publication, but he and I had long been friends, and a call upon him
would occupy a morning agreeably, with the remote chance that I might
incidentally render a service to my friends of the _World_ staff.
Therefore, I went.
Mr. Schurz told me frankly that he could give me nothing for
publication, just as I had expected that he would do.
"I am going to make one or two speeches in this campaign," he said,
"and anything I might give you now would simply take the marrow out of
my speeches. But personally I shall be glad to talk the matter over with
you. It seems to me to be one of positively vital importance--not to
parties, for now that I have come to the end of an active life I care
nothing for parties--but to our country and to the cause of human
liberty."
"You think human liberty is involved?" I asked.
"Yes, certainly. Those conceptions upon which human liberty rests in
every country in the world had their birth in the colonies out of which
this nation was formed and they were first effectively formulated in
the Declaration of Independence and enacted into fundamental law in
our Constitution. The spectacle of a great, free, rich, and powerful
nation securely built upon those ideas as its foundation has been an
inspiration to all other peoples, and better still, a compulsion upon
all rulers. If that inspiration is lost, and that compulsion withdrawn,
the brutal military force that buttresses thrones will quickly undo all
that our influence has accomplished in teaching men their rights and
warning monarchs of their limitations."
In answer to further questions he went on to say:
"The spirit of imperialism--which is the arch-enemy of human liberty--is
rampant in the land, and it seems to me the supreme duty of every man
who loves liberty to oppose it with all his might, at whatever sacrifice
of lesser things he may find to be necessary. I am as antagonistic to
Mr. Bryan's free silver policy and to some other policies of his as I
was four years ago. But the time has come when men on the other side
jeer at the Declaration of Independence and mock at the Constitution
itself. There is danger in this--a danger immeasurably greater
than any that financial folly threatens. It seems to me time for a
revolution--not a revolution of violence or one which seeks overthrow,
but a revolution of public opinion designed to restore the landmarks and
bring the country back to its foundations of principle. Financial folly,
such as Mr. Bryan advocates, threatens us with nothing worse than a
temporary disturbance of business affairs. Imperialism threatens us with
the final destruction of those ideas and principles that have made our
country great in itself and immeasurably greater in its influence upon
thought and upon the welfare of humanity in every country on earth."
I have recorded Mr. Schurz's words here, as nearly as a trained memory
allows me to do, not with the smallest concern for the political issues
of nine years ago, but solely because his utterances on that occasion
seem to me to have shown forth, as nothing else could have done, the
high inspiration of his patriotism, and to explain what many have
regarded as the inconsistencies of his political attitude at various
periods of his life. That so-called inconsistency was in fact a higher
consistency. His allegiance was at all times given to principles, to
ideas, to high considerations of right and of human liberty, and in
behalf of these he never hesitated to sacrifice his political prospects,
his personal advantage, or anything else that he held to be of less
human consequence.
LXIX
[Sidenote: The End of Newspaper Life]
In the spring of the year 1900 I finally ceased to be a newspaper
worker. I was weary, almost beyond expression, of the endless grind
of editorial endeavor. My little summer home in the woodlands on Lake
George lured me to the quiet, independent, literary life that I had
always desired. There was an accumulation in my mind of things I
longingly desired to do, and the opportunity to do them came. Above all,
I wanted to be free once more--to be nobody's "hired man," to be subject
to no man's control, however generous and kindly that control might be.
Life conditions at my place, "Culross," were ideal, with no exacting
social obligations, with plenty of fishing, rowing, and sailing, with my
giant pines, hemlocks, oaks, and other trees for companions, and with
the sweetest air to breathe that human lungs could desire.
I had just published a boys' book that passed at once into second and
successive editions. The publishers of it had asked me for more books
of that kind, and still more insistently for novels, while with other
publishers the way was open to me for some historical and biographical
writings and for works of other kinds, that I had long planned.
