Through all my life the poor shall find
In me a constant friend,
And on the weak of every kind
My mercy shall attend.
The dumb shall never call on me
In vain for kindly aid,
And in my hands the blind shall see
A bounteous alms displayed.
In all their walks the lame shall know
And feel my goodness near,
And on the deaf will I bestow
My gentlest words of cheer.
“’Tis by such pious works as these—
Which I delight to do—
That men their fellow-creatures please,
And please their Maker too.”
Well, to make a long story short, Isaac Watts broke down at last under
the pressure brought to bear upon him by Sir John Hartopp’s good-natured
indifference, Ralph’s recklessness, Delia’s giddiness, Dick Steele’s
wit, and Joe Addison’s humor. He went to Sir John one day, and in a
husky, weary voice said, “Good-by, Sir John: I’m off by next coach.” He
was tired, sick, discouraged. He sought and found refuge in the house of
a hospitable and wealthy friend, and there he abode for the rest of his
life. He never again served as tutor; but he lived to see his old
pupils, Ralph and Delia, become proper and pious members of society.
Subsequently, too, his relations with Steele and Addison became of the
friendliest character; and, when “The Spectator” rose to popularity in
London, Dr. Watts not infrequently contributed to its columns. Delia
Hartopp did not marry Steele, after all, but a Nottinghamshire gentleman
named Mulgrave.
Most of Dr. Watts’s hymns were written, as we understand, during the
later years of his life. He was such a prolific writer that much of his
work was necessarily indifferent. But his hymns have, as a whole, been
admired by the severest and most eminent critics; and they have been
read and sung by people of all classes for many, many years. We think
that they have come to be almost a part of the Protestant faith.
It is probable that Watts’s “Divine and Moral Songs for the Young” will
live as long as English literature survives. We can conceive of no
seismic phenomenon capable of obliterating the two poems, “How doth the
little busy bee,” and “Let dogs delight to bark and bite;” and we have
yet to read a tenderer bit of religious verse than Watts’s cradle-hymn,
“Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber.”
Touching the stanza which Mr. Blake quotes for our consideration, we
will say that it _is_ quaint and simple. Its meaning is clear, and its
language is forcible: it expresses in four lines what the average modern
poet could not or would not tell in ten times four lines. Yet we do not
believe that Dr. Watts wrote it.
_The Revision._
Upon consulting his notes again, we venture to say that Mr. Julian
Hawthorne will find that what the Hon. James Russell Lowell did really
say was this:—
“The queen? Oh, yes! I have the highest admiration, respect, and
veneration for her. Imagine, if you can, a woman in the prime of life,
in full possession of those physical charms, those personal graces, and
those intellectual accomplishments, which enthrall every beholder; a
woman of commanding height, of willowy, lissome figure, panther-like in
her movements, with a voice like the tones of an Æolian harp, and a
laughter like the tinkling exuberance of a sylvan cascade—picture to
yourself such a being, and you will have a fair idea of the gifted and
beautiful lady who directs, and who for many years will continue to
direct, the destinies of the august British Empire.
“Of her talented and amiable young son, I have formed the most pleasing
impression. Though still a mere boy, he carries upon his slender
shoulders the massive head and thoughtful brain of a ripened statesman.
Naturally of a studious and contemplative turn, the prince has from
childhood eschewed those temptations which beset royal youth; and, as he
blossoms into manhood, his expanding character holds out to his loving
country the sweetest and most flattering promises.
“Be sure, Julian, to send me six copies of the paper containing these
observations.”
Since, according to Mr. Lowell’s card, the Hawthorne interview was
substantially correct in other particulars, we think that Mr. Hawthorne
should give the distinguished interviewee the benefit of this revised
version of the interviewee’s remarks about the queen and her son.
_The Official Explanation._
One night aside the fire at hum,
Ez I wuz settin’ nappin’,
Deown frum the lower hall there come
The seound uv some one rappin’.
The son uv old Nat Hawthorne he,—
Julian I think his name wuz,—
Uv course, he feound a friend in me,
Not knowin’ what his game wuz.
An’ ez we visited a spell,
Our talk ranged wide an’ wider;
An’ ef we struck dry subjects—well,
We washed ’em deown with cider.
Neow, with that cider coursin’ thru
My system, an’ a-playin’
Upon my tongue, I hardly knew
Just what I wuz a-sayin’.
I kin remember that I spun
A hifalutin’ story,
Abeout the Prince uv Wales, an’ one
Abeout old Queen Vic_to_ry.
But, sakes alive! I never dreamed
The cuss would get it printed—
(By that old gal I’m much esteemed,
Ez she hez often hinted).
Oh, if I had that critter neow,
You bet your boots I’d larn him
In mighty lively fashion heow
To walk the chalk, gol darn him!
Meanwhile, between his folks an’ mine
The breach grows wide an’ wider;
An’, by the way, it’s my design
To give up drinkin’ cider.
