LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap. Copyright No._.:i::: Shelf...ilOO UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ^oofefi! bp ©UtuarU Eotolau^ ^ill POEMS. i6mo, $i.oo; illuminated parchment paper, ;^i.oo. THE HERMITAGE, and Later Poems. With Portrait. i6mo, Ji.oo; illuminated parchment paper, $i.oo. HERMIONE, and Other Poems. i6mo, $i.oo. THE PROSE OF EDWARD ROWLAND SILL. With an Introduction comprising some Familiar Letters. i6mo, $1.25. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, Boston and New York. THE PROSE OF EDWARD ROWLAND SILL THE PROSE OF EDWARD ROWLAND SILL WITH AN INTRODUCTION COMPRISING SOME FAMILIAR LETTERS ^si^smssm. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1900 TWO COPIES RECElVfiO, Library of Cor3grai% tlfflcu ©r the Mil?i291900 Kesltter of Copyrigltfc 57077 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED SECOND COPY, TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGR Introduction . . . . . . . vii JBiatttre Our Tame Hummingbirds i A Rhapsody of Clouds 25 Cheerfulness of Birds 37 The Red Leaves on the Snow ... 41 The Earth-Spirit's Voices 46 Human Nature in Chickens .... 51 A New Earth in the Old Earth's Arms . 54 literature anH Crittctfiim Shakespeare's Prose 61 An Impression of Balzac Three Sonnets The Charms of Similitude . Books of Refuge .... The Most Pathetic Figure in Story German Lyric Poetry vs. French . The Clang-Tint of Words . The Objections to Spelling Reform Principles of Criticism 86 93 99 103 109 117 123 T29 132 A Private Letter 164 vi Table of Contents Management of the Mind while hearing Music 179 Can Tunes be inherited? .... 186 Individual Continuity 190 What do we mean by "Right" and "Ought" 201 The Psychology of Interruptions . . 235 The Bread-and-Butter Moments of the Mind 238 The Slipperiness of Certain Words . 242 The Ethics of the Plank at Sea . . 246 The Mind as a Bad Portrait Painter . 250 The Felt Location of the " I " . . . 254 What is the Oldest Thing in the World? 257 The Free Will of the Bonfire . . . 263 The Invisible Part of this World we live in 270 d&lmcatiDn Should a College educate? . . . .285 life Wanted — a Friend 310 Romantic Dispositions 318 The Good Things of our Friend as his Compensations 3^4 Choosing a Class of People for Extermina- tion 329 The Left-Over Expression of Countenance 336 The Nouveau Cultiv]6 33^ The Keeper-In and the Blurter-Out . 342 Old Morton 34^ INTRODUCTION HE poetry of Edward Rowland Sill has been collected under three sepa- rate titles, Poems, The Hermitage and Later Poems, and Hermione and Other Poems. Although he wrote poetry with ease, and chose the form often for the expression of a mood, a passing fancy, a sudden thought, there was in his nature such a demand for expression that it was impossible for him not to use, and with the greatest abundance, the more facile form of prose. His prose ranged from the direct speech of letters to the careful structure of an elaborate essay; but whether he was writing informally or formally, there was little attempt to suppress that eager personality which made him one of the most animated of men of letters. Not that he betrayed the least bit of egotism ; the charming quality of his nature was his friendliness, which led him to give unceasingly to others and to take the keenest delight in comrades. It was this spirit of sharing his goods which made him examine himself as he examined nature and literature and music, and viii Introduction unhesitatingly deliver the result in terms of whimsical, earnest, and unreserved confession. He had an unquenchable curiosity, but it was so utterly devoid of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, that it never excited these elements in others, and made him a sort of lay- confessor to many souls. And when he came to announce freely the results of his scrutiny, he made them so impersonal that the most prying neighbor could not have detected their origin, yet so graphic and shrewd that they were not lost in vague generalities. His habit of mind and his hatred of petty personality led him to prefer in most cases either a pseudonym or the still more grateful shelter of anonymity. He enjoyed especially the hospitality of the Contributors' Club in The Atlantic Monthly. The method of this table- talk especially pleased him, for it exactly suited his own way of dashing off impromptus of prose, mingled sometimes with ready verse, and the shortness of the essays permitted in it was adapted to the little flights of fancy and fun in which he delighted. He was therefore a very frequent contributor, sometimes having three or four diverse bits in a single number, and provoking by his light, incisive attacks more responses probably than any other mem- ber of that game of blindman's buff. Introduction ix It is largely from the Contributors' Club that the contents of this book are derived. That is to