation of another kind, 
 he turns to some musical tubes forming an odd 
 instrument for making melody, which he picked 
 up when travelling through the Orient. It con- 
 sists of eight metal tubes of graduated lengths, 
 hung from a rather high, brass frame ; the per- 
 former makes music by playing on these tubes 
 with a little felt-covered mallet. The music of 
 " My Country, 'Tis of Thee," Mr. Carnegie 
 has had arranged for the tubes, as well as " Ye 
 Banks and Braes," " Auld Lang Syne," " My 
 Nut Brown Maiden," " Scenes That Are 
 Brightest," and " Ring o' Bells and Peal o' 
 Gongs." Any one of these tunes Mr. Car- 
 negie can play with a good deal of dash and 
 spirit — although he seldom attempts to render 
 them vocally — at least when he has an au- 
 dience. 
 
 Another melody-making instrument to which 
 Mr. Carnegie turns is one consisting of Japanese 
 bells — three hollow globes of metal suspended 
 [241] 
 
American Authors © '^heir Homes 
 
 from the mouth of a dragon of forbidding mien. 
 These bells are also manipulated by means of a 
 little mallet. 
 
 Mr. Carnegie is devoted to music and a most 
 munificent patron of the art. One of his friends, 
 and one of whom he is very fond, is Mr. Walter 
 Damrosch, and an interesting picture in the 
 library — in the corner devoted to the muse of 
 music — is a photograph of Mr. Damrosch, upon 
 the margin of which he has written, in pencil, a 
 few bars of that sentimental air from " The Bo- 
 hemian Girl," " Then You'll Remember Me." 
 Standing guard over this musical corner are 
 bronze busts of Wagner and Beethoven, two 
 favorite composers of Mr. Carnegie's. 
 
 His favorite poet is Burns, of whose works 
 he has some choice editions. Shakespeare, too, 
 one sees in editions of various kinds. The Wa- 
 verley Novels are resplendent in the finest of 
 bindings, and Thackeray blooms afresh in blue 
 and gold. Ruskin's " Sesame and Lilies " is a 
 favorite of Mr. Carnegie's — a book which he 
 reads and re-reads. One set of shelves is given 
 up to encyclopedias and works on botany, in 
 which study Mr. Carnegie is intensely inter- 
 ested. Diogenes, in bronze, with his lantern, 
 illumines this corner of the room. In a copy 
 [242] 
 
Andrew Carnegie 
 
 of one of Herbert Spencer's works, which Mr. 
 Spencer sent to Mr. Carnegie, is inscribed : 
 
 To my friend Andrew Carnegie : The highest truth 
 he sees he will fearlessly utter, knowing that, let what 
 may come of it, he is thus playing his right part in the 
 world ; knowing that if he can effect the change he aims 
 at, well ; if not, well also, though not so well. 
 
 The drawer of the library table holds letters 
 and notes from many people distinguished in 
 the literary world. To the mind fond of detail 
 it may be interesting to know that many of the 
 postal cards Mr. Gladstone had such a fancy 
 for despatching to his friends have found a rest- 
 ing-place here. His writing, by the way, is ex- 
 tremely difficult to decipher to the one unfamiliar 
 with his peculiar chirography. 
 
 Pertinent to Gladstone's article on Mr. Car- 
 negie's book, " The Gospel of Wealth," to 
 which reply was made by Cardinal Manning, it 
 may be said that Mr. Carnegie responded in a 
 manuscript of about 8,000 words, completed in 
 two days, so very rapidly does he compose. 
 John Morley, the English statesman, is another 
 correspondent who sends frequent notes. In 
 one he returhed thanks for " the noble bird " — 
 an American turkey — sent by Mr. Carnegie for a 
 Christmas gift. " We shall drink the health of 
 [243] 
 
American Authors & Their Homes 
 
 the giver and recall pleasant days together." Mr. 
 Morley accompanied the Carnegies upon one of 
 their coaching trips. 
 
 Among the pictures hanging upon the library 
 wall is one of the coaching party which travelled 
 from Brighton to Inverness in 1881. Mr. Car- 
 negie's mother occupies the seat of honor at his 
 left. Another picture is that of Cluny Castle, 
 where he has spent several summers. Even 
 here he has usually given many hours daily to 
 his books. A more resplendent home than 
 Cluny Castle is now his Skibo Castle. 
 
 Mr. Carnegie's new house in New York, now 
 approaching completion, stands at Fifth Avenue 
 and Ninetieth Street. The entire avenue block 
 front is devoted to house and grounds, and the 
 lot in the other direction has a still greater 
 dimension. It is a most imposing mansion set 
 on an imposing site, in many ways the most 
 striking private residence in a town of million- 
 aires. Large trees have been transplanted there 
 to furnish shade. A costly and novel process 
 accomplished what seemed the impossible. 
 Someone has counted eighty rooms in the 
 house, of which about one-half are below the 
 main floor. Other figures pertaining to it are 
 that the heating apparatus cost ^110,000, the 
 [ 2^4 ] 
 
Andrew Carnegie 
 
 plumbing ;^SS,ooo, and the organ ;^ 16,000. 
 The telephones number twenty and the supply of 
 coal will amount to 200 tons per year. In order 
 to transport the coal from bin to furnace a min- 
 iature railway was constructed, with a car hav- 
 ing a capacity for half a ton. But this at pres- 
 ent is not the home of Mr. Carnegie. Sometime 
 in the year 1902 he hopes to occupy it. Within 
 its walls, perhaps, he will write more books, and 
 devise schemes for founding more libraries. 
 
 r 245 ] 
 
Brander Matthews 
 In West End Avenue, New York 
 
BY MR. MATTHEWS 
 
 Born in l8j2 in New Orleans 
 
 The Theatres in Paris. 1880. 
 
 French Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century. 1 88 1. 
 
 Tom Paulding. 189Z. 
 
 In the Vestibule Limited. 1892. 
 
 Studies of the Stage. 1 894. 
 
 Vignettes of Manhattan. 1894. 
 
 Bookbindings, Old and New. 189J. 
 
 Aspects of Fiction. 1896. 
 
 His Father's Son. 1896. 
 
 A Confident To-morrow. 1899. 
 
 The Action and The Word. 1900. 
 
 The Historical Novel and Other Essays. 1901. 
 
XIX 
 
 Brander Matthews 
 In West End Avenue, New Tork 
 
 BRANDER MATTHEWS, Professor 
 of Dramatic Literature in Columbia 
 University, is the Brander Matthews 
 who has been the friend of players for years, also 
 an eminent first-nighter, though not a critic for 
 a reason hereafter given ; an actor by instinct, 
 a stage manager, he would be if not too busy, 
 an expert sought for in pantomime and parlor 
 burlesque ; a story-teller, essayist, and play- 
 wright — surely a chronicle of interests and ac- 
 tivities quite long enough. 
 
 The temptation is for one to ask why he is 
 a professor when he finds success easily and 
 securely in literary work. One is apt to asso- 
 ciate a college professorship with drudgery, more 
 especially since there comes a complaint of it 
 in the occasional magazine article. Mr. Mat- 
 thews prepares and delivers his lectures and 
 constructs his examination papers for what he 
 gets out of the task. There is a reciprocal 
 benefit in the relation of teacher and pupil as 
 maintained in courses at college. This may 
 [249 j 
 
American Authors kS 'Their Homes 
 
 chiefly be in the post-graduate departments, but 
 to a degree it exists in the others. 
 
 However Mr. Matthews may value what he 
 gets from his classes, and undoubted as is his 
 achievement as an instructor, it is not this side 
 of the man which lends chief interest to his 
 home and his personality. The writer ever at- 
 tracts more attention than the teacher. The 
 audience is larger, the stage is better set to catch 
 the eye, the production is of greater human in- 
 terest. 
 
 It is likely that the habit of filing for preser- 
 vation materials for work so carefully followed 
 to-day by Mr. Matthews was a habit formed 
 thirty years ago. Drawer after drawer of the 
 two or three desks at which Mr. Matthews 
 writes is filled to overflowing with envelopes of 
 goodly size. The word upon the outside is an 
 index to the contents. An inquisitive glance 
 at the collection is entertaining — perhaps the 
 more so because a trifle impertinent. The 
 name of a book on the envelope draws your at- 
 tention. 
 
 You open the flap and lo ! there appears a 
 
 contract, duly signed and sealed by and between 
 
 James Brander Matthews, author, and Messrs. 
 
 Doe and Roe, publishers. A letter may next 
 
 [250] 
 
Brander Matthews 
 
 be found from the publishers acknowledging re- 
 ceipt of manuscript; then a friendly line of 
 criticism in advance of publication from a per- 
 sonal acquaintance, say Andrew Lang ; then a 
 big bundle of hastily written pencil notes, a 
 scrap of dialogue, a character sketch, a passing 
 glimpse of one of nature's moods, maybe a 
 jumble of words — " tramp — Union Square — 
 night — morning — waked by twitter of birds — 
 also policemen's club on boot soles ; " next a 
 parcel of newspaper clippings. You may be 
 startled, but are scarcely bewildered, by the va- 
 riety and incoherence of all this. 
 