_Hosea Biglow._
_Yankee Chorus Girls._
Col. William H. Foster, the manager of the Boston Ideals, tells us that
his principals do not cost him so much worry and vexation as his
chorus-girls do. “It is admitted,” says he, “that my chorus-girls are
the prettiest on the operatic stage this year. I selected them with
great care, and made these three conditions the basis upon which that
selection was made: First, each candidate had to be under nineteen years
of age; second, each had to weigh over a hundred and thirty pounds, and
less than a hundred and sixty pounds; third, each had to agree to
subsist on the diet prescribed by me. I have eleven girls in my chorus,
and I venture to say they are the cream and flower of New-England
beauty. I suffer them to eat but three meals a day.—Their breakfasts
consist of hulled corn or oatmeal, rare beefsteak, and graham bread. For
dinner they eat boiled mutton with boiled potatoes and Hubbard squash,
or corned beef and cabbage, or pork and beans; and their only dessert is
pumpkin-pie or apple-pie. Their suppers consist of smoked halibut, dried
beef, graham bread, dried-apple sauce, cold doughnuts, and cookies. I
watch them all the time lest some foolish admirer sends them candy or
fruit, two godless luxuries which I never countenance. The consequence
of my jealous care is, that my chorus-girls are plump, rosy, and
vigorous, the paragons of girlish beauty. I shall never forget the scene
that took place the night we opened this season in Syracuse, N.Y.
Barnabee came off the stage after the first act, looking like a boy of
nineteen. His eyes were afire, his cheeks were flushed, his step was
bounding, and a joyous smile wreathed his face.
“‘In Heaven’s name, Foster,’ said he, ‘how can I ever thank you,—how can
I express to you my gratitude for the inestimable boon you have
conferred upon me!’
“‘What do you mean?’ I asked, aghast; for his unusual excitement alarmed
me.
“‘Look at me,’ said he. ‘Scrutinize me closely, and search me well. I am
an old man. Age has frosted my sparse locks, chilled my blood, and
traced furrows in my cheeks. For twenty-three years I have been
identified with this Boston Ideal Company; and for twenty-three years
have I groped my way around among the sphinxes, the obelisks, the
ivy-mantled towers, and the grand old ruins, of ancient female history.
So inured had I become to this hardship, that it came like second nature
to me to weave my arms about relics, and to sing impassioned sonnets in
the dull, cold ears of survivors of the silurian epoch. To-night,
however, when I clasped in my embrace, in view of an enthusiastic
public, the female to whom my serenade had been addressed, I found her
not the mossy reminiscence I expected, but a living, breathing,
palpitating girl, with rosebud lips and peachy cheeks. Instantly I
experienced a blissful change percolating through my being. For
twenty-three years I had felt like a government mule hauling a load of
pig-iron, but now I feel like a two-year-old colt behind a band of
music. Don’t you think, Foster, that McDonald needs a rest? I believe I
would like to sing his _rôles_ for the balance of the season.’”
_Mr. Dixey as a Nemesis._
Mr. Henry E. Dixey is the owner of a St. Bernard dog that weighs,
perhaps, three hundred pounds; and, after the fashion of the lamb that
was platonically attached to Mary, this dog accompanies Mr. Dixey
wherever Mr. Dixey goes. Twice across the ocean and all over this
continent makes Prince the most extensive traveller of the canine kind.
Day before yesterday Mr. Dixey and his leviathan dog were having a romp
through the four or five rooms occupied by the Clan Dixey at the Hotel
Richelieu. First, Mr. Dixey would shut the dog up in the folding-bed,
and hide himself in the wardrobe: then the dog would break away from the
folding-bed, and begin a hunt for Dixey, humorously tipping over tables
and chairs, as humorously breaking the crockery, and still more
humorously accompanying his labors with volcanic vocal eruptions
expressive of fear, hope, anticipation, joy, etc. This play lasted for
about an hour; Mrs. Dixey sitting in the front-room meanwhile, smiling
contentedly, and thinking to herself how much better it was for Henry to
be passing a quiet afternoon at home than to be frittering away his time
in the company of frivolous men about town. But Mme. Patti, whose
apartments at the Richelieu are located directly under the Dixey rooms,
must have thought differently: for while Mr. Dixey and his dog were in
the midst of their genial sport,—or, we might say, while the festivities
were at their height,—there came a knock at the door; and Mme. Patti’s
maid Hortense, looking like one of the Two Orphans, presented this
message: “Mme. Patti complemongs Mme. Dix-_see_, and will Mme. Dix-_see_
have ze goodness to make her leetle boy stop to play wiz ze dog?”
Mr. Dixey was highly indignant. He did not care so much for himself, but
the insult to the dog was one he could scarcely brook. Next morning, as
he lay in his bed, he became cognizant of an angelic voice soaring in
song,—a voice so heavenly that it tarried not in the porches of his ear,
but penetrated to the innermost recesses of Mr. Dixey’s very soul, and
filled his whole being with an ecstasy of ineffable delight.
“Ida, my dear,” called Mr. Dixey to his wife, who was sewing in the
adjoining room.
