419
“Why! How? What do you mean, Mrs. Barr?” he asked.
“Your sermon,” I answered, “was a series of solemn declarations and avowals of faith and belief, and after stating each with remarkable clearness, you invariably concluded with this reflection, ‘It seems to me that no logically sane mind can refuse this truth.’”
“Well,” he said, “that was right.”
“No,” I answered, “it was wrong. Those four words, ‘it seems to me,’ destroyed the whole effect of your argument. You left us at liberty to dispute it, and debate it. What seemed to you true, might not seem so to any one else, if they began to look for reasons.”
“What would you have said, if in my place?”
“If I believed, as you do, I would have said, ‘Friends, I have told you the truth. There is no other truth on this subject. If you believe it, and live up to it, you will be saved. If you do not believe it, and live up to it, there is no salvation for you.’”
“A minister can but give his opinion.”
“He ought to give God’s opinion, that is what he stands up to do, and there is no ‘seems to me’ in that. Excuse me,” I said, “I am a daughter of Levi, and have been used to talking as I feel to ministers all my life. I meant no harm. I was only sorry you took all the salt and strength out of a really good sermon.”
“I thank you!” he said, but he was quiet afterwards, and I soon went away, fearing I had everlastingly offended him. But here was the kindest of letters, with a request that I would write him a short article for a paper in which he was interested. I did so cheerfully, but I put my price on it; for I had discovered by this time, that newspapers value articles according to what they have to pay for them.
I may mention that among the trials of this spring, my big English mastiff was so ill, that we had to send him away for treatment. It was almost like sending one of the family away. He was a noble, loving creature with far more intelligence than is credible.
On the twenty-second of May, I finished all the creative420work on “Friend Olivia,” and on the twenty-fourth, having gone carefully over it, I took it to Dodd, Mead and Company, and they sent it to the Century Company, thinking it might suit Mr. Gilder for a serial. Until the third of June I rested, for my eyes and right hand were weary and aching, then I wrote an article for theBook Newsfor which I received thirty dollars. Until the second of July, I wrote articles for theAdvance,North American Review, et cetera, and copied some short stories for the Kendal Syndicate, and theChristian World. On the second of July, I began a story of the Cheviot Hills but on the ninth received a letter from Dodd, Mead saying Mr. Gilder liked “Friend Olivia” very much, and wished to see me. The following day I went to see Mr. Gilder, and agreed to rewrite the story suitably for a serial for three thousand dollars; and from this time forward until the sixteenth of September, I was going over “Friend Olivia,” and while arranging it suitably for a serial, was also trying how much richer and better I could make it.
I was abundantly repaid by the following letter from Mr. Gilder, under date of September, 1889.
Editorial Department,The Century Magazine.My dear Mrs. Barr:I have finished the story. It closes like music, beautifully. There might be some points that I could wish different, but I do not press them, the whole story is so charming.
Editorial Department,The Century Magazine.
My dear Mrs. Barr:
I have finished the story. It closes like music, beautifully. There might be some points that I could wish different, but I do not press them, the whole story is so charming.
In this revisal of “Friend Olivia,” I followed in all matters Mr. Gilder’s advice and suggestions, and so learned much of the best technicalities of fiction. I could not have had a finer teacher. I could not have had a more kind, just and generous one. He rejoiced in good work, and gave it unstinted praise, no matter who was its author. To a soul who had been hardly used by the world in general, it was a kind of salvation to meet such a man.
I owed a great deal of my success with theCentury, to Mrs. Grover Cleveland’s praise of “Friend Olivia.” She read the421story in manuscript, and spoke so highly of it to Mr. Gilder, that he was induced by her report to read it himself. So one of the first printed copies of the novel was sent to Mrs. Cleveland, who wrote me the following note:
December 2nd.Dear Mrs. Barr:Pray do not think that my long delay in replying to your note indicates any lack of appreciation of its kind words, or your thoughtfulness in sending me “Friend Olivia.” I feel a peculiar attachment to the book, because I knew the story when it was so very young. I liked it, and surely need not tell you that your sending it to me yourself, gives me very great pleasure.I have been away from home ever since your letter came to me, or I should have told you this before.Pray do not over estimate the effect my interest in “Friend Olivia” has had. The story itself brought you, as you say, “the recognition and success you had patiently worked and waited for during twenty years,” and as I say, which you richly deserved.May I assure you that I never forget my young friend who loves my picture, and that her mother is often in my thoughts.Very sincerely,Frances F. Cleveland.
December 2nd.
Dear Mrs. Barr:
Pray do not think that my long delay in replying to your note indicates any lack of appreciation of its kind words, or your thoughtfulness in sending me “Friend Olivia.” I feel a peculiar attachment to the book, because I knew the story when it was so very young. I liked it, and surely need not tell you that your sending it to me yourself, gives me very great pleasure.
I have been away from home ever since your letter came to me, or I should have told you this before.
Pray do not over estimate the effect my interest in “Friend Olivia” has had. The story itself brought you, as you say, “the recognition and success you had patiently worked and waited for during twenty years,” and as I say, which you richly deserved.
May I assure you that I never forget my young friend who loves my picture, and that her mother is often in my thoughts.
Very sincerely,
Frances F. Cleveland.
I will only give the letter received from Moses Coit Tyler, regarding “Friend Olivia.” Others of interest will be found in the Appendix if any desire to read them.