 Every scrap of paper in that envelope is, or 
 was once, a vitally necessary part of the book 
 or subject named on the outside. Look at the 
 scraps again, and it becomes apparent that most 
 of them were thrust under cover months and 
 even years before pen touched paper in the 
 writing of the book itself. Let an idea, an im- 
 pression, a face, a fact, a fancy, come swiftly 
 within range, and let any one of these bear 
 relationship to the essay, play, or story that 
 Brander Matthews tells himself he will write 
 one day, and swiftly it finds its way in some 
 brief form to one of those labeled envelopes 
 where already lie its congenial fellows. There 
 [251] 
 
American Authors & I'hetr Homes 
 
 with the others it loiters forgotten and neglect- 
 ed until the time and tide of literary impulse 
 shall reach and carry it with the others into ac- 
 tivity and usefulness. 
 
 For one subject, and doubtless the one most 
 constantly in his thought, the one which it is 
 fair to prophesy, will, some day be approached 
 with his maturest effort, there is no envelope. 
 Four hundred volumes relating to it rest in ex- 
 clusive dignity and patrician dress in a cherished 
 section of the bookshelves. When asked why, 
 with all this evident favoritism there are no 
 materials gathered and laid away for the prom- 
 ised work on Moliere, Mr. Matthews repUes 
 that his subject is too great for actual work as 
 yet. He must not so much as begin the prep- 
 aration for original labor until the study of the 
 great man, of all that influenced him, of all that 
 he influenced, is fairly under way. This, from 
 the college professor who has two courses of 
 lectures on Moliere, and (owning almost every 
 edition of the French dramatist, and a great 
 many books printed about him) was provocative 
 of a question answered thus : 
 
 " No, not a greater subject than Shakespeare, 
 but so easily contrasted with him as to make 
 Moliere of the greatest possible interest. For 
 [252] 
 
Brander Matthews 
 
 instance, Shakespeare had no appreciable influ- 
 ence upon modern comedy, and never had, except, 
 perhaps, with De Musset. Moliere's influence 
 on it, however, has always existed and will al- 
 ways be felt. ' Mrs. Tanqueray ' is a modern 
 instance." 
 
 Mr. Matthews's house on West End Avenue 
 is delightfully situated and elegantly comfortable. 
 There is, one would say, a characteristic arrange- 
 ment of the interior for the purposes of living, 
 showing harmony of tastes in the members of 
 the family. The rooms set apart for the books 
 and papers are not distinctively, dissimilar from 
 the others, except that they contain more books 
 and papers. The two libraries might serve as 
 drawing-rooms should occasion require. Living- 
 rooms and parlors would be convenient and 
 agreeable places in which to write. Of this 
 home it cannot be said that its family and social 
 life and its literary dens are things apart, or that 
 the influence of one is greater or less than that 
 of the other. Yet the guest of an evening will 
 like to stay longest where the books are, for here 
 are other treasures also. 
 
 It is a whim — and a pleasant one — of Mr. 
 Matthews to have an occasional favorite book 
 bound in a manner characteristic of its author 
 [253] 
 
American Authors & 'T'keir Homes 
 
 or suggestive of its contents. He has many 
 such, and the labor of love shows considerable 
 ingenuity and good taste. There is a collection 
 of poems edited by Mr. Matthews in a copy 
 of which he has had bound the original manu- 
 script copy sent him by the writers, as well as 
 autograph letters about the book in critical and 
 complimentary vein. There are, besides, in this 
 book marginal illustrations of the text by artists 
 into whose hands the volume has come in its 
 travels. 
 
 Next in number to the Moliere books are to 
 be counted Sheridan's works. There is, of 
 course, a varied collection of volumes relating 
 to dramatic criticism and the stage and the his- 
 tory and criticism of EngUsh literature. The 
 purely theatrical side of tragedy and comedy in 
 playwriting is a subject of the greatest possible 
 interest to Mr. Matthews. In his Moliere lect- 
 ure courses he goes deeply into the dramatic 
 side of his subject, the stage setting, and details 
 of scenic presentation. 
 
 It is a matter of surprise that, equipped for 
 the work by natural inclination and extensive 
 study, he steadily refuses to be a critic of cur- 
 rent drama. The reason lies in his membership 
 in The Players. It was Mr. Booth's expressed 
 [z54] 
 
Brander Matthews 
 
 wish, at the inception of the club and at the 
 Delmonico luncheon, where, to a score of friends 
 he made known his intentions regarding his 
 ultimate gifts, that no critic of the current stage 
 be admitted to membership. 
 
 It appears that the constitution of The Players 
 is mainly the expression of Mr. Booth's wishes. 
 This, as much as any of its provisions, has been 
 strictly adhered to. The wisdom of it is clear. 
 One may criticise a picture, a book, or the text 
 of a play freely, acrimoniously, and afterward 
 dine with the author, the artist, or the play- 
 wright. Would the dinner reach dessert in 
 comfort had the actor himself been the subject 
 of criticism ? " There is a difference," says 
 Mr. Matthews. " It is one thing to talk about 
 things a man creates ; quite another thing to 
 express an opinion of his own personality in 
 what he creates." So The Players gains a con- 
 sistent member and the public loses an enlight- 
 ened critic. 
 
 The greater part of Mr. Matthews's literary 
 work is done between ten and one o'clock of 
 the day. His afternoons are filled by college 
 duties, and he rarely writes in the evening. " I 
 don't write much," he says ; " perhaps a hun- 
 dred thousand words in a year." Thrice fortu- 
 [255] 
 
American Authors & T'het'r Homes 
 
 nate man. He seldom writes upon request, and 
 never through necessity. He writes when and 
 about what he pleases. 
 
 The house in West End Avenue has an 
 " American basement." In one of the rooms 
 stands a comfortably massive desk, ancient, and 
 honorable in appearance and history. It be- 
 longed to the father of the author, and was for 
 years used in his Wall Street office. Mr. Mat- 
 thews writes often here and on the day of this 
 visit there lay upon this desk of yesterday the 
 type-set sheets of a new novel from Mr. Mat- 
 thews's hands. 
 
 [256] 
 
John Kendrick Bangs 
 
 In Tankers, New Tork 
 
BY MR. BANGS 
 
 Bern in 1862 in Tankers, N. T. 
 
 Tiddleywink Tales. 189 1. 
 
 Half Hours with Jimmieboy. 1893. 
 
 Coffee and Repartee. 1 893. 
 
 The Water Ghost and Others. 1894. 
 
 Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica. 1895. 
 
 The Idiot. iSgJ. 
 
 A Rebellious Heroine. i8g6. 
 
 A House-Boat on the Styx. 1896. 
 
 Three Weeks in Politics. 1897. 
 
 The Pursuit of the House-Boat. 1898. 
 
 Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others. 1 898. 
 
 The Booming of Acre Hill. 1900. 
 
 The Idiot at Home. 1901. 
 

 05 
 
XX 
 
 yohn Kendrick Bangs 
 
 In Tankers, New York 
 
 A SPACIOUS, light, and roomy villa on 
 a high blufF overlooking the Hudson 
 River at Yonkers is the residence of 
 John Kendrick Bangs, author, editor, and hu- 
 morist. A short drive from the New York 
 Central station lands one at the door of Mr. 
 Bangs's home, which is one of a row of detached 
 villas standing in large lots of ground. The 
 house faces east and west, and on the west the 
 ground slopes in terraces to the Hudson. From 
 North Broadway on the east, or from Hudson 
 Terrace, to which the land extends on the west, 
 a magnificent view is obtained of the Palisades. 
 A broad carriage road and a stone footpath 
 sweep in semicircles from the street to the house. 
 In the grounds are set flower-beds, hedges, and 
 numerous young trees. The latter do not afford 
 much shade as yet, but Mr. Bangs whimsically 
 observes that they will probably be of great 
 benefit to his grandchildren. 
 
 As the visitor drives up, three fine lads, the 
 eldest about thirteen, may be seen playing on 
 [259! 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 the lawn. Mr. Bangs, when he expects you, 
 may open the door himself and will extend a 
 hearty welcome. 
 
 The visitor may ask : " Are those three boys 
 yours ? " 
 
 " Yes," the author has been known to reply ; 
 " the three boys and the three kittens. The 
 latter are D'Artagnan, Porthos, and Aramis." 
 
 " But where is Athos ? " he was asked. 
 
 " Oh, he was one too many j so we gave 
 him to the laundress." 
 
 On entering the house one is struck by its 
 roominess and the general literary and artistic 
 air that pervades it. The hall is large and 
 square and decorated with water-colors and orig- 
 inal drawings in pen and ink. The entire south 
 end is devoted to Mr. Bangs's library, and in the 
 west corner of this he writes books and maga- 
 zine articles. 
 
 Three sides are lined with books and pictures, 
 and the fourth, which overlooks the Hudson, 
 opens upon a large porch, to which Mr. Bangs 
 moves his desk in summer. Here, with the 
 great river rolling beneath him, nothing to shut 
 out the sky, and with a view of the full length 
 of the Palisades before him, he pens his work. 
 Though still young, he has written thirty books. 
 [260] 
 
John Kendrick Bangs 
 
 Of " The House Boat on the Styx " there have 
 been more than 90,000 copies sold in this coun- 
 try and England, and of " Coffee and Repartee " 
 more than 75,000, 
 
 His first book was " Roger Camerden," which 
 he published anonymously. Among his latest 
 are " Peeps at People," a series of sketches of 
 travel ; " The Idiot at Home," " The Dream- 
 ers," " Olympian Nights," and " With the 
 Libretti." " Southern Humorists " is a volume 
 he has in preparation. 
 
 Mr. Bangs at one time edited Literature., wrote 
 the literary notes for Harper's Magazine^ and 
 had charge of the Editor's Drawer in the same 
 periodical. He has also written poems and 
 sketches for Harper's Bazar. Scores of maga- 
 zine articles and verses, mostly of a humorous 
 character, have come from his pen. He is now 
 the editor of Harper's Weekly. 
 
