C"- -^N 
 
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 f(3J7 
 
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 T. S. AKTHUK 
 
 HIS LIFE AND WORKS 
 
 BY 
 
 ONE WHO KNOWS HIM. 
 
Entered accordingio Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 J. M. STODDART & CO^ 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
F5 /o3^ 
 
 A PROTEST AND AN APOLOGY RATHER THAN 
 A PREFACE. 
 
 *'You are about to subject me to an auto-de-fe, and 
 will I please send you on some kindlings?" retorted Gail 
 Hamilton to Fanny Fern when the latter asked her for 
 facts concerning her life, to be used in a biographical 
 sketch. I was met in something the same spirit as this 
 by T. S. Arthur when I preferred a similar request to 
 him. 
 
 I think persons of a sensitive nature must shrink from 
 anything like a biography of themselves. There is so 
 much which really constitutes the important part of their 
 lives which they cannot lay before the public, and which 
 the public have no business with, that there seems little 
 left to tell. Biography always seemed to me an illegiti- 
 mate branch of literature. It is bad enough to write a 
 man's life while he is still alive, but then he is at least 
 able to retaliate upon his biographer if. he is of a revenge- 
 ful turn of mind. When he is dead, he is helpless. What 
 is written is written. Biographies at the best give but 
 warped and distorted images of the men they would rep- 
 resent. No person can write fully and truly the life of 
 another. The springs of action in a man's life must ever 
 remain hidden and unknown. His feelings, his affections, 
 his joys, his sorrows, his ambitions and his disappoint- 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 ments should all be sacred; they must ever be more 
 or less uncomprehended by all save the man himself. 
 Still, the public craves to know these most of all, and so 
 the literary vampire plunges his foul talons into the very 
 heart of his helpless victim ; and when he cannot bring 
 out truth, he satisfies the morbid craving with something 
 else instead. 
 
 Autobiography seems the only legitimate method by 
 which we might know the real life and character of a 
 man. Yet even autobiography is unreliable. A modest, 
 sensitive man would from his very nature dwell lightly 
 on his best traits. All, even the best of men, would 
 naturally palliate or omit their weaknesses, their errors 
 and their sins. And there we are again, not much nearer 
 the truth than before. 
 
 Still, it is a natural and perhaps not altogether unjusti- 
 fiable desire on the part of the public to know something 
 of its favorites, and to a certain extent it may not be un- 
 fair to gratify it. The private life of a public man should 
 be just as secure from intrusive curiosity as that of the 
 humblest among us, but his public life — that is, the life 
 which touches, influences or is influenced by his public 
 career — may be scrutinized with pardonable interest, and 
 sometimes with profit. 
 
 This is a long preface to a short book. But I had just 
 so much to say on the subject of biographies, and I feared 
 I might never again get the opportunity of saying it. 
 Besides, I wish it to be understood on the part of my 
 reader as an explanation why I have not entered more 
 deeply into personal afiairs in this biographical sketch, 
 and by the subject of the sketch as an apology for daring 
 to meddle with his life at all. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 OF 
 
 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 T. S. Arthur may be rightly said to belong to the 
 ranks of America's noblest and truest aristocracy, her 
 self-made men. Neither family, wealth nor education 
 has singly or combined served to make him what he is. 
 He stands to-day on the eminence which he so deservedly 
 occupies in the respect and admiration of his fellow-coun- 
 trymen, having reached that eminence solely by his own 
 exertions — by hard toil, by careful and unwearied study 
 and by undaunted perseverance. 
 
 Timothy Shay Arthur was born near Newburg, New 
 York, in the year 1809, and he is consequently in the 
 present year (1873) sixty-four years old. His mother 
 was a woman of rare natural gifts, and from her he has 
 inherited that peculiar genius which has made him emi- 
 nent. She was a daughter of Timothy Shay, of North 
 Salem, New York, who had served as an officer in the 
 Revolutionary war. He was a man of superior mental 
 endowments and great integrity of character. If to 
 these higher qualities he had added political ambition, 
 he would have been eminent as a statesman. But he 
 1* 5 
 
6 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 shrank from public life, and declined the honors that 
 were offered him, preferring to remain a private citizen. 
 His daughter, Mrs. Anna Arthur, died in Baltimore in 
 1861, at the advanced age of eighty-one years, beloved 
 and revered by a wide circle of friends. It may be said 
 of her without qualification, 
 
 " None knew her but to love her, 
 None named her but to praise." 
 
 Miss Virginia F. Tovvnsend, who had often met her, 
 wrote this beautiful tribute to her memory : 
 
 Thou hast gone home at evening, and thy life 
 "Was rounded outward to its fourscore years 
 Like the calm of a spring day that stands still 
 And listens for the summer. Thou hast walked 
 The long path of thy pilgrimage with feet 
 Shod with the sandals of the peace of God, 
 And so serene a light upon thy face 
 That, looking on it sometimes, I have thought 
 " Gives God his angels such." 
 
 To thee be brought 
 No crowns nor laurels ; that still brow of thine 
 Its gentle and its gracious womanhood 
 Wore meekly as we dream the children did, 
 Christ's blessing on their heads. 
 
 And thou hast set 
 The name of wife and mother with such pearls 
 Of brave and loving deeds that from the robe 
 Of thy life, folded up and rolled away. 
 They drop down shining. 
 
 Thou didst hear God's voice 
 After long waiting in the evening's cool, 
 And thou didst go out softly, while fond eyes 
 Watched the gates close behind thee. 
 
 Oh, not oft 
 Are silver hairs o'er so serene a brow 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. < 
 
 Parted for the last slumber ! Oh, not oft 
 Falls a life mellow from the boughs of time 
 As thy life fell to rest ! 
 