“What is it, Henry?” she answered.
“You’re in unusually good voice this morning, my dear,” said Mr. Dixey.
“I don’t know when I’ve heard you sing so pleasantly.”
“Why, Henry!” exclaimed Mrs. Dixey. “_I’ve_ not been singing. That was
Mme. Patti you heard. She is practising Proch’s variations; and isn’t it
just too lovely?”
But there was a cold, meaningful glitter in Mr. Dixey’s eye as he
straightway arose from his bed, donned his trousers, and put on one of
his red Hibernian wigs. A few moments later, when, in answer to a brutal
knock, Mme. Patti opened the door of her parlor, the incomparable
song-bird’s sloe-like orbs beheld what seemed to be a gaunt, raw
Irishman standing in the portal. “Misther Dixey’s compliments to yees,
mum,” said this hulking apparition; “and wad yees moind sthopping the
tra-la-la-loo, mum, till Misther Dixey have a bit av slape?”
* * * * *
MR. JAMES R. LOWELL, a Boston writer whose poems give promise of a
brilliant future for the author, will visit Chicago next week as the
guest of one of our most enterprising citizens, whose reduction in the
price of green hams is noted in our advertising columns.
Mr. James Russell Lowell will be cordially welcomed and hospitably
entertained by the people of Chicago. Our citizens have always had the
kindliest feelings for the Boston people, and they have ever been
prepared to pay the tribute of their respect to the distinguished son
whom Boston delights to honor. Chicago feels a special interest in Mr.
Lowell at this particular time, because he is perhaps the foremost
representative of the enterprising and opulent community which within
the last week has secured the services of one of Chicago’s honored sons
for the base-ball season for 1887. The fact that Boston has come to
Chicago for the captain of her base-ball nine has re-invigorated the
bonds of affection between the metropolis of the Bay State and the
metropolis of the mighty West: the truth of this will appear in the
hearty welcome which our public will give Mr. Lowell next Tuesday.
* * * * *
OUR enterprising fellow-townsmen, the proprietors of the Home
Restaurant, have added to their popular dinner bill of fare, a new viand
entitled _Beans à la Lowell_, a delicate compliment to the distinguished
poet now visiting among us.
* * * * *
IN justice to Mr. James Russell Lowell, it should be said that his
lecture upon “Richard III.” last Tuesday afternoon did not refer to
Richard J. Oglesby, our honored governor.
_Professor Lowell in Chicago._
The presence of Mr. James Russell Lowell has given Chicago a tremendous
boom as a literary centre. In literary circles this boom is not spoken
of as a boom, but as an impetus—impetus being a word of such classic
pedigree as to render it preferable to the lowly and vulgar word boom.
This impetus first became apparent last Saturday afternoon, when one of
the distinguished members of the Chicago Literary Club—a manufacturer of
linseed-oil—happened to call at the business office of another
distinguished member of the club, a wholesale dealer in hides and pelts.
“I see by the papers,” said the first _littérateur_, “that James Russell
Lowell is going to be in town next week.”
“Lowell? Lowell?” queried the second _littérateur_, as if he were trying
to place the name. “Oh, yes! I remember—the author of ‘The One-Hoss
Shay’!”
“Yes: he’s going to read a poem in Central Music Hall next Tuesday,”
explained the first _littérateur_, “and it has occurred to me that we
ought to elect him an honorary member of the club.”
“Well,” said the second _littérateur_, “we’ll think about that—there’s
no special hurry. You know, we have to be a little careful about taking
up with every stranger that comes along: however, we’ll talk it over at
the next meeting. Here, you Jim, go up on the back roof, and drag in
them calf-pelts out of the rain!”
Since Mr. Lowell’s address last Tuesday afternoon, we have taken pains
to mingle pretty freely with the recognized literary folk of the town,
and we have been mightily interested in the opinions that are expressed
of Mr. Lowell and his work. We are told at the house of A. C. McClurg &
Co., that during the last forty-eight hours there has been a terrific
demand for Lowell’s books. One order came from a wealthy pork-packer,
and was for “Lowell’s works in binding to match my ‘Vues de Paris.’”
Another order was for Lowell’s books, provided the whole set cost more
than a hundred dollars. These little incidents pleased us greatly,
because they evidence that there is springing up among our people a
choice, a discriminating, an exacting taste, which demands only the best
works of an author.
