IN MEMORY OF 
 
 EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 
 
 A MEETING 
 
 Hk.D AT 
 
 CARNEGIE LYCEUM, NEW YORK 
 
 ON THE AFTERNOON OF 
 JANUARY 13, 1909 
 
cJuu^ 
 
IN MEMORY OF 
 
 t\ 
 
 EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 
 
 A MEETING 
 
 HELD AT 
 
 CARNEGIE LYCEUM, NEW YORK 
 
 ON THE AFTERNOON OF 
 JANUARY 13, 1909 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS 
 
 1909 
 
f 5 ?.'T^ 
 .It 
 
 Ube Committee 
 
 Century Association : 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder 
 Thomas A. Janvier 
 
 Nerv England Society : 
 
 Rev. Dr. William R. Richards 
 Dr. Edward L. Partridge 
 
 Authors'' Club: 
 
 George Cary Eggleston 
 Duffield Osborne 
 
 National Institute of Arts and Letters: 
 Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke 
 Hamilton W. Mabie 
 
 Stock Exchange : 
 
 George W. Ely 
 
 4 OCl i«tj 
 
4> 
 
 0" 
 
 •^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 STEDMAN MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 CARNEGIE LYCEUM, NEW YORK 
 JANUARY 13, 1909, AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON 
 
 ADDRESS BY THE CHAIRMAN, MR. GILDER 
 
 The Chairman: 
 
 At an hour of pause in the stress of a tumultuous time and 
 city we have come together to celebrate the life of a poet and to 
 keep his memory green. It was a year ago that Edmund Clar- 
 
 ^* ence Stedman passed, in full strength, as he had wished, beyond 
 
 j^ the veil. 
 
 v^ Though his song and service were for the nation and the 
 
 ^ English tongue, he was our poet in a close and peculiar sense. 
 
 Though he sang of New England and of the Carib sea, and of 
 that no-man's-land of the poet which is the land of all men and 
 of all times, he chanted ballads and lyrics of our own town ; he 
 echoed its spirit, in the early and the later day ; he put into 
 forms of poetic art its love of heroes and love of country — in 
 war time and in times of peace. 
 
 The great world knew the singer and the scholar. We, his 
 neighbors and familiars, knew the unflagging worker; the man 
 of letters ever ready to help those of his craft who, even without 
 warrant, claimed his sympathy and time ; and ever ready to toil 
 early and late for the good of his craft at large. We knew the 
 devoted friend, the manly heart that took bravely the shocks of 
 fate. 
 
 He filled with force and wit many parts, but his membership 
 of the mystic brotherhood of bards — it is this that makes him 
 
dearest and ranks him highest. Because his voice was as the 
 voice of the sweet-voiced pipe, and again as the voice of the 
 trumpet, it is our duty to keep him in pubhc remembrance, and 
 honor, and regard. 
 
 By this meeting to-day we say to one another and to the 
 world : here is one who spoke wisely and nobly of the poetic art ; 
 here is one whose virile lyrics and stirring ballads are ever to be 
 cherished in the treasury of our New World song. 
 
 In this year of Lincoln's centennial, may it not be said that if 
 for nothing else he will be remembered for his poems to and 
 about Lincoln, and, having in mind one of his most nearly per- 
 fect poems, may we not say that, haply, by "The Hand of Lin- 
 coln" he will be led into enduring fame. Listen, again, to its 
 noble close: 
 
 "Lo, as I gaze, the statured man, 
 
 Built up from yon large hand, appears: 
 A type that Nature wills to plan 
 But once in all a people's years. 
 
 "What better than this voiceless cast 
 To tell of such a one as he. 
 Since through its living semblance passed 
 The thought that bade a race be free !" 
 
 We are here to-day not merely to mourn for one of whom, 
 though it seemed to us that he died untimely, it can yet be said : 
 
 His life was generous as his life was long; 
 Full to the brim of friendship and of song. 
 
 POEM BY MR. MORRIS 
 
 The Chairman: 
 
 Mr. Harrison S. Morris of Philadelphia, the poet, writes to 
 Miss Laura Stedman : 
 
 [4] 
 
"I hope the Memorial Meeting will bring back to the friends 
 of your grandfather some sense of the noble things he did in 
 poetry and prose, and thus stimulate, thro' them, a large public 
 tribute to his enduring talents. He was one of my most vener- 
 ated friends. He did me loving and beautiful service and I have 
 honor forever in the light from his indulgent associations." 
 
 He sends this sonnet wliich I shall read : 
 
 Here may we lay our garlands on your hearse ; 
 Here may we hail you lofty, loved, revered ; 
 Here, with the leaves of grief, forever grand. 
 Bound on our brows, make dirges of our verse. 
 
 Gone is the voice we knew of clear converse. 
 Gone is the vision, memory unsphered. 
 Semblance and vestment, all that was endeared 
 Sunk in the ashes of the universe. 
 
 Yet like the white bud of the fragile Spring, 
 Up from the embers of Eternity, 
 Wind blown but steadfast— lo ! a little thing. 
 
 Friendship— the seed you sowed unthinkingly. 
 Here in the hand of Death, o'ershadowing. 
 Long lies, and friendship, evermore to be. 
 
 POEM BY ARTHUR STEDMAN 
 
 The Chairman: 
 
 Mr. Stedman's son, Arthur, who survived his father but a 
 Httle while, wrote of him : 
 
 Sicilian Muses ! Say that Pan is dead. 
 
 Who wandered where the lofty towers arise 
 That mark the contest for a lesser prize. 
 The while he wore the laurels on his head. 
 
 Far from Sicilian Arethuse he fled. 
 
 Yet oft returned and viewed with loving eyes 
 The spring perennial that all drouth defies. 
 From sacred courses by Apollo fed. 
 L53 
 
Say that a nymph and fawn, erstwhile so gay, 
 Who loved to dance the while he played or sung — 
 And gathered reeds his pan-pipes to prepare — 
 
 Now through the oaks make this their plaintive lay ; 
 Sadly they walk, with heads and hands down hung, 
 And breathe their sorrow to the silent air. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. WINTER 
 
 The Chairman: 
 
 Mr. Franklin H. Sargent will read to you a letter from one 
 of Mr. Stedman's oldest friends, Mr. William Winter, who is 
 unable to be present : 
 
 Mr. Sargent: 
 
 Mr. Gilder has just handed to me this letter which I am very 
 glad to have the honor of reading, as one of the younger gener- 
 ation who profited greatly by Mr. Stedman's advice and help. 
 
 "My Dear Mr. Gilder: 
 
 "It is with deep regret that I find myself compelled to forego 
 the privilege, which has been kindly offered to me, of testifying, 
 by my presence and speech, to the respect and affection with 
 which I cherish the memory of Stedman. 
 
 "He and I met and became friends in youth, and our friend- 
 ship continued till the end of his days ; nor can I believe that 
 even death has broken it. He seems near to me at all times, 
 and his example is a constant encouragement and source of 
 strength. 
 
 "There are voices, far more eloquent than mine, to proclaim 
 the nobility of his character, the power and poise of his intel- 
 lect, the integrity of his conduct, the amplitude of his learning, 
 and the charm of a genius which touched alike the chords of 
 humor and pathos and possessed an equal control of both. 
 