 And now sleep sweet, 
 Thy work " well done." Thy feet have walked to-day 
 Amid the white tents pitched along that shore 
 Where thy heart went before ; the waters break 
 Their shining surf upon those peaceful banks, 
 And round tliee hath the mighty welcome rolled, 
 " Enter into the rest prepared of God !" 
 
 To the last her intellect was clear and her sweet re- 
 ligious character fragrant and beautiful. Few. sons cher- 
 ish the memory of a mother with a more loving regard 
 than the sons of Mrs. Anna Arthur, four of whom are 
 still living. The subject of this sketch was her second son. 
 
 While T. S. Arthur was still very young his parents 
 removed to the vicinity of West Point. His earliest rec- 
 ollections are of Fort Montgomery, on the Hudson River. 
 In 1817, when he was eight years old, they removed to 
 Baltimore, and it was in that city that the struggle of life 
 began for him in earnest. 
 
 His school advantages were few, and according to the 
 decision of his teachers of little avail. He was exceed- 
 ingly dull in intellect. Though he plodded patiently 
 and long over his studies, the teachers took his excessive 
 slowness of thought and comprehension for willful obsti- 
 nacy, and many were the chastisements he received in 
 consequence. The meanings of things dawned upon his 
 mind with great difficulty; but when once understood, 
 they were never forgotten. Thus what he mastered he 
 mastered thoroughly, and he made it a kind of mental 
 capital which he always retained. 
 
 I find in an old number of the Phrenological Journal 
 
8 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 an account, in Mr. Arthur's own words, of the difficulties 
 he experienced in arithmetic at the very outset. A sura 
 in addition was given him upon a slate with directions to 
 find an answer. He says : '* Now, in the word 'addition,' 
 as referring to figures, I saw no meaning. I did not com- 
 prehend the fact, in connection with it, that two and two 
 make four. True, I had learned my ' Addition Table,' 
 but strangely enough that did not furnish me with any 
 clew toward working out the problem of figures set for 
 me on my slate. I was then in my ninth year, and I can 
 remember to this day with perfect distinctness how 
 utterly discouraged I became as day by day went by and 
 still I had not found a correct result to any one of my 
 sums, nor gained a single ray of light on the subject. 
 Strange as it may seem, I remained for several months 
 in simple addition before I knew how to sum up figures, 
 and then the meaning of addition flashed in a sudden 
 thought upon my mind while I was at play. I had no 
 trouble after that. During the next week I escaped both 
 scolding and 'belaboring' (a favorite phrase of my 
 teacher's), and then passed on to subtraction. Five min- 
 utes devoted to an explanation, in some simple form, of 
 what 'addition' meant, would have saved me the loss of 
 months, to say nothing of the pain, both mental and 
 bodily, that I suffered during the time." 
 
 And this is only a sample of the difficulties which 
 presented themselves to him in mathematics from the 
 first to the last. When he came to a new rule in the 
 arithmetic, he would go to the teacher for explanation. 
 The teacher would refer him back to the rule. But that 
 contained to his inquiring mind iio meaning whatever. 
 He would study and ponder long. He would go through 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 9 
 
 the process according to ' the directions of the rule, but 
 the whole sum might have been a series of cabalistic 
 signs, for all the idea it conveyed to his mind. At last, 
 discouraged, he would go on to the next form of figures, 
 only to encounter like difficulties and to be baflled in 
 like manner. It was not until years afterward, when in 
 the night-hours of his apprentice years he delved slowly 
 but perseveringly through the higher branches of mathe- 
 matics, that he was enabled to comprehend some of the 
 comparatively simple rules in elementary arithmetic. 
 
 According to the expressed opinion of his teacher, his 
 time was wasted in school, his progress in learning was 
 so discouragingly slow. So his father, feeling that he 
 had no money to spend in a manner that brought such an 
 unprofitable return, apprenticed him to a trade. As he 
 came in contact with active life and as his mind slowly 
 developed the desire for knowledge gradually awakened. 
 It may be that the long hours employed in manual labor 
 gave time and opportunity for mental unfolding. While 
 still a young lad he began a system of self-education 
 which was continued patiently through many years. Un- 
 der the old system of apprenticeship then in vogue, boys 
 learning their trades had not the same leisure or liberty 
 that they now have. Still, the little time he could call 
 his own was improved to the utmost. 
 
 But before long his eyesight began to- fail him, and he 
 found that he would be compelled to leave his trade after 
 his apprentice days were over. Still, the articles of 
 indenture bound him, and he must serve his time. So he 
 told his master that as his sight would be so impaired that 
 he would not be able to make a living by his trade when 
 free, he thought he should be allowed some little oppor- 
 
10 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 tunity for education. In compliance with this wish, he 
 was permitted to attend night-school for a limited period. 
 
 Some time during his apprenticeship he became a 
 member of the first temperance society formed in Mary- 
 land, and has ever since been an earnest advocate of the 
 cause. He had seen many sad instances of the evils that 
 flow from the use of liquor, and arrayed himself against 
 both the traffic and the indulgence as soon as a clear 
 impression of his individual responsibility in society took 
 possession of his mind. In his own person he has never 
 experienced any of the evil effects of drinking. As a 
 boy he was much exposed to temptation and in great 
 danger of having his taste vitiated. But his mother's 
 warnings and steady opposition to the drinking customs 
 of the time had the right effect upon her son. He was 
 afraid of liquor ; and though, as a boy, he often took it 
 when handed to him by men and women who should have 
 known better, he was so careful about the quantity he 
 drank, having a fear and shame of getting drunk, that 
 he was never betrayed into taking enough to even be- 
 wilder him. The feeling of intoxication, he says, is one 
 that he never knew. 
 