Under these favorable circumstances I joyously established anew the
literary workshop which had twice before been broken up by that "call
of the wild," the lure of journalism.
This time, the summer-time shop consisted, and still consists, of a cozy
corner in one of the porches of my rambling, rock-perched cottage.
There, sheltered from the rain when it came and from the fiercer of the
winds, I spread a broad rug on the floor and placed my writing table and
chair upon it, and there for ten years I have done my work in my own
way, at my own times, and in all other ways as it has pleased me to do
it. In that corner, I have only to turn my head in order to view the
most beautiful of all lakes lying almost at my feet and only thirty
or forty feet away. If I am seized with the impulse to go fishing, my
fishing boat with its well-stocked bait wells is there inviting me. If
I am minded to go upon the water for rest and thought--or to be rid of
thought for a time--there are other boats in my dock, boats of several
sorts and sizes, among which I am free to choose. If the weather is
inclement, there are open fireplaces within the house and an ample stock
of wood at hand.
[Sidenote: Life at Culross]
For ten years past I have spent all my summers in these surroundings--
staying at "Culross" four or five or even six months in each year and
returning to town only for the period of winter stress.
During the ten years in which that corner of the porch has been my chief
workshop, I have added twenty-odd books to the dozen or so published
before, besides doing other literary work amounting to about an equal
product, and if I live, the end is not yet. I make this statistical
statement as an illustration of the stimulating effect of freedom upon
the creative faculty. The man who must do anything else--if it be only
to carry a cane, or wear cuffs, or crease his trousers, or do any other
thing that involves attention and distracts the mind, is seriously
handicapped for creative work of any kind.
I have worked hard, of course. He who would make a living with his pen
must do that of necessity. But the work has been always a joy to me, and
such weariness as it brings is only that which gives added pleasure to
the rest that follows.
LXX
Every literary worker has his own methods, and I have never known any
one of them to adopt the methods of another with success. Temperament
has a good deal to do with it; habit, perhaps, a good deal more, and
circumstance more than all.
I have always been an extemporaneous writer, if I may apply the
adjective to writers as we do to speakers. I have never been able to sit
down and "compose" anything before writing it. I have endeavored always
to master the subjects of my writing by study and careful thought, but
I have never known when I wrote a first sentence or a first chapter what
the second was to be. I think from the point of my pen, so far at least
as my thinking formulates itself in written words.
I suppose this to be a consequence of my thirty-odd years of newspaper
experience. In the giddy, midnight whirl of making a great newspaper
there is no time for "first drafts," "outline sketches," "final
revisions," and all that sort of thing. When the telegraph brings
news at midnight that requires a leader--perhaps in double leads--the
editorial writer has an hour or less, with frequent interruptions,
in which to write his article, get it into type, revise the proofs,
and make up the page that contains it. He has no choice but to write
extemporaneously. He must hurriedly set down on paper what his newspaper
has to say on the subject, and send his sheets at once to the printers,
sometimes keeping messenger boys at his elbow to take the pages from his
hand one after another as fast as they are written. His only opportunity
for revision is on the proof slips, and even in that he is limited by
the necessity of avoiding every alteration that may involve the
overrunning of a line.
In this and other ways born of necessity, the newspaper writer learns
the art of extemporaneous writing, which is only another way of saying
that he learns how to write at his best in the first instance, without
lazily depending upon revision for smoothness, clearness, terseness, and
force. He does not set down ill-informed or ill-considered judgments.
Every hour of every day of his life is given to the close study of the
subjects upon which he is at last called upon to write under stress of
tremendous hurry. He knows all about his theme. He has all the facts at
his fingers' ends. He is familiar with every argument that has been or
can be made on the questions involved. He knows all his statistics, and
his judgments have been carefully thought out in advance. His art consists
in the ability to select on the instant what phases of the subject
he will treat, and to write down his thought clearly, impressively,
convincingly, and in the best rhetorical form he can give it.