say, the greater number of papers is drawn from it ; the longer ones are sometimes from The Atlantic, sometimes from papers printed on the Pacific coast, and sometimes from papers read but not printed. The division under different headings is intended merely to classify rudely the mass of his prose writing. The distinctions between the parts must not be looked for too narrowly. Sill was so ver- satile and his mind ran so readily from one aspect of a subject to another, that it would be idle to ask for any very hard and fast division, but the grouping will serve to show something of the range which his mind took. No attempt has been made to indicate the sources of the several papers, nor to arrange the contents in any exact chronological order. These things are of little consequence in the case of so free a giver as Sill. One might nearly as well expect to date and locate a good talker's con- versation. For the sake of those who may be making through this book their first acquaintance with Mr. Sill, a brief account of his short life is reproduced here from the Note to the first col- lection of his Poems. He was born in Wind- sor, Connecticut, in 1841, and graduated at X Introduction Yale College with the class of 1861. He went to California not long after graduation, and at first engaged in business, but in 1867 returned East with the expectation of entering the min- istry, and studied for a few months at the Divinity School of Harvard University. He gave up the purpose, however, married, and occupied himself with literary work, translat- ing Rau's Mozart, holding an editorial position on the JVew York Evening Mail, and bringing out a volume of poems. His peculiar power in stimulating the minds of others drew him into the work of teaching, and he became principal of an academy in Ohio. His Cali- fornia life, however, had given him a strong attachment to the Pacific coast and a sense that his health would be better there, and accordingly, on receiving an invitation to a position in the Oakland High School, he removed to California in 187 1, remaining there till 1883. In 1874 he accepted the chair of English Literature in the University of Cali- fornia, and identified himself closely with the literary life which found its expression in maga- zines and social organization. Upon his return to the East with the intention of devoting him- self more exclusively to literary work, he be- gan that abundant production which has been hinted at, and which, anonymous for the most Introduction xi part, was rapidly giving him facility of execu- tion and drawing attention to the versatility, the insight, the sympathetic power, the inspir- ing force which had always marked his teach- ing, and bade fair to bring a large and appre- ciative audience about him. He lived remote from the press of active life, always close to the centre of current intellectual and spiritual movements, in the village of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, where he died after a brief illness, Feb- ruary 27, 1887. Some of the details of this uneventful life, and some of the characteristics of a very lovable nature, may be gathered from the fol- lowing extracts from his familiar correspond- ence. His letters were jotted down more hastily than his most casual writing for an open public, and suffer thus less from a frag- mentary use than would be the case had he relied much upon this form of writing ; but he was always, as it were, writing to his friends when he wrote his papers and brief articles ; these bits from his letters therefore should be taken as little more than notes. The effort has been made in the selection to trace some- thing of Mr. Sill's thought about himself in the successive changes of his outward life ; most attention thus has been given to the formative period, though indeed that term might well be xii Introduction applied to his entire life, so open did he keep all the inlets into his mind and heart. Some of the letters or parts of letters are taken from the Memorial i^riYditely printed in 1887. TO H. H. Sacramento, April 2, 1862. Dear Henry, — Arrived — so soon — safe and well — oughtn't I to be thankful, after such a voyage ? We landed in San Francisco last week Tuesday, March 25, — as to Shears, glad to get ashore — as to me, rather sorry, for I enjoyed the voyage exceedingly, and dreaded to meet my dubious prospects on shore. Not that Shears didii^t enjoy it — for he did^ hugely, — but he 's got a home, you know, in San Francisco, and has something to do — viz., the law. By the way, he 's got a very pleasant home there, too — father, brother, brother's wife and brother's baby — the latter being the prettiest extant. The life at sea just suited me — giving me a sound digestion, a deliciously pure atmosphere to see the stars through, and that utter seclu- sion which has always been my longing — secure, too, from any haunting