"Your auditors will rejoice in the assurance, — though 
 they will not need it, — that, throughout a various and 
 laborious career, of more than threescore years and ten, 
 he was faithful to every duty ; that he bore prosperity 
 with meekness ; that he met adversity with an undaunted 
 and unconquerable spirit ; that his devotion to good works never 
 ceased nor faltered; that he stretched forth the hand of kind- 
 ness toward struggling talent wherever it appeared; that 
 whether in the tumult of business or the serenity of art he pre- 
 served a perfect self-possession and diffused a beneficent influ- 
 ence ; and that his life was gentle and beautiful. 
 
 "If I were speaking I should feel constrained to place a par- 
 ticular emphasis upon his firm, tranquil maintenance, amid all 
 the hardships, distractions, and discouragements of the bleak 
 and stormy period through which, side by side, we passed to- 
 gether, of a passionate faith in the poetic art, and of a fine, 
 clear, exalted spirit, knowing itself ordained to the ministration 
 of beauty, and willing to make any and every sacrifice in the 
 fulfilment of its sacred mission. 
 
 "The time in which he entered on the vocation of Literature 
 was savagely unpropitious. The forces surrounding the whole 
 of his progress were those of a cruel materialism, — forces which 
 are somewhat less obstructive now, but which are still regnant 
 and still potentially pernicious. They could not deject his 
 mind nor abate his ardor. He steadfastly adhered to the 
 stately, lovely, ancient traditions of English poetry, — to the 
 standard set by such great and various authors as Dryden and 
 Gray, Goldsmith and Campbell, Shelley and Keats, — and he fed 
 the flame that never can be quenched, on the altar of that 
 divine art. 
 
 "Something I would have added, as to the place and duty of 
 the man of letters, — a place that he nobly filled; a duty that 
 he nobly performed. Something else, I might have said of the 
 aff^ection that subsisted between him and me, and of the words 
 of encouragement that we often spoke to one another: but let 
 these lines of my own suffice to denote the truth that was known 
 to him, and the feeling that I would gladly have uttered had I 
 been able to join in your memorial service: 
 
 [73 
 
Honor's plaudit. Friendship's vow 
 Did not coldly wait till now: 
 
 All my love could do to cheer 
 Warmed his heart when he was here. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 William Winter." 
 
 A SONG OF STEDMAN'S SUNG BY MR. BISPHAM 
 
 The Chairman: 
 
 Mr. David Bispham has generously expressed a desire to 
 take part in this gathering. It has been somewhat difficult to 
 select from the many songs of Mr. Stedman which have been 
 set to music something fitting the occasion. He will sing more 
 than one. The first will be "Creole Lover's Song," which 
 twenty-five years ago was so widel}' known. We shall be de- 
 lighted to hear it again from the lips of so great an artist. The 
 setting, like that of the other song Mr. Bispham will sing, is by 
 Dudley Buck. 
 
 Mr. David Bispham; song: 
 
 CREOLE LOVER'S SONG 
 
 "Night wind, whispering wind. 
 
 Wind of the Carib sea ! 
 The palms and the still lagoon 
 Long for thy coming soon; 
 But first my lady find: 
 Hasten, nor look behind ! 
 
 To-night Love's herald be. 
 
 "The feathery bamboo moves. 
 
 The dewy plantains weep ; 
 From the jasmine thickets bear 
 The scents that are swooning there. 
 And steal from the orange groves 
 The breath of a thousand loves 
 
 To waft her ere she sleep. 
 
"And the lone bird's tender song 
 That rings from the ceiba tree. 
 The firefly's light, and the glow 
 Of the moonlit waters low, — 
 All things that to night belong 
 And can do my love no wrong 
 Bear her this hour for me. 
 
 "Speed thee, wind of the deep. 
 
 For the cyclone comes in wrath ! 
 The distant forests moan; 
 Thou hast but an hour thine own, — 
 An hour thy tryst to keep. 
 Ere the hounds of tempest leap 
 And follow upon thy path. 
 
 "Whisperer, tarry a space ! 
 
 She waits for thee in the night; 
 She leans from the casement there 
 With the star-blooms in her hair. 
 And a shadow falls like lace 
 From the fern-tree over her face, 
 
 And over her mantle white. 
 
 "Spirit of air and fire. 
 
 To-nigh b my herald be ! 
 Tell her I love her well. 
 And all that I bid thee, tell. 
 And fold her ever nigher 
 With the strength of my soul's desire. 
 
 Wind of the Carib sea." 
 
 [19: 
 
ADDRESS BY MR. MABIE 
 
 The Chairman: 
 
 We shall now have the pleasure of hearing Mr. Hamilton 
 Wright Mabie on Stedman as a Man of Letters. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton Wright Mabie: 
 
 Mr. Stedman belongs with those who have not only enriched 
 literature with work of quality and substance, but who have rep- 
 resented it in its public relations. There have been delicate and 
 sensitive craftsmen possessed of the magic that evidences with- 
 out explaining itself; and there have been other craftsmen who 
 have made the art of writing the subject of minute study, and 
 the function of literature a matter of definition and exposition. 
 To this class belong Emerson, Lowell, Stedman among others ; 
 writers who have given us joy in the play of the creative imag- 
 ination, and revealed the place and power of literature as an 
 expression of the human spirit. The spiritual service of the 
 Man of Letters who has the sense of the large relations of 
 his profession and is its ambassador, Stedman rendered with 
 rare intelligence and devotion and with extraordinary complete- 
 ness. It was, indeed, a vital part of his achievement ; not so 
 much a function as an inevitable expression of his view of life 
 and art. A glance at his work from this point of view will bring 
 out his manifold relations as Man of Letters to his time ; and, 
 at the same time, his vitality, his vivid sense of life in action, 
 his gift for celebrating the heroism that in a swiftly kindled fire 
 of emotion reveals the kinship of men in the exigencies of life. 
 Out of this sense of concrete relations his truest songs rose, and 
 in it his instinct for the public as well as the private service of 
 his art has had its root. 
 
 [10] 
 
He was a representative man in the municipal sense; a Man 
 of Letters who was a citizen, not a mere sojourner in the 
 metropolis. On the twenty-fifth day of February, fifty-seven 
 years ago, at a meeting in memory of James Fenimore Cooper, 
 arranged by a committee of which Washington Irving was 
 chairman, Webster presided and made a commonplace speech 
 with such majesty of bearing that the audience accepted the 
 manner for the matter and listened with rapt attention. But 
 it fell to the lot of William Cullen Bryant to make the occasion 
 memorable by an address admirable alike for its precision of 
 statement and for its nobility of diction. With that meeting, 
 the most important that had occurred in the literary history 
 of New York, its foremost men of letters were associated. 
 Cooper had tried his hand on an English subject in the con- 
 ventional way and had failed; he had taken an American back- 
 ground close at hand, an American type and an American story, 
 and had made one of those successes which are not only distinct 
 achievements but mark the divergence into fresh fields. One of 
 the earliest Americans to measure dispassionately the attain- 
 ments of the new against the accomplishments of the older 
 world, and, to tell the truth with perhaps some relish for its 
 bitterness, he paid the penalty of dealing frankly with provin- 
 cial standards and feelings. His popularity had gone, but his 
 fame was secure. 
 