“Last evening,” said two board-of-trade men, “we had the pleasure of a
long talk with Mr. Lowell. We were fully prepared to create a favorable
impression; for in anticipation of meeting him, and following the
example of our other fellow-townsmen, we had secured a complete line of
Mr. Lowell’s poems and essays, and had been feeding upon them for a
fortnight. Much to our disappointment, however, Mr. Lowell appeared
disinclined to traverse the poetic and misty vistas of the past with us;
and when we contrived—with consummate art and ineffable subtilty, as we
fondly imagined—to introduce into our introductory remarks an apt
quotation from ‘Hosea Biglow,’ he dampened our ardor by adverting to the
location of Chicago, its salubrious climate, and the immense volume of
its trade. Mr. Lowell said that he had driven about the city a good
deal, had been charmed with the beauty of our avenues, the extent and
embellishments of our commons, the magnitude of our pond, and
hospitality of our citizens. He said that he had visited the
packing-houses on the South Side, and that he was convinced that the
Western methods of flaying and disembowelling live-stock had its
advantages over the conventional New-England way of removing the
bristles of a pig with an iron candlestick. At one of the
rendering-establishments the proprietor received the distinguished poet
with great cordiality. After escorting him about the place, and
acquainting him with the delicate details of the art, this hospitable
host conducted Mr. Lowell to the private office, and insisted upon
opening a case of champagne. To make the situation all the more
comfortable for his guest, the host remarked pleasantly, ‘We always
whoop it up to you newspaper men; for, like as not, when you get back
home, you’ll write us up.’”
Another gentleman who called on Mr. Lowell was a Mr. Elisha K. Robbins,
who represented that he was organizing a club which he wanted to call
the James Russell Lowell Literary and Debating Lyceum. He sought Mr.
Lowell’s sympathy with the enterprise to the extent of a donation of
twenty-five dollars. Mr. Lowell was really very much embarrassed; he
sympathized heartily with the scheme suggested, and he appreciated very
keenly the compliment which Mr. Robbins and his associates were
ambitious to confer; but he was compelled to inform Mr. Robbins in the
most delicate manner possible, that, in the hurry and excitement of
starting upon his Western tour, he had carelessly left his wallet on the
_escritoire_ in his room at home. Mr. Robbins so heartily shared Mr.
Lowell’s regret at this awkward occurrence, that, at a meeting of his
accomplices last evening, he formally moved that “this organization be,
and hereby is, named the Julian Hawthorne Literary Club.”
It were useless to deny that many of our citizens were much disappointed
at the change which substituted a lecture on “Richard III.” for a
political address. We heard several of our most cultured fellow-townsmen
say that Dick Oglesby could talk all around Lowell: one of our most
influential citizens—a wholesale liquor-dealer—remarked, “I have heard
’em all now,—Lowell and Logan, and Gin’ral Palmer and all of ’em; but
for real eloquence and scholarship, give me Carter H. Harrison in a
spring campaign, every time!”
Austin Fisher, the well-known art-connoisseur, and dealer in leaf-lard,
said, “This man Lowell is a scholar and a nice gentleman—there’s no
denying _that_; but, do you know, after all, I think I prefer Bill Nye.”
Col. Ben Higgins, the owner of Prairie Belle, Sly Boots, and other noted
flyers, thought that Mr. Lowell’s address was an outrage. “The club is
very indignant,” he said. “We were all there in our best harness, and we
expected that the race would come off as advertised. Of course, we were
mad when we found that the programme had been changed. The event was
billed as a mile-and-a-quarter dash; and it was, in fact, only a
best-three-in-five trot, and slow at that!” Col. Higgins went on to say
that Mr. Lowell had offended all the leading turfmen in Chicago by
choosing to talk about Shakespeare when he had agreed to come here and
make an oration on the Washington Park Club.
The theatrical people, too, are berating Mr. Lowell for having
maintained that Shakespeare did not write “Richard III.” “If the
governor were here,” said Mr. Horace McVicker yesterday, “you can just
bet he’d have a card in all the papers, doing Mr. Lowell up in great
shape! The governor is a great admirer of Shakespeare: when he was but
four years old, he played one of the little princes in ‘Richard III.’”
Manager R. M. Hooley was the only theatrical man who approved the Lowell
theory. “I remember having experimented with ‘Richard III.’ once on a
time,” said he. “It was about three years ago that George Edgar brought
a company to my theatre, and tried to convince me that Shakespeare wrote
‘Richard III.’ After he had tried it for two weeks, I paid
railroad-fares for the whole crowd back East. After Mr. Lowell’s lecture
the other afternoon, I walked up to the platform, and grasped Mr.
Lowell’s hand. ‘You have told the truth,’ said I: ‘I know how it is
myself, for I have been there.’”
Mr. T. Percy Bottom-Jones, one of our wealthiest and most cultured
citizens, tells us that he entertained Mr. Lowell at dinner the other
evening; and, from the description Mr. Bottom-Jones gives, we judge that
the entertainment was in every way worthy of Chicago’s reputation. “We
had eighteen courses,” says Mr. Bottom-Jones, “and the whole spread cost
me in the neighborhood of seven thousand dollars. Lowell seemed to be
particularly pleased with the sherry. ‘I must compliment you,’ he said,
‘upon the nice discrimination you have evinced in your choice of
sherries: this is simply delicious.’—‘Well, it ought to be,’ says I;
‘for I paid sixteen dollars a bottle for it!’”
“What did Mr. Lowell say to that?” we asked.
“Say?” echoed Mr. Bottom-Jones. “He didn’t say any thing; but you never
saw a more surprised-looking man in all your born days.”
