Edgar Saltus.A.M., Ph. D., K.S.K., etc., etc., etc.
Edgar Saltus.A.M., Ph. D., K.S.K., etc., etc., etc.
The pomposity of this amused him very much during his later years. The following quotations reveal what has been referred to as his oriental soul floundering in the dark, seeking expression in a language new to his tongue. Taken at random a few of the quotations are as follows:
"There are verses in the Vedas which when repeated are said to charm the birds and beasts."
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought."
"Having pervaded the Universe with a fragment of Myself,—I remain."
"Near to renunciation,—very near,—dwelleth eternal peace."
As material for a book on agnosticism it is amusing,—his agnosticism being in reality only his inability to accept creed-bound faiths. The quotations are proof, however, that germinal somewhere was an aspiration for the verities of things. Unable to find them, the ego drew in upon itself, closing the door. Behind that door however it was watching and waiting with a wistful yearning. Years later, after reading one stanza from the Book of Dzyan, it flung open the door and emerged, to bathe in the sunlight it had been seeking so long.
At the bottom of the page of quotations from the Gitâ is a footnote: "True perhaps but utterly unintelligible to the rabble."
It was not long after his marriage that turning a corner he saw Fame flitting ahead of him, smiling over her shoulder. The newspapers began to quote his witticisms, as for example:
Hostess—"Mr. Saltus, what character in fiction do you admire most?"
Saltus—"God."
His books, considered outrageous to a degree, began to sell like hot cakes. To quote again from a newspaper clipping of that day:
Depraved Customer—"Do you sell the books of Edgar Saltus?"
Virtuous Bookseller—"Sir, I keep Guy de Maupassant's, The Heptameron, and Zola's, but Saltus—never."
Edgar Saltus was made.
To go back a little. It was shortly after his marriage to Helen Read that the conventional trip to Europe followed. Added to the selfishness which the circumstances of his life had fostered abundantly, Edgar Saltus had a number of odd and well developed twists. Illness in any form was abhorrent to him, contact with it unthinkable, and even to hear about it objectionable. When his young wife suffered from neuralgia—a thing which not infrequently happened—he put on his hat and walked out. The idea of schooling himself to bear anything he disliked was as foreign as Choctaw.
High-tempered, moody, impatient to a degree seldom encountered, and with the preconceived idea that he was entirely right in everything, he set sail on the matrimonial sea. Two episodes will make clear why the shoalswere encountered so soon. Realizing then how oblique had been his angle, the story of his life must be thrown forward, as they say in filmdom, to 1912 and then back again to the earlier episode.
We were traveling in awagon-litfrom Germany to Paris. After he had tucked me in for the night I noticed that Mr. Saltus had removed only his coat and his shoes, and was going to bed practically clothed. That alone made me take notice. We had not been married long at the time, but I was acquainted with his habits. Better than any human I ever knew, he loved to been negligée. He could slide out of his clothes and into a dressing-gown like an eel.
This extraordinary behavior was further emphasized when, in spite of his hatred of speaking to people, servants especially, I heard him whispering at the door to the guard. At such radical conduct, I asked what it was all about. His reluctance to answer made me even more insistent. With his cleverness at evasionsand his agility at inventing explanations off the bat, he put me aside with the suggestion that he had asked for more covering. Knowing his ways and his wiles backward and forward, I laughed. Explain he must. Then he said that we would be crossing the frontier in the early hours of the morning, and, as it would be necessary for him to get out and open our luggage for inspection, he had remained dressed. Realizing that it was difficult for me to sleep under any conditions, and fearful lest I be annoyed by it, he had told the man not to knock, but to come in quietly and touch him instead. It was consideration for me, nothing else.
The explanation apparently covered everything. Drawing up his blankets he said, "Good-night."
Instead, however, of the usual deep breathing to follow, presently I heard him laughing, laughing heartily, and trying to suppress it. When questioned he could only say:
"If Helen could see me now! Good Lord!"
When he had repeated it three or four times, I sat up and told him he could tell the worst. This is what he said:
"When Helen and I were traveling this same route and we realized that the frontier meant getting up in the night and the horrors of the customs, I suggested that she be a sport, and toss up a coin to see which of us should take on the job."
"Horrors!" I interjected. "How could you even think of such a thing?"
"How could I? There you have it. How could I? I did, all the same. We were both young and healthy. I didn't see why my sex should be penalized. We threw, and it fell to her."
Another "Horrors" came from the opposite bed. "But of course you did not let her when it came to the scratch? You remembered that you were supposed to take care of her?"
"What I remember only too well is that I did let her do it. She spoke French beautifully and she did it quite uncomplainingly. What abrute I was! I cannot believe that I was ever that sort of being."
"Suppose we toss up now?" I suggested.
Mr. Saltus laughed. "You! Why, little Puss, I would sit up all night with joy, rather than have you wakened. You go out and attend to the customs!" He laughed again. "If Helen could see me now! What a hell of a life I must have led her!"
The other episode occurred during the last years of his life, when we were living in the apartments where Mr. Saltus died. His bed-room and study were at the end of a long hall, removed from the noise of the front door, the elevator, and the telephone, where he could work in quiet.
Uninterrupted quiet was a vital essential to him. Distractions of any kind, no matter how well meant or accidental, sent him into hysterics and ended his work for the day, and he begged me never to speak to him unless the house was on fire. Sometimes through carelessness I did interrupt him as he went fromhis study to his bed-room, asking him a question or telling him of something which had occurred, but when working in his study he was left in peace.
One morning, however (it was while he was writing on "The Imperial Orgy"), something happened which at the moment seemed so vital, that, impulsively and without realizing what the effect would be, I burst into his study without warning and started to tell him.
The effect on him was of such a nature that the errand was forgotten. With a yell like that of a maniac, Mr. Saltus grabbed his hair, pulling it out where it would give way. Still screaming, he batted his head against the walls and the furniture; and finally giving way utterly, he got down and hit his head on the floor.
None of it was directed against me—the offender, yet no woman could have been blamed for running out of the house. Ten minutes later, when he had been put to bed like a small boy, given a warm drink, and had an electric pad applied to his solar plexus, hisone request was that I sit beside him and read extracts from the "Gitâ."
His action was pitiful, tragic.
"Poor child! No one but yourself could understand and put up with such a demon," he said. "I should be taken to the lethal chamber and put out of the way. And yet I could not help it."
The realization that he, an old man then, a student of Theosophy, the first precept of which is self-restraint, could have given way as he had, hurt him cruelly. Understanding and sympathy brought him to himself rapidly. Otherwise he would have been ill.