 He says modestly that he inherits his taste 
 for literature and his humor from his father, 
 Francis N. Bangs, the lawyer, who was formerly 
 President of the Bar Association. He began to 
 write when seven years old. When about nine 
 he sent a letter from the country to his father, 
 beginning " Dear Papa " and then for the rest 
 of the letter copied the Declaration of Indepen- 
 [261] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 dence. At ten he read a fairy story called 
 " Thumbling." He paraphrased it, changed 
 the name to " Fingerling," and then sent it to 
 an amateur paper of which his brother was the 
 editor. For this he received such a lecture on 
 the immorality of plagiarism that he says he has 
 never forgotten it. 
 
 After graduation from Columbia he studied 
 law in his father's office, but felt no inclination 
 for its practice. He preferred to devote himself 
 to a literary career, and in this field has become 
 one of the most successful and popular of the 
 younger authors. For some time he was asso- 
 ciate editor of Life, but of late years has written 
 almost entirely for the Harper publications. 
 
 Mr. Bangs's arrangement of his time is me- 
 thodical. Monday and Tuesday he spends in 
 Franklin Square. Wednesday and Thursday 
 he remains at home and writes from 9 a.m. 
 until noon. Friday and Saturday he devotes to 
 various odds and ends of business and to exer- 
 cise. He writes about 2,000 words for a morn- 
 ing's work. His literary notes for Harper's 
 Magaxine alone used to represent about 50,000 
 words a year. 
 
 How he manages to do so much work might 
 surprise one who did not know his methodical 
 [262 ] 
 
'John Kendrick Bangs 
 
 habits. In addition to his regular work he has 
 given as many as forty lectures and readings during 
 a year, not to mention many after-dinner speeches. 
 He is also president of a large private school, 
 Trustee of the Yonkers Public Library, and 
 was formerly a member of the Board of Educa- 
 tion in Yonkers. A few years ago he ran for 
 Mayor of Yonkers, but, as he says, escaped the 
 nuisance of holding office. His political expe- 
 riences he gave to the world in the book called 
 " Three Weeks in Politics." He keeps in his 
 house a suspicious-looking brown jug bearing a 
 Scotch label, and says it was his principal assist- 
 ant during his political campaign. 
 
 Mr. Bangs is a picture of vigorous health. 
 He is an enthusiastic golfer, playing at the 
 Ardsley and St. Andrew's links. He is also a 
 bicyclist, but the roads around Yonkers are so 
 steep and hilly that he cannot do much wheel- 
 ing in that neighborhood. He delights in walk- 
 ing, and recalls with delight several walks he 
 had with Conan Doyle when he visited that 
 writer, a few years ago at his home near Hasle- 
 mere, thirty miles from London. 
 
 The library of Mr. Bangs includes the works of 
 the standard modern authors and some of the an- 
 cient classics. History, fiction, poetry, and essays 
 [263] 
 
American Authors & T'ket'r Homes 
 
 are found side by side. One corner is devoted 
 to folk-lore, myths, fairy tales, and legends, of 
 which he is very fond ; another is filled with 
 the works of noted illustrators, including many 
 first and rare editions of Cruikshank, Leech, H. 
 K. Browne (" Phiz "), and others. 
 
 He seems to have every drawing that Cruik- 
 shank ever made, including several originals. 
 One of the oddest pictures is a portrait of Cruik- 
 shank, drawn by himself on the back of an en- 
 velope bearing his own address. The heavy 
 stroke of the letter C shows through the en- 
 velope and forms the huge Roman nose of the 
 artist in the portrait. Another old picture was 
 drawn by Cruikshank on the back of a proof- 
 slip. The matter from which the proof was 
 taken Mr. Bangs has discovered in one of the 
 books in his collection. 
 
 Surrounding Mr. Bangs's desk are many 
 works of reference, and directly in front of it is 
 a telephone, with which he can communicate 
 with his office in Franklin Square at any time. In 
 another corner are presentation copies of books 
 from Anthony Hope, Conan Doyle, and other 
 authors. A complete set of Robert Grant's 
 books, which Mr. Bangs won from Grant at 
 golf, occupies a prominent position. Mr. 
 [264] 
 
John Kendrkk Bangs 
 
 Bangs confesses, under the same conditions, 
 that Judge Grant in turn has won a set of his 
 books. 
 
 A handsome fireplace bears the inscription 
 " Hie Habitat Fehcitas" (Here Dwells Happi- 
 ness). Over the mantel is a replica in plaster 
 of horses from the Parthenon. On each side 
 of this is a reproduction of the device of John 
 Caxton, representing the Sage taking an apple 
 from the serpent in the Garden of Eden. 
 
 " That is Hall Caine and the original Chris- 
 tian," said Mr. Bangs with a smile. 
 
 The other window represents the device of 
 Simon Vostres, another famous printer. 
 
 At the east end of the room are two stained- 
 glass windows, representing the evolution of a 
 book. The first contains a lamp and a roll of 
 manuscript, and the second a lamp and printed 
 book. 
 
 " You see, the lamp is all ready to burn either 
 the manuscript or the book," explained Mr. 
 Bangs. 
 
 The walls of the library are covered with 
 pictures. In one corner is an original drawing 
 in colors, by Cruikshank, "Arthur O'Leary." 
 In another is an original sketch by Leech of 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Caudle." Opposite these is 
 [265] 
 
American Authors & T^heir Homes 
 
 a large original by Charles Dana Gibson, 
 which Mr. Bangs considers one of his best 
 works. 
 
 Across the hall is a room containing a large 
 book-case, in which are Mr. Bangs's choicest 
 literary treasures. Among these are the original 
 first editions of " Pickwick Papers," " Vanity 
 Fair," and "The Newcombs," in monthly 
 parts. They are all in fine condition, and are 
 kept in stout cardboard and leather cases, 
 " Pickwick " has the original green paper cov- 
 ers, which varied considerably in tint as the 
 work was published. Thackeray's works are in 
 yellow paper. A fine edition of Maxwell's 
 " History of the Irish Rebellion of 1798," with 
 extra illustrations, is in this case. Mr. Bangs 
 purchased it in London for just one-half what 
 a New York dealer asked him for the same 
 work. 
 
 On the terrace west of the house is a tennis- 
 court, and beyond this a vegetable garden. 
 
 " Do you ever work in your garden ? " he was 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh, no," was the reply ; " for one reason I 
 have no time, and for another I have no agricul- 
 tural talent." 
 
 A rather odd feature of Mr. Bangs's suburban 
 [266] 
 
yohn Kendrick Bangs 
 
 life is that he has no distinct name for his 
 home. 
 
 " I was reading a book called ' Windyhaugh ' 
 last week," he said, " and thought it would be a 
 good name for our place, as the wind blows 
 very lively up here sometimes; but we are set 
 upon a hill and the haugh part would hardly be 
 appropriate. The names of most suburban 
 homes are, as a rule, either commonplace or 
 aiFected, and I want something appropriate and 
 original. A friend has suggested ' Copymere,' 
 but this might be considered too technical." 
 
 As the visitor rose to take leave, Mr. Bangs 
 offered to walk through Glenwood, a part of 
 Yonkers, and point out various objects of in- 
 terest. It was a glorious spring day, and a 
 dogwood tree was just bursting into bloom. 
 Maples and willows were a vivid green, and the 
 buds on the horse-chestnuts displayed feathery 
 plumes. 
 
 Down the street not far from Mr. Bangs's 
 house, he pointed out the large school of which 
 he is president. Across the way, on top of a 
 high hill, skilfully terraced, is the former resi- 
 dence of the late William Allen Butler, the ven- 
 erable lawyer and author of " Nothing to Wear." 
 Near this is a handsome church, in which Mr. 
 [267] 
 
American Authors & I'hei'r Homes 
 
 Bangs gave his first public reading from his 
 works. 
 
 The station was now soon reached, and after 
 a hearty handshake, the visitor was soon whirl- 
 ing back to New York, while the author returned 
 to his home. 
 
 [268] 
 
Henry Mills Alden 
 In Metuchen, N. J. 
 
BY MR. ALDEN 
 
 Born in 183b, near Danhy, ft. 
 
 The Structure of Paganism. 1864. 
 God in His World. 1890. 
 A Study of Deatli. 1895. 
 
XXI 
 
 Henry Mills Alden 
 In Metuchen, N. J. 
 
 THERE is no one in America in whom 
 the literature-loving world might take 
 a more excusable personal interest 
 than Henry M. Alden, who has been for more 
 than thirty years editor of the oldest, and still 
 one of the foremost, of the monthly magazines 
 — Harper's. He is also the author of two 
 books of great beauty, power, and imagination — 
 " God in His World" and " A Study of Death." 
 Yet, when one sits down to describe him " at 
 home " the task seems by no means easy, be- 
 cause Mr. Alden at home is not conspicuous 
 among other gentlemen of scholarly tastes and 
 in comfortable circumstances. 
 
 When, some thirty-five years ago, he came to 
 New York, and, after a period of teaching and 
 newspaper editorial work, began his services 
 with the Harpers, he and Mrs. Alden looked 
 about for a suburban residence, and hit upon 
 Metuchen, N. J., largely by the accident of 
 having visited acquaintances there. This rural 
 village, twenty-six miles southwest of New 
 [271] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 York on the Pennsylvania Railroad, still remains 
 his home, although Mrs. Alden has since died. 
 Her daughters were afterward mistresses of the 
 house. Recently Mr. Alden has married again. 
 