This brought to mind very vividly the lines of Paulinas Varro, the Latin
poet:—
“Mæcenas is a model host,
Who, o’er his viands nice,
Is wont to name each dish, and boast
Its quality and price.”
We do not know how this epigram will impress others; but, taking it with
the results of our daily observations, it goes a long way toward
convincing us that (to indulge in a pardonable metaphor) the mantle of
the most luxurious, the most fastidious, and the most refined, of grand
old Roman times has fallen, so to speak, upon the shoulders of the
representatives of Chicago wealth and culture.
* * * * *
WRITING to us upon one of his bill-heads, a prominent member of the
Chicago Literary Club takes us severely to task for “indulging in
unseemly sarcasm and untimely levity at the expense of Mr. Lowell and
those cultured Chicagoans who are seeking to create a healthy literary
atmosphere in the West.” Our correspondent goes on to set up a defence
of Mr. Lowell’s lecture last Tuesday afternoon, as if a defence were
necessary! He says that we should remember that any utterance coming
from Mr. Lowell is worth listening to; that to the study of the subject
which he treated last Tuesday, Mr. Lowell devoted much time, and that
Chicago ought to regard it as a high compliment that Mr. Lowell had
prepared especially for her edification a discourse at once so scholarly
and so eloquent, and necessarily involving so much time, patience, and
discrimination in its preparation.
Our correspondent’s burning words would have great weight with us did
they not come to us written upon a sheet whose prefatory printed matter
informs us that the writer is the proprietor of a soap-manufactory. We
decline to take kindly to that atmosphere, literary or otherwise, which
a soap-factory is likely to create. As far as regards the suggestion
that we have aimed sarcasms at Mr. Lowell, we will say that there is no
truth in it; and touching the allegation that Mr. Lowell wrote his
Shakespeare lecture especially for the edification of the Chicagoans, we
will say that there is no truth in that, either.
We have before us a copy of “The Boston Evening Transcript” of last
Wednesday; and in it we find a scholarly, thoughtful, and elegant
editorial, entitled “Mr. Lowell in Chicago.” We quote a few lines:—
“While Mr. Lowell’s praises were being sounded here yesterday, Mr.
Lowell himself was creating a great deal of discussion at Chicago by
suddenly changing the topic of his address before the Union League Club
from a political to a literary one, and talking about the authorship of
‘Richard III.,’ instead of American politics. No doubt, it is quite
natural that there should be a good deal of disappointment expressed at
the change of programme, since, in lieu of a piquant and healthy
political sensation, Mr. Lowell gave his audience a critical address,
which had already been delivered at Edinburgh; but he had looked the
ground over, and doubtless had reason to believe that he did wisely in
altering his programme.”
This is startling information: it gives us to understand, as distinctly
as if we had been hit with a club, that, so far from serving up to us a
specially prepared discourse, Mr. Lowell regaled us with a chestnut—and
a Scotch one, at that! We regard it as the severest joke ever played
upon our community.
Speaking of jokes reminds us of a little incident that is being told of
the experience Mr. Lowell had at a dinner given in his honor the other
evening. A wealthy patron of the arts and sciences wanted to entertain
the distinguished poet in fine style, and he invited in all his rich
neighbors to help him do the hospitable act. As soon as Mr. Lowell
entered the parlors, and was presented to the company, one of the
ladies, giggling and gushing, said, in those tones peculiar to giddy
female idiocy, “O Mr. Lowell! we’ve been anticipating this pleasure _so_
much; for we’ve all read your poetry, and we know you can be ever so
funny when you try!”
Another genial imbecile, who wore about twenty thousand dollars’ worth
of big, vulgar diamonds, smilingly assured Mr. Lowell, that, although
she had never met him before, she had always felt as if she were well
acquainted with him; “for,” she added, “my maiden name was Bigelow.”
In its editorial discussion of Mr. Lowell’s lecture, “The Boston
Transcript” says that the distinguished critic has obtained his
heterodox opinions touching the genuineness of “Richard III.” from a
study of the folio edition. This strikes us as a plausible explanation
of the instigation of the melancholy heresy which Mr. Lowell has
disseminated in the midst of us. From a scholarly gentleman who is
regarded hereabouts as an authority in literary quotations, we learn
that the so-called folio edition of Shakespeare’s works is the most
palpable fraud ever put upon the market. Its proof-reading alone, so
says our informant, is so loose and incorrect as to render the work a
bane to admirers of proper orthography and correct punctuation. Among
the Chicago people, the most popular edition of Shakespeare is that sold
on our trains and at all news-stands for fifty-five cents net. The folio
edition costs eight dollars; and we agree with this scholarly gentleman
who tells us about it, that a man must be a pitiful idiot indeed to pay
eight dollars for a volume of Shakespeare when he can get a great deal
better edition for fifty-five cents net. One of the beauties of the
Chicago edition of Shakespeare’s works is the numerous elegant
engravings, made from designs of local artists. The picture of “Margaret
Mather in the Tomb of the Capulets under the Management of J. M. Hill”
is said by local art connoisseurs and critics to be a _chef d’œuvre_;
and one of the finest iambic tetrameter poems we ever read was inspired
by a view of that superb engraving representing that distinguished
member of the Citizens’ Association, Col. J. H. McVicker, disguised as
the first grave-digger. We have heard the pictures of Tom Keene as
“Hamlet,” Master Walker Whitesides as “Richard III.,” George C. Miln as
“Romeo,” and N. S. Wood, the boy-actor, as “Lear,”—these portraitures we
have heard spoken of as masterpieces. It is impossible, we think, that
an edition embellished with such works of art should be supplanted by an
edition whose typographical incorrectness is so violent as to be the
surest and quickest cause of ophthalmia.
