“Yes, in a measure; but many of them, perhaps most of them, do not

emphasize the matter half enough. A mother may wish to teach all these

lessons to her son, but she thinks too much of him, or believes she

does, to have him suffer any deprivation, and so indulges him in things

which are luxuries for him, under the circumstances, rather than

necessaries. Many a boy, born with ordinary intellect, would follow the

example of an industrious father, were it not that his mother wishes him

to appear as well as any boy in the neighborhood. So, without exactly

meaning it, she gets to making a show of her boy, and brings him up with

a habit of idling away valuable time, to keep up appearances. The

prudent mother, however, sees the folly of this course, and teaches her

son to excel in study and work, rather than in vain display. The

difference in mothers makes all the difference in the world to children,

who like brooks, can be turned very easily in their course of life.”

SELF HELP

“What ranks next in importance?”

“Boys and girls themselves, especially as they grow older, and have a

chance to understand what life means, should not only help their parents

as a matter of duty, but should learn to help themselves, for their own

good. I would not have them forego recreation, a reasonable amount every

day, but let them learn the reality and earnestness of existence, and

resolve to do the whole work and the very best work of thorough,

reliable young men and women.”

WHAT CAREER

“What would you advise as to choosing a career?”

“In that I should be governed largely by the bent of each youth. What he

likes to do best of all, that he should do; and he should try to do it

better than anyone else. That is legitimate emulation. Let him devote

his full energy to his work; with the provision, however, that he needs

change or recreation more in proportion as he uses his brain more. The

more muscular the work, if not too heavy, the more hours, is a good

rule: the more brain work, the fewer hours. Children at school should

not be expected to work so long or so hard as if engaged in manual

labor. Temperament, too, should be considered. A highly organized,

nervous person, like a racehorse, may display intense activity for a

short time, but it should be followed by a long period of rest; while

the phlegmatic person, like the ox or the draft horse, can go all day

without injury.”

EDUCATION

“I believe in education most thoroughly, and think no one can have too

much knowledge, if properly digested. But in many of our colleges, I

have often thought, not more than one in five is radically improved by

the course. Most collegiates waste too much time in frivolity, and

somehow there seems to be little restraining power in the college to

prevent this. I agree that students should have self-restraint and

application themselves, but, in the absence of these, the college should

supply more compulsion than is now the rule.”

APPRENTICES

“Do you favor reviving the old apprentice system for would-be

mechanics?”

“Only in rare cases. As a rule, we have special machines now that do as

perfect work as the market requires; some of them, indeed, better work

than can be done by hand. A boy or man can soon learn to tend one of

these, when he becomes, for ordinary purposes, a specialist. Very few

shops now have apprentices. No rule, however, will apply to all, and it

may still be best for one to serve an apprenticeship in a trade in which

he wishes to advance beyond any predecessor or competitor.”

PREPARE TO THE UTMOST: THEN DO YOUR BEST

“Is success dependent more upon ability or opportunity?”

“Of course, opportunity is necessary. You couldn’t run a mammoth

department store on the desert of Sahara. But, given the possibility,

the right man can make his opportunity, and should do so, if it is not

at hand, or does not come, after reasonable waiting. Even Napoleon had

to wait for his. On the other hand, if there is no ability, none can

display itself, and the best opportunity must pass by unimproved. The

true way is to first develop your ability to the last ounce, and then

you will be ready for your opportunity, when it comes, or to make one,

if none offers.”

PRESENT OPPORTUNITIES

“Is the chance for a youth as good as it was twenty-five or fifty years

ago?”

“Yes, and no. In any country, as it becomes more thickly populated, the

chance for purely individual enterprises is almost sure to diminish. One

notices this more as he travels through other and older countries,

where, far more than with us, boys follow in the footsteps of their

fathers, generation after generation. But for those who are willing to

adapt themselves to circumstances, the chance, to-day, at least from a

pecuniary standpoint, is better than ever before, for those starting in

life. There was doubtless more chance for the individual boat-builder,

in the days of King Philip, when each Indian made his own canoe; but

there is certainly more profit now for an employee of our firm of

boat-builders.”

NATURAL EXECUTIVE ABILITY

“Granted, however, that he can find employment, how do his chances of

rising compare with those of your youth?”

“They still depend largely upon the individual. _Some seem to have

natural executive ability, and others develop it, while most men never

possess it. Those who lack it cannot hope to rise far, and never could._

Jefferson’s idea that all men are created equal is true enough, perhaps,

so far as their political rights are concerned, but from the point of

view of efficiency in business, it is ridiculous. In any shop of one

hundred men, you will find one who is acknowledged, at least tacitly, as

the leader, and he sooner or later becomes so in fact. A rich boy may

get and hold a place in an office, on account of his wealth or

influence; but in the works, merit alone will enable a man to hold a

place long.”

THE DEVELOPMENT OF POWER

“But what is his chance of becoming a proprietor?”

“That is smaller, of course, as establishments grow larger and more

valuable. It is all bosh for every man to expect to become a Vanderbilt

or a Rockefeller, or to be President. But, in the long run, a man will

still rise and prosper in almost exact proportion to his real value to

the business world. He will rise or fall according to his ability.”

“Can he develop ability?”

“Yes, to a certain extent. As I have said, we are not all alike, and no

amount of cultivation will make some minds equal to those of others who

have had but little training. But, whether great or small, everyone has

some weak point; let him first study to overcome that.”

“How can he do it?”

“The only way I know of is to—do it. But this brings me back to what I

told you at first. A good mother will show one how to guard against his

weak points. She should study each child and develop his individual

character, for character is the true foundation, after all. She should

check extravagance and encourage industry and self-respect. My mother is

one of the best, and I feel I owe her a debt I can never repay.”

“MY MOTHER”

“Your mother? Why, I thought you had been a boat-builder for half a

century! How old is she?”

“She is eighty-eight, and still enjoys good health. If I have one thing

more than another to be thankful for, it is her care in childhood and

her advice and sympathy through life. How often have I thought of her

wisdom when I have seen mothers from Europe (where they were satisfied

to be peasants), seek to outshine all their neighbors after they have

been in America a few years, and so bring financial ruin to their

husbands or even goad them into crime, and curse their children with

contempt for honest labor in positions for which they are fitted, and a

foolish desire to keep up appearances, even by living beyond their means

and by seeking positions they cannot fill properly.”

A BOAT-BUILDER IN YOUTH

“You must have been quite young, when you began to build boats?”

“About thirteen or fourteen years old. You see, my father was an amateur

boat-builder, in a small way, and did very good work, but usually not

for sale. But I began the work as a business thirty-six years ago, when

I was about twenty-two.”

HE WOULD NOT BE DISCOURAGED

“You must have been terribly handicapped by your blindness.”

“It was an obstacle, but I simply would not allow it to discourage me,

and did my best, just the same as if I could see. My mother had taught

me to think, and so I made thought and memory take the place of eyes. I

acquired a kind of habit of mental projection which has enabled me to

see models in my mind, as it were, and to consider their good and bad

points intelligently. Besides, I cultivated my powers of observation to

the utmost, in other respects. Even now, I take an occasional trip of

observation, for I like to see what others are doing, and so keep

abreast of the progress of the age. But I must stop or I shall get to

‘talking shop,’ the thing I declined to do at first.

THE SUM OF IT ALL

“The main thing for a boy is to have a good mother, to heed her advice,

to do his best, and not get a ‘swelled head’ as he rises,—in other

words, not to expect to put a gallon into a pint cup, or a bushel into a

peck measure. Concentration, decision, industry and economy should be

his watchwords, and invincible determination and persistence his rule of

action.”

With another cordial handshake, he bade me good-by.

II

WHAT THE HERRESHOFF BROTHERS HAVE BEEN DOING

Their recent Cup Defenders have made their names familiar to all, but

shipping circles have long known them. The business of the firm was long

confined almost wholly to the creation of boats with single masts, each

craft from twenty to thirty-six feet long. In their first ten years of

associated work, they built nearly two thousand of these. But they were

wonderful little boats, and of unrivaled swiftness. Then they made as

wonderful a success in building steam fishing yachts. Then came torpedo

boats.

[Illustration:

_The race between the “Vigilant” and the “Valkyrie.”_

(_The “Vigilant,” Herreshoff boat, the winner._)]

And in 1881 their proposal to the British government to build two

vedette boats was accepted on condition they should outmatch the work of

White, the naval launch builder at Cowes. No firm had ever been able to

compete with White. But in the following July the two Herreshoff boats

were in the Portsmouth dockyard, England, ready for trial. They were

each forty-eight feet long, nine feet in beam, and five feet deep,

exactly the same size as White’s. They made fifteen and one-half knots

an hour, while White’s only recorded twelve and two-fifths knots. “With

all their machinery coal and water in place, the Herreshoff boats were

filled with water, and then twenty men were put aboard each, that human

load being just so much in excess the admiralty test, and even then each

had a floating capacity of three tons. The examiners pronounced

enthusiastically in favor of the Herreshoff safety coil boilers as

unexplodable, less liable to injury from shock, capable of raising steam

more quickly, far lighter, and in all respects superior to those that

had been formerly used for the purpose.” The boats were accepted, and

orders given at once for two pinnaces, each thirty-three feet long.

Again John Samuel White competed, but his new boats could only make

seven and one-eighth knots, while the Herreshoff’s easily scored nine

and one-quarter.

RACING JAY GOULD

In July, 1883, Jay Gould was highly elated over the speed of his

beautiful steam yacht “Atalanta,” which had several times met and

distanced Edward S. Jaffray’s wonderful “Stranger;” but, on the

twentieth of that month, his happiness, as the story is told, was very

suddenly dashed.

