DR. EDWARD EGGLESTONDR. EDWARD EGGLESTONAT LAKE GEORGE
DR. EDWARD EGGLESTON
Owl’s Nest, the summer retreat ofDr.Edward Eggleston, is picturesquely situated on Dunham’s Bay, an arm of Lake George that deeply indents the land on the southeastern shore of the lake. This site was chosen partly because the land hereabout is owned by his son-in-law, and partly because of the seclusion the place affords from the main current of summer business and travel. With the utmost freedom of choice, a spot better suited to the needs of a literary worker with a family could hardly have been selected within the entire thirty-six miles covering the length of Lake George. Here, a few years ago, among black rocks, green woods, and blue waters, all pervaded by the breath of balsam, cedar, and pine, the author of “The Hoosier Schoolmaster,” after various flights to other northern places of resort, built the nest which he has since continued to occupy during six months of the year (with the exception of one year spent abroad), and in which he does the better part of his literary work, with material about him prepared at his winterhome in Brooklyn. Owl’s Nest (doubtless jocosely so-called because of the utter absence from it of everything owlish) consists of three architecturally unique and tasteful buildings, occupying a natural prominence on the western shore of the bay. One, the family cottage, is a handsome-looking and commodious structure of wood, liberally furnished in a manner becoming the artistic and literary proclivities of its occupants. A little below this, to the right, and nearer the lake shore, is a summer boarding-house, built by the owner of the farm for the accommodation of the friends and admirers ofDr.Eggleston, who annually follow his flight into the country—so impossible, as it would seem, is it to escape the consequences of fame. The third and most striking structure upon the grounds isDr.Eggleston’s workshop and library—his lasting and peculiar mark on the shores of Lake George, and the most prominent and elaborate piece of work of its kind to be found anywhere in northern New York. This was laid out by a Springfield,Mass., architect, after plans of the proprietor’s own. It is built of brown sandstone quarried on the spot, and laid by local stone-workers, finished in native chestnut and cherry by home mechanics, and decorated without with designs, and within with carvings, by the hand of the author’s artist-daughter, Allegra. Thus are secured for it at once asturdy native character of its own, and a sylvan harmony and grace most pleasing to the fancy. Within this stronghold are arranged in due order the weapons of the literary champion—historian, novelist, and essayist—as well as the tools of his daughter, who has long been working in conjunction with her father in the production of the illustrated novel, “The Graysons,” given to the world in 1888.
It is into this stronghold that one is conducted on a Sunday afternoon, after the usual hearty hand-shake; especially if one’s visit relates in any way to things literary, or to questions that are easiest settled in an atmosphere of books. You are led through a door opening at the rear of the building, toward the cottage; immediately opposite to which, upon entering, appears the entrance to the artist’s studio; thence along a narrow passage traversing the length of the west wall and lined to the ceiling with books, through a doorway concealed by a pair of heavy dropping curtains, and into the author’s study, occupying the south end of the building. Here you are seated in a soft chair beside a deep, red brick fireplace (adorned with andirons and other appurtenances of ancient pattern, captured from some old colonial mansion), and before a modern bay-window opening to the south.
This window is, structurally, the chief glory andornament ofDr.Eggleston’s study—broad, deep, and high, filling fully one-third of the wall-space in the south end, and so letting into the room, as it were, a good portion of all out-doors. From this window is obtained a charming view of the finest points in the surrounding scenery. Directly in front stretches out for miles to the southward a broad expanse of marsh, through which winds in sinuous curves a sluggish creek that ends its idling course where the line of blue water meets the rank green of the swale. Just here extends from shore to shore a long causeway of stone and timber, over which runs the highway through the neighborhood. Flanking the morass on each side are two parallel lines of mountains, looking blue and hazy and serene on a still day, but marvelously savage and wild and threatening when a storm is raging. These are, respectively, the French Mountain spur on the west; and on the east a long chain of high peaks, which begins with the Sugar Loaf, three miles inland, approaches the eastern shore, and forms with the grand peaks of Black, Buck and Finch mountains a magnificent border to the lake as far down as the Narrows, where it terminates in the bold and picturesque rock of Tongue Mountain.