 When about fifteen or sixteen, his talent for writing 
 began to be developed. . It took first the form of poetic 
 composition. He used to sit at his work all day long 
 revolving a couplet or a stanza in his mind ; and when 
 he got it to suit him, he would watch for an opportunity 
 when no one was observing him, and with an old stump 
 of a pencil which he kept in his pocket scratch off the 
 lines on a scrap of paper and slip it out of sight. At 
 night, in the solitude of his chamber, these literary bant- 
 lings were dressed up and laid carefully away with all 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 11 
 
 the love and admiration which every young author be- 
 stows upon his first productions. 
 
 As he had foreseen, after spending more than seven 
 years in learning his trade, he was .obliged after becoming 
 free to quit it on account of defective sight. He found a 
 situation in a counting-room, where he remained for the 
 next three years, performing light servnce for a small 
 salary. Though these years seemed to be time wasted, 
 as he had few opportunities for acquiring a knowledge 
 of business which then seemed most desirable for him, 
 still, it afforded him, after all, the chance he needed, in 
 consideration of what his future career proved to be. 
 He had ample leisure for reading and writing, and he 
 improved his time well. It was during this period that 
 he began to contribute to the public press, without any 
 thought of pay, and without any intention of adopting 
 literature as a profession. 
 
 In 1833, in search of a larger income, he left his situ- 
 ation and went West as an agent for a banking institution. 
 But soon after his arrival West the institution located at 
 the East failed, and he came back to Baltimore out of 
 employment. At this time he obtained the editorial 
 charge of a literary paper, and very soon achieved a 
 local popularity. I have been told that one of his 
 earlier stories, written in sensational style and published 
 in eight monthly parts, was exceedingly popular. Im- 
 mediately upon the issue of a new part there would be a 
 rush to obtain copies, and men and boys might be seen 
 hurrying along the streets, or sitting in their shops or on 
 their doorsteps, each with the story in his hand, intently 
 reading, or talking and laughing about it. 
 
 In 1836, Mr. Arthur was married to Miss Eliza Alden, 
 
12 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 daughter of the late Captain James Alden, of Portland, 
 Maine, and sister of Rear-Admiral James Alden, U. S. N. 
 They had seven children, five sons and two daughters, 
 five of whom, four sons and one daughter, are still living. 
 Of their sons, one served as captain of light artillery 
 during the late war, entering the service at the begin- 
 ning and continuing to the end. Another was in the 
 United States Navy as engineer for five years. Another 
 is a physician. 
 
 Mr. Arthur in his domestic relations has been more 
 fortunate than many noted literary men, for few men 
 have been happier in those relations, and few have been 
 more beloved by their children. The death of his oldest 
 daughter, which took place in 1862, just as she had 
 attained her twenty-first year, was felt as a deep affliction. 
 The tie between father and daughter was very strong, and 
 her loss touched him sorely. In temperament and cha- 
 racter she was more like him, perhaps, than any of his 
 other children. 
 
 It may be felt almost as a trespass on private life to 
 speak here of the estimable lady who for more than 
 thirty-seven years has been the faithful companion and 
 beloved wife of Mr. Arthur. But our interest in public 
 men turns so naturally to their private relations that we 
 are unable to repress a desire to know something about 
 them. In the case of Mr. Arthur, sensitive as he is 
 about the intrusion of himself or family upon the public 
 gaze, there is no reason beyond this sensitiveness why the 
 public who have so long known him shall not have at 
 least a corner of the veil that hides his home life drawn 
 aside, and so I shall make a brief reference to Mrs. 
 Arthur. She is, as I have said, the sister of Rear-Admiral 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 13 
 
 James Alden, U. S. N., an officer whose high personal 
 worth and rare ability are well known to the public. 
 Like him, she is possessed of great energy and persistence 
 of character, and attracts strongly by her personal qual- 
 ities, her frankness and her ready sympathy with her 
 friends in all that interests them. Few women have 
 kinder hearts or readier hands. She is younger than her 
 husband by about seven years, and still retains that ease 
 of manner, marked personal attractions, dignity and lady- 
 like bearing which have always made her a favorite. 
 Her love for her husband has from the first been deep 
 and tender, growing with years, and he is as tenderly 
 attached to her. He has often been heard to say that 
 but for her unremitting care and watchfulness over him 
 during many years of feeble health, brought on by inces- 
 sant brain-work, pursued to exhaustion almost every day, 
 he would long ago have finished his labors on earth. 
 There were few years during a great portion of their 
 married life in which her hands, ministering to him 
 through oft-recurring periods of utter prostration, the 
 result of overwork, did not hold him away from death 
 and lift him back to useful and earnest life again. To 
 her the public owe much for the faithful wifely duties 
 that so often restored strength to failing hands whose 
 work was not yet done. 
 
 In "The Brilliant," an annual edited by Mr. 
 Arthur and published by Baker & Scribner, Kew York, 
 in 1850, appeared a short poem, entitled " Our Wedding- 
 Day," and signed with Mr. Arthur's initials. Few wives 
 have been written about more truthfully or lovingly. We 
 take the liberty of republishing this beautiful tribute in 
 this connection. 
 
14 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 "OUR WEDDING-DAY. 
 
 " Twelve years ! it seems but yesterday 
 
 Since first I saw thy face, 
 Its girlish beauty softened down 
 
 To woman's lovelier grace ; 
 And yet twelve years have passed away 
 
 Since, standing by thy side, 
 I called thee, with a thrill of joy, 
 
 My own, my loving bride. 
 
 " Twelve years ! not all the time have we 
 
 Been sporting 'mid the flowers ; 
 Twelve years ! the lengthened chain is not 
 
 Linked all with sunny hours. 
 Yet though upon our way through life 
 
 Some shadows have been thrown, 
 How much of peace and sweet content 
 
 And sunshine have we known ! 
 