restlessness to be doi?ig something — that relentless feeling, you know, which is always jogging your elbow whenever you get fixed comfortably in a self- Introduction xiii ish, idle seclusion, whispering, "Get up and go to work ! fellow-men — fellow-men — go to work — go to work ! " But out there I could rJtdiO anything, nor have anything to do with anybody, if I tried — so I took my ease with a good conscience. Well, we had a good time, and it did us good — is n't that a pretty satisfactory report ? We did n't write the book, for we concluded (not without serious talks on it) that we had n't enough worthy material for a book. You say Pshaw ! at that — I can hear you with great distinctness, way off here — but though there were specious and tempting considerations in favor of it, the sober and reasonable course was 7iot to — and so we did n't. I kept a pretty full journal, which you may read if you '11 come out here. I wish I had you here — I 'd tell you everything I saw and did and thought on the way — but as that can't be, I '11 scribble this sheet full and wait till I see you — which won't be many years — for you will be in New England I hope, and I shall be back in two years or less. Well, we got off, as you know, December 9, into a fogbank — out of which came forth a roaring gale, which did make us seasick — oh, it did — I hope Shears will write you about it — I'm not equal to the occasion. After the first fortnight, though, we xiv Introduction mounted our sea legs and never got off them. Wonder if you 'd look out our course on a map if I gave it to you ? Here 't is, anyway. Frank K. writes that you are class poet. I am very glad — it 's a very pleasant thing to have, and I am glad they had the sense to do it. Don't "put off" now — mind you don't. I hope that you will do a better thing than I did — something that will have a good influ- ence. Don't say anything you are not sure is true — for there is enough certain truth. God bless you in that as in everything. TO THE SAME July 24. Dear Henry, — I wrote you a long letter when I first arrived here, which perhaps never has reached you — for I sent a good many about that time by the overland route, some of which I know were not received. Your letter to Sex and me came in due season — but I have been hoping that mine would at last get to you, and that I should hear from you again by this time. I don't think it 's best to wait any longer, though. I have no idea where you will be by the time this has reached the States, but I shall inclose it to Frank, trusting to his knowing of your whereabouts. I want to hear Introduction xv all about the winding up of your College life — and about the Poem — and the Poem — Have n't you sent me one ? If you have n't sent several to me, you deserve stripes — for *' private distribution " you know, as well as the one for public reading. And after all our ponderings, what are you going to do ? and where ? Study law at Harvard, I rather hope. As for me, I have come to it finally, like all the rest of 'em — I am to study law. And what a lawyer I shall make ! I suppose I am one of the first, though, who ever determined on that profession for the benefit it would be to himself spiritually. Yet that 's my crotchet. We are (some people don't seem to be — but you and I and a few of us certainly are) planted down in the midst of a great snarl and tangle of interrogation points. We want to find — we must find — some fixed truth. Either we are wrong and the vast majority of thinkers right, or they are wrong, and we right — and that, too, not on one point, but a thousand — points of the vastest scope and importance. As Kingsley puts it, we are set down before that greatest world-problem — " Given Self, to find God." So, considering that for such tasks the mind needs every preparation, skill and practice in drawing close distinctions, subtile- ness in detecting sophistry, strength and pa- xvi Introduction tience to work at a train of thought continu- ously long enough to follow its consequences clear oict, and some systematized memory (if for nothing but holding and duly furnishing your own thoughts when needed) — I say, seeing no better — or rather, no other — way to gain these but by entering the law, thither- wards I have set my face. I have sifted it all down to this conclusion — that in teaching, or in Literature, or even in following up some chosen science (much less some chosen art, as Poetry), the mind would not get fitted for that serious work which is before it. In them, it might become cultivated, stored with know- ledge, in some sense developed — but not dis' ciplined. Now just take that one question alone — Is Christianity true? What impu- dence it would be in us to consider that settled in the negative, until we felt that our intellects were as strong, as capable of close, protracted reasoning, as little liable to be misled by sophistry, as