After a hard day’s work, the jaded Jay boarded the “Atalanta” and began

to shake out his pin-feathers a little, figuratively speaking. But

before his boat had gone far on her run to Irvington, the bold

manipulator of Wall Street made out a craft on his weather-quarter that

seemed to be gliding after the “Atalanta” with intent to overhaul her.

He had a good start, however, and sang out to the captain to keep a

sharp eye on the persistent little stranger, so unlike the “Stranger” he

had vanquished.

“I wonder what it is!” he exclaimed to a friend beside him.

The friend looked long and carefully at the oncoming boat, then turned a

quizzical eye on Jay, remarking:—

“In a little while we can tell.”

“Will she get that close?”

“I think she will.”

It was not long before the strange boat was abreast of the “Atalanta,”

and Jay was then able to make out the mystical number “100” on her. He

rubbed his eyes. Those were the very figures he had long hoped to see on

the stock ticker, after the words “Western Union,” but that day they had

lost their charm. Before long he was not only able to see the broadside

of the “100,” but also had a good view of the stern of the vessel,

whereon the same figures soon appeared and nearly as soon disappeared,

as the “100” bade good-by to the “Atalanta,” which was burning every

pound of coal that could possibly be carried without putting Mr. Gould

or some efficient substitute on the safety valve.

“He seems to be out of humor to-night,” said his coachman, after leaving

his employer at the door of his Irvington mansion.

The mystic “100” which, by the way, was just one hundred feet over all,

was merely the hundredth steamer built by the Herreshoffs, but on her

first trip up the Hudson she attracted as much attention as the “Half

Moon” of Henry Hudson or the “Clermont” of Robert Fulton. She was the

fastest yacht in the world, and was beaten on the river by only one

vessel, the “Mary Powell”—four and one-half minutes in twenty miles.

Although Mr. Gould was considerably irritated at his defeat, he knew a

good thing when he saw it, and the next year he ordered a small steam

launch of the Herreshoffs.

The “100” made a great stir in Boston Harbor. Later on she steamed

through the Erie canal and the Great Lakes, and made her home with the

millionaire Mark Hopkins.

THE “STILETTO”

The versatility of the Herreshoffs has appeared in their famous boiler

improvement, and in the great variety of vessels they have built. The

“Stiletto” only ninety-four feet long, over all, astonished the yachting

world in 1885. On June 10, she beat the “Mary Powell” two miles in a

race of twenty-eight miles on the Hudson. At one time, the “Stiletto”

circled completely around the big steamer and then moved rapidly away

from her.

Secretary Whitney bought the “Stiletto” for the United States navy, in

which she has done valuable service. She was followed, in 1890, by the

still faster “Cushing,” whose record in the recent Spanish-American war

is so well known.

Admiral Porter wrote to Secretary of the Navy Chandler, that the little

Herreshoff steam launches were faster than any other owned by the

government, their great superiority showing especially against a strong

head wind and sea, when they would remain dry while their rivals

required constant bailing. They were better trimmed, lighter, more

buoyant, and in every way superior in nautical qualities, and twice as

fast as others in a gale.

Nineteen vessels have been built by this firm for the United States

government.

“There is a certain speed that attaches to every vessel, which may be

called its natural rate,” says Lewis Herreshoff; “it is mainly governed

by its length and the length of the carrier wave which always

accompanies a vessel parallel to her line of motion. When she reaches a

speed great enough to form a wave of the same length as the moving body,

then that vessel has reached her natural rate of speed, and all that can

be obtained above that is done by sheer brute force. The natural limit

of speed of a boat forty feet long is about ten miles an hour; of a

vessel sixty feet in length, twelve and one-quarter miles; of one a

hundred feet long, fifteen and three-fourths miles; of one two hundred

feet long, twenty-two miles.”

As the speed is increased, this double or carrier wave, one-half on

either side of the yacht, lengthens in such a way that the vessel seems

to settle more the faster she goes, and so has to climb the very wave

she makes. Hence the motive power must be increased much faster than the

speed increases. Further, in order to avoid this settling and consequent

climbing as much as possible, lightness of construction, next to correct

proportions, is made the great desideratum in the Herreshoffs’ ideal

boat. They use wood wherever possible, as it is not only lighter than

metal, but is reasonably strong and generally much more durable.

Wherever heavy strains come, a bracing form of construction is adopted,

and metal is used also.

The engine of the “Stiletto” weighs ten pounds for each indicated

horse-power; that of the “Cushing,” fifteen. The entire motive plant of

the “Cushing” weighs sixty-five pounds for each horse-power; that of the

“City of Paris,” two hundred. Comparing displacement, the former has

eight times the power of the latter.

For four years our government kept a staff of officers stationed at the

Herreshoff works to experiment with high-speed machinery, in which the

firm then led the country. One of their steamers, ascending the St.

Lawrence River to the Thousand Islands, ran up all the rapids except the

Lachine, where a detour by canal was made. The Canadians were deeply

impressed by this triumph.

THE BLIND BROTHERS

One of the Herreshoff sisters is blind and a remarkable musician; and

one brother blind who studied music in Berlin, and who conducts a school

of music in Providence. Lewis Herreshoff, one of the boat-builders, is

also blind. He, too, is a fine musician and an excellent bass singer,

having received careful vocal training in Europe. He has fine literary

taste, a very clear style, and writes for magazines, especially on

boat-building and engineering. He has a large foreign correspondence,

all of which he answers personally on the typewriter. It would be

difficult to find a greater favorite with young people, to whom he

devotes much of his time, teaching them games or lessons, also how to

sail or row a boat, how to swim or float, and how to save each other

from drowning. When walking along the street with a group of chatting

children, he will ask, “What time is it by the clock on St. Michael’s

Church?” pointing right at the steeple. He will wind a clock and set it

exactly, and regulate it, if it does not go right.

THE PERSONALITY OF JOHN B. HERRESHOFF

From his boyhood, John B. Herreshoff evinced a great fondness for boats

and machinery, finding most pleasure, in his leisure hours, when boys of

his age usually think only of play, in haunting boat-builders’ yards and

machine shops, studying how and why things were done, and reading what

had been done elsewhere in those branches of industry, beyond his field

of observation.

At the age of eleven, he was studying the best lines for vessels’ hulls

and making models and three years later he began building boats.

His terrible affliction has never seemed to weaken his self-reliance or

turn him aside from following the chosen pursuit of his life, but has

rather strengthened his devotion to it and his capacity for it by

concentrating all his faculties upon it.

His many years of blindness have given him not only the serious,

patient, introspective look common to those who suffer like him, and

their gentle, clearly modulated voice, but have also developed all his

other faculties to such an extent as to largely replace the missing

sense.

He can tell as much about an ordinary-sized steam launch, her lines,

methods of construction, etc., by feeling, as others can by seeing, and

he goes on inventing and building just as if his eyes were not closed

forever. He is a tall, big-brained man, who couldn’t help inventing and

working if he tried. Such a man would have to suffer the loss of more

than one of his senses before his mental efficiency would be impaired.

When he wanted to build some steam launches for the government, he went

to the navy yard at Washington and felt of the government launches, to

discover their shape and how they were made. Then he went to Bristol and

made better launches suitable for the government’s use.

HAS HE A SIXTH SENSE?

He reads and understands the most delicate intonations and modulations

of voices addressing him, as others read and understand facial

expression. His sensitive fingers detect differences in metals, and

follow, as if with a gift of perception, the lines of models submitted

to him, and his mind sees even more clearly than by mere physical sight

the intricacies of the most complicated machinery intelligently

described to him, or over which his fingers are allowed to move. “That

is a good stick,” he will say, examining a pile of lumber with his

fingers. “Here’s a shaky piece, throw it out; it won’t do for this

work,” may come next, or, “Saw off this end; it’s poor stock. The rest

is all right.” On hearing him criticize, direct, and explain things

within his province, a stranger finds it hard to believe he cannot see

at least a little,—out of one eye.

SEEING WITH THE FINGERS

By the constant practice, he has, as he expresses it, learned to see

with his hands, not quite so quickly, but he believes as perfectly, as

he could with his eyes, and this means more than it does in the case of

an ordinary blind man; for, by a touch, he can tell whether the graceful

double curves of a boat’s bottom are in correct proportion, one with

another, and then, by a few rapid sweeps of his hands, over all, he can

instantly judge of the symmetry and perfection of the whole. Even more

than this, he will give minute directions to the carpenters and

mechanics, running his hand along the piece of work one had produced,

will immediately detect the slightest deviation from the instruction he

has given. If at all impatient, he will seize the plane or other tool,

and do the work himself. And yet the world calls this man “blind!”

While skill plays a material part, one of John B. Herreshoff’s boats is

a product of the mind, in a very great degree. Psychologists tell us

that we do not see with our eyes, but with the brain proper. This blind

man sees, and constructs, not that which is objective and real to

others, but that which is evolved from a transcendental intelligence

applied to the most practical purposes.

BROTHER NAT

One of the brothers, who has good eyes, is a prominent chemist in New

York; and one who can see is Nat the designer for the boat-building.

Nathaniel G., the great yacht designer, was born in 1848. When he was

not more than two years old, he was often found asleep on the sand along

shore, with the rising tide washing his bare feet. Whenever he was

missing, he was sought for first on the shore, where he would generally

be found watching the ships or playing with toy boats.

At nine years of age, he was an excellent helmsman, and at twelve he

sailed the “Sprite” to her first victory and won a prize. When older

grown, he was known as a vigilant watcher of every chance as well as a

skillful sailor. Once, when steering the “Ianthe” in a failing wind, he

veered widely from a crowd of contestants, so as to run into a good

breeze he noted far to starboard, and won the race.