 "And now, though Time has on my head 
 
 A few thin snowflakes cast. 
 And o'er thy face, still young and fair, 
 
 His hiding fingers passed. 
 Though care and toil are still the dower 
 
 Life brings us day and night, 
 Love makes all time's impressions dim, 
 
 Our heaviest burdens light. ' 
 
 " In waking dreams I musing sit 
 
 And see thee by my side, 
 The fair young girl who long ago 
 
 Became my happy bride. 
 Thy hand on me confiding laid. 
 
 Thy breath upon my cheek, 
 Tliy loving eyes half drqpped from mine, 
 
 So gentle, trusting, meek. 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 15 
 
 " And can it be ! I start to think 
 
 Twelve years have passed away, 
 And six dear children round us cling 
 
 On this our wedding-day — 
 Six happy children ; none are lost — 
 
 All care I will forget ; 
 I'm thankful most of all for this, 
 
 Their mother's with them yet. 
 
 " I do not think that many homes 
 
 Are happier, love, than ours ; 
 I do not think that others' paths 
 
 Wind more among the flowers ; 
 I do not think the sunlight falls 
 
 More brightly on the way 
 Of many who have lived to see 
 
 Twelve times their wedding-day." 
 
 And now, after three times twelve returns of the day 
 have come and gone, and husband and wife can count as 
 many grandchildren as children, they stand in spirit, I 
 am sure, nearer together than on their first wedding-day. 
 
 In 1837 or 1838 he received the first pay he ever 
 obtained for literary labor outside his regular editorial 
 duties. Those who think to enter the profession of liter- 
 ature, and from the first to command a ready sale for 
 their productions at liberal rates, w^ould do well to read 
 and digest the following fact : For a period as long as 
 or longer than that served at his manual trade did Mr. 
 Arthur serve as an apprentice to literature, without ex- 
 pectation or, probably, thought of reward, before he made 
 his first pecuniary success. Even then it was but a be- 
 ginning, and a very small beginning, of that which was 
 still years in coming to him. He wrote a domestic tale, 
 and sent it to Godey's Lady's Book. For six months he 
 
16 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 heard nothing of it, and had given up all hope of ever 
 seeing it in print, when one day he received a note from 
 Mr. Godey, enclosing a check for $15, and asking for 
 more articles of the same character. Those who have 
 ever received their first pay for manuscript can readily 
 conceive the unalloyed delight this money and note gave 
 the then young author. It was the sign manual of his 
 future success. It was, so to speak, the index finger 
 pointing out the path he was to tread. Mrs. Sigourney, 
 the poetess, was at that time associated with Mrs. Hale 
 in the editorship of the Ladifs Booh ; and chancing to 
 see this story by the then unknown writer, she wrote to 
 Mr. Godey that this was the class of stories it was desir- 
 able to obtain for the magazine. Hence the letter and 
 the check. The name of this story was, if I mistake not, 
 " The Soft Answer." Th6se who are fortunate enough to 
 have old files of the Lady's Book dating back to 1837 or 
 1838 will be enabled to read the story for themselves. 
 
 Mr. Arthur began to write constantly in the same 
 style, and soon found a market for his productions. 
 
 In 1841, Mr. Arthur left Baltimore with his family 
 and came to Philadelphia, then the city which stood 
 foremost in the possession of first-class publications 
 and talented writers. Graham's Magazine was then the 
 highest literary publication of America. The Saturday 
 Courier was, if I mistake not, a weekly for family read- 
 ing, edited with rare ability. Godey' s Lady's Book stood 
 almost, if not quite, alone in the land as a lady's magazine, 
 and possessed at that time an unquestionably high literary 
 character. John C. Neal, Edgar A. Poe and other celeb- 
 rities in the world of authors made Philadelphia their 
 headquarters, and New York was then the provincial 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 17 
 
 city instead of the metropolis, as far as literature was 
 concerned. There were doubtless other men and other 
 publications, but the times date back beyond my remem- 
 brance. Here seemed a field opened to Mr. Arthur, and 
 here he settled permanently and found appreciation and 
 moderate pecuniary success. He wrote much — sketches, 
 magazine articles, juvenile stories and long tales which 
 were published in book form. He issued books with 
 surprising rapidity. I cannot venture to give a list of 
 the volumes he has written. I doubt if he can remember 
 them all himself. Most of them are still in the market, 
 commanding a slow yet steady sale. A few only are out 
 of print. 
 
 In 1845, or perhaps a year or two later — I cannot be 
 accurate about dates — Mr. Arthur ventured upon the 
 publication of a monthly periodical which he called 
 Arthur's Ladies' Magazine. It took a position midway 
 between the fashion magazine and the purely literary 
 one, and was really of superior merit. Its articles were 
 excellent and high-toned, and it numbered among its 
 contributors some of the best writers of the country. 
 
 Though this magazine attained a fair circulation, it 
 did not reach the point its publisher had hoped for, so 
 in the course of two or three years he abandoned it. In 
 1850 or 1851 he began the publication of a weekly, call- 
 ing it Arthur's Some Gazette. This paper became a great 
 favorite, and there are many who yet remember it as among 
 the best family papers they ever received. 
 
 In 1853, for some reason, it was deemed advisable to 
 
 change its form to a monthly, so that in that year it 
 
 assumed its present shape, under the name of Arthur's 
 
 Home Magazine, which form and name it has retained 
 
 2« B 
 
18 21 S, ARTHUR. 
 
 ever since until the beginning of the present year, when 
 the word "Illustrated" was added, making it Arthur's 
 Illustrated Home ^fagazine, and its character was 
 changed from that of a lady's fashion to a family lite- 
 rary magazine. 
 