all those greatest men who have time after time settled it for themselves in the affirmative. I for my part can see no way in which I can at the same time earn a living, and get the active Powers of my mind thor- oughly disciplined, except by studying law. . . . Introduction xvii TO THE SAME March 26, 1864. Saturday night. Dear Hen, — It is only one of many disad- vantages of letters, as a voice between friends, that each letter can be merely the representa- tion of one particular mood. And if it so hap- pens, by an accidental trick of circumstances, that all one's letters are written at the same hour of the day, and therefore under the influ- ence of one and the same mood, he will get only one little aspect of himself conveyed to his friend. Such seems to be my fate. I write always in the evenings (unless occasion- ally I happen to wedge in an hour Sunday somewhere) after being wearied by the doings (and getting-done-to's) of the day. Conse- quently I suppose I always seem to you to be tired and depressed. Which result is unde- sirable. Because it is always — must be — dis- agreeable to an honest person, the idea of ob- taming commiseration under false pretenses, and partly because, next to fully knowing — understanding — my Beloveds, I like to have them understand the whole of me — 2ind to be always thought of as a broken reed one does n't like. Now this is not pride — which I am trying to express — not the kind of feeling which made us when little chaps hold in under xviii Introduction indignities, and swear we did n't care a bit, and go behind the door to snivel unseen — but it is only just as I said — a fervid desire to be known by, as I would know, the few nearest. I wonder if it ever is actually to happen that our broken threads of relationship shall be joined again. It is just like the "faults" they come to in mining — the strata run along, you know, side by side till — plump ! they come up against a wall of partition — and the question is then, do they go on again to- gether on the other side, beyond? and if so, how far must we go before coming to the junc- tion again ? Next month I am going to " move " — shall quit the Post Office, and go up to a little town some twenty miles north of Sac. — Folsom — {Foolsom — in the barbarous dialect of the natives here — I don't know but the name is a fearful augury of my wisdom in going there.) Goes I there into a Bank — changing my de- lightful employment of peddling postage-stamps {stomps — they call 'em here) for that of buying gold dust from Mexicans, Digger Indians, and Chinamen, who are all great at the " surface- mining " in that vicinity. California (so far as that means the natural and not the human aspect thereof) is inexpres- sibly beautiful just now. The trees are all Introduction xix just " out," in their spring vesture — the fields full of flowers — nobody has any right to talk about fields carpeted with flowers, till he has seen them here, or, I suppose, in the still more Tropical climates. Great gorgeous fel- lows, you know — like all the conservatories you ever saw broken loose and romping over the wild plains here, exulting and irrepressible. And not only these superb sorts, but come to stoop down and look closer you find multitudes of the least wee blossoms — little stars, scarcely bigger than a pin's head, blue, and pure white, perfect as gems. Only so for a couple of months or three months — then the parching, rainless summer bakes the ground, and browns the dry grass to a monotonous tint that makes one hot and thirsty even to look at it. And as with the vegetation, so with the chil- dren born here. Little human blossoms, such as one rarely sees in the cold Atlantic States. Mites of girls, with complexions like porcelain which you look at the light through — and soft, beautiful eyes. And little boys, fair and deli- cate as girls — bright and gentle, but so fragile looking that it seems as though to speak sud- denly to them would shock them out of exist- ence. They come around to my Post Oflice windows, toddling bits of creatures, asking for letters as sedate and grave as old men — and XX Introduction trotting off with them in their little hands, the letter almost as big as the sprite that carries it. Whereat the clerk, Sill, pokes his head con- templatively through the window, and marvels at the climate which produces such things. So ! and now you owe me two letters. Good-night to both of you. TO THE SAME February 28, 1865. Dear Henry, — I 've been reading Theology lately. You spoke of the legion of things which claim our attention — verily, verily. But moral philosophy stands first — then meta- physics — then down, to medicine, literature, sociology, KaAology, history, etc. I keep a little fountain babbling and plashing in my brain, by reading, nearly every day, a word of Tennyson or Browning (Mrs. I mean) or Ruskin or Bible or somebody. I would like to take your arm and start on a trip through moral philosophy, by evenings. How I want to see you and your pearl. I '11 leave this as just a note — for reminder. I want to learn the organ when I come East. What will it cost me, besides time .