He took a four years’ course at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, and then served an apprenticeship with the famous Corliss

Engine Company. He worked on the great engine at the Centennial

Exposition, and took a course of engineering abroad, visiting many noted

shipyards. He joined the firm in 1877, fourteen years after the works

were opened.

Nathaniel Greene Herreshoff, named for General Greene of Revolutionary

fame, is seven years younger, and only less famous than his blind

brother as a boat-builder,—only second to John B. in about the same way

that Greene was second to Washington. “General Greene is second to no

one,” said Washington. John B. would have done splendid work without Nat

as he did for years before the latter joined the firm, but it would have

been in a smaller way.

For years John B., his father, and his brothers, James B. or Lewis, and

Nathaniel G., were accustomed to get together frequently in the

dining-room of the old homestead, and talk and plan together in regard

to boat-building. Nat would usually make the first model on lines

previously agreed upon, and then John B. would feel it over and suggest

changes, which would be made, and the consultation continued until all

was satisfactory.

Nathaniel is described as “a tall, thin man, with a full beard and a

stoop,” the latter said to have been acquired in “watching his rivals in

his races, craning his head in order to see them from under the boom.”

“We have been always together from boyhood,” said John B., speaking of

“Nat;” “we have had the same pleasures, the same purposes, the same

aspirations; in fact, we have almost been one, and we have achieved

nothing for which a full share of credit is not his just due. Nothing

has ever been done by one without the other. Whenever one found an

obstacle or difficulty, the other helped him to remove it; and he, being

without the disadvantage I have, never makes a mistake.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XVIII

A Successful Novelist: Fame After Fifty[8]

Practical Hints to Young Authors,

BY MRS. AMELIA E. BARR

TO be successful! That is the legitimate ideal every true worker seeks

to realize. But success is not the open secret which it appears to be;

its elements are often uncomprehended; and its roots generally go deep

down, into the very beginnings of life. I can compel my soul to look

back into that twilight which shrouds my earliest years, and perceive,

even in them, monitions and tendencies working for that future, which in

my destiny was fashioned and shaped when as yet there was neither hint

nor dream of it. Fortunately, I had parents who understood the

VALUE OF BIBLICAL AND IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE

in the formation of the intellect. The men and women whom I knew first

and best were those of the Hebrew world. Sitting before the nursery

fire, while the snow fell softly and ceaselessly, and all the mountains

round were white, and the streets of the little English town choked with

drifts, I could see the camels and the caravans of the Ishmaelitish

merchants, passing through the hot, sandy desert. I could see Hagar

weeping under the palm, and the waters of the Red Sea standing up like a

wall. Miriam clashing the timbrels, and Deborah singing under the oak,

and Ruth gleaning in the wheatfields of Bethlehem, were as real to me as

were the women of my own home. Before I was six years old, I had been

with Christian to the Celestial City, and had watched, with Crusoe, the

mysterious footprint on the sand, and the advent of the savages. Then

came the wonders of afrites and genii, and all the marvels and miracles

of the Arabian tales. These were the mind-builders, and though schools

and teachers and text-books did much afterwards, I can never nor will

forget the glorious company of men and women from the sacred world, and

that marvelous company of caliphs and kings and princesses from Wonder

Land and Fairy Land, that expanded my whole nature, and fitted me for

the future miracles of Nature and Science, and all the marvelous people

of the Poet’s realm.

Footnote 8:

This is a most remarkable story, communicated to me by Mrs. Barr, and

related for the first time in this article. The distinguished

novelist, being a perfect housekeeper and the mother of a large

family, yet earns $20,000 a year by her books, which have been

translated into the language of almost every civilized country.—O. S.

M.

For eighteen years I was amassing facts and fancies, developing a crude

intelligence, waiting for the vitalization of the heart. Then Love, the

Supreme Teacher, came; and his first lesson was,

RENUNCIATION.

I was to give up father, and mother, home and kindred, friends and

country, and follow where he would lead me, into a land strange and far

off. Child-bearing and child-losing; the limitations and delights of

frontier life; the intimate society of such great and individual men as

Sam Houston, and the men who fought with him; the intense feelings

induced by war, its uncertainties and possibilities, and the awful

abiding in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, with the pestilence that

walked in darkness and the sickness that destroyed at noonday;—all these

events with their inevitable “asides” were instrumental in the education

and preparation of the seventeen years of my married life.

The calamitous lesson of widowhood, under peculiarly tragic

circumstances, was the last initiation of a heart already broken and

humbled before Him who doeth all things well, no matter how hard the

stroke may be. I thought all was over then; yet all was just beginning.

It was the open door to a new life—a life full of comforts, and serene,

still,

DELIGHTFUL STUDIES.

Though I had written stories to please my children, and many things to

please myself, it had never occurred to me that money could be made by

writing. The late William Libbey, a man of singular wisdom and kindness,

first made me understand that my brain and my ten fingers were security

for a good living. From my first effort I began to gather in the harvest

of all my years of study and reading and private writing. For there is

this peculiarity about writing—that if in any direction it has merit, it

will certainly find a market.

For fifteen years I wrote short stories, poems, editorials, and articles

on every conceivable subject, from Herbert Spencer’s theories, to

gentlemen’s walking sticks; but bringing to every piece of work, if it

was only ten lines, the best of my knowledge and ability; and so

earning, with a great deal of pleasure, a very good living. During the

earlier years of this time I worked and read on an average

FIFTEEN HOURS A DAY;

for I knew that, to make good work, I must have constant fresh material;

must keep up to date in style and method; and must therefore _read_ far

more than I wrote. But I have been an omnivorous reader all my life

long, and no changes, no cares of home and children, have ever

interfered with this mental necessity. In the most unlikely places and

circumstances, I looked for books, and found them. These fifteen years

on the weekly and monthly periodicals gave me the widest opportunities

for information. I had an alcove in the Astor Library, and I practically

lived in it. I slept and ate at home, but I lived in that City of Books.

I was in the prime of life, but neither society, amusements, nor

pleasures of any kind, could draw me away from the source of all my

happiness and profit.

Suddenly, after this long novition, I received the “call” for a

different work. I had

AN ACCIDENT

which confined me to my room, and which, I knew, would keep me from

active work for some months. I fretted for my work, as dry wood frets an

inch from the flame, and said, “I shall lose all I have gained; I shall

fall behind in the race; all these things are against me.” They were all

for me. A little story of what seemed exceptional merit, had been laid

away, in the hope that I might some day find time to extend it into a

novel. A prisoner in my chair, I finished the book in six weeks, and

sent it to Dodd, Mead & Co. On Thanksgiving morning, a letter came,

accepting the book, and any of my readers can imagine what a happy

Thanksgiving Day that was! This book was “Jan Vedder’s Wife,” and its

great and immediate success indicated to me the work I was at length

ready for. I was then in my fifty-second year, and every year had been a

preparation for the work I have since pursued. I went out from that sick

room sure of my

VOCATION;

and, with a confidence founded on the certainty of my equipment, and a

determination to trust humanity, and take my readers only into green

pastures and ways of purity and heroism, I ventured on my new path as a

novelist.

I cannot close this paper without a few words to those who wish to

profit by it. I want them to be sure of a few points which, in my

narrative, I may not have emphasized sufficiently.

WORDS OF COUNSEL

1. Men and women succeed _because they take pains to succeed_. Industry

and patience are almost genius; and successful people are often more

distinguished for resolution and perseverance than for unusual gifts.

They make determination and unity of purpose supply the place of

ability.

2. Success is the reward of those who “spurn delights and live laborious

days.” We learn to do things by _doing them. One of the great secrets of

success is “pegging away.”_ No disappointment must discourage, and a run

back must often be allowed, in order to take a longer leap forward.

3. _No opposition must be taken to heart._ Our enemies often help us

more than our friends. Besides, a head-wind is better than no wind. Who

ever got anywhere in a dead calm?

4. _A fatal mistake is to imagine that success is some stroke of luck._

This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere.

Fortune _sells_ her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other,

we pay for her favors; or we go empty away.

5. We have been told, for centuries, to watch for opportunities, and to

strike while the iron is hot. Very good; but I think better of Oliver

Cromwell’s amendment.—“_make the iron hot by striking it._”

6. Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into

details; it pays in every way. _Time means power for your work._

Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is

worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than

doing well what anyone can do badly.

7. _Be orderly._ Slatternly work is never good work. It is either

affectation, or there is some radical defect in the intellect. I would

distrust even the spiritual life of one whose methods and work were

dirty, untidy, and without clearness and order.

8. Never be above your profession. I have had many letters from people

who wanted all the emoluments and honors of literature, and who yet

said, “Literature is the accident of my life; I am a lawyer, or a

doctor, or a lady, or a gentleman.” _Literature is no accident. She is a

mistress who demands the whole heart, the whole intellect, and the whole

time of a devotee._

9. Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at

moments of trial. _One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful_;

to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put

hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery.

_Above all things else, be cheerful_; there is no beatitude for the

despairing.

Apparent success may be reached by sheer impudence, in defiance of

offensive demerit. But men who get what they are manifestly unfit for,

are made to feel what people think of them. Charlatanry may flourish;

but when its bay tree is greenest, it is held far lower than genuine

effort. The world is just; it may, it does, patronize quacks; but _it

never puts them on a level with true men_.

It is better to have the opportunity of victory, than to be spared the

struggle; for success comes but as the result of arduous experience. The

foundations of my success were laid before I can well remember; _it was

after at least forty-five years of conscious labor that I reached the

object of my hope_. Many a time my head failed me, my hands failed me,

my feet failed me, but, thank God, my _heart_ never failed me. Because

_I knew that no extremity would find God’s arm shortened_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XIX

How Theodore Thomas Brought the People Nearer to Music

MR. THOMAS is an early riser, and as I found him one morning, in his

chambers in Chicago, he was preparing to leave for rehearsal. The hale

old gentleman actively paced the floor, while I conversed with him.