Cornell University,Ithaca, New York.Feb. 21, 1891.My dear Mrs. Barr:I was much touched by your kind remembrance of me in causing your novel, “Friend Olivia,” to be sent to me; and as my days here are heavily burdened with work, and my reading is almost exclusively on certain professional lines, it was only lately that I have had the opportunity of reading the book as I wanted to do it. We read it aloud in the family evenings, as the leisure came to me, my wife, my daughter, and myself. We422were charmed and held from the beginning, but it was not till we had gone through perhaps the first seventy-five pages, that the story grasped us with enthralling power. After that, it was a nightly trial to us all, that I had to cut short the reading, when we were all so absorbed in the story, and the development of the characters; and I want to give you my thanks for the great pleasure, nay for the good cheer, the strong spiritual refreshment and stimulation which the book gave us. I could say much of the power with which the several characters are delineated, of the vivid truth, of the historic elements of the story, and of the masterly handling of the plot. Better than any satisfaction in mere literary success, must be the privilege of portraying, in a fascinating form like that, the beauty, the mighty helpfulness, the calming and sweet power of faith in God, and in the spiritual life. That book of yours will go on helping and cheering people, long after you have passed from this world. If all your literary labors had resulted only in that piece of work, your life would have been lived not in vain.The reading of this book has given me a new desire to meet you again, and to talk over persons and things with you, and perhaps some day when I have a few hours or days in New York, I may be able to find you with half-an-hour to spare for a chat.With deep gratitude for your book, and a thousand good wishes for the continuance of your literary successes, I remainFaithfully yours,Moses Coit Tyler.
Cornell University,Ithaca, New York.Feb. 21, 1891.
My dear Mrs. Barr:
I was much touched by your kind remembrance of me in causing your novel, “Friend Olivia,” to be sent to me; and as my days here are heavily burdened with work, and my reading is almost exclusively on certain professional lines, it was only lately that I have had the opportunity of reading the book as I wanted to do it. We read it aloud in the family evenings, as the leisure came to me, my wife, my daughter, and myself. We422were charmed and held from the beginning, but it was not till we had gone through perhaps the first seventy-five pages, that the story grasped us with enthralling power. After that, it was a nightly trial to us all, that I had to cut short the reading, when we were all so absorbed in the story, and the development of the characters; and I want to give you my thanks for the great pleasure, nay for the good cheer, the strong spiritual refreshment and stimulation which the book gave us. I could say much of the power with which the several characters are delineated, of the vivid truth, of the historic elements of the story, and of the masterly handling of the plot. Better than any satisfaction in mere literary success, must be the privilege of portraying, in a fascinating form like that, the beauty, the mighty helpfulness, the calming and sweet power of faith in God, and in the spiritual life. That book of yours will go on helping and cheering people, long after you have passed from this world. If all your literary labors had resulted only in that piece of work, your life would have been lived not in vain.
The reading of this book has given me a new desire to meet you again, and to talk over persons and things with you, and perhaps some day when I have a few hours or days in New York, I may be able to find you with half-an-hour to spare for a chat.
With deep gratitude for your book, and a thousand good wishes for the continuance of your literary successes, I remain
Faithfully yours,
Moses Coit Tyler.
For nearly a month after finishing my second copy of “Friend Olivia” I was too tired to do much. Mr. Mead had urged on me the Arcadian background and I saw at once its possibilities, if I might make it historically true. But this would be in direct opposition to what Longfellow and others had done. However as I had the fiction in my own control, I thought it would be possible to make the background, and general atmosphere inoffensive. I made great preparations for this work. I was in New York at the library most of October, and was in communication with the Officer’s Club at Halifax who sent me a great deal of material, also with a Miss Caldwell of Louisiana, whose home was on the great Bayou, where the Arcadians settled after leaving Canada; and she sent me the true history of423Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” and much interesting material as to the country, and the descendants of the Arcadians. But not all the work I did, nor yet all the help I received, could create in me the slightest enthusiasm about the story. The people disgusted me. They were so double-tongued and false-hearted, I could have turned their bigotry into intense faith, as I had often done with Calvinism; but their cowardice and unreliability I could not handle, unless I was to show it rightfully punished. And to tell the last truth, I did not see anything romantic in a girl, traipsing the length of the United States seeking her lover. If I could have shown the lover in all sorts of adventures seekingEvangeline, that would have been all right; but the fact was he had speedily married, and was comfortably bringing up a family in the Teche country. I could not bear to think of making a beautiful and innocent girl die for so unworthy a lover, and I did not really pity the woman who could and did deliberately die for him. Her grave at the Poste des Attakapas could not impress me. She ought to have thrown off her false unworthy lover, and if she could love no good man, she could at least have lived to comfort and help the old woman, who had taken her when a friendless babe, and cherished her as her own daughter.
As late as the sixteenth of November, I note being in New York at the library getting the proper patois for Arcadia, and add with an emphasis of under-crossing, “I hate the story.” Until the eleventh of January, 1890, I was writing an article on divorce for theNorth American Review, in favor of it under proper conditions. Bishop Potter wrote the one on the absolute inviolability of the marriage tie. I think they were in the same number but have forgotten surely. I wrote also many other articles suitable for Christmas and New Year’s. During December, Clark paid me two hundred pounds for “Friend Olivia,” and seventy-five pounds for the book rights of “The Last of the McAllisters.” I also wrote a short story for the McClure Syndicate, being busy on it from the twenty-second to the twenty-eighth of December. I liked to write for McClure’s Syndicate; he always both paid, and praised me well. I can say the same of the Bacheller Syndicate, and though I never see424either Mr. McClure, or Irving Bacheller now, I remember them both with the utmost kindness.