-* It is in me if I do not get too old before it can come out. Love to vos — Yours. Introduction xxi TO THE SAME San Francisco, August 6, 1865. People think that a thinking man's specula- tions about religion, etc., interfere with his daily life very little — but how certain conclu- sions do take the shine out of one's existence ! These Spencer chaps may be very excellent — but to me there is an apple of Sodom smack about it all — Little pigmies — what kind of babbling is this for worm-meat to emit ? " For man " (not even with a capital m) " is not as God." And I more than suspect that the said worms lick their chaps over the brain, as over the common tidbits of the grave. I send a pamphlet containing a pome by me. It is only the drippings of some very few and lean weeks, when I had too much dragging business work to do for any poetry to come out of it. They thought it extraordinary out here though. TO THE same Oakland, June 17, 1866. Sunday, P. M. Dear Henry, — Steamer sails to-morrow, and I want to send one of my usual unsatis- factory and hasty scrawls as a mere sprawl to show that I 'm still alive, and that however xxii Introduction little else there may be in my mind at any given time, you at least are in it. I have been loafing all the afternoon so far, and feel ex- ceedingly idle and good for nothing. Have been lying on my back and talking with Shears on all the subjects in the Universe one after the other, as the tide of two lazy minds drifted us — not enough headway on to steer by, and so floated through politics, religion, education, social progress, etc. Wish you could have been here to take the stroke oar. I 've been writ- ing a lot of poetry. Shall want to consult with you about it when I see you. Have got one poem of about a thousand lines and a lot of short ones, about as much more, enough to make a gay little vol. if illustrated a little, and got out nicely — but as to the inside, don't know — the more I write the less satisfied I am with any of my doings in poetry — verily, art is different from handicraft as Grimm says — only the perfect works ought to be given to the public — a bad boot or a tolerable article of cloth may be worth offering for sale, but when it comes to offering tolerable art — after Tennyson and the Brownings — 't won't do — a poor devil ought to be hung for doing it, unless he be very poor, when his punishment might be commuted into imprisonment for life with only Tupper and the Country Parson for Introduction xxiii food and drink — in the way of stale toast or so. I 'm reading Marx's " Musical Composition." Ever read it ? and do you cultivate music any now ? You ask (by the way, you have persist- ently, and without the least provocation on my part, written uniformly jolly and good letters — may your reward be great some day — though I don't see how it 's to come) what I — we — want to do when we get on there, with the view of cultivating the ground a little for us two old seeds to plant ourselves in. I can't tell at all till I have got there, found how my health is going to be, how much chance of literary success there is for me, how much of musical, and more than all, till I have been out to Ohio and seen my friends there. I can't ever preach — that has slowly settled itself in spite of my reluctant hanging on to the doubt. I can't solve the problems — only the great schoolmaster Death will ever take me through these higher mathematics of the religious principia — this side of his schooling, in these primary grades, I never can preach. I shall teach school, I suppose. How gay it will be to see you ! How we will enjoy renewing all the past except the nonsense and absurdities of it. xxiv Introduction I will leave the rest of this blank for the squire to add on to-night. Vale, old soul. Yrs. TO THE SAME Cambridge, April 12, 1867. Friday morning. Dear Henry, — There seems to be a gap, just in here, after reading the quantum of Plu- tarch, when there is nothing that must be did — so I '11 employ it to keep up our acquaint- ance. I got a note from Taintor yesterday with his card — 229 Broadway — calling for songs. Sent him one batch thro' you, and a batch and botch of one this morning. I hope the Tain- torian brain is not shrewd enough to detect the fact that they are trash of the first water (or as Sex says on a late occasion, of the first milk-and-water). By the way, vide "Galaxy" of April 15 — Translation by Sex of Lessing's " Ring " — good thing. Good joke on me that I send to the " Galaxy " and get kicked, and my chum gets accepted. If I c'd lick him I w'd, but he boxes me out of time hitherto. I can beat him at Base Ball tho', and mildly whopped