E-text prepared by Adam Buchbinder, Josephine Paolucci, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 37398-h.htm or 37398-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/37398/pg37398-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37398/37398-h.zip)
[Illustration: MARIE SALTUS]
[Illustration: EDGAR SALTUS
in the Year 1890]
EDGAR SALTUS: _THE MAN_
by
MARIE SALTUS
... "_even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea._"
1925
Pascal Covici . Publisher
Chicago
Copyright 1925
Pascal Covici . _Publisher_
CHICAGO
_To the Ego using the personality_,
EDGAR SALTUS
_Peace and Progress_.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Marie Saltus, Edgar Saltus _Frontispiece_
_Facing Page_
Francis Henry Saltus 6
Father of Edgar Saltus.
Edgar Saltus 10
At Two Years of Age, sitting on the Lap of His
Mother, Eliza Evertson Saltus.
Edgar Saltus 12
Sixteen Years of Age.
Fac-simile of Document given to Marie Saltus 116
Fac-simile of Letter sent to Marie Saltus 128
Fac-simile of Telegram sent to Marie Saltus 214
Mrs. J. Theus Munds 270
The Daughter of Edgar Saltus, and Her Little Son.
Marie Saltus 310
Sitting at the Table on which her Husband wrote
his Books, burning Incense before a Siamese Buddha,
and meditating on a Stanza from the Bhagavad-Gita.
FOREWORD
Without the explanation of reincarnation, the riddle of Edgar Saltus would
rival that of the Sphinx. Super-developed in some things, correspondingly
deficient in others, he presented an exterior having the defects of his
finest qualities, suffused with complexes and contradictions.
Amusements and interests looked upon as pleasurable by the many, bored him
in the extreme. With likes and dislikes shared and understood by few, he
lived in a world of his own. This world was inhabited by creatures of the
imagination--delightful beings--too delightful to be real, who, having the
merit of being extinguishable at will, never remained to bore him.
To write a proper biography one should have perspective. It is lacking
here. That in itself makes the writing difficult. Many of those associated
with Mr. Saltus' life are incarnate, and not all of them are willing to be
dragged into the limelight of publicity by the point of the pen.
Where it will not offend, names are given. Where the possibility of
annoyance suggests itself, initials only are used. It circumscribes one
more than a little.
A brief hundred years should elapse between the passing of an interesting
personality and the putting into print of his life. It would follow here,
but for the fact that so many mythical and malicious tales have been
circulated about Edgar Saltus since his death that the necessity for giving
the facts, good, bad, and indifferent, and putting an end to the weird,
wild, and fantastic stories seems urgent.
From an article published in The Bookman one would believe the astonishing
fact that Mr. Saltus made a practice of sitting "on a sort of baldachined
throne dispersing cigarettes ten inches long and reading Chinese poetry."
From the same source it was stated that he had a "salon, and was attended
by some lady of his choice--not necessarily the same." As a final kick it
was stated that he dyed his moustache.
Every newspaper in the country reprinted the article. What they did not
reprint was a letter from me (in The Bookman also) denying the fabrications
and giving the truth.
In a foreword of appreciation to a bibliography of Mr. Saltus' books, I was
fortunately able to blue pencil the following, before it saw the darkness
of print: "Edgar Saltus, neglected and alone, died in an obscure
lodging-house in the East Side of New York." The author is a delightful man
writing out of the fulness of his admiration. He put in only what he had
been told.
Every day brings in new and wilder tales than the preceding one. They are
so fantastic they would be amusing, were they not tragic.
If the public is sufficiently interested to pass along and embellish these
grotesque stories, will they not be equally interested to know the truth?
When the writing of this biography was first attempted, an effort was made
to give the life of Edgar Saltus without using the uninteresting "I" and
"me." The effort failed. So much of his life had been silhouetted against
my own for over twenty years, that any attempt to remove the background
injured the picture, and it was reluctantly put back there.
In giving many of the high lights and incidents of Mr. Saltus' later life,
the desire has been to speak only of those in which he was the dominating
figure. Many amusing events in which he was somewhat subsidiary, have been
in consequence omitted.
With the desire to keep my personality in the background as much as
possible, it is brought forward only when needed to throw some incident or
characteristic of Mr. Saltus into relief.