Mr. Saltus was an unconscious psychic. With those he loved he needed no explanation of anything. He understood even to the extent of answering one's unspoken thoughts many times. So psychic was he, that his disinclination to be in crowds or meet many people came from the fact that they devitalized him, leaving him limp as a rag. When writing a book, as he himself often expressed it, hewas in a state of "high hallucinatory fever," giving out of his ectoplasm very much as a materializing medium gives it out in a séance, to build up a temporary body for the spirit.
It is a well-known scientific fact that any interruption during the process of materialization causes repercussion on the body of the medium, the velocity being such that illness, if not insanity, may result.
While creating a book, Mr. Saltus was in very much the same condition, the finer forces of his etheric body being semi-detached from the physical. He could not help it any more than he could help the color of his eyes. Lacking discipline and self-control from his youth, he could not, after his formative years, coordinate his forces so as to grapple with this limitation effectively.
During an interval of reading the "Gitâ" on this occasion he told me the following:
"In the early days when I was first married to Helen Read, I was writing on a novel. She had no idea how interruptions affected me—nordid I realize myself how acute anything of the kind could become. I was in the middle of an intricate plot. Helen, who out of the kindness of her heart was bringing me a present, opened the door of my study and came in more quietly than you did. Before she could open her mouth to say a word, I began to scream and pull at my hair. Rushing to an open window I tore the manuscript, on which I had been working so long, into fragments and threw them into the street. Whether she thought I had gone suddenly insane and intended to kill her, she did not stop to say. When I looked around she had fled."
For a girl reared in an atmosphere of conventional respectability, as they were in those days, it must have been an insight into bedlam. Once again he made the remark:
"If Helen could see me now, I would seem natural to her. My next life is apt to be a busy one, paying my debts to her and to others."
In view of all this, and of the flirtations he kept up on every side, she must have had atolerance and a patience seldom encountered.
After Balzac and "The Philosophy of Disenchantment" and "The Anatomy of Negation" were off the press, novel after novel fell from his pen, and the newspaper articles quoted previously were appearing. In "A Transaction in Hearts" Mr. Saltus put some of his own experiences, but so changed that the public could not connect him with the plot. His literary bark was launched and under full sail. He could touch the garment of Fame, and the texture was soft and satisfying.
One of his novels was dedicated to E—R, his mother-in-law Emmaline Read. Another to V. A. B. was to his friend Valentine (or Vally) Blacque. E—W was to Miss Edith son, who later in life became the wife of Mr. Francis H. Wellman, a genius in his own field. Shroeder and Lorillard Ronalds were remembered as well.
During a summer abroad Mr. Saltus conceived the idea of writing "Mary Magdalen." The circumstances connected with it are interesting.He was dining in the rooms of Lord Francis Hope one evening. Oscar Wilde was another guest. After their liqueurs and cigars the latter sauntered about, looking at some of the pictures he fancied. One representing Salome intrigued him more than a little. Beckoning to Mr. Saltus, he said:
"This picture calls me. I am going to write a classic—a play—'Salome.' It will be my masterpiece."
Near it was a small picture of the Magdalen.
"Do so," said Mr. Saltus, "and I will write a book—'Mary Magdalen.' We will pursue the wantons together."
Acting on the impulse, Mr. Saltus took rooms in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, where, within walking distance of the British Museum, he could study his background for the story.
Mornings spent in research, afternoons in writing, with a bite of dinner at Pagani's in Great Portland Street, made up his days. There were interruptions, to be sure. One ofthem was a girl named Maudie, who lived somewhere in Peckham. She joined him now and again at dinner. Asked to describe her, he said he had forgotten even her last name, but remembered that he had written of her, "She had the disposition of a sun-dial." This may have assisted to keep him in a good humor.
Many years later Mr. Saltus took me to see the rooms he had occupied during this time, with their queer old open fireplace, great four-poster bed, canopied on all sides, and the old desk at which he had spent so many happy hours. Working hours were happy hours to him, always. He had a sentiment for the place, and once when I was in London alone I stopped there, taking his old rooms for a time, and visiting the landmarks associated with that part of his life. That I should do this touched him profoundly.
During the writing of "Mary Magdalen" he met many interesting people. Among them was Owen Meredith, then British Ambassador to France. In connection with him a ratheramusing incident occurred. Dining one evening at the home of Lady B——, Mr. Saltus was vis-a-vis with Owen Meredith. In the course of the dinner the hostess gave the poet a novel, and asked him to translate an epigram on the fly-leaf which was written in Greek.
Looking at it he said:
"My eyes are not what they once were. Give it to our young friend here," meaning Mr. Saltus.
The passage that had stumped him stumped Mr. Saltus as well, but he refused to be caught. Glancing at it, he exclaimed:
"It is not fit to be translated in Lady B——'s presence."
At that both the rogues laughed.
In a monograph called "Parnassians Personally Encountered," Mr. Saltus tells of this episode, as also of his meeting with other celebrities of the day. Of Oscar Wilde he saw a great deal. The rapid-firing battery of his wit, his epigrams, which gushing up as a geyser confused and astounded the crowd, enchantedhim. At the then popular Café Royal in Regent Street, Wilde and himself, with a few congenial men, spent many an evening.
There was much in the mental companionship of Mr. Saltus and Wilde which sharpened and stimulated each, making their conversation a battle-ground of aphorisms and epigrams. According to Mr. Saltus, in spite of his abnormal life, Wilde's conversation, barring its brilliancy, was as respectable and conventional as that of a greengrocer. Neglecting to laugh at a doubtful joke tossed off by one of his admirers, he was asked somewhat sarcastically if he were shocked.
"I have lost the ability to be shocked, but not the ability to be bored," was the reply.
Vulgarity sickened him. Vice had to be perfumed, pagan, and private to intrigue him. His conversation was immaculate. Many incidents concerning Wilde are given in Mr. Saltus' monograph, "Oscar Wilde—An Idler's Impressions." They give a new slant on hismany-sided personality. One episode is especially illuminating.
With Mr. Saltus, Wilde was driving to his home in Chelsea on a bleak and bitter night. Upon alighting a man came up to them. He wore a short jacket which he opened. From neck to waist he was bare. At the sight Mr. Saltus gave him a gold piece, but Wilde, with entire simplicity, took off his own coat and put it about the man. It was a lesson Mr. Saltus never forgot.
The next vital experience in Mr. Saltus' life was his divorce from Helen Read. Hopelessly unsuited to be the husband of any woman who expected to find a normal, conventional and altogether rational being, his marriage with her was doomed to failure from the first.