him yesterday at quoits. He officiated at Prayers yesterday evening for the first time and did it first-rate. My turn comes to-night. Introduction xxv I am enjoying my opportunities here hugely. They give me books and let me alone — what more could a man ask ? Besides some good lectures outside — Agassiz, etc. I went to a sacred concert last Sunday night in Music Hall. It was very fine. I don't know that I ever enjoyed music so much. Didn't hear the great organ though, so I am going over to hear that in an orchestral concert this p. m. Sun- day night there was glorious orchestra music, and Arbuckle had a cornet arrangement of Adelaide with orchestra which nearly drew my heart out of my body. I have always raved about that song, but never heard it perfectly given before. What a splendor brass is when exquisitely played. How it winds and winds into one's very Ego, and tangles itself up with the emotions and passions and soars up with them. The wood sings all around one — the strings wail and implore to us — but the brass enters in and carries one off bodily. Do you concur "i I want to hear that great organ — it was music only to look at it — a great, dark, shadowy cathedral looming up at the end of the immense Hall — Apollo Belvidere up in a niche opposite, looking scornful, as if to say that all that solemn, shadowy, bitter-sweet mu- sic — the heart-broken triumph — the fire of tears — is poor by the side of his memories of xxvi Introduction the Greek health and energy, and music that was sunshine dissolved in wine. But one looks back to the statue of the Master in front of the organ, and thinks the man is truer than the false god. Delightful spring weather — trees coming out — grass green. Nature is all under good subjection though about here — not even a Tutor's Lane to refresh the wild part of a man. Wisconsin gone for Woman Suffrage ! It 's gay, is n't it — Massachusetts must hang her head and be second chop hereafter. Yours ever, E. R. Sill. I think pomes must be anonymous. Are you going to arrange for summer ? TO THE SAME Cuyahoga Falls, August, 1867. Sunday, P. m. Dear Henry, — I wonder how and where this hot afternoon finds you. It is too hot here to do anything, yet I am moved to write you a sweltering word or two. I have determined not to return to Cam- bridge. There could be no pulpit for me after going through there, except as an independent self-supported minister, which of course is open Introduction xxvii to any one with a purse. I came reluctantly to that conclusion. Another person, even with my opinions in Theology, might have judged differently. It is no sentimentalism with me — it is simply a solemn conviction that a man must speak the truth as fast and as far as he knows it — truth to hi7n. I may be in error — but what I believe is my sacred truth, and must not be diluted. When I get money enough to live on I mean to preach religion as I believe in it. Emerson could not preach, and now I understand why. So, the alternatives. School-teaching always has stood first. No decent salaries in this country. No freedom to follow my own way. No position available so far as I know. Hence, California. TO c. T. H. p. [Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio,] January 23, 1870. Dear Chief, — I am very glad to have you writing to me again about the Oakland matter, chiefly because it continues to let me know that you would like to have me come back there among you. I am queer, I 'm afraid, about my way of looking (or not looking) at future plans. Whether it springs most from faith, or a Mussulman sort of " fatality " de- xxviii Introduction spair of individual planning and trying, I let the future alone more than most seem to : per- haps too much. Except as it affects the con- venience of others who may hinge more or less on our edges, I don't see much advantage in taking thought far ahead, especially as to details. Wherever I am, and hovi^ever, I mean to try to do and be certain things (especially the do- ing ; for I find, looking at my life a week at a time, that has been the core, nowadays) but the where and how I leave till the last minute. So I know I am to be here till July next, and beyond that I don't look, except that your words about Oakland bring to mind vividly that 't would be very pleasant to be there. I 'm not fitting very fast to be good in any one department of teaching. I am scattered all over my school here, and with 128 scholars, and. all manner of branches, Lat, Gk., German, Chemistry, Hist., Geog., Arith., Astron. and the beginnings of everything else a'most, you see how good a chance I have to be anything in particular. I am a miserable smatterer, and likely to be ; getting my lessons for each day ahead, and not making any very profitable ac- quisitions, except perhaps about boy and girl nature in general. I would like to have a window opened Introduction xxix through which I