[Sidenote: Extemporaneous Writing]
I think that one who has acquired that habit of extemporaneous writing
about things already mastered in thought can never learn to write in any
other way. Both experience and observation have convinced me that men of
that intellectual habit do more harm than good to their work when they
try to improve it by revision. Revision in every such case is apt to
mean elaboration, and elaboration is nearly always a weakening dilution
of thought.
I am disposed to think that whatever saves trouble to the writer is
purchased at the expense of the reader. The classic dictum that "easy
writing makes hard reading" is as true to-day as it was when Horace made
laborious use of the flat end of his stylus. For myself, at any rate,
I have never been able to "dictate," either "to the machine," or to a
stenographer, with satisfactory results, nor have I ever known anybody
else to do so without some sacrifice to laziness of that which it is
worth a writer's while to toil for. The stenographer and the typewriter
have their place as servants of commerce, but in literature they tend
to diffusion, prolixity, inexactitude, and, above all, to carelessness
in that choice of words that makes the difference between grace and
clumsiness, lucidity and cloud, force and feebleness.
In the writing of novels, I have always been seriously embarrassed by
the strange perversity of fictitious people. That is a matter that has
puzzled and deeply interested me ever since I became a practising
novelist.
The most ungrateful people in the world are the brain-children of the
novelist, the male and female folk whose existence is due to the good
will of the writer. Born of the travail of the novelist's brain, and
endowed by him with whatever measure of wit, wisdom, or wealth they
possess; personally conducted by him in their struggles toward the final
happiness he has foreordained for them at the end of the story; cared
for; coddled; listened to and reported even when they talk nonsense, and
not infrequently when they only think it; laboriously brought to the
attention of other people; pushed, if possible, into a fame they could
never have achieved for themselves; they nevertheless obstinately
persist in thwarting their creator's purpose and doing as they wickedly
please to his sore annoyance and vexation of spirit.
In truth, the author of a story has very little control over its course
after he has once laid its foundations. The novel is not made--it grows,
and the novelist does little more than plant the seed and keep the
growth unchoked by weeds. He is as powerless to make it other than what
it tends to be as the gardener is to grow tomatoes on corn-stalks or
cucumbers on pea-vines. He may create for the story what manner of
people he pleases, just as the gardener may choose the seed he will
plant; but once created these fictitious people will behave according
to their individual natures without heed to the wishes of the author of
their being.
In other words, the novelist is under bond to his conscience to
represent his personages as talking and acting precisely as such
personages would talk and act under the circumstances in which he has
placed them. It often happens that their sentiments, their utterances,
and their conduct do not fit into the author's preconceived arrangement
of happenings, so that he must alter his entire story or important parts
of it to make it true.
I have borrowed the last few paragraphs from a playful paper I wrote for
an obscure magazine thirty-odd years ago, because they suggest a trouble
that must come to every conscientious novelist many times during the
writing of every story. There come times when the novelist doesn't know
what happened, and must toilsomely explore his consciousness by way of
finding out.
[Sidenote: Working Hours and Working Ways]
My working hours are determined by circumstances--morning, afternoon,
evening, or late at night. When there is a "must" involved, I work when
I must; when I am free I work when I choose or when I feel that I can.
I never carry my work to bed with me, and I never let it rob me of a
moment's sleep. To avoid that I usually play a game or two of solitaire
--perhaps the least intellectual of all possible occupations--between
work and bedtime; and I usually take a walk in the open air just before
going to bed, whatever the weather may be. But whatever else happens,
I long ago acquired the art of absolutely dismissing the subject of my
work from my mind, whenever I please, and the more difficult art of
refusing to let any other subject of interest take its place. I do that
when I go to bed, and when I do that nothing less than positive physical
pain can keep me from going to sleep.