From his rooms on Fifth Avenue, at a large Italian table of carved olive wood (the same table on which I am writing these lines), he turned out novels like flapjacks, entertaining his acquaintances in the intervals.
Among the friends of the first Mrs. Saltus was a girl belonging to one of the oldest and best families in the country. Spanish in colouring, high bred in features, a champion at sports and a belle at the balls, she was sufficiently attractive to arrest the attention of a connoisseur. Owing to her friendship with his wife, she saw a great deal of Mr. Saltus also. Theiracquaintance, however, had begun many years before, when as a youth in Germany he had met the girl and her family. Too young at that time to think of marriage they had been semi-sweethearts.
It was only to be expected, then, that his side of the story was put forward with all the cleverness of a master of his craft, and what man, no matter how much in the wrong, does not consider himself much abused? In this case, he gained not only a sympathetic listener, but an ally.
Tea in his rooms perhaps,—a luncheon in some quiet and secluded restaurant to talk it over, and tongues began to wag. That wagging was more easily started than stopped. It gained momentum. Before it reached its height, Mrs. Saltus brought an action for divorce, naming her one-time friend as one of the co-respondents. Willing to agree to the divorce, provided the name of the girl was omitted, Mr. Saltus struck the first opposition of his life. Bitter over her friend's "taking ways",—forgettingperhaps that even in court circles the American habit of souvenir hunting had become the fashion,—she may have thought a husband superior to a bit of stone from an historic ruin, or a piece of silver from a sanctuary. Possibly in those days they were.
Many years later, when asked by Mr. Saltus as a joke, what I would do, in case some woman lured him from our fireside, I read him the account of a Denver woman, who, hearing that her husband was about to elope with his typist, appeared at the office. She was on the lookout for bargains. Facing the offenders she agreed to let them go in peace with her blessing, if the typist would promise to provide her with a new hat. Hats were scarce and expensive. Husbands, cheap and plentiful, were not much in exchange. Commenting on it the paper said, "The woman who got the hat, was in luck."
This episode and the newspaper article about it occurring many years later, there was nothing to suggest the idea to the first incumbent. Besides, being the daughter of a manytimes millionaire, she was probably well supplied with hats.
At this time, Edgar Saltus was at the height of his fame. The newspapers reeked with the scandal. There were editions after editions in which his name appeared in large type. To protect the name of the alleged co-respondent Mr. Saltus fought tooth and nail. However much he had been at fault in his treatment of Helen Read, his intentions now were to be chivalrous in the extreme, to protect the girl who had been dragged into such a maelstrom.
Every witticism he had sent out was used against him. His amusing reply "God", spoken of previously, became a boomerang. Having once been asked what books had helped him most, he replied "My own." From that joke a colossus of conceit arose.
The history of that suit was so written up and down and then rewritten, as to be boring in the extreme. After a great deal of delay, of mud-throwing, and heart-breaking, the name of her one-time friend having been withdrawn,and all suggestion of indiscretion retracted, a divorce was given to Helen Read. She was a free woman again,—free to forget, if she could, the hectic experience of marriage with a man fundamentally different from those who had entered her life.
After the divorce Mr. Saltus threw himself into his work. "Mme. Sapphira" was the immediate result. Aimed at his first wife, in an attempt to vindicate himself,—with a thin plot, and written as it was with a purpose, it not only failed to interest, but reacted rather unpleasantly upon himself. His object in writing it was too obvious.
It was his custom in those days to begin writing immediately after his coffee in the morning. That alone constituted his breakfast,—a pot of coffee and a large pitcher of milk, with a roll or two or a few thin slices of toast. Cream and sugar he detested. Accustomed to this breakfast during his life abroad, it was a habit he never changed. The same breakfastin the same proportions, was served to him until his last day.
Writing continuously until about two p. m., he would stop for a bite, and then go at it again until four. Hating routine and regularity above all things, his copy alone was excepted. It was his habit to write a book in the rough, jotting down the main facts and the dialogue. The next writing put it into readable form, and on this second he always worked the hardest, transforming sentences into graceful transitions,—interjecting epigrams, witticisms and clever dialogue, and penetrating the whole with his personality. The third writing (and he never wrote a book less than three times) gave it its final coat of varnish. Burnishing the finished product with untiring skill, it scintillated at last.
Poetry came more easily to him than prose. He had to school himself at first to avoid falling into it. On his knees before the spirit of Flaubert, he pruned and polished his work.
At four, it was his custom to go for a walkNever interested in sports,—walking only because he recognized the necessity for keeping himself in physical trim, it was Spartan for him to do something he disliked, and to keep on doing it. Pride kept him on the job. The "Pocket Apollo" could not let himself go the way of least resistance. Shortly before this time his brother Frank, who, at the last, had become a physical wreck, had passed on. Outwardly this appeared to affect Mr. Saltus but little. In reality it touched the vital center of his hidden self. A photograph of Frank Saltus on a Shetland pony, against which the child Edgar was leaning, hung in the latter's room forever after. The likeness between them is striking. It is the only picture extant of Frank as a child.
Not long after the divorce, and while he was still much in the limelight, Mr. Saltus met at a dinner party a married woman,—a Mrs. A——. Well known, wealthy, once divorced and the heroine of many romances, she tookone look at the "Pocket Apollo", and decided that she had met her fate.
During this time Mr. Saltus had become engaged to Miss Elsie Smith, a talented, charming and high-bred girl belonging to one of the oldest New York families, and expecting to marry her the following year, he was not seeking an affair. Seeking or not the affair followed him, and was the cause, indirect but unmistakable, of the wrecking of what might have been a happy life with his second wife. Quoting Mr. Saltus, it began in this way.
The day after the dinner, while serving tea in his rooms to his fiancée, a knock came at the door. That was unprecedented. No one was better barricaded against intrusion than he. Not only were lift men and bell boys well paid, but instructed in a law more drastic than that of the Medes and Persians. It was to the effect, that the people he wanted to see he would arrange to have reach him. Others who called,—no matter whom or what their errand—were to be told that he was in conference withan Archbishop. If they still persisted, they were to be told that he was dead.
This fancy of his continued throughout life, as attendants in the Arizona Apartments must well remember. Nothing angered him more than infringement of these rules. Unless summoned, no servant—no matter what the occasion—dared to approach him.
By what guile, subterfuge or bribe Mrs. A—— had turned the trick, Mr. Saltus had forgotten. After repeated knocking he decided to go to the door, which he did, with hell-fire in his eyes, as his fiancée stepped behind a portiere.