On the eleventh of January, 1890, I notice that I threw all the Arcadia matter into a drawer in my study, where it would be out of sight and memory, adding, “I can’tfeelthat story, so I can’t, and won’t write it!” This neglected, despised Arcadian matter is still occupying the drawer, and I have not looked at it since I put it away, until this morning, when I took from the pile “the true story ofEvangeline,” to be sure of the name of the country, to which the Arcadians went after leaving Canada. It was on the Teche Bayou they settled, andEvangeline’sreal name was Emmeline Labiche, and her body rests, as I have already said, at the Poste des Attakapas. Probably the Poste is now a town or city, though the Arcadians were by no means an energetic or progressive people.
As soon as I put the Arcadian matter in that drawer, I began a New York story called “She Loved a Sailor.” It contained a vivid picture of New York city life in General Jackson’s time, and is probably the last of the New York series of tales. I have had fewer letters about it, than I usually have about a New York novel, and I wondered at that, because it is within the memories and traditions of many living families. So I have taken it for granted that its localities and data are correct, for if I had made an error some one would have told me of it.
While I was writing this book, on the eleventh of February, Mr. and Mrs. Van Siclen gave me a “Bow of Orange Ribbon” dinner at the Lawyer’s Club. It was a very fine affair, and I kept its artistic menu and bow of ribbon for many years. The guests were mostly Dutch, but I had the great honor and pleasure of having Henry Van Dyke at my right hand. Two things I remember about this dinner. I tasted crabs à la Newburgh for the first time; and then while I was as happy as I could be talking to Dr. Van Dyke, Mr. Van Siclen shocked me by asserting, “Mrs. Barr will now make us a little speech, and tell us how she came to write ‘The Bow of Orange Ribbon.’” I do not believe I had ever heard of a woman speaking at a dinner table before. I had an idea it was absolutely a man’s function. It would then have been as easy to imagine myself425doing my athletics in public, as making a speech at a dinner table. I turned to Dr. Van Dyke in a kind of stupefaction, and said only one word “Please!” and he understood, and rose immediately, and made a speech for me that charmed and delighted every one present. Indeed I am inclined to think it was the best speech he ever made. It was so spontaneous that it was not Henry Van Dyke’s speech, it was Henry Van Dyke his very self.
After I had finished “She Loved a Sailor” I took Alice and went to England, leaving in theBotheniaJuly the second, and returning about September in theAurania. And after I had finished my business, I gave myself entirely to Alice. She learns best through her eyes, and I took her to everything I thought would interest her. We were fortunate enough to hear Handel’s fine oratorio of “Samson” at the Crystal Palace, with a thousand male and female voices in the chorus; and Sims Reeves in the solos. Ada Rehan was playing “As You Like It” and she went three times to see her, before she was tired. But I think the service at St. Paul’s Cathedral pleased her most of all. Dr. Vaughan preached from “There remaineth a rest,” an eloquent sermon, and the music was heavenly. She was curiously pleased also with the little rush chairs, she thought it seemed “more like sitting with God, than if you were shut up in a pew.” We had a happy happy time. It is the only holiday I have had since Robert died. I gave it to Alice, and she gave it back to me a hundred-fold. It seems like a dream of heaven to remember it.
426CHAPTER XXIVBUSY, HAPPY DAYS
“Days of happy work amid the silence of the everlasting hills, days like drops that fall from the honeycomb.”. . . . . . . . . .“Slow, sweet busy hours that brought me all things good.”
“Days of happy work amid the silence of the everlasting hills, days like drops that fall from the honeycomb.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Slow, sweet busy hours that brought me all things good.”
After my return we had to consider the winter. During the previous winter we had suffered much from the severe cold, it being impossible to warm the house, when the thermometer sank to twenty, or to even thirty below zero. After some efforts to find suitable winter quarters in the neighborhood we closed the house, and went for a week or two to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I had a business contract pending with Mr. Edwin Bonner, and we knew that a suitable house somewhere near New York would be the best for me. There was one great trouble connected with this arrangement: we had to send our English mastiff to the kennels, and Sultan was really a very much beloved member of the family. He had been given to me by my friend Dr. Bermingham when we first went up the mountain. “It is a lonely place,” said the good doctor, “and you ladies will need a protector.” He was sent from the kennels with a pedigree as long as an English duke’s, and he was positively described as a Saint Bernard. I knew he was an English mastiff of pure breed, as soon as I saw him, and I loved him all the better for it.
Everyone’s dog does wonderfully, but Sultan excelled them all. He could nearly speak, and in the last agonies of death, he did really call “Lilly” as plainly as I could have done. He came to every meal with us, and had his plate and napkin laid next to Lilly, for between Lilly and himself there was the strongest affection. He permitted no other dog on the place,427but he talked to all the dogs from far and near through the gate, and they brought him all the news of the mountain. Sometimes he brought it to us, and we always listened and answered, “Is that possible, Sultan?” and he would give a little bark of assent, and lie down to consider it. He liked me to be prettily dressed, and always showed his satisfaction in some unmistakable way. He was most polite to company, met them at the gate, and conducted them to the parlor, invariably lying down at the feet of the prettiest and best dressed person in the company. If I was in England he watched for the mail with Lilly, and listened attentively while she read my letter to him. When she came to the words, “Mamma and Alice send their love to Sultan,” he always answered the message with a little bark of pleasure. Oh, indeed, I could tell still more wonderful things of this affectionate creature, but they would raise a doubt. No one could believe them, unless they had lived with the splendid fellow, and known him as we did. So it was hard to part with him, even for a week or two, but he was large as a mastiff of pure blood can be, and the proprietors of the Fifth Avenue Hotel would not hear of him as a guest.