 Irving, too, had felt the anger of a community which resented 
 the translation of its ancestral worship into a humorous mythol- 
 ogy ; but his genial sentiment and his distinction on both sides 
 the Atlantic had transformed the wrath of a provincial society 
 into pride in the possession of so famous a person. Urbanity, 
 the sign and seal of the man of the town, was the quality alike of 
 his nature and his work. There must be many present to-day who 
 can still hear the musical tones in which George William Curtis 
 brought back the once familiar figure of Irving in a few lightly 
 touched phrases : "Forty years ago, upon a pleasant afternoon, 
 you might have seen, tripping with elastic step along Broad- 
 way, in New York, a figure which even then would have been 
 called quaint. It was a man about sixty-six or sixty-seven years 
 old ; of a rather solid frame ; wearing a Talma, as a short cloak 
 
of the period was called, that hung from his shoulders ; and low 
 shoes, neatly tied, that were observable at a time when boots 
 were generally worn. The head was slightly inclined to one 
 side, the face was smoothly shaven, and the eyes twinkled with 
 kindly humor and shrewdness. There was a chirping, cheery, 
 old-world air in the whole appearance, an undeniable Dutch 
 aspect, which, in the streets of New Amsterdam, irresistibly re- 
 called Diedrich Knickerbocker." . . . This was Irving, "the 
 American of his time universally known." 
 
 Of a very different aspect and bearing was Bryant, whose 
 slight figure, alert step and beautiful Homeric head were 
 familiar on Broadway thirty-five years ago. There are other 
 names in the middle period, many others in the later period, 
 which would star this record if it aimed to do more than recall 
 the succession of men of gift and grace who have sustained the 
 literary tradition in the metropolis, and with whom, by virtue 
 of his gifts and representative character, Edmund Clarence 
 Stedman belongs. Like Cooper, Irving, and Bryant he stood 
 before the community as an exponent and representative of a 
 great profession. Like Bryant he was of New England descent ; 
 like Cooper and Bryant he bore the stamp of old New England 
 education ; like them, he felt a vivid interest in public affairs ; 
 in common with his three distinguished predecessors he shared 
 the sense of the responsibility for and pride in the dignity and 
 significance of literature as an individual achievement, and as 
 a social force and function. 
 
 Stedman was by instinct and temperament a man of the town, 
 and we commemorate him here to-day because his work was done 
 and his laurels were won here. If he sometimes sighed for the 
 ample margins about the pages of the Book of Life on which some 
 writers make their notes in the wide leisure of tranquil days, 
 he never ceased to love the stir of life, swift and of a passionate 
 energy, about him. He was never of those who decry the 
 metropolis because its hands are full; he was of those who 
 believe that some of the divinest visions come to men who 
 deal strongly with the realities. He was never far from the scene 
 of action, nor from the companionship of men of parts and 
 vigor. In the short-lived Bohemia which was localized in New 
 
 11^1 
 
York — gay with the ready humor of youth, but never without a 
 background of honest work — his was a brave and spirited fig- 
 ure; eager, assertive, full of jest, quick in retort, ready alike for 
 hot debate of the subtlest points of art or for the give and take 
 of that speech between equals which can be pungent without the 
 touch of malice. They were neither recluses nor Decadents, 
 the young and variously-gifted group who Hved in that fleeting 
 Bohemia; they were not without self-consciousness, but if they 
 expanded by interior impulsion, they did not escape sharp con- 
 tacts with cooling judgments; nor did they nurse a lonely 
 scholarship into that sense of solitary superiority which 
 measures its magnitude, not by the number and sensitiveness of 
 its relations, as science determines the rank of the living crea- 
 ture, but by the completeness of its detachment; and registers 
 its elevation by the fall of temperature. There was plenty of 
 warm blood, there were generous friendships and rivalries, loyal 
 companionships and sudden breaches of the peace, in a group 
 which included Stedman, Bayard Taylor, Aldrich, Stoddard, 
 Edwin Booth, Launt Thompson, William Winter, Fitz James 
 O'Brien, George Arnold, Henry Clapp, the "King of Bohemia," 
 a cynic with a kind heart and blithe spirit whom Mr. Greenslet 
 characterizes as "a hater of the brown-stone respectability of his 
 day" ; men who were, to recall Mr. Howell's happy phrase, "the 
 liveliest in prose and loveliest in verse at that day in New York." 
 Of that little company, eagerly struggling to keep life and 
 art in working relations, Stedman, Aldrich, Taylor, Stoddard, 
 O'Brien, and Winter passed from journalism to literature and 
 from literature to journalism with small regard for the later 
 conventions of specialization and in apparent unconsciousness 
 that there were any hard and fast lines between two fields which 
 become parts of one estate when a man of talent happens to be 
 in possession. Thompson made an honorable place for himself 
 in American sculpture; and Booth's rare genius for interpret- 
 ing the tune by the thought and the thought by the tune — to 
 recall Emerson — gave his reading of Shakespearian verse a 
 distinction which no other actor of his time commanded; while 
 his impersonations were invested with romantic charm, or with 
 the dignity of fate. 
 
 :i33 
 
The storm of war scattered them as it scattered the Httle 
 group in Charleston, in which Timrod and Hayne were touched 
 with the promise of coming fame. Stedman's eager interest 
 carried him to the front, and the report that he wrote the story 
 of a battle by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle filled with 
 gunpowder is one of those incidents that bring out the wild 
 hazards of war and the fine inattention to conditions that goes 
 with the concentration of a craftsman whose heart is in his 
 work. It was an episode — that two years' work as war corre- 
 spondent—but it was in the key of Stedman's steady courage 
 and of that gallantry of spirit which was to carry him, high- 
 minded and high-hearted, through those harder struggles in 
 which a man holds his own without the thrill of trumpets across 
 the field, or the vision of colors borne forward in glorious con- 
 tempt of defeat and death. 
 
 Like Bryant and Lowell and a host of other men of distinc- 
 tion in Letters, Stednian turned to the law and for a httle time 
 struggled with its forms and maxims in the Attorney-General's 
 office in Washington, fortunate in the early discovery that his 
 path led in another direction. He returned to New York in 
 1865, and here he remained until his death; tireless ahke in deal- 
 ing with practical affairs, and in the practice of the art which 
 was his real vocation. For the emphasis of his interest, the 
 weight of his effort, the joy of his spirit were centered in liter- 
 ature rather than in business ; and while his days were given to 
 affairs, his nights were the harvest time of his work, when his 
 vital energy was poured out with prodigal indifference to ease 
 and health. He had that habit of persistent solitary work 
 which is the secret of productivity, but he had also the sense of 
 human fellowship which is the sign of the generous spirit that 
 not only shares the fortunes of the race, but knows that art 
 has given hostages to life which cannot be sacrificed without 
 impoverishment. 
 