Determined to throttle the intruder he flung open the door. Cool and fresh as a gardenia Mrs. A—— walked in. It was an awkward moment. In that instant he no doubt remembered some of the careless compliments of the night before. Going up to him, Mrs. A—— looked into his eyes and said:—
"I love you, and I have come to tell you of it. Dine with me tonight."
That was more awkward still. Even his ingenuity was taxed. Kissing her hand, telling her that she had dragged him from the heroine of a novel so abruptly that he was not normal, and promising to dine with her that evening, he bowed her out. No one else could have managed it so cleverly.
The lady of the first part then reappearing he laughed. Telling her that his promise to Mrs. A—— was the only way of sending her off, he sat down at once and wrote her a letter, saying that it would be impossible for him to dine with her after all. This he gave to his fiancée, asking her to send it by a messenger on her way home.
It was well done. Knowing that his mail was bursting with letters from love-sick women,—knowing also that no scrap-book, however large, could hold the letters, locks of hair and photographs, that poured in on him daily, and accepting it as a part of a literary man's life,—she accepted this as well. They laughed over the episode and brushed it aside.
As a matter of fact Mr. Saltus played fair. He did not go to dine, but as soon as he was alone, he sent another note less formal than the first, asking Mrs. A—— to return the former note unopened, and saying that though dinner was impossible, he would give himself the pleasure of calling afterward.
This he did, and it turned the scales of his life. Questioned next day by his fiancée as to whether or not he had changed his mind and gone to dinner, he denied it vigorously. After that both ladies were invited for tea, great care being taken, however, that they should never meet again.
The following summer Mrs. A—— with a party of friends went abroad. Mr. Saltus joined them, safe in the knowledge that his fiancée was away with her family, where, being decidedly persona non grata, he could not be expected to follow. The summer passed and again he joined Mrs. A—— and her friends in Cuba. Spring saw him in New York again.A year had elapsed, during which he saw his fiancée occasionally and Mrs. A—— often.
From two letters written by Mrs. A——, which, used as book-marks, were found between the leaves of an old novel after Mr. Saltus' death, a love that counted no cost—passionate and paralyzing—oozes from the pages. "How could I live if you should cease to love me?" was asked again and again.
Cease he did, however. There are those so constituted that they can drift out of an affair so gradually that it is over without any perceptible transition. It was that way with Edgar Saltus. Mercurial to a degree, easily put off by something so slight no one else would have been susceptible to it, when he was done—he was done. As he himself expressed it, he could not "relight a burnt-out cigar."
That affair over, he remembered the ring he had given and the girl to whom he was engaged. In spite of living in a social world poles apart from Mrs. A——, and in spite of absence and travel, rumors of the affair hadfiltered to his fiancée. Straightforward herself, scorning subterfuge as weakness, she asked him to tell her the truth. With righteous indignation Mr. Saltus denied it in toto, declaring it was an invention intended to discredit him in her eyes. It was in this that he made the mistake of his life.
Talking it over with me years afterward, he admitted that had he told her the truth, loving him as she did, she would probably in the end have forgiven him. It was the streak of fear—fear of a moment's unpleasantness, which he might have faced then and there and surmounted—which was his undoing. Taking the easiest way for the time being, he reiterated his denials.
In glancing over the scenario of Edgar Saltus' life, this act, at the pinnacle of his popularity and fame, may in the region behind effects have set in motion forces which tore the peplum of popularity from him, and in spite of his genius pushed him into semi-obscurity at the last.
His denials accepted, and there being no reason for delay, he married Elsie Smith in Paris in 1895. It should have been a happy marriage, the two having sufficient in common and neither being in their first youth. Its rapid failure is therefore all the more pathetic.
Going from Paris to the south of France, the first mishap was that of breaking his ankle. Unable to stand pain, Mr. Saltus fainted three times while it was being set. That rather disgusted his wife. This accident led to their first misunderstanding, when, in answering a telegram from Mrs. Saltus Sr., news of the accident was excluded. Unwilling to hear anything of an unpleasant nature himself, Mr. Saltus was equally unwilling to tell any one he loved of a disagreeable episode. The memory of his early life and training was at the bottom of this, and from one aspect it was a most lovable quality.
Asked by Mr. Saltus why she had spoken of the accident, his wife replied that she had but told the truth. At this Mr. Saltus flew intoa rage, declaring, as he used to put in his copy, "Truth must be pleasant, or else withheld."
The incident was slight, but that which followed was not so. He being unable because of his ankle to get about freely, and wanting some cigarettes from a trunk, Mrs. Saltus volunteered to get them. She got the shock and surprise of her life as well. Carelessness over his personal effects was a characteristic of Mr. Saltus'. That carelessness was his undoing upon this occasion. Beside the cigarettes lay a letter from Mrs. A——. His wife read it. There and then she knew she had married him as the result of a fabrication. A scene followed. Furious at his detection, Mr. Saltus upbraided her for reading a letter not intended for her eyes. It was the beginning of the end.
In one of Mr. Saltus' note books is the copy of a letter sent to his wife shortly after the episode:
Elsie:—To be quite candid with you I cannot be candid. I cannot write to you as I used to do.I no longer know what you will keep to yourself, what you will repeat, nor yet how you will distort my words. The flow of confidence is checked. An artery has been severed.... If reading has given you any idea of what a battle is, you will remember that in the excitement of danger men may be shot and slashed and not notice their wounds until the fight is at an end.Not until I got here did I realize what you had done in telling your mother you had married me under compulsion. Then I discovered that during the fight which I had entered single handed for your sake, I had been shot—shot from behind, shot by you.There has been a great change in the weather, from being very hot it has become quite cool. I hope you are well and enjoying yourself.As ever,E. S.
Elsie:—
To be quite candid with you I cannot be candid. I cannot write to you as I used to do.I no longer know what you will keep to yourself, what you will repeat, nor yet how you will distort my words. The flow of confidence is checked. An artery has been severed.... If reading has given you any idea of what a battle is, you will remember that in the excitement of danger men may be shot and slashed and not notice their wounds until the fight is at an end.
Not until I got here did I realize what you had done in telling your mother you had married me under compulsion. Then I discovered that during the fight which I had entered single handed for your sake, I had been shot—shot from behind, shot by you.
There has been a great change in the weather, from being very hot it has become quite cool. I hope you are well and enjoying yourself.
As ever,E. S.
The letter speaks for itself. In the same note book are entries made during the same time:—
May 3rd, 1896.
Problem:—"Which is harder; for a woman to live under the same roof with a man whom she detests, or for a man to live under the same roof with a woman who detests him?"