We went to the hotel on October, the seventeenth, and between that date and the twenty-seventh I made a contract with Mr. Bonner for four serials. I was to deliver two each year, and he was to pay me twenty-five hundred dollars for each, in all, ten thousand dollars. In the meantime Lilly had found a house in East Orange, which was thoroughly warmed, and we moved into it on October the twenty-fifth, and brought Sultan home with us.
We were soon comfortably settled, and on the first of January I had finished the ninth chapter of my first serial for Mr. Edwin Bonner, called “A Sister to Esau.” On the eighth of February it was finished. But the press of business, and the proposals of various publishers, seems to have really made me very unhappy. In a note on the twenty-third of February, when I had had a great deal of business to attend to, I wrote at night, “I am sad and weary with the day, and feel terribly unfit for the considerations I have to face. I have a sense of being politely bullied, and of having suffered a loss of some428kind—spiritual, mental or financial—perhaps something in all respects.”
I was much interrupted by callers in East Orange, a great many of whom brought manuscripts, which they were sure I would like to read, and could easily place for them. I had a heartache for the peace and solitude of the little cottage on the mountain. Now the dream of every English man and woman is a home of their own, and I saw this to be a possibility now; and I could think of no place but Cherry Croft. I wanted it for my own. Then I could put in a proper furnace and make it habitable all the year round.
I had finished Mr. Bonner’s serial on the eighth of February; on the fifteenth of February, I began forLippincott’s“A Rose of A Hundred Leaves.” Its heroine,Aspatria, was one of my favorites. She dwelt among the Fells in one of those large, comfortable farm or manor houses, occupied for centuries by the Sheep Lords of the North Country. I always knew what she was going to do. Sometimes I have wondered, if Amelia had once beenAspatria. Her brothers seemed so near and real to me, and she lived in just such a home, as I have had glimpses of, whenever the Past comes back to me. I finished the book on the fifteenth of March, and Mr. Mead praised the story, which pleased me, because it was the first time he had ever expressed satisfaction with my work.
On the twentieth I went to Cornwall, and bought Cherry Croft, paying for it six thousand dollars in cash. Some told me I had paid too much, others too little, but I was satisfied. The house was not worth much, but there was nearly four acres of land full of fruit and forest trees. And there were the mountains, and the river, and the wide valley view, and that general peace and quiet, that has in it a kind of sacramental efficacy.
“Cherry Croft,” Cornwall-on-Hudson
“Cherry Croft,” Cornwall-on-Hudson
I had at this time a great deal of trouble with English houses printing my work, without either payment or permission, and a laughable but provoking incident occurred with the proof-reading of “A Sister to Esau.” In this story, my chief character is a Scotch gentleman, of the most perfervid Calvinism, and the period of the story was the glorious ecclesiastical429“departure” of the Free Kirk. Now Mr. Bonner’s proofreader happened to be a strict, strait Methodist, and he altered all the Calvinism to Methodism, which was sheer nonsense in the mouth of a Scotch Chief, and a seceding Free Kirker. However as soon as I explained the circumstances to Mr. Bonner he had the text restored as written, with many apologies for his Methodist proofreader’s conscience.
The whole summer was spent in writing Mr. Bonner’s second serial, “Love for an Hour Is Love Forever;” and in attending to the alterations going on in my home. Every room that was papered and painted afresh, was a new pleasure; and I had a fine garden, and began to plant vines, and to make an asparagus bed. Also, I made preparations for the winter’s comfort by putting in a hot water furnace, and then I began a novelette called “Femmetia’s Experience” for Mr. Bonner. It was a reincarnation story, and had a large sale, though at the time, the doctrine was but looming up on my spiritual horizon. The main facts of this story had been told me by an old lady when I lived in Boroughbridge, and was only twelve years old. Dr. Deems came to see us just as I had finished the story, and I spoke of its tendency and he said he had a strong leaning to the old heresy, that it had never died out of the heart and imaginations of men, and was steadily gaining a new growth.
I ought to have had a very happy summer, for I had my own home, good health, and all the work that I could do; but how often below this calm idyllic surface of life, there is some fateful, domestic sorrow! It is likely met with the heroism and devoted affection of the old Greek tragedy, but there it is! and it has to be borne as best it may. I found in love and work the strength and consolation, the heavy-hearted of the Greek world never knew. It brings tears to my eyes yet, to read the short, pitiful entries of that cruel November. Yet I finished “Femmetia’s Experience” and wrote also a novelette for Bonner called “The Mate of the Easter Bell,” and other short articles. For in mental grief, mental work is a great salvation. I worked hard, though I was often compelled to lay down my pencil to seek the strength and comfort found only by “fleeing to the430Rock that is higher than I.” At the last, all was well. The gay handsome Captain M—— passed out of our lives, and Lilly bore the breaking of the tie better than I expected.
