“See here, my child! I don’t presume to interfere with Salathiel, or
by what other name your friend may choose to call himself, and there
are all manner of tricks in the trade editorial, but this is going a
little too far. He sha’n’t marry you off, without your consent—and to a
Democrat!”
I had the same idea, and hearing directly from Mr. Redpath soon
afterward, I said as much, as kindly as I could. The remonstrance
elicited a gentlemanly rejoinder. While the style of the “report” was
“mere newspaper lingo,” he claimed that the framework was built by an
_attaché_ of the Philadelphia daily, whom he (Redpath) had commissioned
to glean all he could of my appearance, etc., during a flying trip to
Richmond. The young fellow had written the article and sent it to press
without submitting it to Salathiel. The like should not occur again. In
my answer to the apology, I expressed my profound sense of gratitude
to my advocate, and confessed my inability to divine the motive power
of benefactions so numerous and unsolicited. His reply deepened the
mystery:
“Your book held me back from infidelity. Chapter Sixteenth saved my
life. Now that you know thus much, we will, if you please, have no more
talk on your part of gratitude.”
Five years elapsed between the receipt of that first note signed “James
Redpath,” and the explanation of what followed. I may relate here, in a
few sentences, what he wrote to me at length, and what was published in
an appreciative biographical sketch written by a personal friend after
his death.
He was born in Scotland; emigrated in early manhood to America, and
took up journalistic work. Although successful for a while, a series
of misfortunes made of him a misanthropic wanderer. His brilliant
talents and experience found work and friends wherever he went, and he
remained nowhere long. Disappointed in certain enterprises upon which
he had fixed his mind and expended his best energies, he found himself
in Richmond, with but one purpose in his soul. He would be lost to all
who knew him, and leave no trace of the failure he believed himself to
be. He put a pistol in his pocket and set out for Hollywood Cemetery.
There were sequestered glens there, then, and lonely thickets into
which a world-beaten man could crawl to die. On the way up-town, he
stopped at the book-store and fell into talk with the proprietor, who,
on learning the stranger’s profession, handed him the lately-published
novel. Arrived at the cemetery, Redpath was disappointed to see the
roads and paths gay with carriages, pedestrians, and riding-parties. He
would wait until twilight sent them back to town. He lay down upon the
turf on a knoll commanding a view of the beautiful city and the river,
took out his book and began reading to while away the hours that would
bring quiet and solitude. The sun was high, still. He had the editorial
knack of rapid reading. The dew was beginning to fall as he finished
the narrative of the interrupted duel in the sixteenth chapter.
I believed then, and I am yet more sure, now, that other influences
than the crude story told by one whose experience of life was that of a
child by comparison with his, wrought upon the lonely exile during the
still hours of that perfect autumnal day. It suited his whim to think
that the book turned his thoughts from his design of self-destruction.
Before he slept that night he registered a vow—thus he phrased it in
his explanatory letter—to write and publish one thousand notices of the
book that had saved his life.
When the vow was fulfilled—and not until then—did I get the key to
conduct that had puzzled me, and baffled the conjectures of the few
friends to whom I had told the tale.
I met James Redpath, face to face, but once, and that was—if my memory
serves me aright—in 1874. He was in Newark, New Jersey, in the capacity
of adviser-in-chief, or backer, of a friend who brought a party of
Indians from the West on a peaceful mission to Washington and some of
the principal cities, in the hope of exciting philanthropic interest in
their advancement in civilization.
“He is as enthusiastic in faith in the future of the redman as I was
once in the belief that the negro would arise to higher levels,”
remarked Salathiel, with a smile that ended in a sigh. “Heigho! youth
is prone to ideals as the sparks to fly upward.”
Learning that I was in the opera-house where the “show” was held, he
had invited me into his private stage-box, and there, out of sight of
the audience, and indifferent to the speech-making and singing going
on, on the stage, we talked for an hour with the cordial ease of old
friends. My erst knight-errant was a well-mannered gentleman, still
in the prime of manhood, with never a sign of the eccentric “stray”
in feature, deportment, or the agreeable modulations of his voice. He
told me of his wife. He had written to me of his marriage some years
before. She was his balance-wheel, he said. I recollect that he likened
her to Madam Guyon. At the close of the entertainment, we shook hands
cordially and exchanged expressions of mutual regard. We never met
again.
How much or how little I was indebted to him for the success of
my first book, I am unable to determine. I shall ever cherish the
recollection of his generous spirit and steadfast adherence to his vow
of service, as one of the most interesting and gratifying episodes of
my authorly career.