This view constitutes almost the whole outlook from the spot, which is otherwise encroached upon by an intricate tangle of untamed nature—woods,cliffs and ravines, that back it up on the west, and flank it on either side down to the water’s edge. Turning from the view of things outside to consider the things within, you find yourself, apart from the necessary furniture of the room, walled in by books, to apparently interminable heights and lengths. I thinkDr.Eggleston told me he has here something like four thousand volumes, perhaps one-fourth of which may be classed as general literature; the rest being volumes old and new, of ever conceivable date, style and condition, bearing upon the subject of colonial history. These have been gathered at immense pains from the libraries and bookstalls of Europe and America. In his special field of workDr.Eggleston long ago proved himself a profound student and a thorough and successful operator. But if books tire you, there is at hand a most interesting collection of souvenirs of foreign travel—pictures, casts, quaint manuscripts, etc.—besides rare autographs, curios, and relics of every sort, gathered from everywhere, all of which he shows you with every effort and desire to entertain. In common with other distinguished persons,Dr.Eggleston has undergone persecution by the inveterate collector of autographs. One claimant for a specimen of his penmanship, writing from somewhere in the Dominion, solicited a “few lines” to adorn his album withal; whereupon he went to his deskand, taking a blank sheet, drew with pen and ink two parallel black lines across it, added his signature, and mailed it promptly to the enclosed address.
The work upon whichDr.Eggleston is engaged (“Life in the Thirteen Colonies”) has already occupied him over six years, and he estimates that it will be nearly six years more ere it is completed. Chapters of it have been appearing from time to time, during its composition, inThe Centurymagazine; and the first completed volume is now in the possession of The Century Co. for early publication. It is distinctively a history of the people in their struggle for empire; recording to the minutest details their public and domestic life and affairs, treating exhaustively of their manners, customs, politics, wars, religion, manufactures, and agriculture, showing in what they failed and in what succeeded. All this is wrought out in a vivid style, and possesses the interest and vigor of a romance. This has been his chief work. Otherwise he has contributed to the periodicals a large number of essays, short stories, etc., and has lately (by way of recreation) prepared a youth’s history of the American settlements, for school use. His working-hours are from eight in the morning till two in the afternoon, during which time he sticks to his desk, where he is to be found every day except Sunday, apparentlyhopelessly entangled in a thicket of notes and references, in manuscript and in print, which besets him on all sides. But to the worker there, each stack is a trusted tool on which he lays his hand unerringly when it is wanted. He has perfected a system of note-making which reduces the labor of reference to a minimum, while a type-writer performs for him the mechanical part of the work. His afternoons are given to socialities and recreation. His four little grandchildren come in for a large share of his leisure time; and it is a good thing to see them all rolling together on the study floor and making the place ring with their merriment.
I have seen in one of the older anthologies a poem entitled “The Helper,” of which I remember these words:
“There was a man, a prince among his kind,And he was called the Helper.”
These verses, ever since I read them, have had a certain fascination for me. There is that in them suggestive of the flavor of rare old wine. There are helpers and helpers, from some types of which we pray evermore to be delivered. But there are the true, the born helpers, whom those in need of effectual advice and furtherance should as heartily pray to fall into the way of. These last do not always appear duly classified, labeled and shelved, to be taken down in answer to alltrivial and promiscuous complaints, since, as has been noted, the true helper always proceeds, not by system, but by instinct, which through practice becomes in him unerring, and sufficient to guide him without stumbling. Such a helper is Edward Eggleston. He is a philanthropist who exists chiefly for the sake of doing good to his fellows, and who grows fat in doing it. It is a destiny from which he can not escape, and would not if he could.