 The house is a large, low rambling structure, 
 which has grown with the family. An addition 
 has been made here, an extension there, and a 
 queer inclosure of a porch in another place. 
 Should one of those restless guests who occa- 
 sionally trouble us all through a desire to rise 
 and wander about the house before the rest of 
 the inmates are up, ever indulge his propensities 
 in this house, he will probably get lost. But if 
 he can make his way to the parlor he will find 
 space enough to satisfy him. It is an immense 
 room with long French windows dropping to 
 the floor. A big, hospitable fireplace is there. 
 A thoroughly comfortable and homeUke air per- 
 vades every one of its nooks and corners, which 
 are adorned with pretty artistic things and over- 
 flowing with books and periodicals. 
 
 But the literary pilgrim will take a keener in- 
 terest in Mr. Alden's own library or study. It 
 opens out of the parlor and is the place where 
 this author does his work ; and this editor too, 
 sometimes, for many an anxious contributor 
 whose manuscript has gone so far as to be set 
 [272] 
 
Henry Mills Alien 
 
 aside for a second reading — and that happens 
 only when there is hope for it — has met his 
 happy fate, so to speak, under the shaded lamp 
 of the big study-table in this big room. Mr. 
 Alden's fondness for spaciousness at home is 
 perhaps due to the excessively restricted office 
 quarters he has always occupied in New York — 
 one of the smallest editorial rooms in the world. 
 
 Portraits of American men of letters are the 
 principal adornments of the library. Born on a 
 farm in Vermont, from a stock descended from 
 John Alden of the Mayflower, whose romance 
 Longfellow utilized so gracefully, turning natur- 
 ally to Williams College, whose second president 
 was his mother's uncle (Zephaniah Moore) and 
 being graduated there in 1857, Mr. Alden found 
 himself with so strong an inclination toward 
 the classics that he immediately went to Ando- 
 ver to continue his studies, because Andover then 
 had the best library of Greek literature in the 
 country. 
 
 These pleasant days of poring over the old 
 masters in the ancient town developed in his 
 mind two papers on the Eleusinian mysteries, 
 which ^e carried to the Atlantic Monthly^ then 
 in charge of James Russell Lowell, whose ac- 
 ceptance of them encouraged him to submit 
 [273] 
 
American Authors & I'hei'r Homes 
 
 other papers further developing the theme. 
 These additional papers fell into the hands of 
 Mr. James T. Field. 
 
 Though the need of earning a living made 
 Mr. Alden a teacher or editor in various capaci- 
 ties before he finally was settled at the desk of 
 Harper's Monthly in 1869, he has always been 
 at heart and at home a scholar, and it is un- 
 doubtedly a great loss to classical scholarship 
 that he needed or chose to become so much a 
 man of affairs. Nohe in the long course of 
 grandly instructive lectures delivered winter 
 after winter before the Lowell Institute of Bos- 
 ton has exceeded in richness of learning and 
 enlightenment Mr. Alden's course of 1863—64 
 on " The Structure of Paganism." 
 
 The books in Mr. Alden's library illustrate 
 this bent in his mind. They are not very nu- 
 merous, filling a few low book-cases, but they 
 form a company singularly select. There are 
 handsome complete sets of most of the standard 
 authors, as might be expected, and many mis- 
 cellaneous books of merit, but the honors of the 
 shelves belong to noble editions of the ancient 
 classics and of the masters of philosophy and 
 belles-lettres. It is the loving collection of a 
 man of letters and a scholar, who, having the 
 [274] 
 
Henry Mills Alden . 
 
 product of the presses of the world flowing daily 
 past his elbow, has taken here and there only 
 what seemed to him precious. 
 
 Out of such studies and meditations and in 
 this quiet place ripened the exquisite chapters of 
 " God in His World," published in 1890, and 
 later, under the shadow of a great sorrow, the 
 subtle and beautiful consolation to be read in 
 his "Study of Death," published in 1895. A 
 house where two such books were penned 
 would have a claim on our reverence sufficient 
 in itself. 
 
 Each morning for five days of each week Mr, 
 Alden breakfasts early enough to drive to the 
 station and take a train that will land him in 
 New York by nine o'clock. Then comes un- 
 remitting work until four in the afternoon, when 
 he goes back, and if the weather is good takes 
 a drive until dinner-time. 
 
 It is in his public editorial room in Franklin 
 Square that one feels more at liberty to speak of 
 the man and his ways than at the domestic 
 hearth in Metuchen. Upon the second floor of 
 the Harpers' great iron building, where the roar 
 of presses trembles unceasingly in the ear at 
 one end and the clangor of endless passing trains 
 on the elevated railway jars upon it at the other, 
 [275] 
 
Americtin Authors & Their Homes 
 
 is lodged the editorial force of the great publish- 
 ers. To reach it you must climb up a cork- 
 screw-like staircase in a tower and cross a little 
 iron bridge. Then you enter a long room whose 
 walls are completely covered with reference 
 books. At one of the front corners, which has 
 remained unchanged during all the various re- 
 arrangements of other things, is the sanctum 
 sanctorum of The Magazine. 
 
 It is nothing but a box, smaller than any of 
 the hall bed-rooms in which so many a strug- 
 gling young enthusiast has toiled for admission 
 to its doorless portal, as if it were the temple of 
 fame, piled high with no one but its owner 
 knows what — an old desk strewn with letters 
 and proofs ; a little nook of shelves heaped with 
 odds and ends of books and papers ; one chair 
 in a tight corner by the door, where a single 
 visitor may sit down and only space enough be- 
 sides for the editor himself and his belongings. 
 Anyone can see at a glance that there is no 
 room here for idlers, and the clever way in which 
 a visitor who has stayed a moment too long is 
 literally crowded out, without knowing or feeling 
 it, is something worth seeing. Yet the door is 
 always open, and no editor in the city is more 
 accessible or more kind. 
 
 [276] 
 
Henry Mills Alden 
 
 Into this bare and dusty little corner closet 
 come from sixteen to eighteen thousand manu- 
 scripts a year, offered for publication in the 
 Magazine or in book form, for Mr. Alden is 
 one of the literary advisers of the house. Of 
 these it would be physically impossible to use 
 more than 200 or so, were the whole space 
 of the annual volume given to them ; but serial 
 stories and prearranged articles (as the ma- 
 jority now are) and the need of meeting the 
 ever-shifting current of public events and opin- 
 ions by promptly treating what are called 
 " timely " topics reduce the margin left for 
 casual contributions to very narrow dimensions 
 indeed, so that it is wonderful that any room 
 remains at all. This has been said over and 
 over, yet the stream of receipts increases as the 
 country grows and learning spreads. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Alden looks at every one of 
 these hopeful manuscripts. The title, the bulk, 
 or some other outside feature will prohibit from 
 publication a great many without regard to 
 contents, and a very brief examination shows 
 the unfitness for his purpose of a great majority 
 of the remainder, most of which go back to their 
 writers on the day following their receipt ; but 
 now and then there is one that looks promising, 
 [277] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 and this is laid aside until some day when it gets 
 a thorough reading — very likely at home under 
 the evening lamp — and then the writer hears 
 from it by a check from Harper & Bros., or by 
 one of Mr. Alden's kindly notes. 
 
 [278] 
 
Ernest Seton-Thompson 
 In Bryant Parky N. T. 
 
BY MR. SETON-THOMPSON 
 
 Bori7 in i860 in Shields, England. 
 
 Wild Animals I Have Known. 1 898. 
 The Trail of the Sand Hill Stag. 1899. 
 The Biography of a Grizzly. 1900. 
 The Lives of the Hunted. 1901. 
 
a 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 
XXII 
 
 Ernest Seton-Thompson 
 
 In Bryant Parky N. T. 
 
 MR. ERNEST SETON-THOMP- 
 SON, when asked for an interview, 
 replied appointing a meeting with 
 Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton. They are one 
 and the same person. The author of " Wild 
 Animals I Have Known" has written exten- 
 sively under both names, and his one thousand 
 or more illustrations for the Century Dictionary 
 bear the initials E. E. T. S. — Ernest E. T. 
 Seton, which was the name given to him in bap- 
 tism. This event occurred nearly forty-one 
 years ago in the north of England. 
 
 New York has been said to be a city of speci- 
 mens, and certainly the seeker after pictorial 
 specimens of animals would do well to visit the 
 apartment of Mr, Ernest Seton-Thompson in 
 the new studio building on the corner of Sixth 
 Avenue and Fortieth Street. From below come 
 the roar of the city and the roll of the ele- 
 vated cars, but deadened by the distance into a 
 gentle reminder of the law of universal labor. 
 Of such reminder, however, Seton-Thomp- 
 [ 281 ] 
 
American Authors & I'heir Homes 
 
 son, I imagine, stands less in need than most 
 men. 
 
 Everything in the studio suggests the presence 
 of a busy man, and, indeed, most of the objects 
 that meet the eye are the result or record of his 
 industry ; the drawings and paintings of animals 
 on the walls, the carefully arranged and classi- 
 fied volumes of photographs of wild animals that 
 he and others have met, and the sketches on the 
 easel for his new book, " The Lives of the 
 Hunted." 
 
 The room is an ideal workshop for writer and 
 artist. Half the generous width of the north 
 wall is taken up by a large window filling the 
 space from floor to ceiling, and looking out over 
 Bryant Park, while two other windows on the 
 Sixth Avenue side give access to the last rays of 
 the sinking sun. Beneath one of these case- 
 ments, screened ofF from the rest of the room, 
 is a nook inviting to literary laissez-faire. 
 