“Mr. Thomas,” I said, “those familiar with the events of your life

consider them a lesson of encouragement for earnest and high-minded

artists.”

“That is kind,” he answered.

“I should like, if you will, to have you speak of your work in building

up your great orchestra in this country.”

“That is too long a story. I would have to begin with my birth.”

“Where were you born?” I asked.

“In the kingdom of Hanover, in 1835. My father was a violinist, and from

him I inherited my taste, I suppose. He taught me music. When I was only

six years old, I played the violin at public concerts.”

“I WAS NOT AN INFANT PRODIGY”

“I was not an infant prodigy, however. My father had too much wisdom to

injure my chances in that way. He made me keep to my studies in a manner

that did me good. I came to America in 1845.”

“Was the American music field crowded then?”

“On the contrary, there wasn’t any field to speak of. It had to be made.

Music was the pastime of a few. The well-educated and fashionable

classes possessed or claimed a knowledge of it. There was scarcely any

music for the common people.”

“How did you get your start in the New York world of music?” I asked.

“With four associates, William Mason, Joseph Mosenthal, George Matzka

and Frederick Berguer, I began a series of concerts of Chamber Music,

and for many years we conducted this modest artistic enterprise. There

was much musical enthusiasm on our part, but very little reward, except

the pleasure we drew from our own playing.

“These Mason and Thomas _soirées_ are still remembered by old-time music

lovers of New York, not only for their excellence, but for the peculiar

character of the audiences. They were quiet little monthly reunions, to

which most of the guests came with complimentary tickets. The critics

hardly ventured to intrude upon the exercises, and the newspapers gave

them little notice.”

BEGINNING OF THE ORCHESTRA

“How did you come to found your great orchestra?”

“It was more of a growth than a full-fledged thought to begin with. It

was in 1861 that I severed my connection with the opera and began to

establish a genuine orchestra. I began with occasional performances,

popular matinée concerts, and so on, and, in a few years, was able to

give a series of Symphony _Soirées_ at the old Irving Hall in New York.”

To the average person this work of Mr. Thomas may seem to be neither

difficult nor great. Yet while anyone could have collected a band in a

week, to make such an orchestra as Mr. Thomas meant to have, required

time and patience. It was when the Philharmonic Society, after living

through a great many hardships, was on the full tide of popular favor.

Its concerts and rehearsals filled the Academy of Music with the flower

of New York society. Powerful social influences had been won to its

support, and Carl Bergmann had raised its noble orchestra of one hundred

performers to a point of proficiency then quite unexampled in this

country, and in some particulars still unsurpassed. Ladies and gentlemen

who moved in the best circles hardly noticed the parallel entertainment

offered in such a modest way, by Mr. Thomas, on the opposite side of the

street. The patrons of his Chamber Concerts, of course, went in to see

what the new orchestra was like; professional musicians hurried to the

hall with their free passes; and there were a few curious listeners

besides who found in the programmes a class of compositions somewhat

different from those which Mr. Bergmann chiefly favored, and, in

particular, a freshness and novelty in the selections, with an

inclination, not yet very strongly marked, toward the modern German

school. Among such of the _dilettanti_ as condescended to think of Mr.

Thomas at all, there was a vague impression that his concerts were

started in opposition to the Philharmonic Society, but that they were

not so good and much less genteel.

It is true that Mr. Thomas was surpassed, at that time, by Mr.

Bergmann’s larger and older orchestra, and that he had much less than an

equal share of public favor, but there was no intentional rivalry. The

two men had entirely different ideas and worked them out in perfectly

original ways. It was only the artist’s dismal period of struggle and

neglect, which every beginner must pass through. He had to meet cold and

meager audiences, and the false judgment of both the critics and the

people. Yet he was a singular compound of good American energy and

German obstinacy, and he never lost courage.

“Was it a long struggle?” I asked.

“Not very long. Matters soon began to mend. The orchestra improved, the

dreadful gaps in the audience soon filled up, and at the end of the year

the Symphony _Soirées_, if they made no excitement in musical circles,

had at least achieved a high reputation.”

“What was your aim, at that time?”

“When I began, I was convinced that there is no music too high for the

popular appreciation,—that no scientific education is required for the

enjoyment of Beethoven. I believed that it is only necessary that a

public whose taste has been vitiated by over-indulgence in trifles,

should have time and opportunity to accustom itself to better things.

The American people at large then (1864) knew little or nothing of the

great composers for the orchestra. Three or four more or less complete

organizations had visited the principal cities of the United States in

former years, but they made little permanent impression. Juillien had

brought over, for his monster concerts, only five or six solo players,

and the band was filled up with such material as he found here. The

celebrated Germania Band of New York, which had first brought Mr.

Bergmann (famous then as the head of the New York Philharmonic Society)

into notice, did some admirable work just previous to my start in New

York, but it disbanded after six years of vicissitude, and, besides, it

was not a complete orchestra.”

“You mean,” I said, as Mr. Thomas paused meditatively, “that you came at

a time when there was a decided opportunity?”

MUSIC HAD NO HOLD ON THE MASSES

“Yes. There had been, and were then, good organizations, such as the New

York Philharmonic Society and the Harvard Musical Association in Boston,

and a few similar organizations in various parts of the country. I mean

no disparagement to their honorable labors, but, in simple truth, none

of them had great influence on the masses. They were pioneers of

culture. They prepared the way for the modern permanent orchestra.”

“They were not important?”

“No, no; that cannot be said. It would be the grossest ingratitude to

forget what they did and have done and are still doing, or detract in

the smallest degree from their well-earned fame. But from the very

nature of their organization, it was inevitable that they should stand a

little apart from the common crowd. To the general public, their

performances were more like mysterious rites, celebrated behind closed

doors, in the presence of a select and unchanging company of believers.

Year after year, the same twenty-five hundred people filled the New York

Academy of Music at the Philharmonic concerts, applauding the same class

of master works, and growing more and more familiar with the same

standards of the strictly classical school. This was no cause for

complaint; on the contrary, it was most fortunate that the reverence for

the older forms of art and canons of taste were thus kept alive; and we

know that, little by little, the culture which the Philharmonic Society

diffuses, through the circle of its regular subscribers, spreads beyond

that small company, and raises the æsthetic tone of metropolitan life.

But I believed then, as I believe now, that it would require generations

for this little leaven to leaven the whole mass, and so I undertook to

do my part in improving matters by forming an orchestra.”

“You wanted to get nearer the people with good music?”

“No, I wanted the people to get nearer to music. I was satisfied that

the right course is to begin at the bottom instead of the top, and make

the cultivation of symphonic music a popular movement.”

“Was the idea of a popular permanent orchestra new at that time?”

“Yes.”

“Why was it necessary to effect a permanent orchestra?”

“Why? Because the first step in making music popular was to raise the

standard of orchestral performances and increase their frequency. Our

country had never possessed a genuine orchestra, for a band of players

gathered together at rare intervals for a special purpose does not

deserve the name. The musician who marches at the head of a target

company all the morning and plays for a dancing party at night, is out

of tune with the great masters. To express the deep emotions of

Beethoven, the romanticism of Schumann, or the poetry of Liszt, he ought

to live in an atmosphere of art, and keep not only his hand in practice,

but his mind properly attempered. An orchestra, therefore, ought to be a

permanent body, whose members play together every day, under the same

conductor, and devote themselves exclusively to genuine music. Nobody

had yet attempted to found an orchestra of this kind in America when I

began; but I believed it could be done.”

WORKING OUT HIS IDEA

“Did you have an idea of a permanent building for your orchestra?”

“Yes. I wanted something more than an ordinary concert-room. The idea

needed it. It was to be a place suitable for use at all seasons of the

year. There was to be communication in summer with an open garden, and

in winter it was to be a perfect auditorium.”

Mr. Thomas’s idea went even further. It must be bright, comfortable,

roomy, well ventilated—for a close and drowsy atmosphere is fatal to

symphonic music,—it must offer to the multitude every attraction not

inconsistent with musical enjoyment. The stage must be adapted for a

variety of performances, for popular summer entertainment as well as the

most serious of classical concerts. There, with an uninterrupted course

of entertainments, night after night, the whole year round, the noblest

work of all the great masters might be worthily presented.

The scheme was never wholly worked out in New York, great as Mr.

Thomas’s fame became, but it was partially realized in the old

Exposition building in Chicago, where he afterwards gave his summer

concerts, and it is still nearer reality in the present permanent

Chicago orchestra, which has the great Auditorium for its home and a

$50,000 annual guarantee.

“What were your first steps in this direction?” I asked.

“I began with a series of _al fresco_ entertainments in the old Terrace

Garden, in June, 1866. They were well patronized; and repeated in 1867.

Then, in 1868, we removed to better quarters in Central Park Garden, and

things prospered, so that, in 1869, I began those annual tours, which

are now so common.”

The first itinerary of this kind was not very profitable, but the young

conductor fought through it. Each new season improved somewhat, but

there were troubles and losses. More than once, the travelers trod close

upon the heels of calamity. The cost of moving from place to place was

so great that the most careful management was necessary to cover

expenses. They could not afford to be idle, even for a night, and the

towns capable of furnishing good audiences generally wanted fun. Hence

they must travel all day, and Thomas took care that the road should be

smoothed with all obtainable comforts. Special cars on the railways,

special attendants to look after the luggage, and lodgings at the best

hotels contributed to make the tour tolerably pleasant and easy, so that

the men came to their evening work fresh and smiling. They were tied up

by freshets and delayed by wrecks; but their fame grew, and the

audiences became greater. Thomas’s fame as a conductor who could

guarantee constant employment permitted him to take his choice of the

best players in the country, and he brought over a number of European

celebrities as the public taste improved.

