satisfied a genuine need, if I may judge by the numberless letters sent
to me by persons who felt that it had helped them. Even now, after
the lapse of more than thirty-eight years, such letters come to me
occasionally from men in middle life who say they were encouraged and
helped by it in their youth. I once thought of rewriting it with more
of modesty than I possessed when it had birth, but as that would be to
bring to bear upon it a later-acquired consciousness of ignorance rather
than an enlarged knowledge of the subject, I refrained, lest the new
version should be less helpful than the old.
The Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler once said to me:
"If one gets printer's ink on his fingers when he is young, he can never
get it off while he lives." The thought that suggested that utterance had
prompt illustration in this case. Not long after this poor little first
book was published, I went to Boston to secure literary contributions
for _Hearth and Home_. In those days one had to go to Boston for such
things. Literary activity had not yet transferred its dwelling place to
New York, nor had Indiana developed its "school."
While I was in Boston Mr. Howells called on me, and in his gentle way
suggested that I should write my reminiscences of Southern army life in
a series of articles for the _Atlantic Monthly_, of which he was then
the editor.
The suggestion, coming from such a source, almost made me dizzy. I had
vaguely and timidly cherished a secret hope that some day--after years
of preparatory practice in smaller ways--I might have the honor and
the joy of seeing some article of mine in one or other of the great
magazines. But that hope was by no means a confident one, and it looked
to a more or less remote future for its fulfilment. Especially it had
never been bold enough to include the _Atlantic Monthly_ in the list of
its possibilities. That was the magazine of Lowell, Holmes, Whittier,
Longfellow, Charles Eliot Norton, and their kind--the mouthpiece of the
supremely great in our literature. The thought of ever being numbered
among the humblest contributors to that magazine lay far beyond the
utmost daring of my dreams. And the supremacy of the _Atlantic_, in all
that related to literary quality, was at that time very real, so that
I am in nowise astonished even now that I was well-nigh stunned when
Mr. Howells suggested that I should write seven papers for publication
there, and afterward embody them in a book together with two others
reserved from magazine publication for the sake of giving freshness to
the volume.
I did not accept the suggestion at once. I was too greatly appalled by
it. I had need to go home and cultivate my self-conceit before I could
believe myself capable of writing anything on the high level suggested.
In the end I did the thing with great misgiving, but with results that
were more than satisfactory, both to Mr. Howells and to me.
[Sidenote: "A Rebel's Recollections"]
The passions aroused by the war of which I wrote had scarcely begun
to cool at that time and there was a good deal of not very friendly
surprise felt when the _Atlantic's_ constituency learned that the great
exponent of New England's best thought was to publish the war memories
of a Confederate under the seemingly self-assertive title of "A Rebel's
Recollections."
That feeling seems to have been alert in protest. Soon after the first
paper was published Mr. Howells wrote me that it had "brought a hornets'
nest about his ears," but that he was determined to go on with the
series. After the second paper appeared he wrote me that the hornets
had "begun to sing psalms in his ears" because of the spirit and temper
in which the sensitive subject was handled. On the evening of the
day on which the "Recollections" appeared in book form, there was a
banquet at the Parker House in Boston, given in celebration of the
_Atlantic's_ fifteenth birthday. Without a moment's warning I was toasted
as the author of the latest book from the Riverside Press, and things
were said by the toast-master about the spirit in which the book was
written--things that overwhelmed me with embarrassment, by reason of the
fact that it was my first experience of the kind and I was wholly unused
to the extravagantly complimentary eloquence of presiding officers at
banquets.
I had never been made the subject of a toast before. I had never before
attempted to make an after-dinner speech, and I was as self-conscious as
a schoolboy on the occasion of his first declamation before an outside
audience. But one always does stumble through such things. I have known
even an Englishman to stammer out his appreciation and sit down without
upsetting more than one or two of his wine glasses. In the same way
I uttered some sort of response in spite of the embarrassing fact that
George Parsons Lathrop, who had been designated as the "historian of
the evening and chronicler of its events," sat immediately opposite me,
manifestly studying me, I thought, as a bugologist might study a new
species of beetle. I didn't know Lathrop then, as I afterward learned to
know him, in all the friendly warmth and good-fellowship of his nature.