 The most exact reflex of the man is seen in 
 a row of journals that fill one shelf. Wher- 
 ever he went in the West, he carried one of these 
 leather-clad books, and rioted in it whatever was 
 of interest to him as a naturalist. The notes, 
 though brief, are scrupulously exact, were all 
 made at the time, usually with the object before 
 [282] 
 
Ernest Seton-Thompson 
 
 him. Sketches adorn the pages wherever a 
 sketch could make more clear the meaning, or 
 a drawing in color when color was essential, or 
 to a scale when proportion was of chief interest. 
 For twenty years these journals have been care- 
 fully kept, and whether the object was a peculiar 
 cloud in the sunset sky, the track of a sparrow 
 in the mud, the chirp of a lark, the scale a thrush 
 sings, the color of a vireo's eye, the duration of 
 a shore-lark's song, the shape of a flock of birds, 
 the number of entrances to a gopher's hole, the 
 length of a deer's bound, or the date when first 
 the poplar catkins showed — all were noted with 
 a view to one thing only, the exact truth. 
 
 Twenty thick volumes of such observations 
 would be a fair-sized reservoir even if each year 
 did not continue to produce another, and no one 
 who realizes this will doubt that this author's 
 animal stories are crammed with facts — not by 
 luck or inspiration, but because each one repre- 
 sents months or years of hard work in the study 
 and in the field. 
 
 Near Mr. Seton-Thompson's easel, where 
 stands the guardian spirit of the place, a stuffed 
 peacock, is a little table at which his wife, who 
 is known independently as a clever writer, es- 
 pecially as the author of " A Woman Tender- 
 [283] 
 
American Authors & I'hei'r Homes 
 
 foot," published in 1900, and in its way a unique 
 volume, was busy on the occasion of my visit 
 with the " make-up " of his forthcoming book. 
 I am under obligations to Mrs. Seton-Thompson, 
 or, to use the name belonging to her in private 
 life, to Mrs. Seton, for her aid in inducing her 
 husband to talk. Under normal circumstances I 
 have seen him delightfully, naturally loquacious, 
 but unfortunately the consciousness of the fact 
 that he is talking for publication seems to have 
 a dampening effect upon his conversational 
 powers. " Interviews," he said wearily, in reply 
 to a question as to his opinion of this legalized 
 method of invasion of a writer's privacy, " are a 
 necessary evil." 
 
 The author of the « Sand Hill Stag," which 
 book is by the way a chapter of autobiography, 
 is, I suppose, as well known, physically, to the 
 public as any writer of these times. Indeed, it 
 is probable that Kipling alone as often enjoys 
 the pleasure of gazing upon his own counter- 
 feit presentment in magazines and newspapers. 
 It seems, therefore, like an act of. supereroga- 
 tion to describe again his dark, intractable looks, 
 his well-knit, lithe figure, his piercing brown 
 eyes, and strong, nervous hands. He strikes 
 one essentially as a man of action, the child of 
 [28^] 
 
Ernest Seton-'ihompson 
 
 the fields and woods and streams, not of cities 
 and studios and pink teas. 
 
 "I once met a judge of character travelling in 
 the West," he said ; " a man who prided him- 
 self on his knowledge of human nature and his 
 abihty to size up people at a glance. ' You are 
 now a school-teacher,' he announced emphati- 
 cally, after we had been talking together a short 
 while, ' and it is, moreover, doubtless your in- 
 tention to study for the ministry.' " Certainly 
 I should never have made so egregious a mistake 
 in regard to Mr. Seton-Thompson, although 
 perhaps unable to state his calling positively. 
 This inability, however, would be excusable 
 even in the case of a professed student of hu- 
 man nature, as the author of ' Wild Animals ' 
 has played many roles in the course of his 
 forty years of struggle and prosperity — artist, 
 writer, hunter, day-laborer, guide, lithographer, 
 and scientist, to mention only those of which 
 he spoke. 
 
 The apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Seton would 
 be described by real estate agents as containing 
 all the modern conveniences, yet despite these 
 unpicturesque appurtenances of civilization, there 
 is an intangible something in the dwelling that 
 carries one in spirit to the wide stretches of the 
 [285] 
 
American Authors & T'heir Homes 
 
 West, to the uninvaded domain of the wolf and 
 eagle and mountain lion. 
 
 In the pleasant little library in the rear of the 
 dwelling, separated from the studio by the mys- 
 teries of kitchen and bedroom, hangs an ancient 
 triangular cabinet, an heirloom in the Seton 
 family, and beneath it is suspended an eight- 
 pronged relic, dating from the time of the Mac- 
 cabees and dedicated to the use of the high 
 priests, but which to modern eyes suggests the 
 terrible weapon of Rider Haggard's " Um- 
 slopagus." In dwarf book-cases around the 
 walls stand a tempting array of classics, and 
 from the secrecy of an unsuspected drawer Mrs. 
 Seton extracted a collection of ancient ivory and 
 wooden carved figures " that had originally come 
 from India and China. " Just a frill," said Mrs. 
 Seton, as she fingered them lovingly. " I keep 
 them tucked away here, because it is nice to feel 
 that one has a reserve, whether it be in work 
 or play." 
 
 Upon being shown into the studio I found 
 this man, despite the enervating heat, hard at 
 work upon marginal illustrations for his new 
 book, and during the course of our conversation 
 he kept stealing regretful glances at his drawing- 
 pad, as though longing to get back to his bears 
 [286] 
 
Ernest Seton-'^hompson 
 
 and wolves and rabbits. On the easel near at 
 hand stood a wash-drawing of the " Kootenay 
 Ram," at the moment when, on the narrow 
 precipice ledge, he awaits, with one foot raised, 
 the onslaught of his pitiless enemies, the wolves, 
 thus gallantly gaining time for the ewes of his 
 following to flee to a place of safety. In the 
 opposite corner of the room lies a magnificent 
 mounted specimen of the head of the Bighorn, 
 almost as fine, indeed, as that depicted in the 
 drawing. The horns alone, according to the 
 owner, weigh twenty-five pounds. Picking up 
 the sheet of paper on which he had been work- 
 ing, the author-artist showed me several bear 
 figures which he had nearly completed. 
 
 " People have an idea," he said, " that I just 
 throw ofF, as it were, these marginal drawings, 
 doing a number of them in a morning. As a 
 matter of fact, I work just as hard over them as 
 over any other part of my books. One of them 
 may cost me several days' labor, and then in 
 the end I may be dissatisfied with it and start 
 all over again. Even this bone in the corner of 
 the drawing requires careful study before it is 
 absolutely correct." 
 
 " Do you think it so necessary for a writer 
 after he has made his reputation," I asked, " to 
 [287] 
 
American Authors & 'Thet'r Homes 
 
 continue to put such conscientious labor on his 
 books ? Look at some of the popular writers 
 of the day ; in the beginning they did really good 
 work, whereas later books show lack of artistic 
 conscience. Yet everything they write, sells, 
 and they make plenty of money." 
 
 " I have never read the books you refer to," 
 my host replied, " but nevertheless I think no 
 one can aflFord not to do his very best work. 
 Even Kipling could not make the public buy 
 poor stufF, although, to be sure, he could sell to 
 the publishers whatever he wrote. If I showed 
 you my order-book yonder you would see that I 
 have on hand more work than I can do in sev- 
 eral years. Indeed, I am forced constantly to 
 refuse the offers of editors simply from physical 
 inability to get the work done. Yet in the 
 drawer behind you is a pile of manuscript that 
 has never been published, and that I could 
 work off on them if I chose to do so. But I 
 won't do it, for the simple reason that it is 
 work with which I am not satisfied myself. In 
 some cases I have burned such manuscripts, but 
 generally I keep them, in the hope of finding 
 out some day what is wrong with them." 
 
 " The temptation, however, to sell them," I 
 said, " must be very strong. It would be a very 
 [288] 
 
Ernest Seton-I'hompson 
 
 pleasant feeling, I should think, to have an 
 order-book of that kind in one's desk." 
 
 " Yes, but the only chance of keeping such 
 an order-book is always to do one's best. What 
 an awful sensation to see something in print 
 over one's own signature and then to ask one's 
 self, ' Did I ever really write that ? ' Although, 
 of course, at best one is never satisfied. 
 
 " Oh, well, there isn't anything particularly 
 interesting about my early struggles," said Mr. 
 Seton-Thompson, in answer to a question bear- 
 ing upon his fameless days ; " I had my strug- 
 gles and hardships like other people, and bore 
 them in the ordinary way." 
 
 " Tolstoi says, you may remember, in ' Anna 
 Karenina,' " I remarked, " that all happy mar- 
 riages are happy in the same way, while all un- 
 happy marriages are unhappy in their own par- 
 ticular manner. The same is true, I think, in 
 regard to an individual's prosperity and necessi- 
 tousness ; the history of the latter is always in- 
 teresting." 
 
 " Well, there isn't much to tell about my 
 early struggles," said my host. " I always knew 
 exactly what I wanted to do, even at ten years 
 of age, and I never deviated from my intention, 
 despite family opposition and other difficulties. 
 [289] 
 
American Authors & 'their Homes 
 
 After returning to Canada from attending school 
 in England, I spent several years in knocking 
 about Manitoba, tramping through the province 
 with the smallest possible outfit, and w^orking 
 regularly in the fields during the summer in 
 order to earn enough money to live on. I w^ould 
 work in this way for a couple of months at 
 $2. SO a day, and earn enough to keep me for 
 six months. In 1883, 1 came on to New York 
 without a cent, to try my luck, but after a few 
 months I had enough of it and went back to the 
 West, feeling as though I never wanted to see 
 the place again. 
 