 In 1867, Mr. Arthur started the publication of the 
 Children's Hour, a beautiful illustrated child's magazine 
 which appealed at once to the public taste and has ever 
 remained a favorite. The management of this little 
 periodical has always been to him a labor of love. He 
 has a peculiar talent for juvenile writing, and few can 
 excel him in it. In writing for children he aims to con- 
 vey the highest lessons of morality, the purest and lof- 
 tiest sentiments, to inculcate charity and kindliness of 
 feelings, and to give instruction in practical subjects in 
 language that shall be at once simple and easily com- 
 prehended. In fine, he would surround childhood with a 
 perfect atmosphere of purity, love and wisdom ; and those 
 writers who in any way fall short of his standard of ex- 
 cellence can never hope to find their artrcles accepted for 
 his little magazine. Many of his juvenile stories have 
 been gathered into books. Others are still scattered. 
 One of the prettiest of his books for boys and girls is 
 that entitled "The Wonderful Story of Gentle Hand, 
 and other Stories," containing the choicest of his stories 
 for children ; the book is beautifully illustrated. 
 
 In 1869, Mr. Arthur, in conjunction with his sons, 
 began to publish a little eclectic monthly which they 
 called Once a Month. It was a gem of a magazine, 
 taking the very cream of foreign publications, with 
 enough original matter to give it a character of its own. 
 It ought to have succeeded, but it did not. 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 3 9 
 
 In 1870, immediately upon the suspension of Once a 
 Month, he issued a monthly illustrated family paper 
 called The Workingman, intended, as its name indi- 
 cated, to furnish good reading for mechanics and their 
 families, and to take the place, in a measure, of the sen- 
 sational newspapers which formed their weekly literary 
 aliment. After continuing its publication for two years 
 with tolerable success, he concluded that his labors were 
 too much divided between his three publications, and 
 that if they were expended on two only it would be 
 better both for himself and his publications. So he dis- 
 posed of The Workingman, and has since given his 
 thought and efforts to the Home Magazine and Chil- 
 dren's Hour, and to the writing of certain books which 
 are adding still greater lustre to his name. 
 
 Having given thus a brief ^outline of the personal his- 
 tory of the man, it will not be amiss to speak directly of 
 his works. 
 
 So many years ago that the writer of this article can- 
 not remember them all, T. S. Arthur began his literary 
 career. His first productions — productions which fore- 
 shadowed the possibilities of his genius — were lively, al- 
 most sensational, in character, and dealt with the actual 
 life around him in a way that led some contemporary 
 critics to call him the "Dickens of America" and pre- 
 dict for him a wonderful future. 
 
 For some inexplicable' reason — at least, if there is any 
 explanation, the writer of this has failed to learn it, and 
 can only vaguely surmise what it may be — Mr. Arthur 
 suddenly changed his style, and from being the animated, 
 semi-sensational writer, settled down into the staid author 
 of mild moral fiction, which latter has finally built up his 
 
20 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 reputation, and made his name a household word through 
 the length and breadth of the country. 
 
 Men of literary pretensions take a certain pride in 
 sneering at Mr. Arthur's writings, and declaring that 
 they never read them. Nevertheless, T. S. Arthur has 
 been a power in the country. He has appealed directly 
 to the people, and has stood in no need of the services of 
 literary middlemen. Whatever the order of merit of his 
 writings, he has done more for American literature than 
 any one other person, and his name will be remembered 
 and loved when those of his critics will be forgotten, to- 
 gether with their productions. 
 
 I doubt if there is another man in the country who 
 has done such a vast, such a measureless amount of good 
 with the pen. His stories, spite their literary deficiencies, 
 have appealed directly to the heart. They have been 
 good seed sown, and the harvest has been abundant. 
 Nevertheless, it must be confessed that they do not come 
 up to a high standard of artistic excellence. I think their 
 fault is easily detected. It is a fault — if fault it is when 
 it is deliberately committed at the command of the author's 
 best judgment — which runs through everything, style, 
 plots, incidents, names and all. It is a lack of indi- 
 viduality. As I have already said, I judge this to be in- 
 tentional. To reach the largest class of readers, he has 
 felt that he should generalize as much as possible in 
 characters and in subjects. His style of writing is the 
 perfection of carefully correct and finished English, 
 polished and rounded out of all its angles, and every 
 trace of individuality eliminated from it. 
 
 So with his stories. He generalizes in his plots. They 
 are always what may happen to any individual, and what 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 21 
 
 are constantly happening to most. He avoids rather than 
 seeks originality. I am not carping. There may be 
 wisdom in this — at least, Mr. Arthur has himself thus 
 decided. As a producer of moral literature for the mil- 
 lion, he is more likely to be thus successful than though 
 he originated and individualized more. 
 
 Dickens gave us Pickwicks, Pecksniffs, Quilps, Mark 
 Tapleys, Micawbers and Mr. and Mrs. Boffins, all types 
 of character more or less common perhaps in the world, 
 but still of individualized and exceptional types. Arthur 
 brings to our notice Browns, Grahams, Balys, Grants 
 and Armstrongs — that is to say, commonplace, every-day 
 people, like our neighbors and ourselves. And these 
 people are introduced to us, not in the grand crises of 
 their lives, but busy in their daily affairs. It is for the 
 reason, perhaps, that there are no intricacies of plot the 
 unraveling of which must be watched, no riddles of cha- 
 racter to be divined — for the reason that the story comes 
 directly down to the common and the trivial — that each 
 reader recognizes himself or herself, and accepts the les- 
 son that is inculcated. 
 
 Far be it from me to say that T. S. Arthur has made a 
 mistake in thus devoting his literary gifts. He might, 
 perhaps, have written in another strain, and pleased a 
 more critical audience, but would the harvest of his en- 
 deavors have been so broad and so full ? 
 
 "I never had any literary ambition," says Mr. Arthur 
 himself, in writing to a friend. " I am a literary man 
 only through the force of circumstances. I have tried 
 hard to make my way in life in pursuits outside of litera- 
 ture, but every effort to do so has proved a failure and a 
 loss ; and I have been driven back to my pen-work again, 
 
22 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 to find in that my surest source of income and my most 
 peaceful and tranquillizing employment." 
 