Theodore Thomas did another wise thing. He treated New York like a

provincial city, giving it a week of music once in a while as he passed

through it on his travels. This excited the popular interest, and when

he came to stay, the next season, a brilliantly successful series of

concerts was the result. At the close, a number of his admirers united

in presenting him a rich silver casket, holding a purse of thirty-five

hundred dollars, as a testimonial of gratitude for his services. The

Brooklyn Philharmonic Society placed itself under his direction. Chicago

gave him a fine invitation to attend benefit entertainments to himself;

and, when he came, decked the hall with abundant natural flowers, as if

for the reception of a hero. He was successful financially and every

other way, and from that time on he merely added to his laurels.

THE CHIEF ELEMENT OF HIS SUCCESS

“What,” I asked of him, “do you consider the chief element of your

success?”

“That is difficult to say. Perseverance, hard work, stern

discipline,—each had its part.”

“You have never attempted to become rich?”

“Poh!”

“Do you still believe in the best music for the mass of the people?”

“I do. My success has been with them. It was so in New York; it is so

here in Chicago.”

“Do you still work as hard as ever?” I inquired.

“Nearly so. The training of a large orchestra never ends. The work must

be gone over and over. There is always something new.”

“And your life’s pleasure lies in this?”

“Wholly so. To render perfect music perfectly—that is enough.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XX

John Burroughs at Home: The Hut on the Hill Top

WHEN I visited the hill-top retreat of John Burroughs, the distinguished

writer upon nature, at West Park, New York, it was with the feeling that

all success is not material; that mere dollars are nothing, and that the

influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor. John

Burroughs is unquestionably both influential and poor. Relatively poor:

being an owner of some real estate, and having a modest income from

copyrights. He is content: knowing when he has enough. On the wooden

porch of his little bark-covered cabin I waited, one June afternoon,

until he should come back from the woods and fields, where he had gone

for a ramble. It was so still that the sound of my rocker moving to and

fro on the rough boards of the little porch seemed to shock the perfect

quiet. From afar off came the plaintive cry of a wood-dove, and then all

was still again. Presently the interpreter of out-door life appeared in

the distance, and, seeing a stranger at his door, hurried homeward. He

was without coat or vest and looked cool in his white outing shirt and

large straw hat. After some formalities of introduction we reached the

subject which I had called to discuss, and he said:—

“It is not customary to interview men of my vocation concerning

success.”

“Any one who has made a lasting impression on the minds of his

contemporaries,” I began, “and influenced men and women—”

“Do you refer to me?” he interrupted, naïvely.

I nodded and he laughed. “I have not endowed a university nor made a

fortune, nor conquered an enemy in battle,” he said.

“And those who have done such things have not written ‘Locusts and Wild

Honey’ and ‘Wake-Robin.’”

“I recognize,” he said quietly, “that success is not always where people

think it is. There are many ways of being successful; and I do not

approve of the mistake which causes many to consider that a great

fortune acquired means a great success achieved. On the contrary, our

greatest men need very little money to accomplish the greatest work.”

“I thought that anyone leading a life so wholly at variance with the

ordinary ideas and customs would see success in life from a different

point of view,” I observed. “Money is really no object with you?”

“The subject of wealth never disturbs me.”

“You lead a very simple life here.”

“Such as you see.”

The sight would impress anyone. So far is this disciple of nature away

from the ordinary mode of the world, that his little cabin, set in the

cup-shaped top of a hill, is practically bare of luxuries and the

so-called comforts of life. His surroundings are of the rudest, the very

rocks and bushes encroaching upon his back door. All about, the crest of

the hill encircles him, and shuts out the world. Only the birds of the

air venture to invade his retreat from the various sides of the

mountain; and there is only one approach by a straggling, narrow path.

In his house are no decorations but such as can be hung upon the exposed

wood. The fireplace is of brick, and quite wide; the floor, rough boards

scrubbed white; the ceiling, a rough array of exposed rafters; and his

bed rudely constructed. Very few and very simple chairs, a plain table

and some shelves for books make the wealth of the retreat and serve for

his ordinary use.[9]

Footnote 9:

This hut on the hill-top is situated in an old lake bed, some three

hundred yards wide, half filled with peat and decomposed matter,

swampy and overgrown. This area was devoted by Mr. Burroughs to the

raising of celery for the market, when he set out to earn a living

upon the land.

“Many people,” I said, “think that your method of living is an ideal

example of the way people ought to live.”

“There is nothing remarkable in that. A great many people are very weary

of the way they think themselves compelled to live. They are mistaken in

believing that the disagreeable things they find themselves doing, are

the things they ought to do. A great many take their ideas of a proper

aim in life from what other people say and do. Consequently, they are

unhappy, and an independent existence such as mine strikes them as

ideal. As a matter of fact, it is very natural.”

“Would you say that to work so as to be able to live like this should be

the aim of a young man?”

“By no means. On the contrary, his aim should be to live in such a way

as will give his mind the greatest freedom and peace. This can be very

often obtained by wanting less of material things and more of

intellectual ones. A man who achieved such an aim would be as well off

as the most distinguished man in any field. Money-getting is half a

mania, and some other ‘getting’ propensities are manias also. The man

who gets content comes nearest to being reasonable.”

“I should like,” I said, “to illustrate your point of view from the

details of your own life.”

“Students of nature do not, as a rule, have eventful lives. I was born

at Roxbury, New York, in 1837. That was a time when conditions were

rather primitive. My father was a farmer, and I was raised among the

woods and fields. I came from an uncultivated, unreading class of

society, and grew up among surroundings the least calculated to awaken

the literary faculty. I have no doubt that daily contact with the woods

and fields awakened my interest in the wonders of nature, and gave me a

bent toward investigation in that direction.”[10]

Footnote 10:

“Blessed is he whose youth was passed upon a farm,” writes Mr.

Burroughs; “and if it was a dairy farm his memories will be all the

more fragrant. The driving of the cows to and from the pasture every

day and every season for years,—how much of summer and of nature he

got into him on these journeys! What rambles and excursions did this

errand furnish the excuse for! The birds and birds’ nests, the

berries, the squirrels, the woodchucks, the beech woods into which the

cows loved so to wander and browse, the fragrant wintergreens, and a

hundred nameless adventures, all strung upon that brief journey of

half a mile to and from the remote pasture.”

“Did you begin early to make notes and write upon nature?” I questioned.

“Not before I was sixteen or seventeen. Earlier than that, the art of

composition had anything but charms for me. I remember that while at

school, at the age of fourteen, I was required, like other students, to

write ‘compositions’ at stated times, but I usually evaded the duty one

way or another. On one occasion, I copied something from a comic

almanac, and unblushingly handed it in as my own. But the teacher

detected the fraud, and ordered me to produce a twelve-line composition

before I left school. I remember I racked my brain in vain, and the

short winter day was almost closing when Jay Gould, who sat in the seat

behind me, wrote twelve lines of doggerel on his slate and passed it

slyly over to me. I had so little taste for writing that I coolly copied

that, and handed it in as my own.”

“You were friendly with Gould then?”

“Oh, yes, ‘chummy,’ they call it now. His father’s farm was only a

little way from ours, and we were fast friends, going home together

every night.”

“His view of life must have been considerably different from yours.”

“It was. I always looked upon success as being a matter of mind, not

money; but Jay wanted the material appearances. I remember that once we

had a wrestling match, and as we were about even in strength, we agreed

to abide by certain rules,—taking what we called ‘holts’ in the

beginning and not breaking them until one or the other was thrown. I

kept to this in the struggle, but when Jay realized that he was in

danger of losing the contest, he broke the ‘holt’ and threw me. When I

remarked that he had broken his agreement, he only laughed and said, ‘I

threw you, didn’t I?’ And to every objection I made, he made the same

answer. The fact of having won was pleasing to him. It satisfied him,

although it wouldn’t have contented me.”

“Did you ever talk over success in life with him?”

“Yes, quite often. He was bent on making money, and did considerable

trading among us schoolboys,—sold me some of his books. I felt then that

my view of life was more satisfactory to me than his would have been. I

wanted to obtain a competence, and then devote myself to high thinking

instead of to money-making.”[11]

Footnote 11:

An old schoolmate in the little red schoolhouse has said, that “John

and Jay were not like the other boys. They learned their lessons

easier; and at recess they looked on the games, but did not join in

them. John always knew where to find the largest trout; he could show

you birds’ nests, and name all the flowers. He was fond of reading,

and would walk five miles to borrow a book. Roxbury is proud of John

Burroughs. We celebrated ‘Burroughs Day’ instead of Arbor Day here

last spring, in the high school, in honor of him.”

“How did you plan to attain this end?”

“By study. I began in my sixteenth or seventeenth year to try to express

myself on paper, and when, after I had left the country school, I

attended the seminary at Ashland and at Cooperstown, I often received

the highest marks in composition, though only standing about the average

in general scholarship. My taste ran to essays, and I picked up the

great works in that field at a bookstore, from time to time, and filled

my mind with the essay idea. I bought the whole of Dr. Johnson’s works

at a second-hand bookstore in New York, because, on looking into them I

found his essays appeared to be solid literature, which I thought was

just the thing. Almost my first literary attempts were moral

reflections, somewhat in the Johnsonian style.”

“You were supporting yourself during these years?”

“I taught six months and ‘boarded round’ before I went to the seminary.

That put fifty dollars into my pocket, and the fifty paid my way at the

seminary.[12] Working on the farm, studying and teaching filled up the

years until 1863, when I went to Washington and found employment in the

Treasury Department.”