I must not forget that in the midst of this trouble one of the dearest friends I still possess came into my life. It was Rutger Bleecker Jewett, the son of the learned Professor Jewett, of the General Theological Seminary. Through the December cold and deep snow, he climbed Storm King, one afternoon, and stepped into the light and warmth of Cherry Croft, like an incarnation of splendid youth and hope. He brought his welcome with him. With open hearts, and both hands we all met him, and he was free of my home from that hour. His father and mother were my friends, but I had never met Rutger before. Yet in a recent letter he writes, “I have always felt that we were old friends from the first—never strangers. It was as though we had met again, after an absence, not as though we were meeting for the first time. I also cherish vivid memories of you later in our old graystone house in Chelsea Square. The old house with its deep windows, big old-fashioned rooms, and vine-covered walls, has been replaced by a modern building, no more comfortable, and nowhere so picturesque as the house we knew. It is more than twenty years since I first came to Cherry Croft—twenty years of unbroken trust and friendship—a very rich possession to me.”
And to me also. As opportunity offered, I have often sought his advice or help, and he has never failed me.
On January tenth I began “A Singer from the Sea,” Mr. Bonner’s third serial. On the twenty-second I was at the Astor Library all day, and at Rossiter Johnson’s at a reception in the evening; Mr. Jewett went with me. On the twenty-third Mr. McClure and Mr. Ballistier took lunch with me at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and Mr. McClure would have been very generous to me for some stories, but my engagement with Mr. Bonner prevented any business. I was at Mrs. Dodge’s in the afternoon, and among the numerous visitors picked out Edith Thomas at once. I took dinner at Dr. Jewett’s and watched with delight Mrs. Jewett dancing with her sons and daughters.
On March fifteenth I finished “A Singer from the Sea”431and then began “Michael and Theodora” for Mrs. Dodge, which I did not finish until June; and in July I began “Girls of a Feather,” Mr. Bonner’s last serial, which I finished in October. I was busy all summer in having a fence put round Cherry Croft, and a hedge planted within the fence. During October I wrote an article for theNorth American Reviewcalled “Flirting Wives;” I had my little green house filled with bulbs and flowers, and planted with my own hands, and many tender memories, some laburnum trees. They were my mother’s favorite, and I can see them dropping golden flowers all around our pretty garden in the Isle of Man.
On November sixth I began the “Flower of Gala Water” which Bonner published after its serialization in the newGodey’s Magazine, and on the eleventh we were honored and delighted with a visit from Dr. William Hayes Ward, who spent the week end with us. A little event of this visit remains like a picture on my memory. There was some question about a text in the Epistles, and Dr. Ward took from his vest pocket a small Testament. He said he had carried it there for many years. “Then it is not a revised Testament?” I asked. And he looked at the little book affectionately, and answered, “No.” Yet the doctor had been on the committee of revision. But I understood. For me there is no version but the King James Version, and nothing could make me give it up. I have only one copy of the revised edition, and that Dr. Talmage inscribed to me with such extravagant encomiums, that I leave it lying on my parlor table, as a kind of certificate of moral health.
During 1892 I had written “The Singer from the Sea” and “Girls of a Feather,” “The Flower of Gala Water” and “The Preacher’s Daughter,” “Michael and Theodora” and several articles. My eyes were very tired, and I did not do so much during January, 1893. On the twenty-third, I began an article for Mr. Bok called “Why Literary Women Do Not Marry” and on the twenty-ninth, I began my novel called “Prisoners of Conscience.” It was then a short story, and was published in theCentury Magazine, but was later enlarged to book size, and published by the Century Company. During432the month I also wrote another article for Mr. Bok called “Women’s Weapons.”
In March, I wrote “The Lone House.” A study of this story had appeared in theChristian Union. It was a good book, but Rutger told me the young people said it was “too religious,” and they wished I would go back to my love stories. So I began “Bernicia,” a love story among people of the first condition. But on my sixty-fourth birthday I became very ill with ulcerated sore throat, and on the fourth of April was in such a dangerous condition, that I sent for a New York specialist. I came near to death, but recovered slowly, and on June sixth I took Alice and went to England.
It was not until the beginning of 1895, that I was able to take up “Bernicia,” but during the same interval, I had written a story and several articles for the Bacheller Syndicate. From the eighteenth to the twenty-first of January I was in New York paying a visit to Mrs. Goldschmidt. The first afternoon we went together to a large studio reception. There were all sorts of professional people there, but I remember no one but Mrs. Frank Leslie. She was then Mrs. Wilde, I believe. The next day Mrs. Goldschmidt gave a dinner, and I sat next to General Collis, but liked Mr. John Wise and his beautiful wife best of all. I believe they were Virginians. The day following there was a crowded reception, and a supper party, and I sat next to Moncure Conway and Mrs. Frank Leslie. For the next night there was a theatre party, and a supper at the Waldorf. More weary than if I had written a book, I went home in the morning. I was grateful for the kindness shown me but very sorry indeed for the people who called it “life” and lived it.
On my sixty-fifth birthday I was still on “Bernicia,” but I had been very sick, and had a great deal of trouble of a heartaching quality, but though I complain a little to my diary, I add, “Truly I am old and weary, but with Thy help, O God, I am young, and strong, and ready to mount up as on eagles’ wings. Thy loving kindness faileth not!”
I finished “Bernicia” on the twentieth of April, and found a couplet from the Sufi poets, which pleased me so much, I will copy it here:
433
“The Writer of our Destiny is a fair writer;Never wrote He that which would wrong us.”