* * * * *
WE have not said any thing about it before, because we surmised that
Col. James Russell Lowell’s cup of bitterness was quite full enough
without having any more rue and gall poured into it. The fact remains,
however, that the Union League Club is not the only Chicago club that
feels aggrieved at Col. Lowell. The Chicago Literary Club has a
grievance against Lowell,—at least we infer so from divers and sundry
bitter invectives which we have heard fired at Col. Lowell by certain
distinguished members of that organization. It seems that a formal
invitation to visit the club was sent to Lowell some time before he came
to Chicago. It was supposed, that, being a literary man himself, he
would naturally feel like identifying himself to a degree with the
literary characters of this metropolis. It was believed that an
association, however brief, with the intellect and culture of our
Literary Club, would reinvigorate, refresh, and re-inspire the Boston
poet,—in a word, it was, if we mistake not, purely a charitable motive
that prompted the Chicago Literary Club to signify to Col. Lowell its
willingness to have him commingle with it while he was in this city.
Instead of viewing this dainty boon in the proper light, Col. Lowell
appears to have regarded it much as he would the cheap effort of a
country debating-club, or a commonplace literary lyceum, to get some
notoriety out of his patronage. At any rate, he returned a very prompt
and equally decisive negative answer to the invitation; and this is why
the giant literary intellects of Chicago are so very hostile to Col.
Lowell just now. It is far from our intention to be drawn into this
unhappy complication; but we cannot forbear giving it as our opinion,
that, without the co-operation of the Chicago Literary Club, Col. Lowell
will find a literary life hardly worth living.
In our most refined society circles, Col. James Russell Lowell’s recent
visit to Chicago is still being discussed with a good deal of relish;
and a number of amusing stories are leaking out concerning the eminent
Boston _littérateur’s_ experiences in this city. One of our most
beautiful and accomplished belles (the eighteen-year-old daughter of a
wealthy distiller) is assuring the large circle of her admirers that she
doesn’t think Col. Lowell is half as bright a man as he has the credit
of being. “I wath introduthed to him at the rethepthion,” says she, “and
he indulged in a few commonplatheth until he found out that I uthed to
live in Kentucky. Then he thaid, ‘I wonder whether you ever knew my
friend Baker of Kentucky: he uthed to be a particular friend of mine,
and I’ve often wondered what ever became of him.’—‘Baker?’ thays I, ‘let
me thee,—I am acquainted with theveral gentlemen named Baker: what ith
hith firtht name?’—‘It ithn’t pothible you could have known him,’ thaid
Mr. Lowell: ‘I hadn’t thought of it before, but he’th been dead
thirty-theven yearth.’ Now, did you ever hear any thing quite tho thilly
ath that? I’d have been real provoked if I’d thought he wath quithing
me, but he looked tho theriouth that I made up my mind he wathn’t very
thmart; and, ath thoon ath I could get away, I went off to the
thupper-room with Tham Thawyer.”
One of the most cultured gentlemen in Chicago society was invited to
meet Col. Lowell at a dinner given by a South-Side friend. He arrived
very late, and was so profuse and so persistent in his apologies as to
make himself really offensive.
“Oh! never mind, my dear sir,” said the genial host in a consoling tone;
“it is all right; you’ve arrived in time for the sal-_lad_.”
The host’s patronizing tone and air deeply offended the tardy guest.
Telling his club-friends about the circumstance next day, he exclaimed,
in a voice full of contempt and scorn, “The idea of that —— bowlegged
Michigan farmer’s ‘sal-_lading_’ me!”