"Every day she invents some new way of being disagreeable."
"Love should have but one punishment for the wrongdoer,—that is, forgiveness."
"Injuries are writ in iron,—kindnesses scrawled in sand."
Again November 13th.
"Elsie having told me:—
1. That I can ask nothing of her.
2. That her affairs are no concern of mine.
3. That hereafter she will give no orders for me:
We lead separate lives,—but into my life I open windows. Against her own she closes doors."
One cannot at this day know or judge the inner ethics of it all. Mr. Saltus' side only has been poured into my ears. One thing, however,is certain. Mrs. Saltus, who suffered deeply at his hands, considered herself more than justified in all that she did.
The fool blames others for the tragedies of life. The sage blames no one. He knows that everything which happens is but the result of causes beyond his control. He learns from suffering and defeat. With Epictetus he says "We should wish things to be as they are."
Returning to the United States with his wife, Edgar Saltus took an apartment in the Florence in East 18th street, where, on an upper floor, his mother had lived for some time. Though their relations were strained to the breaking point, a link held them. Mrs. Saltus expected to become a mother in the autumn of 1897.
It was at this juncture that Mr. Saltus thought of journalism. His popularity as a novelist as well as his exchequer had dwindled. This was directly due to his divorce, the fighting of which had been expensive both in coin and character. Journalism held out a hand. A literary man should, he believed, be able to tackle anything with his pen.
The New York Journal, as the American was then called, gave him his first assignment. It was to go to Sing Sing prison and, seeing amurderer electrocuted, write it up from his unique angle. That, for a man who could not hear about a cut finger without shuddering! It might have been a knock-out the first day. All night he fought with himself. To refuse the first assignment meant having the door of journalism shut in his face. To go and faint at the sight, might mean worse.
With characteristic ingenuity he mapped out a plan. "Go to Sing Sing prison? With pleasure." Imagination being one of his greatest assets, he sat up all night picturing and then writing the scene, taking a new slant on it, peppering his copy with witticism and metaphors; and the work was done. One might suppose he had supped on electrocutions.
Stuffing the copy in his pocket he went,—went to the death house, and in spite of his trembling legs, went with the officials near the chair itself. Then he closed his eyes. Next morning his article appeared, the editor complimenting him; "Edgar Saltus only could have seen so much in so little," he said.
Thereafter he was launched as a journalist, writing Sunday specials almost continuously. With this, and with Collier's Weekly, for which he edited a column called The Note Book, and a history which he was compiling for Collier's also, Mr. Saltus' working hours were ten out of the twenty-four, and his output greater than at any time since he had flowered into print.
Working continuously when indoors, taking his meals at the old Everett House, then on the upper corner of Union Square, he lived in a world of his own, accepting things as they were.
Writing of him at that time Town Topics said:—
"Time deals gently with Edgar Saltus. In spite of his arduous literary labours he is the same Edgar he was fifteen years ago. Slick, dark, jaunty. He has not taken on flesh and preserves the slim youthful shape of years ago. Tripping up the Avenue a day or two ago in his new straw hat and blue serge suit it washard to believe that he was not a summer man of this year's vintage. How does he do it? Concerning his work a pretty woman once said to him, 'Mr. Saltus, I never know what construction to put on your books.' 'Put the worst,' was the author's reply."
The following summers he spent with his mother at Narragansett Pier. Second only to Newport in that day, it was a most fashionable resort. Smartness and beauty vied with each other not only in Sherry's Casino but in the large hotels which no longer exist. The smart set absent from Newport were to be found at the Pier. Bar Harbor excepted, there was no where else to go and swim—in the swim.
At this epoch, in addition to his fame as a novelist and journalist, Mr. Saltus added that of being a Don Juan and a Casanova rolled into one, with a bit thrown in for good measure. They paled beside the reputation enveloping him. A whisper followed his footsteps. It was to the effect that not only had his first wife been glad to escape with her life but that hissecond was but waiting the psychological moment to follow suit.
Young girls were warned against being seen with him. Elder women had to be restrained from flinging themselves in his way. When he appeared in the Casino, he at once became the center of interest. This was understandable, for he was startlingly handsome. A few years over forty,—his thick black hair parted in the center,—his chiselled features emphasized by the tilt of his head,—his small moustache twisted to a hair,—he gazed upon the world through eyes of pansy purple, which, while contemptuous, were saddened by all that he had suppressed in silence. Slight, scrupulously turned out, a walking stick always in his hand, he stood in relief against the other men at the Pier—an Olympian in a world of mortals.
A connection of my family,—a childhood playmate of my cousins, and a companion in youth of my eldest half-brother, Mr. Saltus was hurled into my life by a huge wave. We were in bathing at the time.
Spending that summer at Narragansett with my brother, happy in the vacation from school, where I misused the time for practicing music in scribbling, I imagined myself an embryonic Ouida. In the circumstances a Ouidaesque hero seemed worth bothering with.
"Here, Edgar,"—my brother caught Mr. Saltus by the arm—"disabuse this kid of the idea that she can learn to write."
Mr. Saltus turned, but a wave was quicker. It took him like a top, spinning him around and around, depositing him finally at my feet. He attempted to rise. The undertow thought otherwise. With his accustomed facetious flattery, he asked:
"What do I get for lying at the feet of a child?"
"A kick," was the reply, action following the words.
Our introduction was effected. Going up on the beach we sat down on the sand. It was a brilliant July morning.
"So you think you would like to write, Bambina? Don't. Take fatherly advice. A woman's sole duty in life is to charm and do nothing. Only old scoundrels like myself should work. Behold the result."
"You were badly brought up," he was told.
"How would you have tackled the job?" he inquired.
"Taking you down would have suited me much better."
That amused him. He laughed.
"Of course. It is only from babes like you that age learns now-a-days. How is it that you are the one of your family I meet last?" He hesitated. "No—not last,—for I seem always to have remembered you. Long ago you closed a door and left me in darkness. Now you open it again and smile. You should never do anything but smile,—and yet you have—oh, I don't know what! You take me back to Rome—back and back through lives and lives—if such were true."
I hastened to reassure him.
"Such things are true, surely. From the time I was able to think at all, I remembered many events from former lives. I have no recollection of knowing you, however."
"But you believe that you lived before? I'll tell you what I have never mentioned to any one. From an agnostic it would not ring true. If I have written anything which will live it is 'Imperial Purple.' The reason is simple. If there is anything in your theory at all, I lived in Rome. I was an eye-witness of the killing of Cæsar. The story of it ran off my pen. Text books were needless. I wrote as I remembered, and truth penetrates. Later I tried to write of Greece, and failed. It was mechanical. There was no subconscious memory to help me. A pretty theory,—that is all. When a bee dies it ceases to hum."