“The Writer of our Destiny is a fair writer;Never wrote He that which would wrong us.”
“The Writer of our Destiny is a fair writer;
Never wrote He that which would wrong us.”
I was very ill with nervous dyspepsia during June, but on July second accepted the proposal of theNew York Herald, to run for one of the three judges of the ten thousand dollars prize offered by that paper for the best novel submitted to it. My vote was so large, that it was at this time theHeraldsaid I must be “the best beloved woman in the country.” Mr. George Parsons Lathrop and Mr. Hazeltine were my colleagues.
After this I wrote “The Knight of the Nets” for theHerald. “Discontented Women” for theNorth American Review—for which article Mr. Rideing the editor wrote me a letter of thanks, a story for theHome Queen, and other small items.
On the twenty-sixth of September Lilly married Mr. Edward A. Munro, a Canadian whose business was in Brooklyn. It was an overwhelming trial to me, for Lilly had been my right hand in all affairs since her father’s death. It is true that ten words by telegraph never yet failed to bring her to my side by the next possible train, but the house was empty and forlorn without her; and both Alice and I were desolate. However life is a constant learning “to do without” until that wonderful, “never-coming-back,” we call death, restores to us all that we have lost.
On December twenty-second, our dear Sultan died. We buried him in Cherry Croft, and were all heart-broken. Alas!
“There’s sorrow enough in the natural way,From men and women to fill our day:But when we are certain of sorrow in store,Why do we always arrange for more?Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware,Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.”—Kipling.
“There’s sorrow enough in the natural way,From men and women to fill our day:But when we are certain of sorrow in store,Why do we always arrange for more?Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware,Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.”—Kipling.
“There’s sorrow enough in the natural way,
From men and women to fill our day:
But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware,
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.”—Kipling.
January twelfth, 1896, Mrs. Goldschmidt had opened her house in Cornwall and Mr. Wilcox, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the artist Arter and Mrs. Arter and others were staying there.434I took dinner with them, and that evening made up my mind that large parties were a mistake. A man’s family is never too many, because perfect freedom and unanimity of interest make them one. But with strangers there should be no more guests than the host can personally entertain. The Ettrick Shepherd’s “Rule of Three” is a good one, both as regards the guests and the courses. Every one has been to crowded and extravagant dinners, where they played the hypocrite for three or four hours, and said a fervent “Thank God!” when it was over.
Two days after this dinner I was in New York to attend Edward Bok’s reception—I think at the Waldorf Astoria. I should call it a mob, and not a reception. I had with me Dr. Lysander Dickerman, but even his splendid physical bulk, could not make a way for me through the crowd. The next day he came to Cornwall with me, and with Dr. and Mrs. Stone, who called to see him, we had a delightful evening. I wish I had space to say more of Dr. Dickerman, but there must be many living yet who remember his piety, his vast stores of learning, his attractive personality and fine conversational powers. The next morning Mr. Paul, a London editor, came in and brought me his last book.
On the twenty-seventh of this January, 1896, I made an arrangement with Mr. Dodd to enlarge “The Knight of the Nets” for a book, for which they agreed to pay eight hundred dollars on January, 1897. Then I went out to spend the weekend with Irving Bacheller at his home in Port Chester. He had a beautiful place there, and a lovely wife, and I enjoyed my holiday very much. Mr. Bacheller was a good performer on the organ, which astonished me, and yet it need not have done so, for men seem to play with little or no effort. He was a fine driver also, and I saw the villages of Greenwich and Belle Haven. Professor Gaines dined one evening with us, and my visit to Mr. and Mrs. Bacheller is full of pleasant memories.
I returned to New York on Monday morning, Mr. Bacheller coming with me. I intended spending the day in the Astor Library, but when we reached Astor Place, Mr. Bacheller said435suddenly, “I am going to see Louis Klopsch, and I want you to go with me.”
“Who is Louis Klopsch?” I asked.
“The proprietor of theChristian Herald.”
“Oh!” I replied. “Do you think he will care to see me?”
“He will be glad to see you, and I dare promise, that you will be the better for seeing him.”
So I went to see Louis Klopsch, and it was one of the happiest and the most profitable things I ever did. We found him in his private office, and the room was in itself remarkable. It had an ornate, Eastern look; the windows were shaded with tinted glass, and there was an oil painting of “The Descent from the Cross” covering a large space of the western wall, while other Biblical pictures and models were everywhere to be seen; giving it the Oriental look of which I have spoken. And I had never seen such handsome furniture and appointments in any editor’s or even publisher’s office. I thought of the rather large closets, with their plain wooden chairs and simple desks, in which Harper’s editors sat; of the slips in which George Merriam, and Moses Coit Tyler wrote and read; the poverty of all the editorial offices I had ever seen flashed across my memory, as I sat amid the color, beauty and luxury of the office of theChristian Herald.
Dr. Klopsch rose as we entered, and with smiles came to meet us. Mr. Bacheller hastened away, I stayed nearly two hours, and they went like ten minutes. At the end of our interview, I was astonished at my first estimate of his countenance. I had then thought it remarkable, but not handsome; but I soon understood that it was the only face, that could have expressed his complex inner man, as well as properly manifest his slight, graceful personality. He had charming manners, and walked with a kind of alert grace. I have been particular about Dr. Klopsch’s appearance, for I came to know him well, both in a business and a social way, and I suspect he could appear very different, to people with whom he was not in sympathy.