 This largeness of view, this sense of the broad relations of 
 things, and the instinct for fellowship between men of the arts 
 gave Stedman's career its wide interests and its representative 
 character. He was one of the founders of the Authors Club, 
 and his last public address was spoken in its rooms on New Year's 
 
 1:14:1 
 
Eve not many days before his death. His membership in the 
 Century Association dated from 1864 and in its fellowship no 
 man was held in greater honor. He was often seen at the Players 
 Club. He was President of the New England Society. He was 
 poet of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of Yale University, 
 and his "Mater Coronata" has a significant breadth of allusion 
 and thought. He was deeply interested in the organization of 
 literature and the arts in the National Institute of Arts and Let- 
 ters, and was its President in succession to Charles Dudley War- 
 ner and Mr. Howells. He gave generously of his time and thought 
 to a juster and more adequate recognition of literary property, 
 and as President of the American Copyright League worked in 
 season and out of season to convince the American people that 
 "better than a cheap book is a book honestly come by," to recall 
 Lowell's pithy and homely maxim. Every endeavor to forward 
 the interests of art, of music, of literature in the metropolis 
 had his lively interest, and, in many cases, his active support. 
 As Chairman of the American Committee of the Keats-Shelley 
 Memorial in Rome, he contributed greatly to the success of the 
 movement ; and a room has been furnished in his memory in the 
 house in which Keats died, by the members of the New York 
 Stock Exchange, with which he was long associated and of 
 which he became chief historian. In the effort to establish 
 the higher interests of art in their place in this country, 
 Stedman not only bore his full share, but the shares of many 
 whose sole concern was apparently with their private affairs. 
 He had in rare degree the feeling of professional patriot- 
 ism, the sense of responsibility for the guardianship of the 
 interests of art. And when occasion came for the commemo- 
 ration of poets, or the exposition in large terms of the art of 
 poetry, he showed equal familiarity with the secrets of crafts- 
 manship, the principle of structure, the long and interesting 
 story of art development. 
 
 He was the first lecturer on the Percy Turnbull Memorial 
 Foundation at the Johns Hopkins University, the most gen- 
 erous and important endowment for the Academic recognition 
 of poetry in this country ; and his lectures on "The Nature of 
 Poetry" set the standard for a series of discussions which have 
 
 [15] 
 
dealt with the spiritual and artistic aspects of poetry with high 
 intelligence and breadth of view. The Dartmouth Ode reveals 
 his inextinguishable vitality and spirit, while it sounds the notes 
 of Academic achievement and promise : 
 
 "O masterful voice of Youth ! 
 O faces, fresh with the light of morning skies !" 
 
 The Ode on Hawthorne has a dignity born not only of the 
 subtle genius it commemorates but of the spiritual background 
 against which that genius held its penetrating light; while the 
 lines which celebrate Whittier and Bryant ; the songs of re- 
 membrance written for college occasions ; the "Corda Con- 
 cordia," read at Concord in 1881, through which, as through 
 a lightly floating veil, one sees famous figures moving ; the stir- 
 ring answer to the question: "How now are the Others faring?" 
 read at the semi-centennial of the Century Association ; the fine 
 stanzas in memory of Shelley, into which that beautiful, elusive 
 spirit seems to have breathed something of its own ethereal 
 grace ; the few lines reverently interpreting the veihng of Emer- 
 son's vision ; the verses to Taylor, Hay, Van Dyke, and others, 
 — all these betray the generous sense of fellowship which gave 
 Stedman's work its heart, and Stedman's hand its grasp. Was 
 ever a man more generous than he, more eager to share his 
 fortune of judgment and influence, more quickly responsive to 
 any appeal for recognition ! 
 
 To pass from the celebration of his o^vn immediate circle, the 
 two "Anthologies" and the "Library of American Literature" 
 make us aware of the breadth of his knowledge, the catholicity 
 of his sympathy and his corporate sense of literature. In these 
 portly volumes the critic gave place to the host in whose large 
 knowledge and sympathy the House of Fame became as wide as 
 the House of Life. 
 
 In the introductory paragraph of the "Victorian Poets" he 
 significantly said that he hoped to derive from the work and 
 experiences of the British poets of the previous forty years 
 "correct ideas in respect to the aim and province of the art of 
 Poetry" ; and in the initial sentence of the "Poets of America" 
 
 1161 
 
he defined his purpose to trace "the current of poesy, deepening 
 and widening in common with our streams of riches, knowledge, 
 and power ; to show an influence upon the national sentiment no 
 less potent, if less obvious, than that derived from the historic 
 records of our past ; to watch the first dawning upon an eager 
 people of 'the happy, heavenly vision men call Art.' " 
 
 This large conception of criticism, backed by that familiarity 
 with the earlier classics without which criticism is so often 
 individual and impressionistic, saved him from academic for- 
 malism and from the hysterias of the hour. He could define 
 with the precision of an expert the secrets of the art of Theoc- 
 ritus and of Tennyson; his judgment was not aff*ected by the 
 confusion of voices about Poe and Whitman ; he did not fall a 
 victim to the temptation to substitute fine writing for exact 
 characterization, to touch weakness meanly or mahciously ; to 
 borrow an air of superiority from his function, or to wear the 
 robe of his ofl5ce as if it were the garment of omniscience; and 
 he never confused frankness of opinion with that journalistic 
 cleverness which concerns itself, not with the quality of a book, 
 but with its availability for irony or sarcasm or ridicule or 
 self -exploitation. He was just, sane, and catholic. His vitahty 
 saved him from the mental and moral diseases of the time in 
 Literature; and his deep feehng for the common fortune from 
 the scorn which narrow professionalism feels for the things it 
 cannot do, from the barrenness of oversophistication, and from 
 the partial blindness of those who see art clearly but cannot 
 feel life deeply. "We have long been busy with the critique 
 of reason," wrote Goethe, one of the masters of the art of 
 criticism. "I should like to see a critique of common sense. It 
 would be a real benefit to mankind if we could convincingly 
 prove to the ordinary intelligence how far it can go ; and that 
 is just as much as it really requires for life on this earth." 
 
 From the same broad intelHgence comes another maxim which 
 touches the secret of Stedman's criticism: "When keen percep- 
 tion unites itself with good will and love, it gets at the heart of 
 men and the world ; nay, it may hope to reach the highest goal 
 of all." 
 
 No Man of Letters in this country has stood more consistently 
 
for the dignity and high traditions of his craft than he; and 
 no man has given his work a finer flavor of scholarship, or im- 
 parted to it more generously that largeness of view and quiet 
 adjustment to the knowledge of the time in many departments 
 which are possible to the student alone. If he had written occa- 
 sional lyrics, or those lighter essays which are sometimes pro- 
 duced rapidly in leisure moments, his success would have been 
 notable; but his work has had a substance and continuity 
 such as no other American has achieved who has suffered any 
 division of his vital energy. He had nothing in common with 
 the Decadents ; he was a man to the very heart of him. He was 
 free from diseased curiosity, from that pruriency which is 
 always thinking about vice without daring to practise it, from 
 the sentimental egotism which makes life one long suffering, 
 and contemporary verse so often a waving of funeral plumes. 
 Mr. Stedman faced his experiences and bore his burdens with a 
 quiet heroism which not only inspired admiration, but touched 
 his work with spiritual dignity. His optimism was neither easy 
 nor shallow; it had been tested, and it rose from a deep health- 
 fulness of soul. It was rooted in courage and manliness. There 
 is a ring in his books which was in the man ; decision of char- 
 acter, pluck, and Han are evident to all students of his style. 
 One feels that he could have led a forlorn hope with the brilhant 
 audacity which often makes a defeat more splendid than a 
 victory. 
 