Joining my brother and myself Mr. Saltus lunched at the Casino. Later in the afternoon, overtaking us on the road with his bicycle, he joined us again. So satisfied and overbearing was his exterior, so arrogant his veneer, that itwas with difficulty one could penetrate it and see the over-indulged and pampered little boy, full of fun and longing to play,—sympathetic and full of sentiment, hiding the best beneath the worst,—fearful of being misunderstood,—of being his real self. Coming face to face with a little girl more pampered and self-willed even than himself gave him a shock.
That evening, a woman friend of my brother's making a fourth, we were Mr. Saltus' guests for dinner at the Casino. In those days Sherry's old Casino was a fairyland of fashion, beauty and smartness. It presented a brilliant scene at that moment.
In faultless evening clothes, his dark colouring emphasized by the expanse of shirt front, Mr. Saltus looked what he may have been,—an Oriental, trying to adapt himself to a foreign environment. He was, on the contrary, silhouetted against it.
Dinner over, my brother took his friend to watch the dancing. We were supposed to follow. At Mr. Saltus' suggestion, however, we turnedand went to the upper turret of the Casino. From there we stood and looked down upon the panorama below. It was an interesting sight. At tables shaded by immense coloured umbrellas made visible by multiple electric lights, the murmur of well turned out men, talking to beautiful women, rose like the hum of bees.
The orchestra, which was unusually fine, muted their violins with the plaintive strains of the Liebestod. Mr. Saltus could not tell one note from another, nor could he play on any musical instrument, but he had an ear as sensitive to the slightest discord as a composer's. The Liebestod spoke a language he understood. That language was mine also. It spoke even more clearly to me,—saturated as I had been with Wagner and the various motifs of his masterpieces since babyhood. Music moved me profoundly.
When he turned at last, it was to see tears in my eyes. He said nothing. There is that in silence which is more forceful than words.That also was a language he understood. The orchestra ceased. The hum began again, but from a far distant ball-room there filtered the faint but unmistakable notes of "Love's Dream After the Ball." July twilights are long. Still silent, we watched a sky of coral and jade melt into a night spattered with stars.
A school girl, with little knowledge of men save that gleaned from Scott and Ouida, it was no wonder that at his first words I had the surprise of my life.
In true Ouidaesque style Mr. Saltus took a fold of my gown in his hand, dropped to his knees, and kissing it said:—
"All my life I have been a rudderless ship seeking harbour. Now I am home. I come a weary and sinful pilgrim to knock at the portals of paradise."
Indignant in the belief that I was considered too young to be treated as an equal,—regarding him, in spite of his extreme beauty, as too old to be thinking seriously about the future, I received his words with a blaze ofanger. A hasty and dignified exit was called for. That, however, was not easy to make. His back against the gate, Mr. Saltus went on talking. He said a great deal and he said it well.
Only that morning a woman sitting on the veranda of the hotel where we were stopping, had entertained the other old women who were knitting, with the recital of Mr. Saltus' life and his misdeeds. One remark constantly interjected had amused me:—
"He boasts that every novel he has written has been dug from a woman's heart."
This I threw at him like a bomb. He took it standing. He had to stand to control the gate which was the sole exit from the turret. Thereupon, and in spite of my efforts to go, he told me the story of his life in brief, pouring it out as rapidly as he could, admitting his mistakes and wrong doing,—confessing three-fold the iniquities which had been put to his discredit by the public. Carrying it up to date, he admitted that though he was under the same roof with his wife, he was not living with her,and that he wanted to be free to start life over again.
"You are so young, I can almost bring you up," he said.
"Bring me up, indeed!" I exclaimed. "You will dig no experience out of my heart. The shadow of your personality shall never cloud my life." That seemed such a fine phrase at the time. Still indignant and fearful of being considered an ignorant child, I became silent. That was the way a Ouida heroine should act.
Disregarding both my silence and my resentment, Mr. Saltus went on talking:—
"I don't like your name. It means sorrow, and every Marie who has encountered the Saltus family has suffered from it. You shall be the exception. I will use the name you invented when as a baby you tried to pronounce it,—Mowgy. That is your name, and being such a pert little puss I will add that for good measure,—Mowgy-Puss. Now what animal will you attach to me?"
While speaking, Mr. Saltus had released hishold on the gate. He was anxious to know what animal I would assign to him. Afterward he confessed that he had expected me to say a lion. That would have pleased him too well. Distracting his attention from the exit, I moved nearer to it. Answering "A skunk!" I emphasized it with a sudden bolt through the gate and rushed down stairs to the Casino.
An avalanche overwhelmed us there. Our absence having become prolonged, my brother, with Archibald Clavering Gunter, who warned him of my danger with every step, had searched not only the Casino but the sands. There was a heated scene. The friendship of years snapped like a wish-bone, and I was dragged back to the hotel.
There it might have ended,—would probably have ended, and the biography of Edgar Saltus have fallen into other hands than mine to write, but well-intentioned friends and relatives assisted things so super-abundantly, that what might have died a natural death took on new life and flourished.
Forbidden to speak to Mr. Saltus under penalty of being sent home to my father, it became at once an interesting romance. The following morning there was not a dowager in the hotel unacquainted with my misdeed, and none omitted to add their warning and advice. Hearing of the adventure, and that I was taking a land-slide to perdition and was hell-bent, friends called to warn and save me. Dear old Gunter with genuine kindness of heart came also.
"I am a very busy man just now," he said, "but if you are determined to learn how to write, and will wait till I get this novel off my mind, I will take you in hand and see what I can make of you."
Everyone did their duty. The only one not offering advice was the hotel cat. Not permitted for a moment to leave my brother's side I seemed safe and secure. It was all in the seeming, for Mr. Saltus was a very ingenious man. The early afternoon papers from New York used to reach the Pier about three, boys taking them to all the hotels on the front. One stoppedat ours. We were sitting on the veranda at the time, my brother buying a paper as usual. With a knowing wink the newsboy shoved another into my hand. While every one else was reading I unfolded it. A note from Mr. Saltus fell out. It suggested that after I was supposed to be in bed that evening, I slip out, go down a back staircase and meet the writer at a place on the beach he designated. It was urgent. It was more. It suggested that if I did not appear he would drink himself into delirium, and then come to the hotel and have it out with my brother.