might get a draft of fresh communion with the lives of you folks there. Can't you appoint some one of the crowd as sec'y to write me what you do and what it is all about, from week to week ? And when I say " crowd " I remember that after all there are but few of you. Strange that on such a great planet, alive with us, our thoughts and loves and sympathies should just cluster a half-dozen here and a half-dozen there, and count all the "world," so far as we care, on our fingers. I suppose we are reading the same tele- graphic news, every day, and hearing the same topics talked, and the wives are playing the identical pieces on the pretty-much-identical pianos (only ours is out of tune at present) and so on. Yours, E. R. Sill. TO H. H. Berkeley, Cal., February 13, 1880. Dear Henry, — Yours just rec'd. Thank you for the information for my inquiring stu- dent, about the book-man. I knew about the Social Science Associations, but my point was tljat they don't go to the bottom difficulty : viz., what end are we after ? And secondly, is it the end we had better be after. My notion is that XXX Introduction Spencer is the only man that has begun to answer that question — namely in the Data — and in previous hints which he that did n't run too fast might read, and that the Associa- tions have been puttering about Contagious Diseases, Drainage, Prison Reform, and other such excellent matters to work at, but the per- fection of which would leave us very little better off than at present. The best thing you can do with such people as we have now is to let the contagious diseases thin 'em out a little, perhaps. As to your thought that I have scattered, and ought to make myself " favorably known." My dear fellow, I like your caring for me enough to say this and wish this, but — if you knew about my life of late years and my ideas of life, you would see. I am not and have n't been trying to make myself favorably known. The devil take any one that is trying for it. I have been working to educate, in some high sense, successive classes of young people ; and meanwhile to know more about education, and especially literature as a means of it, and about education in its relation to society and life. I am contented to die unknown, if I can arrive at the truth about certain great matters, and can put others in the way thereof. If there is anything which utterly disgusts me and makes Introduction xxxi me howl aloud and swear, it is these infernal fools who are fighting to get their names abroad, and care for no other work. That a man like Spencer should be well known is a matter of course and all right ; but he has not cared for that. Let a man work his work in peace, and the devil take his name — the less likely to get anything more of him than that. But I am ever yours. TO M. w. s. Ambleside, Westmoreland, September, 1881. This violet is a descendant of the one Wordsworth is always writing about. At least I picked it to-day on the side of the path where he must have walked many times, between his house and Stock Ghyll Force. It is a beauti- ful region, this of the English Lakes ; but one does n't see, after all, why poetry should not be thought and felt and written as well at Niles or Berkeley as in Westmoreland. The Alps and this region you must see some day. In haste, with regards to you all, from both of us. Yours, E. R. Sill. xxxii Introduction TO THE SAME CuYA. Falls, Tuesday morning, May 15, 1883. Your so large a letter with your own hand was rec'd last evening, in the midst of some petty personal bothers and obscure mental generalizations not favorable to the scheme of things : so that it served admirably the pur- pose of foreign travel and new scenes to the invalid, and I went to bed much refreshed and lightened up. All our ordinary bothers only need an out- side point of view to let the sawdust out of them (rapid change of figure : Shaksperian), and to get into another person's world gives us a big parallax for proper estimates of our own orbits. What fairy mythology is there, of a man who shifts from one life to another and back all the time : so when I read your letters I am a Californian out and out — or in and in. By the way, I sent the volume — (it needs a name : what shall I call it ? Little Piecrusty) to Matthew Arnold, and he was so gracious as to send me a letter expressing his pleasure at some things in it — briefly — and, by the way, his much agreement with my H. Spencer arti- cle in the "Atlantic." They tell me, by the way to the third power, that Youmans has made a Introduction xxxiii furious assault on it — but I shan't look at it till I want to write again on the subject. . . . TO A PUPIL June 6, 1881. Dear Lucy, — Your question of 26th May was too good a one to leave so long unan- swered. It was not left as being too hard to answer, but I have been very busy, and really could not find time to settle myself to say any- thing