* * * * *
TO the Lowell literature that is flooding the Western country at the
present time, Col. Horace Rublee, the distinguished editor of “The
Milwaukee Sentinel,” contributes an interesting page, reminiscent in
character. “It was in 1855,” says Col. Rublee, “that Col. Lowell visited
Milwaukee: he was then in the prime of his intellectual and physical
manhood, and to this day I can remember with what pride I introduced him
to the large and enthusiastic audience which had assembled in Turner
Hall to hear his eloquent and thoughtful address on Early English
ballads. This lecture was conducted under the auspices of the Milwaukee
Lecture Lyceum Bureau. In those days, lectures were all the rage, and
none but the very best talent was employed. The week after Lowell’s
appearance here, Bayard Taylor came with his lecture on ‘The Rhine;’ and
Lowell remained in town just for the sake of having a visit with his
bright young friend. Taylor must have been about thirty years of age,
and he was as brilliant and as companionable a fellow as you could
expect to meet. Well, Lowell and Taylor had a great time together; and
as I knew the town pretty well, and was inclined to be somewhat coltish
myself in those days, it was my good fortune to be chosen as the third
member of the party. Every night we would go around to Schimpfermann’s
Hall, and sit there, drinking beer, and telling stories, until nearly
morning. Lowell was a great hand for Yankee stories, and Taylor could
mimic the German dialect and Irish brogue most artistically. As for me,
I did most of the singing,—for I had a fine baritone voice in those
days; and when it came to the chorus, Taylor would help me out with his
deep, mellow bass, and Lowell would chip in with his clear, ringing,
bird-like tenor. The last night they were in town (ah, how distinctly I
remember it!), we all met at Schimpfermann’s; and—how it came about, I
don’t know—we got into a game of ten-pins. I was an old hand at it, and
so was Taylor; but Lowell had never played before. Well, Taylor beat the
first game with 215 pins, I followed with 187, and Lowell brought up the
rear with 96. He was a preposterously bad player, but he was so earnest
and so solemn about it that we didn’t dare laugh at him. We played away
until eight o’clock in the morning. In six hours Taylor had rolled 3,136
pins, my score was 2,944, and Lowell’s was 1,082. I am able to give the
figures, because I wrote them on the back of a daguerrotype that Lowell
had made of himself that morning before he started away on the train. It
lacked an hour of train-time; and we went up into Bumblegarten’s
gallery, and had our pictures taken just as we looked when we got
through that five hours’ bowling-match. I have the daguerrotype still,
and would not part with it for the wealth of a Midas. Lowell was pretty
well played out, poor fellow! but he did not make any complaint. When he
reached St. Louis, however, he wrote me a pathetic letter, full of
scholarly reference and classical allusion. ‘I am as sore,’ said he, ‘as
if I had engaged with the Pythian monster, or had been drawn on the
Procrustean bed: not a muscle in all my anatomy that does not ache, nor
a joint that is not as stiff as the senile Anchises. What Simothean balm
is there for me, and where is there a Mnestheus to restore me? I am, in
short, reduced to such a condition that neither Pisistratus nor the
afflicted son of Ægeus would envy me; and I have changed the subject of
my St. Louis lecture from that of ‘Italian Literature’ to that of ‘The
Fall of Ilium.’”’
When Col. Lowell lectured on “The American Richard of Politics III.,” in
this city last month, Col. Rublee came down from Milwaukee to renew
acquaintance with him. They got together one evening in Col. Wirt
Dexter’s back parlor, and talked about the old Grecian and Latin poets
until daylight. Neither gentleman could sing as well as he used to; but
in his travels abroad, Col. Lowell had picked up a number of jocose
Horatian odes and mirthful classic stories, which he recited with
exceeding zest; and Col. Rublee kept up his end of the conversation by
narrating the many humorous tales and sketches he had heard at Madison
during the sessions of the Wisconsin Legislature,—all which Col. Lowell
enjoyed mightily, and made memoranda of, that he might repeat them to
his family physician, a Dr. Holmes, whom he credited with being a fellow
of hearty appreciation and keen wit.
* * * * *
THE Chicago Literary Club is still feeling very unkindly toward Col.
James Russell Lowell because that eminent Bostonian declined to visit
the club during his sojourn in Chicago. Every preparation had been made
to give the poet a cordial welcome; and several of the most eloquent
members had prepared speeches abounding in quotations from the old
Greek, Latin, and Hindoo poets, and full of that classic allusion and
mythological lore so pleasing to Col. Lowell’s cultured taste. One of
the most scholarly members had written an essay on “The Pork Industry in
Ancient Athens,” and another had prepared a poem, “Dante:” in short,
Col. Lowell would have been astonished at the learning and the culture
that would have manifested themselves had he but accepted the club’s
invitation. It is said that Col. Lowell took an unjust prejudice against
the club, because, having met and having engaged in conversation with
one of the members thereof, he was shocked to hear him say that he had
always supposed that Sappho was a kind of tooth-paste. But, be this as
it may, the club is hostile to Col. Lowell now; and upon the colonel’s
picture in the club-room, some sarcastic linseed-oil _littérateur_ has
scribbled the following venomous quotation from an ancient satire:—
“Oh! when I think of what I am,
And what I used to was,
I think I gave myself away
Without sufficient cause.”
* * * * *
COL. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL tells the story that one of the gentlemen he
met in Chicago had a great deal to say of his travels in Europe. Col.
Lowell remarked that he greatly enjoyed the French literature, and that
George Sand was one of his favorite authors.
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed the Chicago gentleman: “I have had many a happy
hour with Sand.”
“You knew George Sand, then?” asked Col. Lowell, with an expression of
surprise.