Youth is credulous. I met him at the place suggested. After that the newsboy served as a postman. Letters came and went. There was a thrill in doing it under their noses. It came out at last, however. I was returned to my father minus a character and the family warned to watch me very closely.
So fate went on weaving its web, and the karmic links of anterior lives reached out, binding our destiny.
Autumn came, and the paw of the tiger that destiny is, reached out. It was a paw of velvet, however. I was called to the telephone one afternoon to speak to my violin teacher. Such a call was not unexpected. It had all been arranged beforehand, and it was Mr. Saltus saying "Hello!" None of the family had seen my violin teacher or heard his voice. All they knew was that I practiced many hours a day. The arrangement worked to perfection. If I went off for my lessons a little earlier than necessary, it was unnoticed. The bicycle was useful also, being considered a healthful and needed exercise. I was encouraged to ride every afternoon, and Mr. Saltus and I would meet on the Riverside for a chat.
Barring his little daughter, Elsie, of whom Mr. Saltus was exceedingly fond, he made no mention of his family life, nor did I. This wasin pre-flapper days. The world was very old-fashioned. Bachelor girls and the rights of the individual were not talked about, or even thought of. Strange as it may seem in this emancipated era, any friendship between a married man and a young girl was looked upon not only as disgraceful, but impossible.
We talked it over. Realizing that while he remained under the roof with his wife, he owed her more than he could ever pay, realizing too that any indiscretion of mine must react upon a greatly beloved father, I closed the episode—or thought I had.
Within a few days after this Mrs. Francis Henry Saltus, Mr. Saltus' mother, called and invited me to tea at her home. There, at least, one would be free from censure. Other invitations followed and were accepted.
If there was a being on earth whom Mr. Saltus truly loved it was his mother. His deference to her and his solicitude for her were beautiful. It would have been tragic otherwise, considering how her entire life had beendevoted to him. He was her little boy even then,—naughty, perhaps, but her idol. As a matter of fact his mother understood him as little as others did. Love, however, is somewhat psychic. She never took his atheism seriously. Many a time she would interrupt some of his remarks to say:—
"This is not the real Edgar. It may take time, but he will come out of it all at the last."
Mr. Saltus often referred to this when, as she predicted, he did "come out of it."
So frequently was I a guest in his mother's drawing-room that it was difficult for my family to debar Mr. Saltus from our home. His interest in my father's library being accepted as evidence of his fitness, he was permitted to call. Better, they thought, for me to receive him under their roof than meet in secret, where unpleasant construction might be put upon it.
Like the proverbial camel, his nose once safely in the tent of the enemy, the rest followed. He was accepted as a friend of the family.
No one could enjoy a joke more readily than Mr. Saltus' mother. Quick-witted, clever at repartee, she was delighted when any one had the temerity to brave her son and give him back tit for tat. While I was having tea with them one afternoon Mr. Saltus outlined what he thought should be my study for the next few months, ending with the remark that a slip of a girl did not know what was good for her.
Unhesitatingly came the reply—"A slip will not be instructed by a snip."
Mr. Saltus was slightly undersized for a man. The remark rather hurt him, but his mother burst into a laugh. From that day until his death he was Snipps or Snippsy to me always. So fond did he become of the name that he used it almost entirely when writing or speaking of himself. Upon occasions, when annoyed at something he did I used the name of Edgar, he was hurt and indignant and could not be himself again until the other name was restored. Adopting from me a child language I always used with my pets he would say:—
"I be a good Snipps! (imitating a dog begging); I'm old dog Tray—ever faithful."
"Associating with a child has put you back where you belong," his mother once said to him. "You are nothing but a bad little boy, grown up."
Strangely enough, it was not so much a romantic attachment as fundamental qualities in common, that made possible the bond between a young girl and a middle-aged man. In meeting a temperament like his own, but in exaggerated form, it meant not only a common language, but an uncommon thing on his part,—that of revealing to himself his high-strung nervous excitability and absent-mindedness in the mirror of those qualities in another. In attempting to soothe the nerves of another, he forgot his own. In remembering to pick up handkerchiefs, gloves and purses, dropped under chairs and tables and forgotten, he gradually began to look after and take care of another even more helpless in that respect than himself.
With a girl, never popular at school, becauseof her desire for silence and solitude, having more interest in reading than in games, he felt himself to be absolutely at home. As I was looked upon as abnormal and unnatural even by my family, the understanding and sympathy of such a brilliant man, with a wealth of information on every subject under heaven at his finger-tips, turned him into my Alma Mater.
About this time an incident occurred which was not only characteristic of Mr. Saltus' weakest side, but so far-reaching in its effects that no biography would be complete without it.
Admiring letters from women were his daily diet. As a rule he ignored them. At one time I started to make a scrap-book of them for him, calling it The Dollymops Daily. When a week or so would go by without bringing in a fresh batch of them, Mr. Saltus was told that his stock was going down and that he should have a care to his moustache.
Among these letters was one from England, from a Dorothy S——. With it was the photograph of a high-bred and pretty girl. Herletter was different from the average one. Mr. Saltus answered it, and a correspondence began between them. Knowing of him only through his stories and articles in the newspapers, in ignorance that he was not only a married man but a father as well, she assumed that he was neither, and she wrote him to the effect that she was sure he was her affinity, and all the rest of it.
That was the time to have eased off, but Mr. Saltus did not. Her letters interested him. She was too far away to cause him inconvenience, for the moment at least, and material for stories might result.
Answering again he brushed aside the possibility of future unpleasantness, and sent her an inexpensive ring. The girl took this very seriously. Replying to his vague compliments, she formally accepted him and sent him a ring in return, which he brought up to me as a joke.
Vainly was he blackjacked and scarified by me in her behalf. The affair amused him. Having let her assume that he was an unmarriedman, he would not face the momentary unpleasantness of writing her the truth and putting the matter straight, at the price of a little humiliation.
Horrified, however, at the way she had taken it, and fearing possible results, he wrote to her saying that he was en route to South America on an assignment for a newspaper, and hoped it would end there. Far from it. After several unanswered letters, the girl's mother, having ascertained in some way that he was still in New York, sent him a note by registered mail telling him that her daughter, always delicate, had gone utterly to pieces over his silence, and asking the reason of it.
The more involved it became the less inclined was Mr. Saltus to face it, confess the truth and admit that he had replied for amusement only. No amount of hammering at him could make him realize that he was playing with the affections of a human being who might suffer in consequence. It had been only a diversion to him. He could not see why itshould not be the same to her. Weeks passed. Another letter from the mother saying that the girl had gone into rapid tuberculosis and was in the south of France, again urged him to write her. This last appeal sent Mr. Saltus almost into a fit.