 When, on public occasions, he spoke for Literature, his ad- 
 dress had notable dignity of thought and diction. His words 
 at such moments had the weight and gravity of manner, the 
 sense of something large and spiritual, which characterize such 
 verse as "The Hand of Lincoln." His gift was lyrical, his 
 inspirations were vital; it was when he touched life, not with 
 his hand but with his heart, that his poetry gained free and 
 spirited movement. An expert craftsman, a devout student of 
 his art, a poet by the strong impulsion of his nature; a singer 
 of dauntless spirit and generous vision — these are the things 
 he would have hoped might be said in such an hour as this ; and 
 these are the things we say to-day, not only for the love we bore 
 him, but for the truth's sake. 
 
 [183 
 
The Chairman: 
 
 I am sure I speak for all when I express my gratitude for so 
 admirable a summary of the career of our friend. 
 
 Out of his many important representative characters, that of 
 the President of the New England Society is assumed by our 
 distinguished fellow-citizen, Mr. Seth Low, for this especial oc- 
 casion. 
 
 ADDRESS BY MR. LOW 
 
 Mr. Seth Low: 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: Many years ago, when 
 the late John Torrey was Professor of Botany in Columbia 
 College, he said to the members of his class, of which I was one, 
 "Young gentlemen. Chemistry is my bread and butter, but 
 Botany is my love." 
 
 I suppose it to be literally true that Torrey the Chemist has 
 long since been forgotten, but Torrey the Botanist enjoys a 
 world-wide and enduring fame. From which I draw the con- 
 clusion that a man makes his mark where his heart is. And 
 while it may be said of Edmund Clarence Stedman that the 
 Stock Exchange gave him his bread and butter, it must cer- 
 tainly be said that Literature was his love. And it is because 
 he was at home his life long in company with the immortals that 
 we are here to-night to do honor to his memory. 
 
 Mr. Mabie has reminded you that for a season during the 
 Civil War he was a war correspondent, and I have sometimes 
 wondered whether the excitement incident to such a career may 
 not have had something to do with his choice, a Httle later, of 
 the Stock Exchange as the place in which he should seek for 
 his bread and butter. For the eternal warfare of the bulls and 
 bears, culminating now and then in a sort of financial Arma- 
 geddon, may have appealed to the hidden war correspondent 
 within the poet. 
 
 I don't know whether Mr. Stedman carried his literature into 
 business, but I suppose he did, for it was part of him and it 
 went wherever he went, just as its fragrance goes with the 
 
 D9] 
 
flower. But it is certain that he never carried his business into 
 his hterature. In that high domain, with him the dominating 
 question never was that miserable interrogation — What is all 
 this worth? — but that always inspiring question — How can I 
 give the worthiest expression to the best that is in me? 
 
 But I have been asked to speak of him for the moment par- 
 ticularly in relation to the New England Society. He was a 
 New Englander, proud of his ancestry, and joined the Society 
 in 1877. In 1902 and 1903 he was the Society's President, and 
 as such he presided at the annual banquets of those years. If 
 anyone really wants to know what manner of man he was it 
 would not be easy to find out better than by reading now those 
 two addresses. There you will find his delightful humor, his 
 happy phrase, his merry anecdote, and shining out of, over and 
 underneath all, like the sheen on satin, the literary quality that 
 was native to the man. 
 
 He poured out of his treasury things new and old, and he 
 handled the things new and old, not as one handles objects that 
 you see in a museum, but as one sees things of everyday life in 
 one's own home. There you will find also a note of good fellow- 
 ship, a note of good citizenship. There you will find a note of 
 idealism and equally of patriotism and pride in the New Eng- 
 land stock from which he came. This is what he said of it at 
 one occasion : 
 
 "We are told that in the section from which it is derived the 
 Colonial stock is now in the minority; but in those dear old 
 states that masterful strain will hold its own. Just as surely as 
 the Saxon words in the Enghsh language, though outnumbered 
 tenfold by accretions from all tongues, give to the peerless Eng- 
 lish speech its strength and tenderness, so surely will the con- 
 victions of self-denial, of morals, and the independent mind of 
 that ancestry ever dominate the life and nature of New Eng- 
 land, and the New England spirit will survive wherever its 
 exiles are found." 
 
 What was said by Edmund Clarence Stedman to the New 
 England Society of New York a year or so ago, he still says to 
 the New England Society and to all the people of New York, 
 and so shall he continue to say while the Saxon words of our 
 peerless English speech give it its strength and sweetness. 
 
 nso;] 
 
ADDRESS BY COLONEL CHURCH 
 
 The Chairman: 
 
 Mr. Stedman as a friend was not known better by any living 
 man than by Col. William C. Church. 
 
 Col. William C. Church: 
 
 In the later years of his life Mr. Stedman was accustomed 
 to refer to me as among the very oldest, and perhaps with the 
 exception of William Winter the oldest, of his friends in the 
 sense of long personal acquaintance. I have but a dim recollec- 
 tion of him at the time before the Civil War and during the 
 War, but as I look back over the long vista of years he comes 
 first distinctly to my mind in the year 1866. 
 
 At that time we formed two of a little clique, as you may call 
 it, of men more or less interested in or associated with literature 
 who were living in the block on the south side of Tenth Street 
 running from opposite St. Mark's churchyard to Third Avenue. 
 Next to my house was Mr. Stedman's, and just beyond him was 
 Richard Grant White, and in the next house Mr. Armstrong, 
 at that time a member of the Scribner firm. And there were 
 others near by associated in congenial pursuits. So we formed 
 what it is almost impossible to find in the New York of these 
 days — a little neighborhood of friends of congenial associa- 
 tions in constant intercourse with one another. 
 
 There I learned to know Stedman intimately. For forty-five 
 years we were associated together in the Century Club. He 
 used to come there to meet me frequently. New York life, you 
 know, is such that you have to see your friends to a considerable 
 extent at the Club. We were together socially, and it is very 
 pleasant for me to remember now that during all that long and 
 
constant intercourse there was never an unpleasant word passed 
 between us. Our relations were not always those that promote 
 harmony; they were those of editor and author, but never was 
 a word spoken in any way that either of us could regret or wish 
 to forget, and so I remember Edmund Clarence Stedman with 
 a warmth of affection that makes it extremely difficult for me to 
 speak of him without emotion. 
 
 I have listened with great interest to what Mr. Mabie has 
 said, and I endorse every word of all he said regarding Mr. 
 Stedman's personal characteristics. One thing about Mr. Sted- 
 man is to be noted, he was entirely free from anything in the 
 nature of jealousy. No man was more anxious than he to help 
 those about him, or more generous. There was no limit to the 
 trouble he would take to oblige his friends and to help par- 
 ticularly those who appealed to him under the call of author- 
 ship, and he possibly, as much if not more than any other man, 
 assisted to establish the dignity of authorship in this city and 
 throughout the countr3^ 
 
 When I go back to the early days of my friendship with 
 Stedman, I remember that the literary center was in Boston. 
 If a man could n't find entrance to the "Atlantic Monthly," he 
 had no credit as an author. Now that is changed, and Stedman 
 and the men who worked with him have done much to bring 
 about that change. I never knew Stedman to speak evil or 
 disparagingly of anyone. Critical in his tastes but most gen- 
 erous and kindly in his judgments, as all know, he had pity and 
 feeling for his fellow man and he showed it at all times and 
 under all circumstances. 
 