Footnote 12:

It was when he was attending the academy, that young Burroughs first

saw that wonderful being—a living author:—

“I distinctly remember with what emotion I gazed upon him,” he said,

“and followed him about in the twilight, keeping on the other side of

the street. He was of little account,—a man who had failed as a

lawyer, and then had written a history of Poland, which I have never

heard of since that time; but to me he was the embodiment of the

august spirit of authorship, and I looked upon him with more reverence

and enthusiasm than I had ever before looked upon any man with. I

cannot divine why I should have stood in such worshipful fear and awe

of this obscure individual, but I suppose it was the instinctive

tribute of a timid and imaginative youth to a power he was just

beginning to see,—or to feel,—the power of letters.”

“You were connected with the Treasury then?”[13]

Footnote 13:

“My first book, ‘Wake-Robin,’ was written while I was a government

clerk in Washington,” says Mr. Burroughs. “It enabled me to live over

again the days I had passed with the birds, and in the scenes of my

youth. I wrote the book while sitting at a desk in front of an iron

wall. I was the keeper of a vault in which many million of bank-notes

were stored. During my long periods of leisure, I took refuge in my

pen. How my mind reacted from the iron wall in front of me, and sought

solace in memories of the birds and of summer fields and woods.”

“Oh, yes; for nearly nine years. I left the department in 1872, to

become receiver of a bank, and subsequently for several years I

performed the work of a bank examiner. I considered it only as an

opportunity to earn and save up a little money on which I could retire.

I managed to do that, and came back to this region, where I bought a

fruit farm. I worked that into paying condition, and then gave all my

time to the pursuit of the studies I like.”

“Had you abandoned your interest in nature during your Washington life?”

“No. I gave as much time to the study of nature and literature as I had

to spare. When I was twenty-three I wrote an essay on ‘Expression,’ and

sent it to the ‘_Atlantic_.’ It was so Emersonian in style, owing to my

enthusiasm for Emerson at that time, that the editor thought some one

was trying to palm off on him an early essay of Emerson’s which he had

not seen. He found that Emerson had not published any such paper,

however, and printed it, though it had not much merit. I wrote off and

on for the magazines.”

The editor in question was James Russell Lowell, who, instead of

considering it without merit, often expressed afterwards the delight

with which he read this contribution from an unknown hand, and the swift

impression of the author’s future distinction which came to him with

that reading.

“Your successful work, then, has been in what direction?” I said.

“In studying nature. It has all come by living close to the plants and

animals of the woods and fields, and coming to understand them. There I

have been successful. Men who, like myself, are deficient in

self-assertion, or whose personalities are flexible and yielding, make a

poor show in business, but in certain other fields these defects become

advantages. Certainly it is so in my case. I can succeed with bird or

beast, for I have cultivated my ability in that direction. I can look in

the eye of an ugly dog or cow and win, but with an ugly man I have less

success.

“I consider the desire which most individuals have for the luxuries

which money can buy, an error of mind” he added. “Those things do not

mean anything except a lack of higher tastes. Such wants are not

necessary wants, nor honorable wants. If you cannot get wealth with a

noble purpose, it is better to abandon it and get something else. Peace

of mind is one of the best things to seek, and finer tastes and

feelings. The man who gets these, and maintains himself comfortably, is

much more admirable and successful than the man who gets money and

neglects these. The realm of power has no fascination for me. I would

rather have my seclusion and peace of mind. This log hut, with its bare

floors, is sufficient. I am set down among the beauties of nature, and

in no danger of losing the riches that are scattered all about. No one

will take my walks or my brook away from me. The flowers, birds and

animals are plentifully provided. I have enough to eat and wear, and

time to see how beautiful the world is, and to enjoy it. The entire

world is after your money, or the things you have bought with your

money. It is trying to keep them that makes them seem so precious. I

live to broaden and enjoy my own life, believing that in so doing I do

what is best for everyone. If I ran after birds only to write about

them, I should never have written anything that anyone else would have

cared to read. I must write from sympathy and love,—that is, from

enjoyment,—or not at all. I come gradually to have a feeling that I want

to write upon a given theme. Whenever the subject recurs to me, it

awakens a warm, personal response. My confidence that I ought to write

comes from the feeling or attraction which some subjects exercise over

me. The work is pleasure, and the result gives pleasure.”

“And your work as a naturalist is what?”

“Climbing trees to study birds, lying by the waterside to watch the

fishes, sitting still in the grass for hours to study the insects, and

tramping here and there, always to observe and study whatever is common

to the woods and fields.”

“Men think you have done a great work,” I said.

“I have done a pleasant work,” he said, modestly.

“And the achievements of your schoolmate Gould do not appeal to you as

having anything in them worth aiming for?” I questioned.

“Not for me. I think my life is better for having escaped such vast and

difficult interests.”

The gentle, light-hearted naturalist and recluse came down the long

hillside with me, “to put me right” on the main road. I watched him as

he retraced his steps up the steep, dark path, lantern in hand. His

sixty years sat lightly upon him, and as he ascended I heard him

singing. Long after the light melody had died away, I saw the serene

little light bobbing up and down in his hand, disappearing and

reappearing, as the lone philosopher repaired to his hut and his couch

of content.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XXI

Vreeland’s Romantic Story: How He Came to Transport a Million Passengers

a Day

A SHORT time ago, New York learned with interest and some astonishment,

that the head of its greatest transportation system, Herbert H.

Vreeland, had received from several of his associates as individuals, a

“valentine” present of $100,000, in recognition of his superb management

of their properties. Many New Yorkers then learned, for the first time,

what railroad experts throughout the country had long known, that the

transportation of a million people a day in New York’s busy streets,

without serious friction or public annoyance, is not a matter of chance,

but is the result of perhaps the most perfect traffic organization ever

created, at the head of which is a man, quiet, forceful, able, with the

ability of a great general—a master and at the same time, a friend of

men,—himself one for whom in the judgment of his associates almost any

higher railroad career is possible.

Thirty years ago Mr. Vreeland, then a lad thirteen years old, was, to

use his own humorous, reminiscent phrase, “h’isting ice” on the Hudson

River, one of a gang of eighteen or twenty men and boys filling the ice

carts for retail city delivery. A picture just brought to light, shows

him among the force lined up to be photographed, as a tall, loosely

built, hatchet-faced lad in working garb, with a fragment of a smile on

his face, as if he could appreciate the contrast of the boy of that day

with the man of the future.

How do these things happen? What was the divine spark in this boy’s

brain and heart that should lift him out of the crowd of the commonplace

to the position of responsibility and influence in the world which he

now occupies? If my readers could have been present at the interview

kindly granted by Mr. Vreeland to the writer, and could have heard him

recalling his early life and its many struggles and disappointments with

a smile that was often near a tear, they would have gone away feeling

that nothing is impossible to him who dares, and, above all else, who

_works_, and they would have derived inspiration far greater than can

possibly be given in these written words.

“I first entered the railroad business in 1875,” said Mr. Vreeland,

“shoveling gravel on one of the Long Island Railroad Company’s night

construction trains. Though this position was humble enough, it was a

great thing to me then to feel myself a railroad man, with all that that

term implied; and when, after a few months’ trial, I was given the job

of inspecting ties and roadbed at a dollar a day, I felt that I was well

on the road to the presidency.

“One day the superintendent asked my boss if he could give him a

reliable man to replace a switchman who had just made a blunder leading

to a collision, and had been discharged. The reply was, ‘Well, I’ve got

a man named Vreeland here, who will do exactly what you tell him to.’

They called me up, and, after a few short, sharp questions from the

train-master, I went down to the dreary and desolate marsh near

Bushwick, Long Island, and took charge of a switch. For a few days I had

to camp out near that switch, in any way that might happen, but finally

the officers made up their minds that they could afford me the luxury of

a two-by-four flag-house with a stove in it, and I settled down for more

railroading.

“The Bushwick station was not far away, and one of the company’s

division headquarters was there. I soon made the acquaintance of all the

officials around that station, and got into their good graces by

offering to help them out in their clerical work at any and all times

when I was off duty. It was a godsend to them, and exactly what I

wanted, for I had determined to get into the inside of the railroad

business from bottom to top. Many’s the time I have worked till eleven

or twelve o’clock at night in that little station, figuring out train

receipts and expenses, engine cost and duty, and freight and passenger

statistics of all kinds; and, as a result of this work, I quickly

acquired a grasp of railroad details in all stages, which few managers

possess, for, in one way and another, I got into and through every

branch of the business.

“My Bushwick switch was a temporary one, put in for construction

purposes only, and, after some months’ use, was discontinued, and I was

discharged. This did not suit me at all, and I went to one of the

officials of the road and told him that I wanted to remain with the Long

Island Railroad Company in any capacity whatsoever, and would be obliged

to him if he would give me a job. He said, at first, that he hadn’t a

thing for me to do, but finally added, as if he was ashamed to suggest

it, that, if I had a mind to go down on another division and sweep out

and dust cars, I might do it. I instantly accepted, and thereby learned

the details of another important railroad department.

“Pretty soon they made me brakeman on an early morning train to

Hempstead, and then I found that I was worth to the world, after two

years of railroad training, just forty dollars a month, _plus_ a

perquisite or two obtained from running a card-table department in the

smoking-cars. I remembered that I paid eighteen dollars of my munificent

salary for board and lodging, sent twenty dollars home for the support

of my mother and sister, and had two dollars a month and the aforesaid

perquisites left for ‘luxuries.’

“It was about this time, thus early in my career, that I first came to

be known as ‘President Vreeland.’ An old codger upon the railroad, in

talking to me one day, said, in a bantering way: ‘Well, I suppose you

think your fortune is made, now you have become a brakeman, but let me

tell you what will happen. You will be a brakeman about four or five

years, and then they will make you a conductor, at about one hundred

dollars a month, and there you’ll stick all your life, if you don’t get

discharged.’ I responded, rather angrily, ‘Do you suppose I am going to

be satisfied with remaining a conductor? I mean to be president of a

railroad.’ ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ laughed the man. He told the story around, and

many a time thereafter the boys slyly placed the word ‘President’ before

my name on official instructions and packages sent to me.