"For God's sake tell the truth and have it over with," he was urged again and again. It seemed to be beyond him. What he had begun only as an amusement, without a thought of harm, had developed into a monster waiting to devour him.
When he finally answered the letter it was to say that he was in the bankruptcy court, utterly penniless, and, in the circumstances, thought it best to drop out of her life.
"Now," he said, "they will not think me worth following up."
After that the letters ceased and he heard nothing more, and it was several years before the dénouement occurred.
On the heels of this episode came a crushing grief. Mrs. Francis Henry Saltus, Mr. Saltus'mother, died, very suddenly. The shock stunned him. It took him into a realm hitherto unknown—even unthought of, and it was long before he could readjust himself to life.
Even in his grief his strong strain of indifference to values, custom or common-sense kept to the fore. From the pot-pourri of his deep love for his mother, lack of attachment to material things, united with oriental atavism—he insisted that the body of his mother be buried with all her large and valuable jewels upon it, as the Egyptians surrounded the Ka with all the trappings and trifles of life.
There is no danger in giving out this fact. The exact spot where Mrs. Saltus is buried (unmarked by a stone, for Mr. Saltus did not believe in such things) is known only to myself and to the cemetery authorities. It is some little distance from the cemetery in which the ashes of her son now rest. Unfortunate it is, that one he loved so deeply could not have been buried in the same plot.
From the shock of this death Mr. Saltus'health went to pieces, and the following spring saw him off to Europe. I was abroad also that year, but in another part of the continent, and it was months before we met again.
On this trip, however, Mr. Saltus made one of the few acquaintances destined to last until the end of his life. Among those at the Captain's table, and seated next to him, was a Miss G——. Young, beautiful, and belonging to one of the best families from whom Ambassadors had been chosen, nimble of tongue and optimistic of spirit, she did much to drag him from the extreme depression into which he had been submerged by his mother's passing.
Spiritual, unselfish, always thinking and doing for others, she represented a type of woman never encountered by him before. She saw the best in him and ignored the worst. To penetrate the depths of his depression, finding an agnostic hard soil to saturate, she finally persuaded him to go and consult a medium. With the open mind which Mr. Saltus always had, he agreed to do so, and, upon his returnto New York in the autumn, he sought out and went to a Margaret Stewart, a woman celebrated in her day as a remarkable psychic.
What she told him was rather upsetting to the firm philosophy of his life. It suggested possibilities. Not only did he receive a curiously characteristic message, purporting to come from his mother, but certain things concerning his home life and his future were predicted. These predictions included myself, and were to the effect that Mr. Saltus would ultimately be enabled to marry me and have his happiest years late in life. He lost no time in rushing up to my home with this news.
Assuming at first to "pooh-pooh" spiritualism as moonshine, his interest nevertheless increased. On the lookout for frauds, yet hoping as well to get something concrete to tie to, he went from medium to medium and from séance to séance. Critical, curious and cautious, unwilling to accept the phenomena presented, he was yet more unwilling to give up the quest.
After months of experimenting along theselines, his decision, based on what he had both seen and heard, was that though the major part of it was fraudulent,—and the identity of the entity giving the message open to question,—there was proof, to his mind at least, of the persistence of personality after death. That granted, a larger question presented itself. Accepting life to be continuous, the bee did not cease to hum as he had so long affirmed. On the contrary,—the belief in reincarnation became almost a necessity. The pros and cons of this subject with all its ramifications were thrashed out. Mr. Saltus hated arguments. He would agree with any one on any subject rather than expend the energy to controvert them. On this subject, however, he reversed himself.
Reminding him of what he had told me about Rome, we talked it over from every angle. It intrigued his imagination more than any subject on earth.
It was at this time that Mrs. Saltus and himself, having lived separate lives under one roof to little purpose, disagreed further. Mr. Saltuswanted her to divorce him. Thinking perhaps that she had suffered sufficiently at his hands and having had enough of matrimony, she had no desire for the divorce or for further experiments. Besides, there was the little girl—Elsie.
Loving her devotedly, although children in general bored and annoyed him beyond expression, Mr. Saltus used to quote her childish prattle with pride. A pussie cat became a 'puff-tat' because of her, and it was her tiny hands which until then had held them together.
An incident aggravating the estrangement caused Mrs. Saltus to take the little girl, and leave the apartment. Incidentally, she left his life forever. Nothing can be said to put Mr. Saltus in the right in this affair.
That wrong was not deliberate, however. He would not have harmed a hair of her head on purpose. It was the result of the one weak link in his character. As a matter of fact Mrs. Saltus had been too indulgent and forgiving. These qualities, charming in themselves, gave atemperament such as his, an exaggerated latitude to develop the domineering and irritable nature inherent in him.
The wonder is not that Mrs. Saltus left him. It is that she remained so long. They never lived under the same roof again. Deciding that the moment had come to press his desire for divorce, Mr. Saltus followed,—found her and asked for it. His wife saw in it nothing desirable for her, and refused. Possibly she did not need a new hat, or had not heard of the Denver woman's method of getting it. She had agreed to his many wishes for the last time.
Moving from the Florence, Mr. Saltus took what remained of the old Italian olive-wood furniture, belonging to his early home in Seventeenth Street, and his books, and took an apartment in the Park Madison, around the corner from the Manhattan Club. This club had been a semi-home to him for years,—a general headquarters both to write in and to receive letters, and it offered quiet and good food as well.
Moving on short notice, his belongings were tossed into the apartment any which way, to be put into order later,—a later which never arrived. With a few books in book-cases and more piled in various corners of the living-room, the latter semi-covered by draperies which were never put to use again, and various pieces of clothing he did not need on top of this, he started in to create a new atmosphere in which to work.
The apartment was small and his furniture was massive. The vital essential was there however, for it faced the south and he had the sun all day. Permitting the maids only to make up his bed,—forbidding them under the most direful threats to attempt any cleaning or dusting of the place, lest some valuable paper or manuscript be lost or mislaid, he managed 'By the grace of God,' as he himself expressed it, to get on somehow.
Though only a step away from the Manhattan Club, few knew where he lived. In later years, with the same desire to conceal his residence,lest some one invade his privacy, he gave the Park Madison, 25 Madison Avenue, as his address. The building had been torn down then, so he was safe in giving it, and no one but those he chose to tell had the faintest idea where he lived. Door-men and bell boys of the Park Madison were bribed and threatened as before, never to let any one into his apartment or even to admit that he lived there. No hermit could have enjoyed better seclusion.