 Mr. Mabie has said much, and he has said it far better than 
 I can say it, about Mr. Stedman's disposition to help others, 
 and those who may speak of his good deeds — their name is 
 Legion. As Mr. Mabie referred to that little episode of Bohe- 
 mianism that we are all more or less familiar with in our youth, 
 I was reminded of the days and evenings spent at Pfaff's where 
 we would go in and shake hands with Walt Whitman. An at- 
 tempt was made at that time to establish in this city a sort of 
 cult of Bohemianism, with Harry Clapp as a leader in it, and 
 Ada Clare — I think her name was. It had more or less interest 
 
 ess: 
 
for us all and in spite of its cynicism there was something 
 stimulating in the freedom of thought it encouraged, but it 
 never really touched the heart of Stedman; it was something 
 he turned aside by the way to enjoy for the moment, but he took 
 no further part in it. His sturdy New England character, his 
 strong sense of duty, his faithfulness to every obligation kept 
 him free from any possibility of sympathetic association with 
 that side of life. As a husband, a father, and a friend he was 
 all that we could ask. 
 
 The reputation he has left in Wall Street, to which Mr. Low 
 has referred, is an indication of the strength of his character. 
 Now, literature does not always produce exactness in financial 
 matters and fidelity to pecuniary obligations, but there was no 
 stain on Stedman's character in that regard. He went through 
 difficult experiences ; he carried heavy burdens, but he bore 
 them like a man, with the utmost credit to himself from what- 
 ever point of view you may consider him. He, in short, illus- 
 trated a motto that I am fond of quoting at times — "The whole 
 of religion is in shunning what is evil, being faithful to the 
 duties of your calling, and in all things helpful to your fellow 
 man." 
 
 Speaking of Mr. Stedman's domestic relations, I am tempted 
 to read what he wrote to me at the time of his wife's death. I 
 was in San Francisco at the time, and so Ave communicated by 
 letter. He said: "I have kept my vigil of over half a century, 
 and whatever may have been my shortcomings — we are none of 
 us worthy of our wives — I have been able to fulfil my boyish 
 vow that the sole of my Laura's foot should never tread rough 
 ground. As lives go, I have no right to complain, but I think 
 the wrench of separation is the harder for the long welding 
 together." 
 
 My last conversation with Mr. Stedman I remember with 
 great pleasure. He was at my house one evening, and as I 
 came down to greet him I found him standing in front of a 
 picture painted by Sanford GifFord. Stedman asked me where 
 I got that picture, and he said that it had been painted by 
 GifFord especially for him. He and Gifford had been old 
 friends, and one of his poems had been inscribed to Gifford, 
 
 CSS] 
 
who painted this picture, which had passed out of Sted- 
 man's hands. Mr. Stedman said he would write me a letter in 
 regard to it ; a courtesy such as a loyal and obliging friend, he 
 always was ready and anxious to show. 
 
 He sent me the letter, and a few days later he came down to 
 my office bringing a little memorandum book in which he was 
 accustomed to enter his daily transactions of life, his expendi- 
 tures, and so on, a sort of diary, and he went over it in a 
 search for his entry in regard to this picture. As he did so 
 the recollections of his life seemed to come up before him and 
 he alluded to this circumstance and that with which we were 
 both familiar. 
 
 We started for home together, and coming up, in the course of 
 our talk, he spoke to me about the nature of God in a very 
 interesting way. He seemed to be turning over in his mind 
 the question of what God was, and what our relations to him 
 were. And that was the last conversation I had with him, and 
 I remember it, of course, with very great pleasure, because 
 within a week he was gone. 
 
 It was an illustration of what I have often noticed in my long 
 life, that there seems to be a sort of state of preparation into 
 which people are brought who are about to pass out of this 
 world — their thouglits are turned to the serious problems of 
 life which we must all come face to face with some day, sooner 
 or later. 
 
 I think that nothing could be more appropriate to this occa- 
 sion than for me to quote here just one verse of Stedman's. 
 At the dedication of the monument to Horace Greeley, under 
 whom he served many years, and for whom he had great regard 
 and affection, he said : 
 
 " 'Still with us !' all the liegemen cry 
 
 Who read his heart and held him dear; 
 The hills declare 'He shall not die !' 
 
 The prairies answer 'He is here !' 
 Immortal thus, no dread of fate 
 
 Be curs, no vain memento mori: 
 Life, Life, not Death, we celebrate, — 
 
 A lasting presence touched with glory." 
 
A STATEMENT AND POEM BY MR. JOHNSON 
 
 The Chairman : 
 
 As representing the American Committee of the Keats- 
 Shelley Memorial, Mr. Johnson will now make a statement. He 
 will also read a poem on Mr. Stedman. 
 
 Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson: 
 
 On the 23d of February, 1903, the anniversary of the death 
 of Keats, a group of American writers met in Rome at the 
 banking-house of Sebasti and Reali on the Piazza di Spagna, 
 and there organized an informal movement to buy and preserve 
 the house in which the poet lived and died and which, as you 
 all know, is situated near-by, at the foot of the Spanish Stairs. 
 The chairman on that occasion was the English poet Sir Rennell 
 Rodd, then charge d'affaires of the British Embassy and now 
 ambassador of his country to Italy. During his service as first 
 secretary, he had in more than one instance done great service 
 to lovers of poetry by thwarting various plans of vandalism — 
 including one for the removal of the grave of Keats from its 
 historic corner in the older portion of the beautiful Protestant 
 cemetery and, as you know, hardly a stone's throw from that 
 of Shelley. The house was falling into neglect and shabbiness, 
 and these Americans, moved by a common impulse, determined 
 not only to establish a perpetual guardianship of the graves, 
 but to rescue the house and to make of it a shrine for the 
 English-speaking race, and to establish there a center of poetic 
 influence in the shape of a Memorial Library to contain in 
 time a complete collection of the works of the two poets, and 
 of volumes, portraits, autographs, and other objects and data 
 relating to them or their fame. 
 
 In making choice of a chairman for the informal American 
 
Committee, but one name was considered — that of Edmund 
 Clarence Stedman, whose devotion to the interests of his art 
 and his profession had long been proverbial. He accepted with 
 alacrity, and from that moment to the day of liis death the 
 project was constantly in his thoughts and very dear to his 
 heart. Mr. Stedman never took lightly the obligations he 
 assumed in committee work, and there was often need of his 
 suggestiveness and his practical judgment, for the negotiations 
 for the property were long and complicated, and unsuspected 
 obstacles of various kinds arose. But he lived to see the Roman 
 house pass into the hands of the permanent Keats-Shelley 
 Memorial Association, and to know that it would soon be open 
 to the public, as it now is ; that its library had already rich 
 treasures in its archives, and that before many months it is to 
 be the beneficiary of a distinguished English collector. He 
 considered it an honor and a privilege to have a share in erect- 
 ing this new altar to Poetry, and from the start it was as an 
 honor and a privilege that the invitation to cooperate was ex- 
 tended to others. 
 