“A conductor on one of the regular trains quarreled one morning with the

superintendent and was discharged. I was sent for and told to take out

that train. This was jumping me over the heads of many of the older

brakemen, and, as a consequence, all the brakemen on that train quit.

Others were secured, however, and I ran the train regularly for a good

many months.

“Then came an accident one day, for which the engineer and I were

jointly responsible. We admitted our responsibility, and were

discharged. I went again to the superintendent, however, and, upon a

strong plea to be retained in the service, he sent me back to the ranks

among the brakemen. I had no complaint to make, but accepted the

consequence of my mistake.

“Soon after this, the control of the road passed into other hands. Many

were discharged, and I was daily expecting my own ‘blue envelope.’ One

day, I was detailed to act as brakeman on a special which was to convey

the president and directors of the road, with invited guests, on a trip

over the lines. By that time I had learned the Long Island Railroad in

all its branches pretty well; and, in the course of the trip, was called

upon to answer a great many questions. The next day I received word that

the superintendent wanted to see me. My heart sank within me, for

summonses of this kind were ominous in those days, but I duly presented

myself at the office and was asked, ‘Are you the good-looking brakeman

who was on the special yesterday who shows his teeth when he smiles?’ I

modestly replied that I was certainly on the special yesterday, and I

may possibly have partly confirmed the rest of the identification by a

smile, for the superintendent, without further questioning, said: ‘The

president wants to see you, up stairs.’

“I went up, and in due time was shown into the presence of the great

man, who eyed me closely for a minute or two, and then asked me abruptly

what I was doing. I told him I was braking Number Seventeen. He said:

‘Take this letter to your superintendent. It contains a request that he

relieve you from duty, and put somebody else in your place. After he has

done so, come back here.’

“All this I did, and, on my return to the president, he said, ‘Take this

letter at once to Admiral Peyron, of the French fleet (then lying in the

harbor on a visit of courtesy to this country), and this to General

Hancock, on Governor’s Island. They contain invitations to each to dine

with me to-morrow night at my home in Garden City with their staffs. Get

their answers, and, if they say yes, return at once to New York, charter

a steamer, call for them to-morrow afternoon, land them at Long Island

City, arrange for a special train from Long Island City to Garden City,

take them there, and return them after the banquet. I leave everything

in your hands. Good day.’

“I suppose this might be considered a rather large job for a common

brakeman, but I managed to get through with it without disgracing

myself, and apparently to the satisfaction of all concerned. For some

time thereafter, I was the president’s special emissary on similar

matters connected with the general conduct of the business, and while I

did not, perhaps, learn so very much about railroading proper, I was put

in positions where I learned to take responsibility and came to have

confidence in myself.

“The control of the Long Island Railroad again changed hands, and I was

again ‘let out,’ this time for good, so far as that particular road was

concerned,—except that, within the last two or three years, I have

renewed my acquaintance with it through being commissioned by a banking

syndicate in New York City to make an expert examination of its plant

and equipment as a preliminary to reorganization.

“This was in 1881, or about that time, and I soon secured a position as

conductor on the New York and Northern Railroad, a little line running

from One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, New York City, to Yonkers. Not

to go into tedious detail regarding my experience there, I may say in

brief that in course of time I practically ‘ran the road.’ After some

years, it changed hands (a thing which railways, particularly small

ones, often do, and always to the great discomposure of the employees),

and the new owners, including William C. Whitney, Daniel S. Lamont,

Captain R. Somers Hayes and others, went over the road one day on a

special train to visit the property. As I have said, I was then

practically running the road, owing to the fact that the man who held

the position of general manager was not a railroad man and relied upon

me to handle all details, but my actual position was only that of

train-master. I accompanied the party, and knowing the road thoroughly,

not only physically but also statistically, was able to answer all the

questions which they raised. This was the first time I had met Mr.

Whitney, and I judge that I made a somewhat favorable impression upon

him, for not long after I was created general manager of the road.

“A few months later, I received this telegram:—

‘H. H. VREELAND.

‘Meet me at Broadway and Seventh Avenue office at two o’clock

to-day.

WILLIAM C. WHITNEY.’

“I had to take a special engine to do this, but arrived at two o’clock

at the office of the Houston Street, West Street and Pavonia Ferry

Railroad Company, which I then knew, in an indistinct sort of way, owned

a small horse railway in the heart of New York. After finding that Mr.

Whitney was out at lunch, I kicked my heels for a few minutes outside

the gate, and then inquired of a man who was seated inside in an

exceedingly comfortable chair, when Mr. Whitney and his party were

expected, saying, also, that my name was Vreeland, and I had an

appointment at two. He replied: ‘Oh, are you Mr. Vreeland? Well, here is

a letter for you. Mr. Whitney expected to be here at two o’clock, but is

a little late.’ I took my letter and sat down again outside, thinking

that it might possibly contain an appointment for another hour. It was,

however, an appointment of quite a different character. It read as

follows:—

‘MR. H. H. VREELAND.

‘DEAR SIR:—At a meeting of the stockholders of the Houston

Street, West Street and Pavonia Ferry Railroad Company, held

this day, you were unanimously elected a director of the

company.

‘At a subsequent meeting of the directors, you were unanimously

elected president and general manager, your duties to commence

immediately.

‘Yours truly,

C. E. WARREN, Secretary.’

“By the time I had recovered from my surprise at learning that I was no

longer a steam-railroad, but a street-railroad man, Mr. Whitney and

other directors came in, and, after spending about five minutes in

introductions, they took up their hats and left, saying, simply, ‘Well,

Vreeland, you are president; now run the road.’ I then set out to learn

what kind of a toy railway it was that had come into my charge.”

Here Mr. Vreeland’s narrative stops, for the rest of the history is well

known to the people of New York, and to experts in street railroading

throughout the country. The “Whitney syndicate,” so called, was then in

possession of a few only out of some twenty or more street railway

properties in New York City, the Broadway line, however, being one of

these, and by far the most valuable. With the immense financial

resources of Messrs. Whitney, Widener, Elkins, and their associates,

nearly all the other properties were added to the original ones owned by

the syndicate, and with the magnificent organizing and executive ability

of Mr. Vreeland, there has been built up in New York a street railway

system which, while including less than two hundred and fifty miles of

track, is actually carrying more than one-half as many passengers each

year as are being carried by all the steam railroads of the United

States together.

Mr. Vreeland’s first work on coming to New York was, naturally, to

familiarize himself with the transportation conditions in New York City,

and to learn how to handle the peculiarly complex problems involved in

street railroading. He first had to gain, also, the confidence of his

men, but this is never hard for anyone who is sincerely solicitous for

their welfare, and in such sympathy with their work and hardships as a

man like himself must have been, with his own past history in mind.

With his hand firmly on the tiller, and with his scheme of organization

perfected, he was soon able to take up the larger questions of

administration. To Mr. Vreeland is due the credit of initiating and

rapidly extending a general free transfer system in New York, by which

the public is able to ride from almost any part of the largest city in

the country to any other part, for a single five-cent fare, whereas,

before the consolidation, two, three, and sometimes four fares would

have to be paid for the same ride.

It was upon Mr. Vreeland’s recommendation, also, backed by that of F. S.

Pearson, the well-known consulting engineer of the Whitney syndicate,

that the latter determined to adopt the underground conduit electric

system in the reconstruction of the lines. At that time this decision

involved the greatest financial and technical courage, since there was

but one other road of this kind in existence, and that a small tramway

in an Austrian city, while previous American experience with this system

had been uniformly unsuccessful.

Not only in street railroading proper, but also in steam railroading,

automobile work and the electric lighting field, Mr. Vreeland possesses

the absolute confidence of his associates, who rely implicitly upon his

judgment, intelligence and business acumen. The recent gift, already

referred to, is one only of several which he has received from men who

feel that they have made millions through his ability. Although he is

not to-day a wealthy man, as men are counted wealthy in New York City,

he is certainly well along on the road to millionaire-dom.

Best of all, however, and what has probably satisfied him most in his

life, has been the host of genuine friendships which he has made, and

the strong hold which he has upon the workingman. A strike of the

employees of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company is absolutely

impossible so long as he remains at the head of the company’s affairs,

for the men know well that there will be in that position a man who is

always fair, and even generous with them, bearing in mind ever his duty

to his stockholders; and they know, too, that no injustice will be

committed by any of the department heads. Any one of his four or five

thousand employees can meet him personally on a question of grievance,

and is sure of being treated as a reasonable fellow man. Time and again

have labor leaders sought to form an organization of the Metropolitan

employees, and as often the men have said in reply, “Not while Vreeland

is here,—we know he will treat us fairly.”

In a recent address Mr. Vreeland said:—

“No artificial condition can ever, in my judgment, keep down a man who

has health, capacity and honesty. You can temporarily interfere with him

or make the road to the object of his ambition more difficult, but you

cannot stop him. That tyranny is forever dead, and since its death there

has come a great enlightenment to the possessors of power and wealth.

Instead of preventing a man from rising, there is not a concern the wide

world over that is not to-day eagerly seeking for capable people. The

great hunger of the time is for good men, strong men, men capable of

assuming responsibility; and there is sharp competition for those who

are available.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XXII

How James Whitcomb Riley Came to be Master of the Hoosier Dialect

IT is doubtful if there is in the literary world, to-day, a personage

whose boyhood and young manhood can approach in romance and unusual

circumstances that of the author of “The Old Swimmin’ Hole.”