When the brief ordeal was over and I sat down in full conviction that
I had forever put myself to shame by my oratorical failure, Mr. Howells
left his seat and came to say something congratulatory--something that
I attributed to his kindly disposition to help a man up when he is
down--and when he turned away Mark Twain was there waiting to say
something on his own account.
"When you were called on to speak," he said, "I braced myself up to come
to your rescue and make your speech for you. I thought of half a dozen
good things to say, and now they are all left on my hands, and I don't
knew what on earth to do with them."
Then came Mr. Frank B. Sanborn to tell me of a plan he and some others
had hurriedly formed to give me a little dinner at Swampscott, at which
there should be nobody present but "original abolitionists" and my rebel
self.
I was unable to accept this attention, but it ended all doubt in my mind
that I had written my "Recollections" in a spirit likely to be helpful
in the cultivation of good feeling between North and South. The reviews
of the book, especially in the New England newspapers, confirmed this
conviction, and I had every reason to be satisfied.
XLIII
[Sidenote: A Novelist by Accident]
Before "A Rebel's Recollections" appeared, I had written and published
my first novel, "A Man of Honor."
That book, like the others, was the result of accident and not of
deliberate purpose. The serial story had become a necessary feature of
_Hearth and Home_, and we had made a contract with a popular novelist
to furnish us with such a story to follow the one that was drawing to a
close. Almost at the last moment the novelist failed us, and I hurriedly
visited or wrote to all the rest of the available writers in search of
a suitable manuscript. There were not so many novelists then as there
are now. The search proved futile, and the editorial council was called
together in something like panic to consider the alarming situation. The
story then running was within a single instalment of its end, and no
other was to be had. It was the unanimous opinion of the council--which
included a member of the publishing firm as its presiding officer--that
it would be disastrous to send out a single number of the paper without
an instalment of a serial in it, and worse still, if it should contain
no announcement of a story to come. The council, in its wisdom, was
fully agreed that "something must be done," but no member of it could
offer any helpful suggestion as to what that "something" should be.
The list of available story writers had been completely exhausted, and
it was hopeless to seek further in that direction. Even my old-time
friend, John Esten Cooke, whose fertility of fiction was supposed to
be limitless, had replied to my earnest entreaties, saying that he was
already under contract for two stories, both of which were then in
course of serial publication, and neither of which he had finished
writing as yet. "Two sets of clamorous printers are at my heels," he
wrote, "and I am less than a week ahead of them in the race between copy
and proof slips."
As we sat in council, staring at each other in blank despair, I said,
without really meaning it:
"If worse comes to worst, I'll write the story myself."
Instantly the member of the publishing firm who presided over the
meeting answered:
"That settles the whole matter. Mr. Eggleston will write the story. The
council stands adjourned," and without waiting for my remonstrance,
everybody hurried out of the room.
I had never written a story, long or short. I hadn't the remotest idea
what I should or could write about. I had in my mind neither plot nor
personages, neither scene nor suggestion--nothing whatever out of which
to construct a story. And yet the thing must be done, and the printers
must have the copy of my first instalment within three days.
I turned the key in my desk and fled from the office. I boarded one
of the steamers that then ran from Fulton Ferry to Harlem. I wanted to
think. I wanted quietude. When the steamer brought me back, I had in my
mind at least a shadowy notion--not of the story as a whole, but of its
first chapter, and I had decided upon a title.
Hurrying home I set to work to write. About nine o'clock the artist who
had been engaged to illustrate the story called upon me and insisted
upon it that he must decide at once what he should draw as the first
illustration. He reminded me that the drawing must be made on wood, and
that it would take two or three days to engrave it after his work upon
it should be finished.