 It is a matter of interest to know that all the rooms in the 
 apartment in which Keats died have been or are to be furnished 
 with funds contributed by Americans, the fourth and largest 
 room having been left to the last to become the occasion of a 
 most grateful tribute to the poet, critic, and man in whose 
 name we are met to-day. After the death of Mr. Stedman the 
 Roman Committee expressed the earnest desire that the house 
 might contain some memorial of him, and the outcome of this 
 suggestion is that I have just received from Messrs. R. H. 
 Thomas, F. K. Sturgis and G. W. Ely of the New York Stock 
 Exchange the sum of $2000 recently contributed by one hun- 
 dred members of the Exchange for the purpose of furnishing 
 this room in memor})" of their former associate. So generously 
 to continue the unfinished work of a man is almost to prolong 
 his life. I can think of no more appropriate tribute nor of one 
 which, as a mark of friendship, would have been more grateful 
 to Mr. Stedman himself. He who in body never got to Rome — 
 never nearer than Venice — is thus at last to be forever asso- 
 ciated in that Roman house with the two great poets whom he 
 
 1^61 
 
understood and loved and whom in prose and verse he so worth- 
 ily praised. 
 
 I shall now ask your indulgence while I read a few lines of 
 verse which I wrote in his memory on the Keats anniversary — 
 the 23d of February of last year — on the day when it was 
 hoped that Mr. Stedman would be in Rome to participate in 
 the formal dedication of the house. 
 
 TO ONE WHO NEVER GOT TO ROME 
 
 You who were once bereft of Rome 
 With but the Apennines between, 
 
 And went no more beyond the foam, 
 
 But loved your Italy at home 
 As others loved her seen: 
 
 You knew each old imperial shaft 
 With sculpture laureled to the blue; 
 
 Where martyr bled and tyrant laughed; 
 
 Where Horace his Falernian quaffed. 
 And where the vintage grew. 
 
 The Forum's half-unopened book 
 
 You would have pondered well and long ; 
 And loved St. Peter's misty look. 
 With vesper chantings in some nook 
 Of far-receding song. 
 
 Oft had you caught the silver gleams 
 Of Roman fountains. To your art 
 They add no music. Trevi teems 
 With not more free or bounteous streams 
 Than did your generous heart. 
 
 I hoped that this Muse-hallowed day 
 
 Might find your yearning dream come true: 
 
 That you might see the moonlight play 
 
 On ilex and on palace gray 
 As 't were alone for you; — 
 
 1:27: 
 
That your white age might disappear 
 Within the whiteness of the night. 
 While the late strollers, lending ear 
 To your young joy, would halt and cheer 
 At such a happy wight; — 
 
 That you, — whose toil was never done, — 
 Physicianed by the Land of Rest, 
 
 Might, like a beggar in the sun, 
 
 Watch idly the green lizard run 
 From out his stony nest; — 
 
 That you, from that high parapet 
 
 That crowns the graceful Spanish Stairs, 
 
 (Whose cadence, as to music set. 
 
 Moving like measured minuet. 
 
 Would charm your new- world cares). 
 
 Might see the shrine you helped to save. 
 And yonder blest of cypresses, 
 
 That proud above your poets wave. 
 
 Warder of all our song, you gave 
 What loyalty to these ! 
 
 The path to Adonais' bed, 
 
 That pilgrims ever smoother wear. 
 Who could than you more fitly tread? — 
 Or with more right from Ariel dead 
 The dark acanthus bear ? 
 
 Alas ! your footstep could not keep 
 
 Your fond hope's rendezvous, brave soul ! 
 
 Yet, if our last thoughts ere we sleep 
 
 Be couriers across the deep 
 To greet us at the goal. 
 
 Who knows but now, aloof from ills, 
 The heavenly vision that you see — 
 The towers on the sapphire hills, 
 The song, the golden light — fulfils 
 Your dream of Italy ! 
 
TELEGRAMS AND LETTERS 
 
 The Chairman: 
 
 I have just received this telegram from Andrew D. White [of 
 Mr. Stedman's class of 1853 at Yale] : 
 
 "Deeply regret that I am unable to be with you this after- 
 noon to render a tribute to our beloved and lamented Stedman." 
 
 Dr. George M. Gould of Ithaca writes : 
 
 "I regret that I cannot come to the Memorial Meeting, to 
 add my word of love for, and gratitude to, Edmund Clarence 
 Stedman. He was most kind and good to me. Literature is 
 indebted to him for high, loyal, and life-long service, and con- 
 temporary literary Avorkers will cherish his example and 
 memory." 
 
 This letter of regret is from the widow of his close friend, 
 Bayard Taylor : 
 
 "It is with deep regret that my absence from New York will 
 make it impossible for me to be present on Wednesday next at 
 the meeting in memory of my old dear friend, Edmund Clarence 
 Stedman. 
 
 "Not being able to be present in person, I will be with you in 
 spirit." 
 
 STEDMAN'S "BEST POEM" 
 
 Another friend of Mr. Stedman's, Anne Partlan, has sent me 
 what may be called a prose poem ; she calls it "The Best Poem," 
 and I shall read it : 
 
"THE BEST POEM" 
 
 "What is your best poem?" The writer asked this question of 
 Stedman, some years ago. 
 
 "I have not written it," came the quick reply. "Some day 
 when I can get away from business cares and manifold duties, 
 I am going to write my best poem," At that time the poet was 
 engaged in liquidating the debts of a dying friend, by means of 
 letters to the invalid's numerous creditors. 
 
 Some time afterward, he was asked again if he had begun 
 work on the best poem. "Not yet," he responded cheerily, while 
 writing a check payable to an invalid author, who was in the 
 Home for Incurables. 
 
 A short time before he left us, the poet turned to the writer 
 and said, "I have not written it and I fear I shall go soon." 
 
 Dearly beloved poet, you were writing the Best Poem all your 
 life, in deeds of love and kindness, and to-day it is being sung 
 in the hearts of all whose lives are the better for the strength 
 and cheer of which you gave so freely. 
 
 A SONG OF STEDMAN'S SUNG BY MR. BISPHAM 
 
 Mr. Bispham will now sing "The Undiscovered Country," 
 perhaps better known as "Shadow Land," the setting for which 
 is also by Dudley Buck. 
 
 Mr. David Bispham; song: 
 
 "'THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY'" 
 
 "Could we but know 
 The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel, 
 
 Where lie those happier hills and meadows low, — 
 Ah, if beyond the spirit's inmost cavil, 
 
 Aught of that country could we surely know. 
 Who would not go? 
 
 :3o: 
 
"Might we but hear 
 The hovering angels' high imagined chorus. 
 
 Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear. 
 One radiant vista of the realm before us, — 
 With one rapt moment given to see and hear. 
 Ah, who would fear? 
 
 "Were we quite sure 
 
 To find the peerless friend who left us lonely. 
 
 Or there, by some celestial stream as pure. 
 
 To gaze in eyes that here were lovelit only, — 
 
 This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure. 
 
 Who would endure?" 
 
 The Chairman: \ 
 
 I will close this memorial meeting by reading the last stanza 
 of Stedman's poem on John Hay : 
 
 "And if there be — and if there be 
 
 A realm where lives still forward roll. 
 Even so — no other — strong and free 
 
 Through time and space shine on, dear Soul !" 
 
 n3in 
 
POSTSCRIPT 
 
 A LETTER FROM HELEN KELLER 
 
 My dear Mr. Gilder: 
 
 I should have been glad to take part in the exercises to Mr. 
 Stedman's memory. But your letter came the evening before 
 the celebration, and it was too late to get off the message which 
 I should have liked to send. 
 