 Speaking of his manner of writing, he goes on to say : 
 " I do not construct a story. My plots and characters 
 are not pre-arranged and individualized. I take one or 
 two characters at some point in life, with the end but 
 dimly foreshadowed — often not seen at all — and move 
 forward with them. After that all is simple development 
 or simple living — nothing coming otit just as it seems to 
 promise at any single point in the story, but everything is 
 subject to unlooked-for modifications and new relations, 
 as though an intelligence more far-seeing than my own 
 were directing the issues of the lives I am portraying. 
 New characters suddenly present themselves and take 
 their places in the story, and become often the strongest 
 and most influential. Frequently I do not see the out- 
 come of my stories until near the close ; but rarely, if 
 ever, am I disappointed in that outcome. Writing thus, 
 I am always surprised at their unity wdien completed. 
 
 " Whatever may be the appearance, I am no literary 
 mechanic. I never work to a plan. My work^if I may 
 use the word work — is always a growth. This being so, I 
 have no abiding sense of skill. I never feel as if I had 
 any power with my pen — never feel as if I could write 
 anything. I often begin in weakness, forcing myself to 
 take up my pen, while some dim ideal floats in my mind. 
 To fix this and bring it down into living action seems an 
 almost impossible thing. But as soon as I fix and local- 
 ize something — touch human life in its outward action 
 somewhere — a sense of power is felt, and I seem to be- 
 come the subject of new influences, and am often as much 
 surprised at the result as any reader can possibly be." 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 23 
 
 Mr. Arthur's choice of temperance themes has not, as 
 I have already intimated, arisen from any experience in 
 his own person of the evils of intemperance, spite of 
 rumors to that effect. I heard of one man who went so 
 far as to say that he "had drank with Mr. Arthur many 
 a time in liquor-saloons" — a statement which is relished 
 exceedingly as a joke among his friends, who know that 
 the information concerning bar-rooms which he puts in 
 his stories is obtained at second hand. In early youth he 
 was much exposed to temptation, but was happily re- 
 moved from its enticements before an appetite was formed. 
 He was an eye- and ear-witness of some of the first results 
 of that temperance movement known as Washingtonian- 
 ism, and gave it the best efforts of his pen. He was at 
 the time associate editor of The Merchant, a daily paper 
 started in Baltimore by Duff Green to advocate the 
 election of General Harrison to the Presidency of the 
 United States, and was called on to be present at one of 
 the first of the Washington experience meetings. He 
 made a report in The Merchant, which was copied all 
 over the United States, and gave to the public its first 
 knowledge of this remarkable movement. His "Six 
 Nights with the Washingtonians" was written and pub- 
 lished soon afterward. 
 
 Twenty years ago, more or less, • T. S. Arthur wrote 
 " Ten Nights in a Bar-Room." It was a work of consid- 
 erable power, although displaying much of the distinctive 
 — or shall I say indistinctive ? — characteristics of its au- 
 thor. Nevertheless, it was a work that took a hold upon 
 the common mind. The book had an immense sale. It 
 was dramatized, and for years delighted, at intervals, not 
 cnly the play-going public, but a still larger class of peo- 
 
24 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 pie who condemn theatres and plays in general, but who 
 saw no harm in going to witness T. S. Arthur's great 
 moral, temperance drama. I think the temperance cause 
 is greatly indebted to Mr. Arthur for this book, to say 
 nothing of his many short temperance stories. There is 
 still a steady sale of this work, and of course its influence 
 is still felt. 
 
 Four years ago I heard a publisher ask Mr. Arthur if 
 he could not write a sequel, or at least a companion, to 
 " Ten Nights in a Bar-Room." Mr. Arthur shook his 
 head sadly, and replied that his days of writing were 
 nearly past, that he felt his life-work was almost finished, 
 and that he no longer possessed the strength and vigor 
 either of mind or body necessary to sustain him in a pro- 
 longed mental effort. He evidently felt that he had already 
 done his best, and he did not wish to produce a work the 
 result of waning powers. He still continued to write 
 short stories, and made occasional contributions of more 
 or less length to the literature of his especial Church. 
 
 Whether he was finally over-persuaded by a publisher, 
 or whether he was seized with the impulse himself, I can- 
 not say. At all events, in 1872 he wrote and published 
 "Three Years in a Man-Trap," a sensational temperance 
 . novel, which was in itself a convincing proof of the mis- 
 take he had been laboring under about his abilities. It 
 rose in point of literary excellence far above anything he 
 had produced before, and left " Ten Nights in a Bar- 
 Room " so far behind it that there was simply no compar- 
 ison between the two. That a man who had never even 
 spent ten nights within a bar-room precincts, who was, 
 perhaps, as guiltless of all bar-room ways as are most 
 women — a man who once would not go to be registered 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 25 
 
 previous to voting because the registry-office of his district 
 was in the back apartment of a saloon — should be able 
 to describe such localities, their keepers, their visitors and 
 their belongings so accurately, should be posted in all the 
 tricks of the trade, was little short of wonderful. 
 
 The book sold. It could not help selling. It dealt 
 with facts and figures, and it told plain, ugly but undeni- 
 able truths. It made certain officials somewhat uneasy 
 in their shoes, and I believe there are less bar-rooms to- 
 day in consequence. 
 
 Then again Mr. Arthur laid down his pen, feeling that 
 he had reached his highest altitude, and that this must be 
 his last as well as his greatest work. But there were 
 others who put a more correct estimate on his capabilities 
 than he himself. They urged him to write again; I 
 might almost say they forced him to write in opposition to 
 the decision of his own judgment. He reluctantly yielded 
 to their persuasions, and wrote another novel — wrote it 
 with hesitation and misgiving, and finished it despondent 
 in heart, and possibly somewhat out of patience with those 
 under whose pressure he had yielded. 
 