I went home on the first of February, and found so many letters I could do nothing on the second but answer them.436Among the writers were Mrs. Libbey, and Mr. Rideing; the latter sent me a check for seventy-five dollars in payment for “Discontented Women.” On the eleventh, I went to Princeton, and remained with the Libbeys until the fourteenth, when I returned to New York, and dined with the Rideings. I liked to go to the Rideings; there was always such a sweet, old English air and influence about their home and dinners. I think they spent their summers in England, and never quite lost its atmosphere.
On the sixteenth I began to rewrite “The Knight of the Nets” for Mr. Dodd; and on the twenty-first I signed a contract with Dr. Klopsch to write him a serial for theChristian Heraldfor twenty-five hundred dollars. I also saw Mr. Booth King about a short story of four chapters for his paper calledFashionand promised to write it for five hundred dollars. Then I worked on “The Knight of the Nets” all the rest of February.
On the fourth of March I was again in New York attending a play and supper at Colonel Robert Ingersoll’s. Mr. Jewett went with me. I remember nothing about the play, but I shall never forget Robert Ingersoll. I know all that has been said against him. It does not alter my fixed opinion that in practice he was one of the best Christians I ever knew. He has gone to the Mercy of the Merciful One, and I can only remember his wonderful intelligence, and personal charm.
On March nineteenth the Sorosis Club gave me a breakfast at the Waldorf, at which I met Mrs. Helmuth, Jennie June (Mrs. Croly) and many other notable women. I returned home after the affair, and the next day went to work on Mr. King’s story called, “I Will Marry My Own First Love.” I did not finish it until the thirty-first, for though I had contracted for twelve thousand words, I wrote twenty-one thousand, because I could not properly develop the story with less work.
March, the twenty-ninth, was my sixty-fifth birthday. I was writing all day on the story for Mr. King. “In the evening I sat with Lilly and Alice in the firelight, and talked of God’s wonderful care over us. Alice said many comforting things. So sweet and good is the dear One! We used the new blue dinner service for the first time.” (Diary, 1896.)
437
I was on “The Knight of the Nets” again until the twentieth of April, when I got a letter from Mr. Charles Frohman, about “The Bow of Orange Ribbon.” On the twenty-first I made a contract with him to dramatize it,if I could, about which fact I was doubtful. I had already realized that a play was not to write, but to build. Mr. Frohman gave me a box for that night’s performance of “The Prisoner of Zenda” and Mr. Edward Dodd and Mr. Bacheller occupied it with me. Before trying the play, I finished “The Knight of the Nets” so often delayed and put aside. This was not until the eleventh of May.
I gave nearly two weeks to the play, but felt it was not technically right, and Mr. Frohman in a kindly and gentlemanly manner told me so. And I was sorry at my failure to do what he wished. It made me nervous and sick, and I went to stay a few days at Elwyn, with Dr. Martin Barr.
This clever, delightful physician is not, I regret to say, any relative of mine, but we are the best of friends, and I always resort to him for advice when sick, and other physicians fail me. Only three months ago I did so with the usual success. He is the head of the Elwyn State Institution for Insanity in many forms, and an exceedingly clever physician and social scientist.
As the Elwyn Institution is very near to Swartmoor College I visited Professor De Gama, its principal at that time, and was delighted with him, and his large body of male and female students. He took me through the building, until we came to a door leading into a separate wing of the house. He told me he could not pass this door, as it led to the quarter sacred to the women students. “But,” he added, “go down the corridor, and you will find plenty of friends.”
I did so, and seeing a door open, and a room full of girls, I stood and looked at them. There was an instant pause, and then a little joyful cry of “Amelia Barr! Amelia Barr!” Afterwards I had as happy an hour as any woman could have, and standing among that joyous, handsome crowd of young, lovely girls, and hearing their sweet voices call me, “Friend Amelia,” I felt young again. And my thoughts flew instantly to the fair streets of Kendal, on First Day morning, full of438beautiful, richly-gowned Quaker girls, going to meeting, while the magical chimes of Kendal Church filled the still air above them with heavenly melody. And every morning, as long as I remained at Elwyn, I found on my breakfast table a bouquet from the girls of Elwyn College. May God bless every one of them, wherever they now dwell!
On the first of June, I began a story for Dr. Klopsch called “The King’s Highway.” It is a good story, but would have been better, if I had not received so many instructions from the editors of theChristian Herald. It had an unique acknowledgment from Mr. Thomas E. Clarke of Minneapolis, who sent me a copy of a story called “The King’s Highway” in the Dakota language.
On the twenty-second of June, I was at a dinner party given to Julian Hawthorne on his fiftieth birthday, and had the pleasure of sitting between Mr. Hawthorne and Mr. Hazeltine. I know there was a very fine dinner, but as to the feast of reason and the flow of soul, if it was remarkable I have quite forgotten all about it. Yet with Hawthorne and Hazeltine present, many clever things must have been said. The two items that impressed me, was the beautiful gown of Mrs. Richard Stoddard, and the wreath of laurel that crowned the chair in which Julian Hawthorne sat.