 We met only a few times : but I remember him affectionately. 
 I knew him first as a poet addressing beautiful, tender verses to 
 me. Then his cheeriness and ready sympathy with my happy 
 moods made him a welcome friend to the child whose entrance 
 into new light he had so eloquently celebrated. His poems al- 
 ways bring me delight, so full are they of what I love — the 
 virgin air of morn, the play of the sunbeams on lake and hill, the 
 flight of swallows and the lusty song of robins, the radiant 
 silence of evening. Need I say that "John Brown" moves me 
 most of all with its fire, power, and dread prophecy.'' 
 
 With warm messages, I am. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Helen Keller. 
 
 Wrentham, January twenty-seventh. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. HOWELLS 
 
 130 West 57th St., February 5, 1909. 
 Dear Mr. Gilder : 
 
 I am glad to hear that there is to be a printed record of the 
 interesting and appropriate observances at the Stedman Memo- 
 
rial. The whole occasion was of such beauty and dignity that I 
 found myself longing to take part in words as I took part in 
 thoughts parallehng the reminiscences and appreciations of the 
 speakers ; but I know now, as I felt then, that I could have 
 added nothing but my personal tribute of praise to what was so 
 admirably and adequately said. You and your hearers were 
 spared one of the proofs I always offer, when urged from the 
 silence to which your kindness had left me, that I am best left 
 to it. But now I wish you might include in what is to be 
 printed the expression, which cannot lose by repetition, of the 
 love and honor in which Stedman was held by the oldest literary 
 friend present at that fine commemoration of his sincere and 
 noble character. Not one of his least but one of his greatest 
 qualities, I think, was his sense of the loveliness and usefulness 
 of praise. It was a quality that consisted with what was best 
 in his generous make; he loved to give praise no less than to 
 receive it ; and in my nearly fifty years' acquaintance with him, 
 I never knew him to indulge the weakness and folly of contempt. 
 There was, indeed, a certain fine severity in him, a heritage from 
 the Puritan ancestry of which he was proud, and this again con- 
 sisted with his love of praise. The whole course of his sane and 
 just criticism was constructive through it, and incomparably 
 valuable in literary conditions like ours where the discernment 
 and recognition of excellences works infinitely more good than 
 the discernment and recognition of deficiencies. No doubt he 
 saw these, but he held his hand from hurting when he knew he 
 could not heal ; and his life was of like criticism with his word. 
 He was a very true and constant friend; so constant that you 
 could always find him where you left him, and so true that if 
 there had been a difference between you he would not fail to own 
 that the fault was his or yours, as the case might be. 
 
 He was a man whom I think we shall increasingly realize as 
 of uncommon largeness and fineness : he did so many things 
 beautifully and grandly. Beyond the other considerable liter- 
 ary men of his generation he was a scholar ; and by blood and tra- 
 dition he was of the high New England Brahminical caste. But 
 New York had somehow kept him different from the elder Bos- 
 tonians with whom he may be ranked; and subject as he was to 
 
the indiscriminating veneration of the world outside literature 
 in which his lot was cast, he remained in the last analysis very 
 unconscious, though he always liked to talk of what he was 
 thinking and doing. 
 
 His memory is very dear. I wish he could have known, the 
 other day, how it was cherished. Perhaps he did know. 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 W. D. HOWELLS. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. WAYNE MacVEAGH 
 
 Mr. Wayne MacVeagh, of Mr. Stedman's class at Yale 
 (1853), replied to an invitation to take part in the exercises 
 that his health would not permit him to remain North. He said : 
 
 "Hardly any occasion could give me more joy than the one 
 you offer, that of talking for a few moments to a sympathetic 
 group of men like-invited with myself, of dear Stedman whom 
 I knew and loved for over half a century, and whose soul was 
 never in the market-place nor wedded to what Lord Bacon calls 
 its 'idols,' but was at home, in the true sense, in the guild of 
 literature to which you are happy in belonging." 
 
 1:34:] 
 
NOTE 
 
 "The friends and intimate associates of Edmund Clarence Sted- 
 man — men who had known him and his work — gathered yesterday in 
 Carnegie Lyceum to pay tribute to his memory. . . . The meeting 
 was [initiated by the Century Club and] held under the auspices of 
 the Century and Authors' clubs, the New England Society, the Na- 
 tional Institute of Arts and Letters and the New York Stock Ex- 
 change. . . . The stage decorations, arranged by A. W. Drake, 
 consisted of a row of boxwood trees in big copper cups covering the 
 footlights and a background of the larger bay trees. At one side, 
 incased in wreaths, was a copy [by Wm. H. Lippincott] of the por- 
 trait of Stedman by T. W. Wood." 
 
 The above excerpt is from the account given the following morning 
 in the New York "Tribune." 
 
 Mr. Alexander W. Drake's arrangement for the stage was carried 
 out by Mr. Warendorff. The portrait was framed in laurel and 
 draped with purple and gold — the colors of the Academy of Arts 
 and Letters. At the opposite corner, to the back of the stage, a large 
 copper bowl (loaned, as were the row of Russian copper jardinieres, 
 by Mr. Drake) contained branches of yellow forsythia. 
 
 The "Tribune" continues: 
 
 "Among those present in the audience were Henry Clews, Andrew 
 Carnegie, William Dean Howells, Dr. Thomas L. Stedman, a cousin 
 of the poet and executor of his will; Miss Laura Stedman, the poet's 
 granddaughter; Mrs. Ellen Douglas Stedman, Judge Henry E. 
 Howland, T. A. Janvier, Mme. Martha Bianchi, Charles G. Whiting, 
 of 'The Springfield Republican'; Mrs. Henry Harland, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Nelson S. Easton and Seumas MacManus, the Irish author." 
 
 In the audience, moreover, were Mrs. Jefferson Winter ("Elsie 
 Leslie"), daughter-in-law of William Winter, Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
 DeKay, Major Emory S. Turner. Also members of the Dodge and 
 Porter families, kinspeople of Mr. Stedman, Mr. Clarence C. Buel, 
 Dr. Rossiter Johnson, the Rev. Dr. Slicer, Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
 
 [35] 
 
Henry Phelps, Mr. and Mrs. C. F. W. Mielatz, Mrs. Steele Mackaye, 
 and her son Percy Mackaye, the poet and playwright ; Roj^al Cortis- 
 i^oz, the Rev. James M. Whiten, of the Yale class of '53 ; Mr. and Mrs. 
 David Lloyd, Mrs. C. Griswold Bourne, Ridgely Torrence, William 
 PI. MeElroy, Logan G. McPherson, Mr. and Mrs. Farrand D. 
 Brower, Mrs. Laurence Turnbull, who, with her husband, was the 
 founder at Johns Hopkins University, of the Percy Turnbull Lec- 
 tureship of Poetry, whose initial lectures Mr. Stedman delivered; 
 Mrs. William C. Church, Jonathan Trumbull, of Norwich, Conn.; 
 Mrs. R. W. Gilder and members of her family; Miss Louise Watson 
 Clark, Mr. Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, Dr. Titus Munson Coan, Mr. 
 Miles Standish, Mr. Stephen Henry Thayer, Prof. Wm. M. Sloane, 
 Secretary of the Century Association, and other representatives of 
 the various organizations under whose auspices the Meeting was held. 
 
 IS61 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 016 225 893 A