I have always been fond of fishing and boating. In summer, at my Lake
George cottage, I have a little fleet of small boats moored within
twenty paces of my porch-placed writing table. If my mind flags at my
work I step into my fishing boat and give an hour or two to a sport that
occupies the attention without fatiguing it. If I am seriously perplexed
by any work-problem, I take a rowboat, with a pair of eight-foot oars,
and go for a ten-mile spin. On my return I find that my problem has
completely wrought itself out in my mind without conscious effort on
my part.
I am fond of flower gardening and, without the least technical skill
in it, I usually secure astonishingly good results. The plants seem to
respond generously to my uninstructed but kindly attention.
In my infancy my mother taught me to begin every day with a plunge into
water as cold as I could get, and I have kept up the habit with the
greatest benefit. I find it a perfect tonic as well as a luxurious
delight.
I have always enforced upon myself two rules with respect to literary
style: First, to utter my thought simply and with entire sincerity, and,
second, never consciously to write or leave a sentence in such form that
even a blundering reader might mistake its meaning.
Here let me bring to an end these random recollections of a life
which has involved hard work, distressing responsibility, and much of
disappointment, but which has been filled from the beginning with that
joy of success which is the chief reward of endeavor to every man who
loves his work and puts conscience into it.
THE END
INDEX
=A=
Abbey, Edwin A., 274, 307
Accident, its part in literary work, 181-185
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 174, 191, 192
Alexander, Gen. E. P., 94
America. _See_ United States
American authors visiting England, 265, 269
"American Idea," 296, 297
American life, 1840-50, 18-20
American literature provincial, 269-271
Americanism, birthplace of, 27
Amour, 117
Anonymous literary criticism, 203-205
"Appleseed, Johnny," 141
_Appleton's Journal_, 153, 181
Armitage, Rev. Dr., 113-115
Armstrong, Henry, 291
Army of Northern Virginia, 87, 93, 94
Arnold, Matthew, 268
Arthur, T. S., novels of, 25
Ashland, Va., 77
Associated Press, 180, 188, 302, 303
Astor Library, books mutilated, 271
_Atlantic Monthly_, 148, 149, 181
Authors, and editors, 167-172;
Virginian, 66-70
Authors Club, organized, 272;
presidency, 273;
eligibility, 273;
meeting-places, 274, 275;
in Twenty-fourth Street, 277;
social in character, 277, 278;
women, 278-280;
plainness of quarters, 280;
Watch Night, 281, 284;
diplomats and statesmen, 284;
"Liber Scriptorum," 285, 286. Also 85, 176-178, 228, 232, 254, 258
Authorship, esteemed in Virginia, 66, 67
"Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," Holmes's, 219
=B=
"Bab Ballads," Gilbert's, 137
Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, 220
Bar Harbor, 295, 320-326
"Barnwell C. H.," 242
Bates House, Indianapolis, 28, 29
Bath, American habits as to, 30, 31
Beauregard, Gen., 87, 237-241
Beecher, Henry Ward, 108
"Ben Bolt," 255
Benjamin, Judah P., 237
Bernhardt, Sara, 229, 230
Berry, Earl D., 290
"Big Brother, The," 181-183
Bigelow, John, 188, 228, 289, 303
Bludso, Jim, 160-162
Blunders, compositors', 241-243;
literary, 222-227;
telegrapher's, 238, 239