 I have had the pleasure of examining the proof-sheets 
 of T. S. Arthur's forthcoming work. I read the pages first 
 with interest, and then with ever-increasing astonishment. 
 A style like his, so long cultivated and so long persevered 
 in, is not readily laid aside ; so whilst he deals with ordi- 
 nary characters and events, he is his usual self. But 
 when he once rises out of that, we get a glimpse of what 
 the man might have been as a writer if he had not so 
 many years ago repressed his genius and bent himself to 
 the task of writing of and for mediocrity. 
 
 T. S. Arthur as a sensational writer ! There is some- 
 3 
 
26 T. S. ABTHUB. 
 
 thing grotesque in the idea. Yet one who reads this book 
 will be forced to admit that in sensational literature he 
 finds his true sphere, and writes with wonderful force and 
 effect. Yet he does not, nor do I think it would have 
 been possible for the man to, write an ordinary sensational 
 story of the third-rate newspaper type. All his instincts 
 are against such authorship. 
 
 His new story is called " Cast Adrift," and belongs to 
 that category of novels which some writer has rather flip- 
 pantly designated as "Novels with a Purpose." Yet his 
 purpose — capitalizing the ^) or not, as you please — stand- 
 ing out prominently from first to last, always present as 
 the spirit of every incident, does not, as is too apt to be 
 the case in this class of novels, overbalance the interest. 
 
 He has drawn- startling pictures of life as it exists in 
 the hearts of our great cities — the wretched life of pover- 
 ty, ignorance, misery and crime which is led by thousands 
 of human beings among so-called Christian people. How 
 he who has never caught more than a glimpse of this life, 
 nor dwelt upon its outskirts, as many in cities are forced 
 to do, can have comprehended it in all its fullness, have 
 perceived all its ramifications, its causes and its effects, 
 and have sketched with equal fidelity its promoters and 
 its victims, seems incomprehensible. Therein is shown 
 the genius of the novelist. It would seem as though half 
 a lifetime spent in the midst of these people would scarcely 
 suffice for such a thorough comprehension of all the sub- 
 jects of which he treats. Yet it is not the result of fancy 
 — one is sure of that. Some of the characters of his book 
 are drawn from life, and will no doubt be recognized. One 
 of them I knew immediately, having often seen him in 
 the pursuit of his occupation of begging. 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 27 
 
 Albeit Mr. Arthur is possessed of a kindly and sympa- 
 thizing heart and generous impulses, he strips street-beg- 
 ging of all its false guises and holds it up to view in its 
 naked ugliness, showing that those who encourage it are 
 encouraging idleness, deceit and debauchery. He has 
 robbed the little Italian street-musicians of all pleasant 
 romance, and shown them to be no more and no less than 
 white slaves, bought and sold as literally as were the ne- 
 groes in the South, and being trained up in a school of 
 vice and crime. He has described at tolerable length the 
 lottery-policy shops which flourish so plentifully in some 
 quarters of our cities — institutions the existence of which 
 is not known to one person out of ten outside these quar- 
 ters — and which wax fat on the pecuniary and moral 
 ruin of thousands upon thousands of victims. In describ- 
 ing them he confesses his pen has hesitated, and told less 
 than the truth ; but what he tells us is fearful enough, 
 without our desiring to read more. Th^e are traps set 
 far more thickly than one would dream of to catch the 
 unwary, and drag them down by more means than one to 
 the very depths of hell. He has described in the most 
 vivid of colors, yet with delicate strokes of his pen, how 
 unprotected innocence is robbed and degraded, and 
 brought to death, or worse than death, by wily wretches 
 who are constantly on the lookout for victims. In chap- 
 ter eight of his book he gives an incident of this character 
 too horrible for belief if we were not assured it is frequent- 
 ly duplicated in real life. The conclusion of this chap- 
 ter is grand. It is the strongest, the best page in the 
 whole book. It -is not the trick of the novel-writer for 
 sensation, producing no more effect upon the hearts of his 
 readers than does the mimic thunder of the stage upon the 
 
28 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 nerves of the auditors. It is an earnest, stirring appeal 
 of one who has gone down in comprehension into the 
 lower depths of society, and seen the ghastly misery and 
 hellish wickedness therein, to the Christian world to 
 arouse to thought and action in the matter. Let- me 
 quote this page. It cannot be printed or read too often : 
 
 "The whole nation gives a shudder of fear at the 
 announcement of an Indian massacre and outrage. But 
 in all our large cities are savages more cruel and brutal 
 in their instincts than the Comanches, and they torture 
 and outrage and massacre a hundred poor victims for 
 every one that is exposed to Indian brutality, and there 
 comes no succor. Is it from ignorance of the fact ? No, 
 no, no! There is not a judge on the bench, nor a lawyer 
 at the bar, nor a legislator at the State capital, nor a 
 mayor or police-officer, nor a minister who preaches the 
 gospel of Christ, who came to seek and to save, not an 
 intelligent citizen, but knows of all this. 
 
 " What then ? Who is responsible? The whole nation 
 arouses itself at news of an Indian assault upon some de- 
 fenceless frontier settlement, and the general government 
 sends troops to succor and to punish. But who takes 
 note of the worse than Indian massacres going on daily 
 and nightly in the heart of our great cities ? Who hunts 
 down and punishes the human wolves in our midst whose 
 mouths are red with the blood of innocence ? Their deeds 
 of cruelty outnumber every year a hundred — nay, a thou- 
 sand — fold the deeds of our red savages. Their haunts 
 are known, and their work is known. They lie in wait 
 for the unwary, they gather in the price" of human souls, 
 none hindering, at our very church doors. Is no one 
 responsible for all this? Is there no help? Is evil 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 29 
 
 stronger than good, hell stronger than heaven ? Have 
 the churches nothing to do in this matter? Christ came 
 to seek and to save that which was lost — came to the low- 
 liest, the poorest and the vilest, to those over whom devils 
 had gained power, and cast out the devils. Are those 
 who call themselves by his name diligent in the work to 
 which he put his blessed hands? Millions of dollars go 
 yearly into magnificent churches, but how little to the 
 work of saving and succoring the weak, the helpless, the 
 betrayed, the outcast and the dying, who lie uncared for 
 at the mercy of human fiends, and often so near to the 
 temples of God that their agonized appeals for help are 
 drowned by the organ and choir." 
 