One who observes much has often to deplore the absence from our modern life and institutions of any sphere large enough for the exercise and display of the full sum of the powers and faculties of any of our recent or contemporary great men of the people. Compare one of our most gifted men with the stage upon which he is compelled to act, and the disproportion is startling. How much that is above price is thus lost beyond recovery, and often how little we get from such beyond the results of some special popular talent, perhaps itself not representative of the strongest faculties of the person. I first got acquainted withDr.Eggleston through his novels “The Circuit Rider” and “Roxy,” and being then in the novel-reading phase of intellectual development, I of course believed them unrivaled in contemporary literature, as they fairly are of their kind. My enthusiasm lasted till I heard himpreach from the pulpit, and straightway my admiration for the writer was lost in astonishment at the preacher. Never had I heard such sermons; and I still believe I never have. But upon closer acquaintance, my astonishment at the preacher was swallowed up in wonder at the conversational powers of my new friend. Never had I heard such a talker—never have I heard such a one. But the best unveiling was the last, when I discovered under all these multifarious aspects the characteristics and attributes of a born philanthropist. Hitherto I had known only the writer, the preacher, and the talker; now I began to know the man.
In Paris, London, Venice, Florence, in the remote towns and villages of England and the Continent, wherever it has been the fortune ofDr.Eggleston to pitch his tent for a season, his domicile has everywhere been known and frequented by those in need of spiritual or material comfort; and few of such have ever had occasion to complain of failure in getting their reasonable wants satisfied. In these dispensations he has the warmest encouragement and support of Mrs. Eggleston and their daughters, by whom these beautiful and humane traits are fully shared. I once expressed my wonder as to how, amidst the severest professional labors, he could stand so much of this extraneous work, without detrimentto his constitution. “What! do you call that work?” was the characteristic answer. Fortunately a splendid physique defeats the ill-effects that would seem inevitable. And indeed every literary man should possess the nerves of a farmer and the physique of a prize-fighter as a natural basis of success.Dr.Eggleston is a good sailor and an expert climber, and with these accomplishments, and a perpetually cheerful humor, he manages to keep his body in trim. He can row you out to Joshua’s Rock, or to Caldwell, if that lies in your way; or lead you with unerring precision through tangled labyrinths, to visit the choice nooks and scenes of the neighborhood, such as the lovely Paradise, the dark Inferno, and the mysterious Dark Brook.
There is something broadly and deeply elemental inDr.Eggleston’s joyous appreciation of nature, his touching love of little children, and his insight into the springs of animal life. His home habits are simple and beautiful, abounding in all the Christian graces, courtesies, and cordialities which help to maintain the ideal household. Everybody knows something of his personal appearance, if not by sight, then by report—the great bulk of frame, the large leonine head, now slightly grizzled, the deep, sharp, kindly eyes, the movements deliberate but not slow; and more, perhaps, of his conversation—precise, rapid, multifarious,swarming with ideas and the suggestions of things which the rapidity of his utterance prevents him from elaborating—original, opulent of forms, rich in quotation and allusion. And then the laugh—vast, inspiriting, uplifting. But there is such a thing as friendship becoming too friendly!
O. C. Auringer.
[Nearly a third ofDr.Eggleston’s mature life has been covered by the period since this article was written, and during this period his most finished literary work has been produced. “The Faith Doctor,” his last novel, was published in 1891; a few years later two school readers for young children, “Stories of American Life and Adventure” and “Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans” appeared. These books the author estimates highly. In 1899 “The Beginners of a Nation” was published, and in 1901 “The Transit of Civilization,”—the crowning labor of his life and the outcome of historical researches which he has been carrying on for twenty years. The year just past has been devoted to the preparation of a new school history of the United States.Dr.Eggleston’s health is unstable, and he may not continue his writing, but he has in contemplation a volume relating to life in the United States inthe seventeenth century, and also a somewhat autobiographical work, not so much concerning himself as phases of life that he has seen.—Editors.]