It is a painful process to tear the veil from one's life and write fully
and freely--almost brutally at times, with the heart's blood. Less would be
useless. One must tell all or nothing.
A few years ago we had skeletons. Every respectable family had
one--sometimes two. They were locked in cupboards, or carefully put away in
bureau drawers with lavender and old laces. When spoken of, it was in
whispers and with profound respect. All that has changed. With the new
psychology nothing is hidden. Everything must be aired in the light. One
may be behind anything but the times. That is fatal.
That Edgar Saltus was unable to hit it off with two charming and cultured
wives does not reflect on either of them. On the contrary. No normal woman
could live with him for a week without friction. By normal, I refer to the
woman who as a rule does the things that are expected of her, leaves undone
those she is not expected to do, and has plenty of health in her.
The very fact that a woman was in the main like others, irritated Mr.
Saltus. It was enough for any one to say to him, "It is considered the
proper thing to do this or that," to send him into a rage. No act was too
erratic or too independent to please him, provided it revealed and
developed the individuality of the doer.
As he looked upon sports of all kinds as outlets for primitive egos,
amusements also, unless draped with interesting psychological problems,
and gatherings of humans as an abomination and a stench to his nostrils,
most women, in spite of the charm of his manner and the brilliance of his
mind, would find little in common with him.
A boy at heart, adoring tricks, games and fairy stories, he did not want to
be recalled to the things of earth. Impractical as he was, he could not
endure practical people, accepting the blunders and forgetfulness of one
even less so than himself with patience and grace. If five minutes before
the dinner hour I would rush home and say:
"Too sorry dear, but I forgot to order anything for dinner. There is
nothing in the house" (it happened more than once, but his reply was always
the same)--
"Never mind, little puss. Thank God your mind is in the clouds--not in the
kitchen. Let's go around the corner."
"Around the corner" meant to a tiny place called the Cozy frequented by
Columbia students. Fortunately it was only a few yards from our home.
What he could not forgive was stupidity, and the desire to please Mrs.
Smith and Mr. Jones and wonder what the neighbors would or would not think
about things. This, however, he was never called upon to endure.
Only a person fundamentally the same and sharing his peculiar dislikes
could have had a chance of success. A woman less temperamental and
high-strung than himself would yield anything for peace. Yielding to Mr.
Saltus was fatal. A mental ascendency on his part, no matter what the
circumstances, and the beginning of the end was in sight.
There is a rather pathetic side to his biography. During the writing of it,
Mr. Saltus seems to have been at my elbow all the time, a highly amused and
almost disinterested critic. The writing of a biography had been a joke
between us.
Asked by him once if I felt I had been in any way the gainer for my
experiences of life with him, and what I would do in the future to keep my
mind occupied if he passed on, I answered:
"Enormously the gainer. I could start a home."
"Would you make it into a training house for husbands--or turn it into a
zoo?" he inquired.
"Neither. 'The Saltus Shelter for Scoundrels' would be the result. A sign
in the window would inform the world that the superintendent, Marie Saltus,
was a post-graduate on scoundrels." (It was a sobriquet Mr. Saltus was fond
of applying to himself.) "It will be a wonderful home. Here is the first
rule. 'Do all the things you ought not to do. Leave undone all the things
you should do. All the comforts of home assured.'"
Mr. Saltus laughed, and added:
"Never pick up anything. Drop cigars and cigarettes on the floor. It will
improve the carpets. Find fault with everything. Swear and make a row
whenever you can."
To that I added that the waiting-list would be so long that the old
scoundrels would be fighting among themselves to get in. The idea amused
Mr. Saltus very much. Every day or two he would come up with a new
suggestion.
"See here, Mowgy, I have another rule for the old scoundrels. Having served
such an apprenticeship with me," he said, "you will have the home
overflowing in a week. Draw the line. Take no one under seventy-five and
have tea with them only on Sundays in August."
The Saltus Shelter for Scoundrels became a pet theme. A diet was drawn up
for the inmates by Mr. Saltus, and a course of reading outlined. The
by-laws grew and were embellished.
This was during the last winter of his life, when failing health kept him
indoors much of the time. To take him out of himself, it became necessary
to supply food for the imagination.
"Suppose you became ill and you had to leave the old scoundrels to their
fate? What then?" he inquired one day.