I pushed toward him the sheets I had written and bade him read them
while I went on writing. Before he left a telegram came from the office
asking what the title of the story was to be, in order that the paper,
going to press that night, might carry with it a flaming announcement
of its beginning in the next number.
[Sidenote: "A Man of Honor"]
From beginning to end the story was written in that hurried way, each
instalment going into type before the next was written. Meanwhile, I had
the editorial conduct of the paper to look after and the greater part of
the editorial page to write each week.
The necessary result was a crude, ill-considered piece of work, amateurish
in parts, and wholly lacking in finish throughout. Yet it proved
acceptable as a serial, and when it came out in book form ten thousand
copies were sold on advance orders. The publishers were satisfied; the
public seemed satisfied, and as for the author, he had no choice but to
rest content with results for which he could in no way account then, and
cannot account now.
The nearest approach to an explanation I have ever been able to imagine
is that the title--"A Man of Honor"--was a happy one. Of that there were
many proofs then and afterwards. The story had been scarcely more than
begun as a serial, when Edgar Fawcett brought out a two or three number
story with the same title, in _Appletons' Journal_, I think. Then Dion
Boucicault cribbed the title, attached it to a play he had "borrowed"
from some French dramatist, and presented the whole as his own.
Finally, about a dozen years later, a curious thing happened. I was
acting at the time as a literary adviser of Harper & Brothers. There was
no international copyright law then, but when a publisher bought advance
sheets of an English book and published it here simultaneously or nearly
so with its issue in England, a certain courtesy of the trade forbade
other reputable publishing houses to trespass. The Harpers kept two
agents in London, one of them to send over advance sheets for purchase,
and the other to send books as they were published.
One day among the advance sheets sent to me for judgment I found a novel
by Mrs. Stannard, the lady who wrote under the pen name of John Strange
Winter. It was a rather interesting piece of work, but it bore my title,
"A Man of Honor." In advising its purchase I entered my protest against
the use of that title in the proposed American edition. Of course the
protest had no legal force, as our American copyright law affords no
protection to titles, but with an honorable house like the Harpers the
moral aspect of the matter was sufficient.
The situation was a perplexing one. The Harpers had in effect already
bought the story from Mrs. Stannard for American publication. They must
publish simultaneously with the English appearance of the novel or lose
all claim to the protection of the trade courtesy. There was not time
enough before publication day for them to communicate with the author
and secure a change of title.
In this perplexity Mr. Joseph W. Harper, then the head of the house and
a personal friend of my own, asked me if I would consent to the use of
the title if he should print a footnote on the first page of the book,
setting forth the fact of my prior claim to it and saying that the firm
was indebted to my courtesy for the privilege of using it.
I readily consented to this and the book appeared in that way. A little
later, in a letter, Mrs. Stannard sent me some pleasant messages,
saying especially that she had found among her compatriots no such
courteous reasonableness in matters of the kind as I had shown. By
way of illustration she said that some years before, when she published
"Houp-la," she had been compelled to pay heavy damages to an obscure
writer who had previously used the title in some insignificant provincial
publication, never widely known and long ago forgotten.
In the case of "A Man of Honor" the end was not yet. Mrs. Stannard's
novel with that title and the footnote was still in its early months of
American circulation when one day I found among the recently published
English novels sent to me for examination one by John Strange Winter
(Mrs. Stannard) entitled, "On March." Upon examining it I found it to be
the same that the Harpers had issued with the "Man of Honor" title. I
suppose that after the correspondence above referred to, Mrs. Stannard
had decided to give the English edition of her work this new title, but
had omitted to notify the Harpers of the change.
[Sidenote: A "Warlock" on the Warpath]
Mention of this matter of trouble with titles reminds me of a rather
curious case which amused me at the time of its occurrence and may amuse
the reader. In the year 1903 I published a novel entitled "The Master of
Warlock." During the summer of that year I one day received a registered
letter from a man named Warlock, who wrote from somewhere in Brooklyn.