All tradition was against his accomplishing anything in the world. How,

indeed, said the good folks of the little town of Greenfield, Indiana,

could anything be expected of a boy who cared nothing for school, and

deserted it at the first opportunity, to take up a wandering life.

THROWN ON HIS OWN RESOURCES

The boy’s father wanted the boy to follow in his footsteps, in the legal

profession, and he held out alluring hopes of the possibility of scaling

even greater heights than any to which he had yet attained. Better

still,—from the standpoint of the restless James,—he took the youngster

with him as he made his circuit from court to court.

These excursions, for they were indeed such to the boy, sowed deep in

his heart the seed of a determination to become a nomad; and it was not

long until he started out as a strolling sign-painter, determined upon

the realization of his ideals.

Oftentimes business was worse than dull, and, on one occasion, hunger

drove him for recourse to his wits, and lo, he blossomed forth as a

“blind sign-painter,” led from place to place by a little boy, and

showered with sympathy and trade in such abundance that he could hardly

bear the thought of the relinquishment of a pretense so ingenious and

successful, entered on at first as a joke.

Then came another epoch. The young man fell in with a patent-medicine

man, with whom he joined fortunes, and here the young Indianian, who had

been scribbling more or less poetry, found a new use for his talent; for

his duties in the partnership were to beguile the people with joke and

song, while his co-worker plied the sales of his cure-all. There were

many times when, but for his fancy, the young poet might have seen his

audience dwindle rapidly away. It was while thus engaged, that he had

the opportunities which enabled him to master thoroughly the Hoosier

dialect.

When the glamor of the patent-medicine career had faded somewhat, the

nomadic Riley joined a band of strolling Thespians, and, in this brief

portion of his life, after the wont of players of his class, played many

parts.

At length, he began to give a little more attention to his literary

work; and, later, obtained a place on an Indianapolis paper, where he

published his first poems, and they won their author almost instant

success.

WHY HE LONGED TO BE A BAKER

When I drew Mr. Riley out to talk still further of those interesting

days, and the strange experiences which came to him therein, the

conversation finally turned on the subject of his youthful ambition.

“I think my earliest remembered one,” he said, “was an insatiate longing

to become a baker. I don’t know what prompted it, unless it were the

visions of the mountains of alluring ‘goodies,’ which, as they are

ranged in the windows of the pastry shops, appear doubly tempting to the

youth whose mother not only counsels moderation, but enforces it.

“Next, I imagined that I would like to become a showman of some sort.

“Then, my shifting fancy conjured up visions of how grand it would be to

work as a painter, and decorate houses and fences in glowing colors.

“Finally, as I grew a little older, there returned my old longing to

become an actor. When, however, my dreams were realized, and I became a

member of a traveling theatrical company, I found that the life was full

of hardships, with very little chance of rising in the world.

“I never had any literary ambition whatever, so far as I can remember. I

wrote, primarily, simply because I desired to have something to read,

and could not find selections that exactly suited me. Gradually I found

a demand for my little efforts springing up; and so my brother, who

could write legibly transcribed them.”

PERSISTENCE

At this point I asked Mr. Riley his idea of the prime requisites for

success in the field of letters.

“The most essential factor,” he replied “is persistence,—the

determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by

the discouragement that must inevitably come. I believe that he is

richer for the battle with the world, in any vocation, who has great

determination and little talent, rather than his seemingly more

fortunate brother with great talent, perhaps, but little determination.

As for the field of literature, I cannot but express my conviction that

meteoric flights, such as have been taken, of recent years, by some

young writers with whose names almost everybody is familiar, cannot fail

to be detrimental, unless the man to whom success comes thus early and

suddenly is an exceptionally evenly-balanced and sensible person.

“Many persons have spoken to me about Kipling’s work, and remarked how

wonderful a thing is the fact that such achievements could have been

possible for a man comparatively so young. I say, not at all. What do we

find when we investigate? Simply that Kipling began working on a

newspaper when he was only thirteen years of age, and he has been

toiling ever since. So you see, even that case confirms my theory that

every man must be ‘tried in the fire,’ as it were.

“He may begin early or late—and in some cases the fight is longer than

in others—but of one thing I feel sure, that there is no short-cut to

permanent, self-satisfying success in literature, or anything else.”

TWENTY YEARS OF REJECTED MANUSCRIPTS

“Mr. Riley,” I asked, “would you mind saying something about the

obstacles over which you climbed to success?”

“I am afraid it would not be a very pleasant story,” he replied. “A

friend came to me once, completely heartbroken, saying that his

manuscripts were constantly returned, and that he was the most miserable

wretch alive. I asked him how long he had been trying? ‘Three years,’ he

said. ‘My dear man,’ I answered, laughing, ‘go on, keep on trying till

you have spent as many years at it as I did.’ ‘As many as you did!’ he

exclaimed. ‘Yes, as long as I did.’ ‘What, you struggled for years!’

‘Yes, sir; through years, through sleepless nights, through almost

hopeless days. For twenty years I tried to get into one magazine; back

came my manuscripts eternally. I kept on. In the twentieth year, that

magazine accepted one of my articles.’

“I was not a believer in the theory that one man does a thing much

easier than any other man. Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence

and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has

these.”

“What would you advise one to do with his constantly rejected

manuscript?” I asked.

“Put it away awhile; then remodel it. Young writers make the mistake I

made.”

“What mistake?” I asked.

“Hurrying a manuscript off before it was dry from my pen, as if the

world were just waiting for that article and must have it. Now it can

hardly be drawn from me with a pair of tweezers. Yes, lay it aside

awhile. Reread. There is a rotten spot somewhere. Perhaps it is full of

hackneyed phrases, or lacks in sparkle and originality. Search, examine,

rewrite, simplify. Make it lucid. _I am glad, now, that my manuscripts

did come back._ Presently I would discover this defect, then that.

Perhaps three or four sleepless nights would show my failure to be in an

unsymmetrical arrangement of the verses.

“See these books?” he said, rapping upon the book case with the back of

his hand. “Classics! but of what do they tell? Of the things of their

own day. Let us write the things of our day. Literary fields exhausted!

Nonsense. If we write well enough, ours will be the classics of

to-morrow. Our young Americans have, right at hand, the richest material

any country ever offered. Let them be brave and work in earnest.”

A COLLEGE EDUCATION

Answering other questions, the poet said:—“A college education for the

aspirant for literary success is, of course, an advantage, provided he

does not let education foster a false culture that will lead him away

from the ideals he ought to cling to.

“There is another thing that the young man in any artistic pursuit must

have a care for; and that is, to be practical. This is a practical

world, and it is always ready to take advantage of this sort of people:

so that one must try to cultivate a practical business sense as well as

an artistic sense. We have only a few men like Rudyard Kipling and F.

Hopkinson Smith, who seem to combine these diverse elements of character

in just the right proportions; but I believe that it is unfortunate for

the happiness and peace of mind of our authors, and artists, and

musicians, that we have not more of them.”

RILEY’S POPULARITY

Riley’s poetry is popular because it goes right to the feelings of the

people. He could not have written as he does, but for the schooling of

that wandering life, which gave him an insight into the struggle for

existence among the great unnumbered multitude of his fellow-men. He

learned in his travels and journeys, in his hard experience as a

strolling sign-painter and patent-medicine peddler the freemasonry of

poverty. His poems are natural; they are those of a man who feels as he

writes. As Thoreau painted nature in the woods, and streams, and lakes,

so Riley depicts the incidents of everyday life, and brightens each

familiar lineament with that touch that makes all the world akin.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUCCESS BOOKS

By DR. ORISON SWETT MARDEN

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WINNING OUT

A Book about Success

12mo. Red Cloth. Decorative Cover. Gilt Top. Illustrated. Price, $1.00

Dr. Marden has made for himself a wide reputation by his earlier

volumes, “Architects of Fate” and “Pushing to the Front.” But “Winning

Out,” while constructed along somewhat the same lines, is his first book

designed especially for young readers. Its theme is “Character Building

by Habit Forming.”

The Louisville Courier-Journal says: “Pleasant teaching Dr. Marden’s

anecdotes make. They are of men and things that have actually been and

happened. The moral is often an epigram, always apropos. Through the

pages of the small volume pass a procession of figures that have

aspired, struggled, and achieved. Such work is good for the world, good

for the youth in it, and for more experienced and serious middle age.”

Defending The Bank

By EDWARD S. VAN ZILE

Author of “With Sword and Crucifix,” etc. Four illustrations by I. B.

Hazelton. 12mo. Pictorial cover in color. Price, $1.25.

“Defending the Bank,” by Edward S. Van Zile, is a most amusing and

interesting detective story for boys and girls, in which a couple of

bright boys and girls appoint themselves amateur detectives and are able

to run down a couple of bank robbers who are planning to rob the bank of

which the father of one of the boys is president. This is at once an

exciting and wholesome tale, of which the scene is laid in Troy, N.Y.,

the former home of the author. It will be widely welcomed.

The Mutineers

By EUSTACE L. WILLIAMS

Author of “The Substitute Quarterback.” 12mo. Four illustrations by I.

B. Hazelton. Pictorial cover in color. Price, $1.25.

“The Mutineers” is a rattling boys’ story by Mr. Eustace L. Williams of

the Louisville Courier-Journal. It gives a picture of life in a large

boarding-school, where a certain set of boys control the athletics, and

shows how their unjust power was broken by the hero of the tale, who

forms a rival baseball nine and manages to defeat his opponents, thus

bringing a better state of things in the school socially and as to

sports. The story is full of lively action, and deals with baseball and

general athletic interests in a large school in a manner which shows

that the author is thoroughly acquainted with and sympathetic to his

subject.

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LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON

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● Transcriber’s note:

○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.

○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.

○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only

when a predominant form was found in this book.