on so important a question till to-night, and now it must be a brief note. The real value of " being well read " seems to me to be in the wider and truer life it gives us. By " wider " I mean that our thoughts and feel- ings and purposes are more complex and more consonant with the complexity and manifold- ness of the universe we live in : the microcosm gets a little — even if a very little — nearer in quality and quantity to the macrocosm. The crystal leads such a narrow life — just along one little line — a single law of facet and angle : the plant a little wider : the fish a little wider : and the different sorts of people widen- ing and widening out in their inner activities — and much according to their reading (since living human contact is not possible, except with the few relatives and neighbors). And by truer life, I mean truer to nature : xxxiv Introduction more as we were meant to be : the inner rela- tions, between ideas, corresponding closer to the outer relations — or " real " relations — between things. These real thing-relations are in fact very complex and vastly inclusive : so must the thoughts and feelings be, if " true," or truly correspondent or mirror-like to them. I don't see that culture (unless you spell it wrong) needs — or tends at all — to cut one off from human warmth. Are not some of the " best read " people you know or hear of, some of the broadest-hearted also ? The very es- sence of culture is shaking off the nightmare of self-consciousness and self-absorption and attaining a sort of Christian Nirvana — lost in the great whole of humanity : thinking of others, caring for others, admiring and loving others. I should like to have you write me more fully about it some time. Yours sincerely. TO E. B. February 2, 1883. Dear Miss B. — It 's a bad time to take up trees in the winter ; ground is frozen ; roots can't go down. This is a parable. If it were summer here, no doubt I should be taking long walks and going fishing, and mooning Introduction xxxv about, nights — and keeping my old environ- ment out of my head as thoroughly as pos- sible. But it 's winter — the dead vast and middle of it (as Howell quotes of the summer) — and my roots are all in the air as yet, and I feel extremely queer. We are supposed to have got settled. I have established a writ- ing-table with the birds contiguous (as near a window as I dare put 'em for fear of freezing their noses off : you remember how the cold air pierces in between the sashes of a window like a long thin knife ?). Mr. Kellogg's " Berkeley bucket " of last Xmas stands on the table with some rather timid-looking greenhouse pinks and geraniums in it. They manage to have some green leaves and posies under a glass — but what looking gardens ! They were spaded in the fall, so that when not mercifully veiled with snow they look all lumpy mud, frozen. Gracious ! what a looking world. I am supposed to be entered on a mad career of literary work. Have so far only written some very mild verses — suitable for nursery use in some amiable but weak-minded family. But then I 've been skating twice ! Think of that — real ice, too. You can make Mr. Metcalf feel bad about that, if you tell him — and make him think he 'd like to be here ; but he would n't. xxxvi Introduction It's a curious illusion of yours out there, that you can go out and pick flowers and hear leaves rustle and see grass grow and feel thorough-going sunshine. You can't, you know, 'cause it 's winter everywhere : snow and ice, or frozen slush and mud — it must be. I used to have that same hallucination when I was out there. Queer. Effect of the climate, I s'pose. Did you like the sea ? Then you would like Russell's " Lady Maud " (and his other books). Wonderful descriptions of the sea and life in ships and storms. You are going to write, you know. With love to you all, yours faithfully. E. R. Sill. TO [Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio,] March 29, 1883. My Dear Ed, — You are getting on toward the close of the Second Act — the college days : and no doubt the management of the Third Act begins to occupy your mind a good deal — and perhaps to vex it a little. What to do with one's life gets to be a large question toward the close of Senior Year. In my own, I was saved a part of the question, for my health was frail and threatened me a little, so Introduction xxxvii that the hnmediate duty was plain enough — to cut and run ; which I did, on a long sea voy- age ; it was a toss-up which way it should be, among all the oceans and continents, but it happened to be to California. I had pretty much determined that I would try to get a better aim than the common ones. " I could not hide that some had striven,'^ at least, what- ever they had " attained." Egoism, pure and simple, had somehow always struck me — theo- retically — as mighty paltry for a grown-up man ; a kind of permanent