“Knew him? Well, I should rather say I did,” cried the Chicago man; and
then he added as a clincher, “I roomed with him when I was in Paris.”
* * * * *
IT is understood that the private dinners given to Mr. Lowell during his
stay here have called for an expenditure of not less than forty thousand
dollars. Yet there are carping critics who say that Chicago is not a
great literary centre.
_Mr. Elder’s Fright._
“No words can express the agony of mind I suffered for six hours
yesterday,” said Mr. A. P. T. Elder, publisher of “Literary Life.” “I
would not for untold millions go through the ordeal again. I had come
down to my palatial office, and was sitting in a rosewood rocker, with
my patent-leather boots resting gracefully on the cherry desk before me,
when my private secretary (who had been setting type, and sweeping out
the office) brought me my morning paper. I noticed that his face looked
pale; but it did not startle me, for I recollected that he sometimes
washed it. But when my eye—in fact, my two eyes—fell upon the paper, my
printer’s—no, I mean my secretary’s—pallor was explained. With my blood
freezing in my veins, I read that Miss Cleveland’s house at Holland
Patent had been attacked by flames, and had well-nigh fallen prey to the
devouring element. Then I remembered that I had forwarded to Miss
Cleveland a large bulk of manuscript,—poems, essays, criticisms,
advertisements, and other contributions to our magazine,—and I shrieked
with horror when it occurred to me that this treasure might have been
destroyed by the fire-fiend. More dead than alive, I hastened to the
telegraph-office, and sent a despatch to Miss Cleveland, begging her to
advise me at once whether that precious hoard was safe, or had been
wrested from immortality by the demon of the flames. For six hours I
received no answer, and during that time I suffered the most exquisite
tortures.
“‘What will the world say,’ I asked myself, ‘when it learns that it has
lost these inestimable intellectual boons? Will not posterity hold me up
to eternal scorn for having jeoparded the literary welfare of this
country, by consigning to careless hands the product of Western genius?
If this wealth of literature, this cream of poesy, and this flower of
prose, be destroyed, how will I be able to bear up under the
lamentations of a continent that awaits, with feverish expectations and
anxious heart-throbbings, the October number of “Literary Life”?’
“Crucifying my soul with these agonizing interrogations, I survived,
rather than lived, the six hours that elapsed between the sending of my
telegram and the receipt of an answer. I tore open the telegram that
came at last, and read its welcome tidings as follows:—
“‘_To A. P. T. Elder, Chicago Patent, Ill._—Nothing burned except the
back-stoop and the rear-eaves.
“‘R. E. C.’
“I have been receiving congratulatory telegrams all day from such
literary men as George Sand, George Eliot, Charles Egbert Haddock, and
Oliver Wendell Holmes, author of Holmes’s ‘Iliad:’ I also hold in my
hand at this moment a kind telegram from Messrs. Laflin & Rand,
publishers of the ‘New-York Powder Magazine.’ But nothing has
recompensed me for the suffering I endured during those six hours of
waiting. It was a narrow escape, and I hope the literary world will
appreciate it as well as the torture I experienced in its behalf.”
* * * * *
PROFESSOR ELBRIDGE G. SMITH, instructor in English literature, and
professor of elocution, honored us with a call yesterday for the purpose
of pointing out what he called “a remarkable error, or series of
errors,” we made yesterday. He referred to that part of our interview
with Mr. A. P. T. Elder, the scholarly editor of “Literary Life,”
wherein George Sand, George Eliot, and Charles Egbert Haddock are spoken
of as literary men; and wherein, furthermore, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes
is said to be the author of Holmes’s “Iliad.” Professor Smith assures us
that Sand, Eliot, and Craddock were not men at all, but women; the first
two being now deceased, and the third having taken up her permanent
abode in a St. Louis suburb. “As for Holmes,” said the professor, “he
may have translated the ‘Iliad,’ but he certainly did not compose it;
the author of that majestic epic having lived so many centuries ago,
that the exact time is not known.” We referred these corrections to Mr.
Elder, and asked him what he meant by filling our valuable space with
blundering statements that were likely to hold us up to the scorn and
the derision of society. He declared most solemnly that he had never had
so base a purpose in view; and he expressed deep regret that he had left
the telegrams from George Sand, George Eliot, and Mr. Craddock in the
pocket of his other coat at home.
“But how came you,” we asked, “to say that Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote
the ‘Iliad’?”
“Well, didn’t he write it?” inquired Mr. Elder.
“No, sir,” we thundered, for we were deeply mortified. “Homer wrote it.”
“Yes, that’s it—that’s the name,” cried Mr. Elder: “I acknowledge the
mistake. Homer was the name I meant: _he_ was the feller who sent me the
telegram.”
_Ethel’s Christmas Tale._
CHICAGO, ILL., Dec. 2.
_To the Editor._—My little daughter Ethel, who is only eleven years
old, has written a Christmas story, which I send to you, in the hope
that you will recognize in it some indication of latent literary and
imaginative talent.
Yours truly,
H. G. B.