"That is provided for. If the Saltus Shelter is shattered, I will sit down
and write your biography."
"That will fall flatter. No one will read it," he said.
"Yes, they will. I will call it. 'The Annals of Ananias.' It will be your
punishment for having written 'Madame Sapphira,' and people will fall over
themselves to read it, for I will tell the worst."
He took notice of that.
"Wow! Wow! Will you tell about the time I got a piece of chocolate when I
thought I was securing an opera glass, and how I threw it away, hitting a
bald man on the head?"
"Of course. Didn't I say the worst?"
"Surely you won't mention the time I kicked the dog and smashed up the
cut-glass?"
"Yes, I will, and how you played the hose on poor Jean, and all the other
demoniacal things you have done."
At that he would say, "Wow--Wow," again, but the idea amused him, and
scarcely a day passed without inquiries about the biography.
"You won't tell the worst really, will you, Mowgy? You will not mention the
time I got squiffy, or the time I pretended I was a crazy man and miawed in
the trolley car?"
"When I say everything, I mean everything."
"Then you must tell about the time in Paris when you tried to murder me,
and when, mistaking a strange man for me, you wrote him such a villainous
letter."
"Concerning these you are safe. There is too much about myself in those
incidents to interest people. Like Caesar, the good will be interred with
your bones."
"No one will believe there could have been such a demon. They will say the
remarkable thing about it is that you have survived."
We joked about it a great deal during the winter, Mr. Saltus suggesting
incidents to be included or omitted.
When after his death one publisher after another urged me to give them a
biography, I did not know whether to laugh or to weep.
Could I? The words we had said repeated themselves. His wistful spirit
seemed to stand at my side--laughing. He could take a joke on himself so
well.
During the writing of it he has seemed to be beside me--amused, but caring
less, if anything, what any one might say or think about it. It was all
trivial.
When engaged in writing a book it was Mr. Saltus' custom to sharpen dozens
of pencils and have them at hand. Writing rapidly, he would discard one
after another as they became dull, till the last was reached. These he
sharpened again, and started in to repeat the process. After his death I
collected a box full and kept them. It is with the same pencils that these
words are being written. They have come straight from his hand to mine. His
emanations seem to have permeated them.
It has not been an easy task, but it is truthful. The worst, as well as the
best, has been given. His friends will find that the eager and aspiring
spirit they admired was even bigger than they knew.
To the verdict of any human he was--and still must be--indifferent. It did
not touch him in the flesh. It cannot reach him in the spirit. To him at
the last one thing alone mattered, through the sum total of his life's
experiences--the ability to know himself, and knowing that self to
co-operate with his evolution. To turn from the illusory to the
illimitable, seeking only the way; that was what mattered.
Realizing at the last that all the wisdom of the world could be epitomized
in a single sentence, he found strength in that. "He attaineth peace into
whom all desires flow as rivers into an ocean, which, being full, remaineth
unaffected by any."
EDGAR SALTUS, THE MAN
CHAPTER I
From the very beginning Edgar Saltus was none of the things that he
appeared to be and a hundred that no one ever suspected. Having a nature
with a curious complex of the super-feminine, Edgar Saltus took unto
himself a prerogative usually assigned to it, and, snipping off a few
years, gave the date of his birth to "Who's Who," as 1868.
Late in life, when confronted with the family Bible in which the date had
been correctly set down, and with a photograph of himself as a baby on
which his mother had proudly recorded the same, he admitted, reluctantly it
must be confessed, that he had juggled things a bit. In those days births
were not recorded as they now are.
His irritation at the detection being construed as shame over his act, he
laughed. The annoyance was at himself for omitting, when he had the chance,
to knock off a few more objectionable years. The glorious gift of seeming
as young as he looked had been offered by fate, and lost.
As a matter of fact Edgar Saltus was born in New York City, some time
during the night of October 8, 1855.
When, later in life, he became interested in occultism, and the possibility
of having an astrological chart was suggested, there was no one living who
could tell him the exact hour. Trivial as it may seem, he would have given
much to ascertain it. The Libra qualities assigned to those born in October
were all his. This fact made him keen to know how they would be modified or
increased by that of the sign rising at the hour of his birth.