 " Two years later I returned, the Century 
 Company being this time instrumental in bring- 
 ing me East, as they wanted someone to make 
 drawings for their Dictionary. They had writ- 
 ten to the Smithsonian Institution, for which I 
 had been doing work, asking them to suggest 
 someone who could make the drawings artisti- 
 cally and yet scientifically correct. ' There is a 
 fellow named Seton up in Manitoba who would 
 probably answer,' was the reply; so on the 
 strength of that they looked me up. 
 
 " ' The Carberry Deer Hunt,' which was the 
 original form of 'The Sand Hill Stag,' was my 
 first published story, appearing in Forest and 
 [290] 
 
Ernest Eeton-'^hompson 
 
 Stream in 1886, although the first story that I 
 ever wrote was ' The King Bird.' I wrote 
 that in 1880, but it has never been published. 
 It is over yonder in that box with the others, 
 and some day I may be able to get it into satis- 
 factory shape." 
 
 " When did you make your first big strike ?" 
 
 "In 1898 with 'Wild Animals I Have 
 Known.' I had already published ' The Art 
 Anatomy of Animals ' and ' Natural History of 
 Manitoba,' but they are scientific, not popular, 
 books. Up to that time I was not generally 
 known, although ' Lobo ' and some other stories 
 had been very we'l received and noticed exten- 
 sively. Still, in general, it is only by means of 
 a book that one makes a lasting impression ; 
 the space at command of a magazine is too short 
 to allow much room for any one individual, and 
 nowadays people do not care for serials. The 
 book is the thing." 
 
 " I suppose the success of ' Wild Animals ' 
 was unmistakable and immediate, was it not ? " 
 
 " Not at all ; it was gradual and normal. Be- 
 sides, I have followed that up with a fresh vol- 
 ume every year, and have also made extensive 
 lecturing tours throughout the country. I have 
 just returned from a two-weeks' trip in Manito- 
 [291] 
 
American Authors & 'Their Homes 
 
 ba, of which you may perhaps know I am Pro- 
 vincial naturalist, during which I gathered much 
 material ; and as soon as mine enemies, the pub- 
 lishers, will let me get away, we are going to 
 start out for a long outing in Colorado." 
 
 [292] 
 
Index 
 
Index 
 
 A LASKA, IS2 
 ■'^ Albany Turnpike, The, 
 
 31 
 
 Alden, Henry M., books by, 
 270, 271 ; his home de- 
 scribed, 271-374; his edi- 
 torial work, 271 ; his library, 
 272 ; his coming to New 
 York, 274; his lectures, 
 274 ; habits in work, 275 ; 
 his office, 276-277 
 
 Alden, John, 273 
 
 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, in 
 Boston, II ; books by, 90 ; 
 view in home of, facing 
 go ; his Boston home de- 
 scribed, 92-95 ; his person- 
 ality, 91 ; his old furniture, 
 94; Sumner's desk owned 
 by, 95 ; and autograph col- 
 lectors, 96 ; his manuscripts 
 by famous authors, 97 ; 
 room he works in, 97 ; 
 as editor of Tke Atlantic, 
 227 
 
 "Aleshine, Mrs.," 68 
 
 Alma Tadema, L. , 102 
 
 "American Lands and Let- 
 ters," 205 
 
 Andrew, Governor John A., 
 218 
 
 " Ardis Claverden," 70 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, reception 
 to, 8 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, The, 96, 
 219, 227, 274 
 
 Austen, Jane, 24 
 
 Authors Club, view of inte- 
 rior of, frontispiece ; recep- 
 tions at, 8 ; Stedman at, 
 169; home of, 239 
 
 Authors, better homes of, than 
 In Poe's time, 3 ; enlarged 
 
 [295 
 
 incomes of, 11-16; other 
 
 rewards of, 14-16 
 "Avalon," Dr. van Dyke's 
 
 home, view of, facing 46 
 Avery, Samuel P., 168 
 
 " TDABIE BELL," 96 
 
 -'-' Baltimore, 192 
 Balzac, H. de, 106 
 Bancroft, George, 125 
 Bangs, John Kendrick, books 
 of, 258 ; view of his home, 
 facing 258 ; his home de- 
 scribed, 259-266; room he 
 works in, 260 ; as an editor, 
 261 ; his hours of work, 262 ; 
 as a citizen of Yonkers, 263 ; 
 his Cruikshanks, 264; his 
 first editions, 266 ; a walk 
 with him, 267 
 Bangs, Francis N., 261 
 Baptists, the " Hardshell," 40 
 Bar Association, The, 261 
 Barstow, Col. Wilson, 21 
 Beacon Hill, Boston, 92 
 Beacon Street, Boston, 97 
 " Bells, The," 4, 14 
 Benson, Eugene, 162 
 Besant, Sir Walter, 150 
 Bigelow, John, 20 
 Bismarck, Prince, 57 
 Blue Ridge, The, 62 
 Boker, George H., 163 
 Booth, Edwin, 223 
 Boston, loss of its literary 
 prestige, 11, 91 ; Aldrich's 
 home in, 92 ; literary fam- 
 ilies in, 97 ; John Fiske and 
 its traditions, 125 ; British 
 in, .26 ; as a literary cen- 
 tre, 159, 160 ; its public li- 
 brary, 215 
 Boswell, James, 16 
 
 ] 
 
Index 
 
 Brick Presbyterian Church, 
 
 The, 48 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 14 
 Bronxville, 159 
 Brooklyn, Mr. Ford's home 
 
 in, 113-117 ; politics in, 120 
 Brownings, The, 23, 24 
 Browning, Robert, 145, 157, 
 
 Bryant, William C. , 24 
 
 " Builders and Other Poems, 
 
 The," 54 
 Bull Run, 179 
 Burns, Anthony, 218 
 Burns, Robert, 23, 24, 242 
 Burroughs, John, books by 
 him, 30 ; view of his ' ' Slab- 
 sides," facing, 30 ; his two 
 homes, 31 ; his birthplace, 
 33 ; composes from notes, 
 34; " Riverby," 34 ; " Slab- 
 sides," 36-38 ; his visitors, 
 38 ; his women readers, 39 ; 
 his one famous poem, 40; 
 tired of the Hudson, 41 ; 
 not a man for towns, 42 ; 
 his recent work, 43 
 Burroughs, Julian, 35 
 Burroughs, Mrs. John, 35 
 Butler, George, 162 
 Butler, William A., 267 
 Byron, Lord, 23 
 
 r-ABANEL, his " Birth of 
 
 ^^ Venus," 178 
 
 Cable, George W., books by, 
 136 ; his home described, 
 137 - 142 ; his hospitality, 
 139; his neighbors, 139; his 
 workshop, 140; his love 
 of trees, 141 ; his philan- 
 thropic work, 141 
 
 Caine, Hall, 265 
 
 Cambridge, John Fiske's 
 home in, 126-128 ; Colonel 
 Higginson's home in, 211 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, 23 
 
 Canfield, Dr. J. H., 87 
 
 Carnegie, Andrew, remarks 
 by, 9 ; books by, 236 : his 
 
 present home described, 
 237-243: his private library, 
 237 ; his trowels, 239 ; his 
 musical instruments, 241 ; 
 his books, 242 ; his new 
 home in New York, 244 
 
 Carnegie, the Clan, 240 
 
 Carnegie Music Hall, 239 
 
 Carson, Kit, 150 
 
 "Cask of Amontillado, The," 
 4 
 
 Catskills, The, 33 
 
 Central Park, 102 
 
 Century Association, The, 8 
 
 Century, The, 227 
 
 " Century Dictionary, The," 
 281, 291 
 
 Charles Town, W. Va., 61, 
 71 
 
 " Cheerful Yesterdays," 217 
 
 Childe, Cromwell, his sketch- 
 es of Ford and Stockton, v 
 
 Claflin, ex-Governor, 93 
 
 Claymont, Stockton's home, 
 view of, facing 60 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, 43 ; his 
 home in Princeton, 48, 38 ; 
 and " Peter Stirling," 120 
 
 Cluny Castle, 244 
 
 " Col. Carter," 190 
 
 Cold Spring Harbor, 193 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 23 
 
 Columbia University, George 
 E. Woodberry professor in, 
 224, 22s ; Brander Mat- 
 thews professor in, 249 ; 
 Bangs a student in, 262 
 
 Constantinople, 191 
 
 Convent Station, N. J., 63 
 
 CorHwall, Barry, 56 
 
 Cowper, William, 23, 183 
 
 Cruikshank, George, 264 
 
 T^AMROSCH, WALTER, 
 
 -•-^ 242 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 23 
 
 Dobson, Austin, 167 
 
 Doyle, Conan, 263 
 
 Drayton, Michael, 23 
 
 " Dream Life," 206 
 
 [296] 
 
Index 
 
 Du Bois, H. p., his sketch of 
 Stedman, v. 
 