The missive was brief and peremptory. Its writer ordered me to withdraw
the book from circulation instantly, and warned me that no more copies
of it were to be sold. He offered no reason for his commands and
suggested no explanation of his authority to give them. I wrote asking
him upon what ground he assumed to interfere, and for reply he said
briefly: "My grounds are personal and legal." Beyond that he did not
explain.
He had written in the same way to the publishers of the book, who
answered him precisely as I had done.
A month later there came another registered letter from him. In it he
said that a month had passed since his demand was made and that as I had
paid no heed to it, he now repeated it. He said he was armed with adequate
proof that many copies of the book had been sold during that month--a
statement which I am glad to say was true. There must now be a prompt
and complete withdrawal of the novel from the market, he said.
This time the peremptory gentleman graciously gave me at least a hint of
the ground upon which he claimed a right to order the suppression of the
novel. He said I ought to know that I had no right to make use of any
man's surname in fiction, especially when it was a unique name like his
own.
As I was passing the summer at my Lake George cottage, I sent him a note
saying that I should continue in my course, and giving him the address
of a lawyer in New York who would accept service for me in any action he
might bring.
For a time thereafter I waited anxiously for the institution of his
suit. I foresaw a great demand for the book as a consequence of it, and
I planned to aid in that. I arranged with some of my newspaper friends
in New York to send their cleverest reporters to write of the trial.
Charles Henry Webb--"John Paul," who wrote the burlesques, "St.
Twelvemo" and "Liffith Lank"--proposed to take up on his own account
Mr. Warlock's contention that the novelist has no right to use any man's
surname in a novel, and make breezy fun of it by writing a novelette
upon those lines. In his preface he purposed to set forth the fact that
there is scarcely any conceivable name that is not to be found in the
New York City directory, and that even a name omitted from that widely
comprehensive work, was pretty sure to belong to somebody somewhere,
so that under the Warlock doctrine its use must involve danger. He
would show that the novelist must therefore designate his personages
as "Thomas Ex Square," "Tabitha Twenty Three," and so on with a
long list of mathematical impersonalities. Then he planned to give
a sample novel written in that way, in which the dashing young cavalier,
Charles Augustus + should make his passionate addresses to the
fascinating Lydia =, only to learn from her tremulous lips that she was
already betrothed to the French nobleman, Compte [Symbol: cube root]y.
Unhappily Mr. Warlock never instituted his suit; John Paul lost an
opportunity, and the public lost a lot of fun.
By way of completing the story of this absurdity, it is worth while to
record that the novel complained of had no personage in it bearing the
name of Warlock. In the book that name was merely the designation by
which a certain Virginia plantation was known.
XLIV
[Sidenote: "Pike County Ballads"]
During our early struggles to secure a place for _Hearth and Home_ in
popular favor, I was seized with a peculiarly vaulting ambition. John
Hay's "Pike County Ballads" were under discussion everywhere. Phrases
from them were the current coin of conversation. Critics were curiously
studying them as a new and effective form of literature, and many pious
souls were in grave alarm over what they regarded as blasphemy in Mr.
Hay's work, especially the phrase "a durned sight better business than
loafin' round the throne," at the end of "Little Breeches."
I knew Mr. Hay slightly. Having ceased for a time to hold diplomatic
place, he was a working writer then, with his pen as his one source of
income. I made up my mind to secure a Pike County Ballad for _Hearth and
Home_ even though the cost of it should cause our publishers the loss of
some sleep. Knowing that his market was a good one for anything he might
choose to write, I went to him with an offer such as few writers, if any
at that time, had ever received, thinking to outbid all others who might
have designs upon his genius.
It was of no use. He said that the price offered "fairly took his breath
away," but told me with the emphasis of serious assurance, that he
"could not write a Pike County Ballad to save his life." "That was what
they call a 'pocket mine,'" he added, "and it is completely worked out."
He went on to tell me the story of the Ballads and the circumstances
in which they were written. As he told me the same thing more in detail
many years later, adding to it a good many little reminiscences, I shall
draw upon the later rather than the earlier memory in writing of the
matter here.