It delighted him to brush aside many annoying happenings with the remark
that all Libra people were volatile, evanescent, and often irritable; were
born so, and could not escape their limitations. Upon these occasions he
would end up with the statement that however objectionable the sign, it was
less so than that of Scorpio rising with the Sun in Taurus (which was
mine). That, he declared, only a philosopher could understand and hit it
off with. He had a splendid ally in the stars.
Edgar Saltus had the good fortune, or the bad luck, as one looks at it, to
be born the son of a brilliant father. Francis Henry Saltus not only
brought into being the first rifled steel cannon ever made, but perfected a
number of other inventions as well. For this he was decorated by almost all
the crowned heads of Europe. Queen Victoria knighted him and presented his
wife with a marvelous Indian shawl. He was given the Legion of Honour of
France, the Order of Isabella the Catholic, of Spain--the Order of Gustavus
Vasa of Sweden, and the Order of Christ of Portugal. For having chartered a
ship, loading it with provisions and sending it to the starving people of
the Canary Islands during a famine, he was given the inheritable title of
Marquise de Casa Besa by the King of Portugal as well. The title, however,
he never used.
From Solomon Saltus back to the time of the Emperor Tiberius, the men of
the Saltus family appear to have left a mark either of gore or glory upon
their generation. Francis Henry Saltus did not purpose to do less. An
omnivorous reader, a student and a philosopher, with some queer twists to
his curious mentality, he passed on the lot--twists included--not only to
his son by a former wife, Francis Saltus Saltus, named after himself, but
to the little Edgar as well.
Concerning Francis Saltus Saltus, volumes might be written. A genius, and
ambidextrous, he could write sonnets with one hand and compose operas with
the other. Without instruction he could improvise on any musical instrument
and learn any language with equal facility.
He did all this as a bird sings, joyously, and with so little effort that
one was appalled at his genius. A clearer case of subconscious memory never
existed. He learned nothing, but he remembered everything. To know where he
had acquired it and how would be interesting.
[Illustration: FRANCIS HENRY SALTUS
Father of Edgar Saltus]
His ability was supernormal, yet anything once written (he never made a
revised copy) was tossed aside--fait accompli. A new thought or a fleeting
melody called him elsewhere.
What he lacked was the concentration, the patience, the sustained interest
in his creation, to go over his work, rearrange, polish and put it into
shape to live. Details were deadly. What he had written--he had written.
With an indifference proportionate to his genius, he yawned--and lighted a
cigarette.
That lack was tragic. It meant a niche in the gallery of "might have beens"
instead of the high place in the Hall of Fame, where he really belonged,
and where, had he but condescended to care, he could have flamed as a
volcano in active eruption.
Frank was in his sixth year when little Edgar made his debut. These four,
Francis Senior and Junior, with Edgar and his mother, constituted the
family.
A descendant of a line of illustrious Dutch admirals, Eliza Evertson, after
two rather unhappy love affairs, married Francis Saltus. She had passed her
first youth. Brave she must have been, to risk her happiness with a
brilliantly eccentric husband, and take upon herself the upbringing of his
even more erratic son.
Until Edgar was seven the experiment was fairly successful. Eliza Saltus,
witty, quick at repartee, and interestingly sarcastic, took her place in
the "family party" which constituted the social set in those days. New York
was a small place. Everybody who was anybody, knew everybody else.
Tall, fair, and distinguished looking, wearing his honors and decorations
as lightly as a boutonniere, Francis Saltus was a splendid foil for the
brunette beauty and vivacious spirits of his wife. During these early years
together they traveled a great deal, and the problem of peace did not
present itself. Eliza Evertson was a person not easily submerged. In a
large home in West Seventeenth Street, none too cheerful at best, filled
with massive Italian furniture of carved olive wood, these four struggled
for a time to keep together and form a family.
Of those early years Mr. Saltus always told with sadness--how his mother
fought against the influence of Frank, who, even at pre-adolescence,
evinced many of the peculiarities and angles which developed rapidly with
the years.
Resentful over the father's preference for his first-born, the little Edgar
became the idol of his mother's heart, giving to her his deepest affection
in return. Francis Saltus' pride in the elder son outweighing every other
sentiment, he could see no fault in him, in spite of his habit of getting
up when he pleased, eating at odd times, composing on the piano at two a.
m., or bringing all kinds of queer people to the house at any hour of the
day or night.