 "Dutch and Quaker Colo- 
 nies, The," 130 
 
 "PDGEWOOD," de- 
 ■*— ' scribed, 197, 204 
 
 Edinburgh, Carnegie library 
 in, 239, 240 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 42 
 
 " EngUsh Lands, Letters and 
 Kings," 20s 
 
 "Eureka," 4 
 
 " Evangeline," 107 
 
 Evarts, William M., 19 
 
 piELD, Cyrus W., 20 
 -*■ Field, Eugene, 163 
 Field, James T., 274 . 
 "Fisherman's Luck," 52 
 Fiske, John, his death, 11 ; 
 books by him, 124 ; view of 
 his home, facing, 124; his 
 home described, 126, 127 ; 
 the new home he expected 
 to occupy, 133 ; his person- 
 ality, 128 ; his library, 129, 
 I3°i 133 ; habits in work, 
 131 ; his death, 125, 131-133 
 Fitch, G. H., his sketch of 
 Joaquin Miller, v, 147-158 
 Fletcher, Miss, 162 
 Ford, Gordon L., 121 
 Ford, Paul L., books by, 112 ; 
 view of home of, facing 
 112; his former Brooklyn 
 home, 113-117 ; his New 
 York home described, 113, 
 114 ; his marriage, 114 ; 
 talks of " Peter Stirling," 
 118 -121 ; his historical 
 work, 121, 122 
 Ford, Mrs. Paul L., 114 
 Ford, Worthington C, 121, 
 122 
 
 Frederickson, Mr. , 231 
 
 Fremont, John C, and Joa- 
 quin Miller, 150, 154, 155, 
 156 
 " Fresh Fields " 32 
 
 piBSON, C. D., 176,266 
 '-^ Gladstone, W. E., 243 
 " God in His World," 275 
 Golden Gate, The, 147, 149 
 "Gospel of Wealth, The," 
 
 237 
 Gramercy Park, 19 
 Grant, Robert, 265 
 Grant, U. S., 57 
 Gray, Thomas, 23 
 " Great K. & A. Train Rob- 
 bery, The," 121 
 " Great War Syndicate, 
 
 The," 69 
 Griswold, R. W., 230 
 
 tJALE, Edward Everett, 11 
 ■'■•'■ Harfer's Monthly^ 26, 
 228, 262 ; and Mr. Alden, 
 271, 274, 276 
 Harper's Weekly, 261 
 Harrison, Frederic, 8 
 Harvard Square, 126 
 Harvard University, Colonel 
 Higginson at, 218, 220; 
 George E. Woodberry at, 
 227 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, kind- 
 ness to Stoddard, 25 ; How- 
 ell's estimate of, 107 
 Hearne, James A. , 105 
 " Heart of Man, The," 233 
 Heine, Henri, 107, 108 
 Hewitt, Abram S., 20 
 Higginson, Nathaniel, 213 
 Higginson, Stephen, 213, 217 
 Higginson, Col. T. W., 
 books by, 210 ; view of 
 home of, facing, 210 ; home 
 described, 211-215 ; his 
 youthfulness, 212 ; his an- 
 cestors, 212 : his wife, 214, 
 220 ; his war sword, 214 ; 
 his workshop, 215 ; his 
 birthplace, 216, 217 ; his 
 anti-slavery services, 218 ; 
 as a lecturer, 219 ; his sum- 
 mer home, 220 
 Higginson, Mrs. T. W., 214, 
 220 
 
 I 297] 
 
Index 
 
 Hingham, Mass., 26 
 Holland, Ned, 190 
 Holmes, O. W., 43, 91, 97; 
 book dedicated to, 167 ; his 
 birthplace, 216 
 Homer, Winslow, 162 
 Hopldnson, Francis, 190 
 " House Boat on the Styx, 
 ' The," 261 
 Howe, Julia Ward, 43 
 Howeils, W. D. , in Gramercy 
 Park, 19 ; books by, 100 ; 
 picture ot at his desk, fac- 
 ing 100 ; his eyes, loi ; his 
 home ^escribed, 101-103 ; 
 conversation with, 103-109 ; 
 views of Hawthorne and 
 Longfellow, 107 ; of Whit- 
 man and Ppe, 108 ; de- 
 scribes Stedman, 163 ; as 
 editor of The Atlantic, 
 227 
 Howeils, Mrs. W. D., 102 
 Hudson, the, 31, 34, 41, 
 
 2S9 
 Hugo, Victor, 22 
 
 TNGERSOLL, Ernest, his 
 ■*• sketches of Burroughs and 
 
 Alden, v ; of Burroughs, 
 
 31-44 ; of Alden, 271-277 
 "In Ole Virginia," 179 
 Irving, Sir Henry, 148 
 Irving, Washington, 24; and 
 
 Donald G. Mitchell, 206, 
 
 207, 217 
 
 "JANE EYRE," 14 
 
 J "Janice Meredith," 113, 
 
 116, 117, 121, 122 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 95 
 Johnson, Eastman, 213 
 
 KEATS, John, 23 
 "Kenilworth," 182 
 Kennedy, John P. , 230 
 Kingsbridge Road, Poe's Cot- 
 tage on, 3 
 Kipling, R., 288 
 Klondike, The, 153 
 
 "T ADY or the Tiger, The," 
 
 -'-' 65, 69, 70 
 Lamb, Charles, 23 
 Landor, W. S., 183 
 Laurie, Alexander, 21 
 Lawrence, Park, 159, 160 
 "Leeks, Mrs.," 68 
 Lee, Robert E., 58 
 Lenox Library, The, 230 
 " Library of the World's Best 
 
 Literature," 24 
 " Life," 262 
 Linton, W. J., 171 
 " Little Rivers," 52 
 Lincoln, A., 27 
 "Lives of the Hunted, The." 
 
 282 
 Longfellow, H. W., 24, 91, 
 
 g5; his " Evangeline," 107; 
 
 his home, 127, 162 
 Longfellow, Mrs. H. W., 214 
 Lowell, J. R., 24, 91, 96; 
 
 helps Woodberry, 228-229, 
 
 232 ; and Alden, 274 
 
 TV/TABIE, Hamilton, W., a 
 ^^ dinner to, 8 ; books by, 
 76 ; view of his home, facing 
 77 ; his home described, 
 78-79 ; his two sides, 79 ; his 
 first book, 80; on "The 
 Outlook," 81 ; his conver- 
 sation, 83-84 ; sitting for his 
 portrait, 85; a dinner to 
 him, 86 
 Mabie, Mrs. H. W., 79 
 "Madame Delphine," 138 
 Maeterlinck, 104 
 " Makers of Literature," 233 
 Manitoba, 291 
 Manning, Cardinal, 243 
 " Marse Chan," 176, 183 
 Mattapoisette, Mass. , 26 
 Matthews, Brander, books 
 by, 248; his home de- 
 scribed, 253, 256 ; his many 
 talents, 249 ; methods ot 
 work. 230-251, 255 ; his 
 Moliere collection, 252-254 
 " Meh Lady," 176 
 
 298] 
 
Index 
 
 Metuchen, N. J., 271 
 
 Miller, Joaquin, books by, 
 144; view on his estate, 
 facing 144; his home de- 
 scribed, 145-156 ; his dream 
 of a home, 145 ; the man de- 
 scribed, 149-150 ; his work- 
 room, 150-151 ; his trip to 
 Alaska, 155 ; his mother and 
 daughter, 153-154; his fu- 
 ner^ pyre, 155 
 
 Miller.'Miss Maude, 153 
 
 Milton, John, 23 
 
 Mitchell, Donald G., books 
 by, 196 ; view of his library, 
 facing 196; his home de- 
 scribed, 197-204; changes 
 at Edgewood, 199-200 ; as 
 a farmer, 203-205 ; his hab- 
 its, 205 ; his books, 206, 207 
 
 Moliere, 252-253 
 
 Moore, George H. , 231 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 203 
 
 " Morgesons, The," 26 
 
 Morris, William, 146 
 
 Morristown, N. J., 62 
 
 Morley, John, 243 
 
 Motley, J. L., 125 
 
 Mount Holyoke, 138 
 
 Mount Tom, 138 
 
 Mt Vernon Street, Boston, 
 
 92-93 
 Miiller, Max, 145 
 " Murders in the Rue 
 
 Morgue, The," 5 
 Muir, John, 43 
 " My Farm of Edgewood, " 97 
 "My Lady Greygown," 50 
 " My Study Fire," 78, 80 
 
 TVJAPOLEON, 150 
 
 -'■^ "Nation, The," 227 
 
 ' ' National Studies in Ameri- 
 can Letters," 233 
 
 New Haven, Mr. Mitchell's 
 home in, 197-204 
 
 Newburyport, 218 
 
 Newport, 219 
 
 New York City, as a publish- 
 ing eentre, 10; Mr. How- 
 
 [ 
 
 ells's home in, 101-103 ; Mr. 
 Ford's home in, 113-114; 
 as a literary centre, 159 ; 
 Mr. Smith's home in, i8g- 
 194; Professor Woodber- 
 ry's home in, 224-226 ; Mr. 
 Carnegie's home in, 237- 
 239 : his new home in, 244 ; 
 Professor Matthews's home 
 in, 253 ; Mr. Alden's office 
 in, 273 ; Seton-Thompson's 
 home in, 281-287 
 
 New York Historical Society, 
 20 
 
 Northampton, Mass., Mr. Ca- 
 ble's home in, 137-141 ; 
 club house in, 141 
 
 "Nothing to Wear," 267 
 
 "Null, The Late Mrs.," 70 
 
 QAKLAND, Cal., Mr. Mil- 
 ^-' ler's home back of, 145- 
 
 " Old Creole Days, 138 
 "Outlook, The," 80,81 
 
 PAGE, Thomas Nelson, 
 books by, 174 ; his home 
 described, 175-186 ; his 
 "den," 176; his personal- 
 ity, 177-178 ; his methods 
 in work, 180; his library, 
 181 ; ■ his liking for Scott, 
 182-183 
 
 Paine, Robert Treat, 93 
 
 Palisades, The, 269. 
 