On the ninth of July I was so tired, that I took my work to Nantasket and stayed there two weeks. It was then a quiet seaside resort, I believe it is now a kind of Coney Island. But I met pleasant people, and saw the New Englander on his native soil, and liked him so much, that I wrote the following poem to express my admiration of his character:
They intended to go to Virginia,But God at the wheel said, “No!The hundred that I have chosen,To the cold, white North shall go.I will temper them there as by fire,I will try them a hundred fold,I will shake them with all its tempests,I will steady them with itscold.”439So these men from the English meadowsBy the pitiless Plymouth Bay,Learned well the worth of their Freedom,By the price they had to pay.But out of the fires of affliction,The tumult and struggle of wars,They brought forth her glorious banner,Its azure all shining with stars.The Hundred has grown to a nation,The wilderness blooms like the rose,And all through the South and the WestGo the men of the ice and the snows.But wherever they go, they carryThe strength of their forefather’s fight—The courage and moral uprightness,Of men who prefer to do right.
They intended to go to Virginia,But God at the wheel said, “No!The hundred that I have chosen,To the cold, white North shall go.I will temper them there as by fire,I will try them a hundred fold,I will shake them with all its tempests,I will steady them with itscold.”
They intended to go to Virginia,
But God at the wheel said, “No!
The hundred that I have chosen,
To the cold, white North shall go.
I will temper them there as by fire,
I will try them a hundred fold,
I will shake them with all its tempests,
I will steady them with itscold.”
439So these men from the English meadowsBy the pitiless Plymouth Bay,Learned well the worth of their Freedom,By the price they had to pay.But out of the fires of affliction,The tumult and struggle of wars,They brought forth her glorious banner,Its azure all shining with stars.
439
So these men from the English meadows
By the pitiless Plymouth Bay,
Learned well the worth of their Freedom,
By the price they had to pay.
But out of the fires of affliction,
The tumult and struggle of wars,
They brought forth her glorious banner,
Its azure all shining with stars.
The Hundred has grown to a nation,The wilderness blooms like the rose,And all through the South and the WestGo the men of the ice and the snows.But wherever they go, they carryThe strength of their forefather’s fight—The courage and moral uprightness,Of men who prefer to do right.
The Hundred has grown to a nation,
The wilderness blooms like the rose,
And all through the South and the West
Go the men of the ice and the snows.
But wherever they go, they carry
The strength of their forefather’s fight—
The courage and moral uprightness,
Of men who prefer to do right.
On July thirty-first, I had a letter from my sister Alethia who was staying a few weeks at Castletown in the Isle of Man. In this letter she told me she had been with a marble cutter to Kirk Malew churchyard and had had Captain Thomas Huddleston’s grave stone cleaned and all the moss and lichen removed from the lettering. My readers may remember that he was captain of theGreat Harryand was bringing home troops from America, when his ship was wrecked on Scarlet Rocks, every one on board perishing. And she told me, that when the stone was cleaned, she noticed that this tragedy occurred on the twenty-ninth of March, so that Captain Thomas Henry Huddleston and his son Henry died on the day that I was born.
Early in August I finished “The King’s Highway” and began to try to dramatize “The Bow of Orange Ribbon.” I did not stop for anything except to visit Mr. Hearst’s Children’s Republic near Haverstraw, and to write an article about it. I finished the play in September, and Mr. Frohman was so far pleased with it that he promised to find a playwright who understood stage business to work with me. On the twenty-fourth, he introduced me to Mr. August Thomas, who agreed to direct the work as soon as I came to the city for the winter.
440
October was a very busy month. I wrote half a dozen articles for Dr. Klopsch, and on the twentieth I went to Princeton to attend a great anniversary. I stayed with my old pupil, Professor William Libbey, and Professor Wheeler of the California University, the author of a fascinating “Life of Alexander the Great,” was there with me. Professor Jacobus and Mrs. Jacobus were also there, and at night I went to a college concert with Mrs. Libbey. On the twenty-first I went to Alexander Hall with Mrs. Libbey and heard Henry Van Dyke deliver a splendid poem written by himself called “The Builders.” After it, I was unable to decide whether he was greater as an orator, or a poet. On the twenty-second I saw the degrees given, heard Mr. Cleveland speak, and then went to a reception at President Patton’s. On the third of the following March, I had a letter from Moses Coit Tyler in which he says:
My dear Mrs. Barr:I had from my colleague Wheeler a faithful account of his talk with you at Princeton last fall, and of your kind message to me. I’m sorry that I can’t send you a portrait of the literary editor of theChristian Unionas he looked twenty-four years ago, when he was that great man. So I must ask you to accept this his latest portrait, which may tell you that these years which have crowned you with laurels, have crowned him with gray hairs. All the same he isYours faithfully,Moses Coit Tyler.March 30, 1897.
My dear Mrs. Barr:
I had from my colleague Wheeler a faithful account of his talk with you at Princeton last fall, and of your kind message to me. I’m sorry that I can’t send you a portrait of the literary editor of theChristian Unionas he looked twenty-four years ago, when he was that great man. So I must ask you to accept this his latest portrait, which may tell you that these years which have crowned you with laurels, have crowned him with gray hairs. All the same he is
Yours faithfully,
Moses Coit Tyler.
March 30, 1897.
On the twenty-fourth I was at home and wrote an article for Dr. Klopsch on the Armenian question, and on the twenty-sixth I went to a great meeting in Carnegie Hall, called to sympathize with the persecuted Armenian Christians. This meeting was chiefly memorable to me, because I met there Dr. Burrell. He made the great speech of the occasion, and as I sat beside him on the platform I heard and enjoyed every word of it. As an orator, I do not think he has many equals, and his voice is very fine and resonant, and his gestures expressive and pleasing.