It was in April, 1902, when he was at the height of his brilliant career
as Secretary of State that I visited him by invitation. In the course of
a conversation I reminded him of what he had told me about thirty years
before, concerning the genesis of the ballads, and said:
"I wonder if you would let me print that story? It seems to me something
the public is entitled to share."
He responded without hesitation:
"Certainly. Print it by all means if you wish, and in order that you
may get it right after all these years, I'll tell it to you again. It
came about in this way: I was staying for a time at a hospitable country
house, and on a hot summer Sunday I went with the rest to church
where I sleepily listened to a sermon. In the course of it the good old
parson--who hadn't a trace of humorous perception in his make-up, droned
out a story substantially the same as that in 'Little Breeches.'
"As I sat there in the sleepy sultriness of the summer Sunday, in an
atmosphere that seemed redolent of roasting pine pews and scorching
cushion covers, I fell to thinking of Pike County methods of thought,
of what humor a Pike County dialect telling of that story would have,
and of what impression the story itself, as solemnly related by the
preacher, would make upon the Pike County mind. There are two Pike
Counties, you know--one in Illinois and the other confronting it across
the river, in Missouri. But the people of the two Pike Counties are
very much alike--isomeric, as the chemists say--and they have a dialect
speech, a point of view, and an intellectual attitude in common, and all
their own. I have encountered nothing else like it anywhere.
[Sidenote: John Hay's Own Story of the Ballads]
"When I left the church that Sunday, I was full to the lips of an
imaginary Pike County version of the preacher's story, and on the train
as I journeyed to New York, I entertained myself by writing 'Little
Breeches.' The thing was done merely for my own amusement, without the
smallest thought of print. But when I showed it to Whitelaw Reid he
seized upon the manuscript and published it in the _Tribune_.
"By that time the lilt and swing of the Pike County Ballad had taken
possession of me. I was filled with the Pike County spirit, as it
were, and the humorous side of my mind was entertained by its rich
possibilities. Within a week after the appearance of 'Little Breeches'
in print all the Pike County Ballads were written. After that the
impulse was completely gone from me. There was absolutely no possibility
of another thing of the kind. When you asked me for something of that
kind for _Hearth and Home_, I told you truly that I simply could not
produce it. There were no more Pike County Ballads in me, and there
never have been any since.
"Let me tell you a queer thing about that. From the hour when the last
of the ballads was written until now, I have never been able to feel
that they were mine, that my mind had had anything to do with their
creation, or that they bore any trace of kinship to my thought or my
intellectual impulses. They seem utterly foreign to me--as foreign as if
I had first encountered them in print, as the work of somebody else. It
is a strange feeling. Of course every creative writer feels something of
the sort with regard to much of his work, but I, at least, have never
had the feeling one-tenth so strongly with regard to anything else I
ever did.
"Now, let me tell you," Mr. Hay continued, "of some rather interesting
experiences I have had with respect to the ballads. One day at the
Gilsey House, in New York, I received the card of a gentleman, and when
he came to my room he said:
"'I am the son of the man whom you celebrated in one of your ballads as
Jim Bludso, the engineer who stuck to his duty and declared he would
"hold her nozzle agin the bank till the last galoot's ashore."'"
Mr. Hay added:
"This gave me an opportunity. Mark Twain had criticised the ballad,
saying that Jim Bludso must have been a pilot, and not an engineer, for
the reason that an engineer, having once set his engines going, could
have no need to stay by them. In view of this criticism, I asked my
visitor concerning it, telling him of what Mark Twain had said. For
answer the caller assured me that the original Jim Bludso was in fact
an engineer. He explained that as a Mississippi River steamboat has two
engines, each turning an independent wheel, and as the current of the
river is enormously swift, it was necessary for the engineer to remain
at his post, working one engine and then the other, backing on one
sometimes and going ahead on the other, if her nozzle was to be held
'agin the bank till the last galoot's ashore.'"
[Sidenote: Some Anecdotes from John Hay]