Whether or not the stepmother exercised the tact which would have oiled the
machinery of things, one cannot know. Good mothers are seldom
philosophers. The fact that Frank was over-indulged and given plenty of
money by an adoring father, who scarcely noticed her own small son, must
have hurt her independence and pride. That she could see only his faults,
and nothing of his genius, cemented the bond between the father and Frank
as nothing else could have done. Blond, handsome, debonair, Frank Saltus
charmed as he breathed. Only his stepmother was impervious to his
fascinations.
The little Edgar combined the Greek features of his father and half-brother
with the dark eyes and olive coloring of his mother. High-strung, timid,
and so nervous that a slight hesitancy marred his speech at times, the
child lived in fear of offending his father by a refusal to repeat his
mother's warnings against Frank, and the fear of enraging his mother by his
unwillingness to repeat his father's comments.
[Illustration: EDGAR SALTUS
At Two Years of Age, sitting on the Lap of His Mother
ELIZA EVERTSON SALTUS]
The battle-ground of a ceaseless conflict between his parents, the boy
developed a quality negative in one sense, dangerous in another. He was
afraid to repeat anything of a disagreeable nature or admit an unpleasant
truth. Forced to the wall he avoided truth,--made a jest of it if he could,
or, as a last resource, denied it pointblank. It is the fear of danger and
discord and the hanging back from it that injures. On the firing-line death
may be in waiting, but fear has fled.
To get the right slant on Edgar Saltus' life as a whole, this early
training--or lack of it--must be taken into consideration. This almost
physical disability to tell the truth, if that truth were disagreeable, was
equaled by his inability to bear pain. At any excess of it he fainted. It
followed him throughout life. Rarely did he get into a dentist's chair
without fainting.
With so many charming and endearing qualities, an understanding needing no
words, a tenderness greater by far than that possessed by most women, one
can but speculate as to what a rare and radiant being he would have been
minus the handicap concerning truth, which, with all its ramifications,
penetrated and disintegrated much of his life and the lives closest to
him.
Unable to make a go of it as a family, divorce in those days being looked
upon as disgraceful, Francis Saltus took his first-born abroad, while Edgar
was sent to St. Paul's School at Concord, New Hampshire. Never again did
they attempt to live as a family. During vacations young Edgar went to his
mother. An occasional call on his father was all that was required of him.
According to his own account he was always at the foot of his class and not
popular. Uninterested in sports, abhorring all forms of "get together"
societies, living very much in a world of his own imagining, he was as
inconspicuous as he was unhappy. Slightly undersized, slim, straight, and
well-proportioned, with his clear-cut features, dark oriental eyes, and
olive skin, he looked and felt out of place in a western world,--as perhaps
he was.
[Illustration: EDGAR SALTUS
Sixteen Years of Age]
Girls took to him on sight, wrote to him, sent him locks of their hair, and
suggested meeting him. His first flirtation was with a girl from New Haven.
That her name was Nellie was all he remembered of the episode.
During the summer vacations he had a succession of flirtations. A dip into
them would be like turning a page of "Who Was Who" a generation ago. One
irate father, thinking he had called too often upon his young daughter, put
it to him straight.
"Young man, you have made yourself very much at home in this house. What
are your intentions?"
"To leave," he replied quickly, as he made for the door.
Another occasion was more complicated. This time it was the girl herself, a
girl he had vowed to work and wait for forever if necessary. Suggesting
that they omit the waiting and do the working upon their respective
parents, the girl persuaded him to elope, very much against his will. It
was the last thing he wanted. To love and run was far more to his fancy.
Letting drop the fact of what they contemplated where it would percolate
quickly, he drove off with the bride-to-be in a dog-cart.
During this drive his wits got to working. At one parsonage after another
they stopped, young Edgar getting out and inquiring at the door, only to
drive on again. After an hour or so the girl's father overtook them. The
elopement was off; the would-be bride in tears. Instead of inquiring for a
clergyman to marry them, he had very politely inquired the way to the next
village.
A danger escaped is always a ready theme for conversation, and it amused
him more than a little to tell of this episode with the comment:
"No woman could drag me to the altar, I could slide like water through a
crack and vanish."
So he could. A more ingenious man at evading anything he disliked never
existed. While agreeing with every appearance of delight, he was concocting
a clever escape. He always managed to slip through, as he said.