Bohemianism, 177
Book-editing, 234-237
Book notices, 190
Book reviewers, 190
Book reviewing, newspaper, 217
Book sales, predicting, 252-254
Book titles, 154-157
Books, mutilation of, 271;
in Virginia, 66
Booth, Edwin, 275, 276
Booth, Postmaster of Brooklyn, 125
"Boots and Saddles," Mrs. Custer's, 252-254
Boston, literary center, 148
Boucicault, Dion, 153
Bound boys and girls, 14, 16
Bowen, Henry C., 100, 128
Boys' stories, 181-185
Bragg, Gen., 238
"Breadwinners, The," 165
Briars, The, 71
Briggs, Charles F., 100-107
British authors visiting America, 265, 268, 269
British condescension, 268
_Broadway Journal_, 100
Brooklyn. N. Y., 31, 99, 115, 117
Brooklyn _Daily Eagle_, 126
Brooklyn _Union_, 99, 100, 105, 107, 110, 113, 115, 116, 128
Brooks, Elbridge S., 185
"Browneyes, Lily," 256-258
Bryan, Wm. J., and the _World_ in 1896, 324-326. Also 335-337
Bryant, Wm. C., 68, 129, 143;
conduct of the N. Y. _Evening Post_, 187-189;
as a reviewer of books, 190;
appoints G. C. Eggleston literary editor of the _Evening Post_, 192-194;
character, 194-196;
relations with Washington Irving, 196-198;
consideration for poets, 199-202, 205, 206;
views of anonymous literary criticism, 203-205;
estimate of Poe, 207;
_Index Expurgatorius_, 209-213;
his democracy, 214;
opinion of English society, 215-217;
estimate of Tennyson and other modern poets, 219;
his judgment of English literature, 220, 221
Bull Run, 78
Byron, quoted, 83, 84
=C=
Cairo, Ills., 96, 99
"Campaign of Chancellorsville," Dodge's, 208
Campbell, Thomas, 254
Cannon, Capt. John, 161
"Captain Sam," 183
Cary, Alice and Phoebe, 137
Carlisle, John G., 330, 331
Catholicism, 26
Cavalry life, 77-81
Chamberlin, E. O., 329, 330
Champlin, John D., 285
Chance, its part in literary work, 181-185
Charleston, S. C., 86, 164, 241
Checks, bank, in Virginia, 50
Children's stories. _See_ Boys' stories
Church, Col. Wm. C., 204
Civil service system, 235
Civil War, changes wrought in Virginia, 73-76
Clay, Henry, 20
Clemens, Samuel L., 150, 160, 259, 265, 281
Cleveland, President, 214, 226, 330, 331
Coan, Dr. Titus Munson, quoted, 228
Cobham Station, 93
Cockerill, John A., 122, 308-312
Co-education, 57
Colman, Mr., 198
Collins, Tom, 89-93
_Commercial Advertiser._ _See under_ New York
Compositors, 314, 315
Condescension, British, 268
Congress, U. S., in Tilden-Hayes controversy, 331-333
Constitution, U. S., 226, 336
Conversion, religious, 92
Cooke, John Esten, 59, 67, 69-72, 151, 240
Copy, following, 241-243
Copyright, 153, 154, 231-234, 268
Corruption, political, 124-126, 334, 335
Courtesy in Boston, New York, Virginia, 55, 56
Court-martial, 88, 89
Coward, Edward Fales, 291
Cowley, Abraham, 192
Craig, George, 13, 17
Creek War, 183
Criticism. _See_ Literary criticism
"Culross," 338-344
Curtis, George William, 100
Curtis, Gen. Newton Martin, 85
Custer, Mrs., 252-254
Cuyler, Dr. Theo. L., quoted, 147
=D=
"Danger in the Dark," 26
Daniel, Senator, of Virginia, 85
Davis, James, 291
Davis, Jefferson, 164, 165, 237-241
Death-bed repentance, 93
Democracy, Bryant's, 214;
Cleveland's, 214
"Democracy," 269
Dictation, 341
Dictionaries, 210
Dime novel, 275, 276
Dodd, Mead, and Co., 244
Dodge, Mary Mapes, 131, 132
Dodge, Col. Theodore, 208
Dranesville, Va., 83
Dress, Joaquin Miller on, 175, 176;
men's evening, 175-178