 Some of the characters, I have already said, and some 
 of the localities, are real and recognizable. Others are 
 purely fictitious, yet all are true to the life. Charles 
 Dickens has not portrayed human nature more faithfully 
 than has T. S. Arthur in this book. There is one differ- 
 ence, however, between Dickens and Arthur. The former 
 always strove to keep in his readers' minds the universal 
 brotherhood of man, and to unite us to the lowest by some 
 chord of human sympathy. In the latter we see little 
 of this. Arthur cannot, from his very nature, look upon 
 these people with other than feelings of the utmost ab- 
 horrence. He seems almost to forget that they are hu- 
 man, and to ignore the possibility that there may still be 
 a germ of good within them. He cannot sympathize with 
 them in any way, and he does not ask his readers to do 
 so. He has brought a reluctant pen to a description of 
 this life and these people, and he has doubtless been 
 traveling through the valley of the shadow of death, op- 
 pressed and terror-stricken, with ghastly forms looming 
 3* 
 
30 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 up out of his mental gloom while he has written. This 
 feeling of horror and wretchedness, this abhorrence of 
 vice and sin, he makes his readers share with him ; and 
 it may be a more effectual way to arouse people to a sense 
 of duty in the extermination of vice than Dickens' hu- 
 manitarian style, that lulled the energies at the same 
 time it awoke the sympathies and diverted the imagi- 
 nation. I think, though, the men who are to descend 
 into this pit of vileness and cleanse it — that is, the mis- 
 sionaries to these degraded and sin-burdened people — 
 will need to have a different feeling, a greater faith in 
 humanity as a whole, if they would rescue and save many 
 of the dwellers therein. 
 
 I will not sketch the plot of this book, as that would 
 be unfair to its future reader. Its plot is perhaps the 
 least important part of it, although it is an interesting 
 and a sensational one. If the book has a flaw, it is that 
 the character of Mrs. Dinneford is overdrawn — that it 
 seems impossible for a woman to be so unwomanly, so un- 
 motherly, so cruel and so relentless, as she is described. 
 Yet I am assured that such things have been, and that 
 even in this character the author has not transcended the 
 limits of actuality. 
 
 "Cast Adrift" is a grand, a noble book. I need not 
 commend it to the friends and admirers of Mr. Arthur's 
 writings. But those who have heretofore sneered at 
 them, and boasted that they never read them, should sus- 
 pend their judgment on this until they have placed them- 
 selves in a position to give it intelligent criticism. 
 
 I doubt if there is another American writer who has 
 produced so much with his pen as T. S. Arthur. His 
 books are largely published in England, and his name is 
 
HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 31 
 
 familiar wherever the English language is spoken. Now 
 in advanced years, with health somewhat enfeebled, but 
 with mind apparently as vigorous and clear as ever, he is 
 reaping the harvest which all his life long he has been 
 sowing — a harvest rich and precious. Almost daily come 
 to him, from all quarters of the country, letters of kindly 
 acknowledgment and gratitude for the good his produc- 
 tions have done their writers. Now it is a poor woman 
 beaten down and discouraged in the battle of life to 
 whom some lesson or some word of comfort has come, 
 teaching and uplifting in time of need. Then it is a man 
 saved from a career of sin leading headlong to ruin by 
 a timely admonition contained in one of his tales. Some- 
 times the service acknowledged is comparatively slight; 
 again the writer says the whole course of a life has been 
 changed in consequence. Mr. Arthur is deeply touched 
 by these letters, yet he accepts them and their words of 
 thanks with a humility beautiful to see. 
 
 Everybody looks upon him as a personal friend, and, 
 in truth, his time is sorely taxed by calls upon him for 
 assistance and counsel. Literary aspirants hope to receive 
 encouragement, or at least just criticism, from him ; the 
 friendless and needy turn to him for pecuniary aid. He 
 gives out of the abundance of his heart, which can never 
 become bankrupt, words of counsel and encouragement. 
 But Mr. Arthur is not rich ; literary men who have no 
 other resources seldom are. 
 
 The poor and unfortunate have always found him and 
 his excellent wife their true friends, and he has never been 
 at a loss for objects in his immediate vicinity upon which 
 to display his inherent benevolence. It would, moreover, 
 take the income of a millionaire to respond to all the calls 
 
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 32 T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
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 upon his charity which are made to him through the mails. 
 Sometimes a poor girl writes, wanting a few hundred dol- 
 lars a year with which to educate herself, the money to be 
 repaid in writing for his magazines, the samples of writing 
 sent being dear if valued at that many mills ; perhaps it 
 is a needy congregation, who beg for "a few hundred 
 dollars, which he would never miss from his ample 
 means," with which to build them a church. Though it 
 hurts him in a way that none save those of an equally con- 
 siderate and generous nature can comprehend to refuse 
 these appeals or leave them unanswered, he is forced, as a 
 matter of course, to do so. These are the shadows of his 
 life, which perhaps render all the brighter by contrast those 
 opportunities where he can by any effort of his brighten 
 the lives of his fellow-beings, and help to elevate them to 
 a purer and happier altitude. 
 
 Some one has said, and I believe said truly, that Mr. 
 Arthur never wrote a sentence the publication of which 
 he need regret. And it may be added that the world is 
 the better for his having lived. Of how many men and 
 women, famous or otherwise, can this be said ? 
 
I^iy 
 
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