Of his father and brother he saw but little during these years. The latter
had to his credit a volume of verse, "Honey and Gall," and half a dozen
operas, one of which he had conducted himself.
On the table near my hand is a copy of "Honey and Gall," an original, bound
in green. On the fly-leaf in Frank's characteristic hand is written:
EDGAR E. SALTUS
With the love and good wishes of his most affectionate
brother,
F. S. SALTUS.
No resentment there. A spirit of love, tolerance, and interest is exhaled.
In the book are many marginal notes in the same handwriting. Changes,
interpolations, and corrections emphasise the beauty of the lines. The pity
of it is that they were put there too late, but the soul of the author
stares one in the face. Between the pages pressed flowers rest, souvenirs
of shadow or sunshine. During the years the paper has not only become
discolored but has reproduced the outline of the blossoms. The book is
like a living thing, so close does it bring the author. Emanations of his
personality rise from the pages like perfume, compelling the sympathy and
understanding he needed so uniquely.
One poem especially--"Pantheism"--tears the veil from his Greek features,
revealing an Oriental in masquerade. Neither pagan nor Christian in the
accepted sense, the musk-scented mysticism of eastern philosophy rises from
it like incense. Out of place in the conventional environment of New
York,--subconscious memory rising to the surface of his waking
consciousness, he writes of other lives and loves, and anterior
experiences,--putting his deepest and most profound beliefs into words. No
other poem in the book strikes the same chord, or has as many marginal
notes by the author.
Too handsome, too much sought after by women, too well supplied with money
to have an incentive to work, he sank into something of a psychic stupor.
He knew nothing of the feminine as revealed by mother, sister or wife. To
him, alone and misunderstood, Silence offered her arm. Silence is a dynamic
force but it offers peace. One can but hope that he was given his full
share.
Brilliant, handsome, with a manner irresistible to women, Frank Saltus was
reaching the high noon of his life. So facile was his pen, so limitless the
scope of his erratic genius, that young Edgar sank into the shadow of him.
Tragically pathetic is the fact, that, despite the superabundance of his
gifts, he failed to bring any one of them to the perfection that could have
made him immortal. There may have been philosophy even in this.
Among the other poems in the volume is one to his most intimate
friend,--Edgar Fawcett. This friendship not only lasted his lifetime, but
was stretched to include the younger Edgar, whose close association with
the poet continued until the latter's death.
In spite of their real admiration and regard for Fawcett, both Edgar and
Frank Saltus enjoyed teasing and tormenting him enormously. His vulnerable
places were so much exposed. Though timid with women, nevertheless he
fancied they were in love with him. With inimitable skill, Frank Saltus
composed letters purporting to come from passionate young heiresses who
were in love with him. One especially wrote frequently and at length.
Fawcett not only answered them, but, rushing to his rooms, read them aloud
to Frank. More letters followed.
"What am I to do," he asked, "when women persecute me like this? Even you
have not received such letters as mine."
The brothers agreed with him. While pretending to be annoyed by them
Fawcett was really living in rapture. Nothing like it had brushed against
his life before. As fast as the letters were sent out, did Fawcett come in
to read them to their creator. It began to pall. One could not keep on
writing them indefinitely. Something had to be done. The heiress who could
not live without him threw out vague hints of suicide. Hectic and
harrowed, Fawcett came to Frank's rooms and burst into tears. After that
the letters ceased. Fawcett could not be comforted. Some helpless and
beautiful being had died for love of him. This incident became the episode
of his life, and he passed over without knowing the truth.
According to Mr. Saltus, there was something charming and childlike about
Edgar Fawcett. A rejected manuscript sent him into hysterics. He kept an
account book, alphabetically arranged. If you offended him, a black mark
went against your name. If you pleased him, a mark of merit was
substituted.
From an old note-book of Mr. Saltus is copied the following: "Edgar Fawcett
has to pay higher wages to his valet than anyone else, because he reads his
poems to him." In another place is written: "Idleness is necessary to the
artist. It is the quality in which he shines the best. Be idle, Fawcett.
Let others toil. Be idle and give us a rest."
None the less the brothers had an affectionate admiration for him. Edgar
Saltus dedicated "Love and Lore"
To
Edgar Fawcett.
Perfect poet, ... perfect friend.