Drinking habits. _See_ Temperance
Dumont, Mrs. Julia L., 9
Dupont, Ind., 21
Dutcher, Silas B., 125
"Dutchmen," 3
=E=
_Eagle_, Brooklyn. _See under_ Brooklyn
Early, Jubal A., 76
Editorial responsibility, 207-209
Editorial writing, 110, 313-315, 323, 340
Editors and authors, 167-172
Education, backwoods, 9, 10;
modern, 75, 76;
present and past in Virginia, 73-76;
western, in 1850, 32-34. _See also_ Schools and school-teaching
Eggleston, Edward, 21, 22;
origin of "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," 34-36;
connection with _Hearth and Home_, 132;
first to utilize in literature the Hoosier life, 145, 146;
resigns editorship of _Hearth and Home_, 146;
quoted on copyright, 232-234;
relations with his brother, 266, 267
Eggleston, George Cary,
early recollections, life in the West in the eighteen-forties, 1-20;
first railroad journey, 21;
free-thinking, 22;
early theological thought and reading, 22-26;
school-teaching, 34-45;
Virginia life, 46-59;
occultism, experience of, 60-66;
creed, 75;
army life, 77;
cavalry, 77-81;
two experiences, 81-85;
artillery, 86, 87;
Army of Northern Virginia, 87-96;
legal practice, 99;
Brooklyn _Union_, 99-129;
New York _Evening Post_, 129-131;
_Hearth and Home_, 131-135, 145, 146, 148, 151, 180;
first books, 146;
first novel, 151-155;
New Jersey home, 180, 186;
boys' stories, 181-185;
financial troubles, 186, 187;
connection with New York _Evening Post_, 187-231;
acquaintance with W. C. Bryant, 192-228;
adviser of Harper and Brothers, 231, 234, 236;
literary editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_, 287;
managing editor, 288;
editor-in-chief, 289;
health, 292, 306;
editorial writer for the _World_, 306-337;
retires from journalism, 337;
literary habits, 338-344
Eggleston, Guilford Dudley, 184
Eggleston, Joseph, 96, 98
Eggleston, Joseph Cary, 9, 14, 15
Eggleston, Mrs. Mary Jane, 11
Eggleston, Judge Miles Cary, 8
Eggleston family, home of, 46
Election results, predicting, 326
Eliot, George, 255
Elliot, Henry R., 291
"End of the World," E. Eggleston's, 146
English, Thomas Dunn, 172, 255
English authors. _See_ British authors
English language, N. Y. _Evening Post's_ standard, 210-214;
Virginia usage, 59;
Western usage, 8
English society, 215-217
_Evening Post, The._ _See under_ New York
Extemporaneous writing, 339-341
=F=
"Fable for Critics," 101, 106, 195
Familiarity, President Cleveland contrasted with W. C. Bryant, 214
Farragut, Admiral, quoted, 77
Fawcett, Edgar, 153
Fellows, Col. John R., 121, 122
Fiction, place in 1840-50, 25, 26;
writing of, 341, 342
"First of the Hoosiers," quoted, 145
First Regiment of Virginia Cavalry, 77, 78, 81
"Flat Creek," 37
Florida War, 243
Folsom, Dr. Francois, 291
Ford, Paul Leicester, 278, 279, 334
Foreigners, American attitude toward, 1840-50, 2, 3
Francis, Sir Philip, 223-225
"Franco, Harry," 100, 106
Franklin, Benj., 1, 139
Free-thinking, 22
Free-trade and protection, 20
French Revolution, 108, 109
Fulton, Rev. Dr., 113-115
=G=
G., Johnny, 43-45
_Galaxy_, 181, 204
Garfield, Gen., 119
George Eliot, 255
George, Lake, 335, 337. _See also_ "Culross"
Ghost story, 60-66
Gilbert, W. S., 137
Gilder, R. W., 172, 272, 273
Godkin, E. L., 230, 231
Godwin, Parke, 100, 188, 189, 227-230, 286-289, 295-300, 305
Gold coin in Plaquemine in 1886, 248-251
Gosse, Edmund, 177, 265-268