 Parkman, Francis, 125 ; 
 Fiske's tribute to, 131 
 
 "Pastime Stories," 177 
 
 Pattison, Mark, 56 
 
 Pierce, Franklin, 25 
 
 "Peter Stirling," 116-120 
 
 Pfaff's, authors who met at, 
 
 7 
 
 Plato, 84 
 
 Players, The, 19, 223 ; Profes- 
 sor Matthews and, 253-255 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, his cottage 
 in Fordham, view of, facing 
 2 ; described by Professor 
 
 299] 
 
Index 
 
 Woodberry, 4 ; famous 
 abroad, 5 ; his wife's death, 
 S ; his latest writings, 6, 9 ; 
 his periodicals, lo-ii, 14; 
 estimate of by Stoddard, 
 27 ; Howells's views of, 108, 
 151 ; Woodberry's biogra- 
 phy of, 228-231 
 "Poems by Two Brothers," 
 
 56 
 "Poets of America, The," 
 
 168 
 " Pomona," 67-68 
 Ponlcapog, Mass., 92, 95 
 Portsmouth, N. H., 94 
 Prescott, WiUiam H., 125 
 Princeton, N. J., Dr. van 
 Dyke in, 47, 50, 53 ; Cleve- 
 land's home in, 58 
 Putnam's Magazine, 26 
 
 QUARTLEY, Arthur, 93 
 " Quentin Durward," 182 
 
 "P AJON, etching by, loi 
 •'•^ " Raven, The," 14 
 "Reality of Religion, The," 
 
 SI 
 " Red Rock," 180 
 Reinhart, Stanley, 193 
 "Reveries of a Bachelor, 
 
 The," 200, 206 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 23 
 " Riverby," IvTr. Burroughs's 
 
 home, 41 
 " Riverby," Mr. Burroughs's 
 
 book, 34 
 Robbia, Lucca Delia, 214 
 Robbins, Rev. Thomas, 24 
 Robertson, A. M. , 119 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 226 
 Rossetti, D. G., 145 
 " Rudder Grange," 66, 69 
 " Ruling Passion, The," S4 
 Ruskin, John, 242 
 
 CAMS, Stanhope, his sketch 
 '-' of Dr. van Dyke, v 
 San Francisco Bay, 146, 147 
 Saxton, General Rufus, 218 
 
 [300 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 23, 24, 182, 
 
 183 
 Scribner s Magazine, 181 
 Scribner's Monthly, 66 
 Seton - Thompson, Ernest, 
 
 books of, 280 ; portrait of, 
 
 in his studio, facing 280; 
 
 his home in New York, 
 
 281 - 287 ; his workshop, 
 
 282 ; his new book, 284 ; 
 work in hand, 288 ; his early 
 life, 290, 291 ; his first 
 books, 292 
 
 Seton-Thompson, Mrs. Er- 
 nest, 284, 286 
 Shakespeare, William, 78 
 Shelley, P. B., Professor 
 Woodberry's edition of, 
 231 
 Shenandoah, The, 61 
 Sheridan, General P. H., 61 
 Sheridan, R. B., 23, 254 
 Skibo Castle, 244 
 " Slabsides, " Mr. Burroughs's 
 home, view of, facing, 30, 
 37, 41 
 Smith, F. Hopkinson, 86; 
 books by, 188 ; view of his 
 studio, facing 188 ; his 
 home described, 189-194 ; 
 his studio, 189, 191 ; his 
 business office, 191 ; his ca- 
 pacity for work, 192, 193 
 Smith, Francis H., 194 
 Smith College, 137 
 Smith, Seba, 25 
 "Songs of Summer, The," 
 
 70 
 " Songs of Three Centuries,'" 
 
 40 
 Southey, Robert, 23 
 Spencer, Herbert, 243 
 " Squirrel Inn, The," 71 
 Stedman, E. C, reception to, 
 8 ; portrait of, 22 ; at the 
 Mabie dinner, 86; books 
 by, 158 ; view of his home, 
 facing, 158 ; his home de- 
 scribed, 159-162, 165, 171 ; 
 his home a literary centre, 
 
 ] 
 
Index 
 
 IS9 ; described by Howells, 
 
 163 ; in Wall Street, 163, 
 
 164 ; in the Civil War, 164 ; 
 his youthfulness, 165 ; his 
 correspondence, 166; lines 
 to, from Dobson, 167 ; a 
 talk with, 168-172 ; as to 
 Stoddard and Poe, 169, 
 170, 231 
 
 Stedman, Mrs. E. C, 159, 
 161 
 
 Stevenson, R. L., 52 
 
 Stockton, Frank R., recep- 
 tion to, 8 ; books by, 60 ; 
 view of home of, lacing, 
 60 ; home described, 61, 
 62 ; his former home, 62 ; 
 his methods of work, 63 ; 
 his study, 64 ; talks of his 
 writings, 63-73 ; his " Po- 
 mona," 68 ; " The Lady or 
 the Tiger," 63-69, 73; 
 "Ardis Claverden," 70 
 
 Stockton, Mrs. F. R., 71 
 
 Stoddard, Charles Warren, 
 147 
 
 Stoddard, Lorimer, pictures 
 by, 21 ; costume portraits 
 of, 22 
 
 Stoddard, R. H., books by, 
 18 ; view in home of, facing 
 18 ; his home described, 20- 
 27 ; his study, 22 ; portraits 
 of, 21 ; work he is now do- 
 ing, 24 ; his arrival in New 
 York, 25 ; his birthplace, 
 26 ; lines by him, 27, 163 ; 
 and Poe, 169-170 
 
 Stoddard, Mrs. R. H., 22, 
 24 ; her novels and poems, 
 26 
 
 St. George's Church, 20 
 
 St. Mark's Church, 20 
 
 " Story of a Bad Boy, The," 
 
 94 
 " Story of an Untold Love, 
 
 The," 117, 121 
 " Structure of Paganism, 
 
 The," 274 
 Stuyvesant, Peter, 20 
 
 Stuyvesant Square, 19 
 Summit, N. J. , 62 ; Mr. Ma- 
 
 bie's home in, 77 
 Sumner, Charles, 95 
 "Sunnyside," 206 
 Swinburne, A. C. , 27, 148 
 
 " -yARRYA WHILE," 137 
 ■*■ Taylor, Bayard, gift 
 from, to Stoddard, 21, 24; 
 as a friend of Stoddard, 25 ; 
 and Stedman, 162-163 
 
 " Temple House," 26 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, and 
 Dr. van Dyke, 50-51, 55 , 
 first editions of, 56 ; visited 
 by Dr. van Dyke, 57 ; 145 ; 
 
 152 
 Terry, Ellen, 148 
 Thackeray, W. M., portrait 
 
 of, 22 ; Howells's view of, 
 
 106, 176, 242, 266 
 Theosophists, The, 40 
 Thornhill, Sir John, 213 
 " Three Weeks in Politics," 
 
 263 
 Tilden, S. J., 20 
 Tile Club, The, 193 
 Tolstoi, Count, 106, 289 
 " Trail of the Sand Hill Stag, 
 
 The," 284, 292 
 Trask, Spenser, 20 
 " Triumphant Democracy,'' 
 
 238 
 Twain, Mark, 86, 190 
 "Two Men," 26 
 
 "TTNDER the Evening 
 
 *-' Lamp," 24 
 " Under the Trees." 78 
 University Club, The, 86 
 
 WAN DYKE, HENRY, 
 » books by him, 46, 51 ; his 
 home, view of, facing 46 ; 
 two parts to his life, 47 ; re- 
 moval to Princeton, 48 ; his 
 home described, 48 ; his 
 study of Tennyson, 50, 53 ; 
 his fondness for angling, 
 
 [301] 
 
Index 
 
 52 ; popularity at Prince- 
 ton, S3 ; li's new book, 54 ; 
 his workshop, SS ; presides 
 at the Mabie dinner, 86 
 Vassar College, 38 
 Vedder, Elihu, 190 
 Venable, CoL Robert, 52 
 
 WAKE ROBIN." 32 
 Warner, C. D., 228 
 Washington, Charles, 61 
 Washington, City of, 175 
 Washington, George, 23, 61 
 Washington Elm, The, 126 
 Washington Post, The, 185, 
 
 186 
 " Wellington, Ode on the 
 
 Death of," 57 
 Wentworth, Governor, 212 
 West End Avenue, 253, 256 
 West - Park-on-the - Hudson, 
 
 31. 36 
 White. R. G., 19 
 
 Whitelock, W. W., his sketch 
 
 of Page, V, J7S-183 
 Whitman, Walt, Howells's 
 
 views of, 108 
 Whittier, John G. , 24, 40 
 William's College, 273 
 "Wild Animals I Have 
 Known," 281, 284, 292-293 
 Wood, T. W., 21 
 " Woman Tenderfoot, A," 
 
 284 
 Woodberry, Prof. G. E., de- 
 scribes Poe's cottage, 4 ; 
 books by, 222 ; sketch of, 
 223-233 ; at Columbia, 227, 
 225 ; at Harvard, 227 ; his 
 " Heart of Man," 233 
 Worcester, Noah, 127 
 Wordsworth, William, 23, 183 
 "Work and Culture," 78 
 
 Y 
 
 ALE University, 205 
 Yonkers, 259, 263, 267 
 
 [302] 
 

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