independent of its more fashionable neighbor, with a post-office and a
few little shops of its own. Keeping to the lane, at about an English
mile from Sorrento, a quaint old Capuchin monastery is reached on
the left, with a small church and a rambling almshouse just showing
above a high white-washed wall, which runs on to a gateway of gray
stone over which ivy hangs in masses, while on each side the name
of the place, “Villa Crawford,” is carved in plain block letters.
The heavy dark-green doors of the gate stand hospitably open, and
show the straight, narrow drive, bordered with roses, geraniums, and
jasmine, and leading down to a square garden-court, not large but full
of flowers and crooked old olive trees, over which wistaria has been
trained from one to the other, so that in spring they are a mass of
delicate bloom and fragrance. The house is very simple, built of rough
stone partly stuccoed, as usual in that part of Italy, and irregular in
shape because it has been added to from time to time. When Mr. Crawford
took it for a season, soon after his marriage to a daughter of General
Berdan, it was in such a very tumble-down condition that when the
fierce winter gales swept over snow-clad Vesuvius from the northeast,
the teeth of every lock chattered and the carpets rose in billows
along the tiled floors. But the site is one of the most beautiful on
the whole bay, for the house stands on the edge of a cliff which falls
abruptly nearly two hundred feet to the water, and since Mr. Crawford
bought it he has strengthened it with a solid tower which can be seen
for some distance out at sea.
The front door opens directly upon a simple hall where there are
plants in tubs, and a tall old monastery clock stands near the door
leading to the stone staircase. The long drawing-room opens upon a
tiled terrace, and is almost always full of sunshine, the scent of
flowers, and the voices of children. It cannot be said to be furnished
in the modern style, but it contains many objects which could only
have been collected by people having both taste and opportunity. When
in Constantinople, many years ago, Mr. Crawford was so fortunate as to
find an unusually large quantity of the beautiful Rhodes embroidery
formerly worked by the women of the Greek islands for the Knights
of Malta, of which none has been made for over a hundred years. The
pattern always consists of Maltese crosses, in every possible variety
of design, embroidered in dark-red silk on a coarse linen ground which
is entirely covered. Draped here and there the effect is exceedingly
rich and soft, as well as striking, and some fine old Persian armor
over the doors tells of a visit which the author and his wife made to
the Caucasus during one of his rare holidays. A magnificent portrait of
Mrs. Crawford by Lenbach, a gift from the artist to her husband, was
painted during a winter spent at Munich; and on the opposite wall hangs
a brilliant water-color drawing of a Moorish warrior, by Villegas,
presented by him to Mrs. Crawford after a visit to his studio in Rome.
On a table placed against the back of an upright piano, among a number
of more or less curious and valuable objects, lies the large gold medal
of the Prix Monbinne, the only prize ever given by the French Academy
to foreign men-of-letters, which was awarded to Mr. Crawford for the
French editions of “Zoroaster” and “Marzio’s Crucifix.”
A door leads from one end of the drawing-room into the library, a high
square room completely lined with old carved bookcases of black walnut,
built more than two hundred years ago for Cardinal Altieri before he
became Pope Clement the Tenth, and of which the wanderings, down to
their final sale, would be an interesting bit of Roman social history.
The library is not a workroom, but the place where the author’s books
are kept in careful order, those he needs at any time being carried
up to his study and brought down again when no longer wanted. There
are about five thousand volumes, very largely books of reference and
classics, partly collected by the author himself, and in part inherited
from his uncle, the late Samuel Ward, and his father-in-law, General
Berdan. The room is so full that one large bookcase has been placed
in the middle, so that both sides of it are used. Besides the books
the library contains only a writing-table, three or four chairs, and a
bronze bust of Mr. Ward.
But it is hard to think of these rooms without their inmates--the
father, who is at his best, as he certainly is at his happiest, in his
own house, the beautiful and gracious mother, and the four strikingly
handsome children, with their healthy simplicity and unconsciousness
which speak of that ideal home life which is the author’s highest
fortune. The eldest child is a girl of twelve, “as fair as wheat,”
with thoughtful eyes; next comes a boy two years younger, much darker
in coloring, and with a face already full of expression; and last a
pair of twins of eight, a boy and a girl--she with a nimbus of curly
golden hair that makes her look like a saint by Fra Angelico, and he
a singularly grave and sturdy little fellow, whose present energies
are bent on being a sailor-man--a disposition which he gains fairly,
for Mr. Crawford’s friends know that if he might have consulted only
the natural bent of his mind, he would have followed the sea as his
profession. From early boyhood he has passed the happiest hours of his
leisure on board a boat, and he is as proficient in the management of
the picturesque but dangerous felluca as any native skipper along the
coast.
When he bought an old New York pilot-boat, in 1896, he was admitted
to the examination of the Association of American Ship-masters
in consideration of his long experience, and he holds a proper
ship-master’s certificate authorizing him to navigate sailing-vessels
on the high seas. He proved his ability by navigating his little
schooner across the Atlantic with entire success, and without the
slightest assistance from the mate he took with him. This episode in
a life which has had more variety than falls to the lot of most men
shows clearly the predominant trait of Marion Crawford’s character,
which is determination to follow out anything he undertakes until he
knows how it should be done, even if he has not the time to work at it
much afterward. Readers of “Casa Braccio” may have noticed that the old
cobbler who is Paul Griggs’s friend is described with touches which
show acquaintance with his trade, the fact being that while the author
was preparing for college in the English village which he describes
later in “A Tale of a Lonely Parish,” he made a pair of shoes “to see
how it was done,” as he also joined the local bell-ringers to become
familiar with the somewhat complicated system of peals and chimes. Mere
curiosity is like the clutch of a child’s hand, which usually means
nothing, and may break what it seizes, but the insatiable thirst for
knowledge of all kinds is entirely different, and has always formed
part of the true artistic temperament.
The description of silver chiselling in “Marzio’s Crucifix” is the
result of actual experience, for Mr. Crawford once studied this branch
of art, and produced several objects of considerable promise. In
rebuilding and adding to his house he has never employed an architect,
for he is a good practical builder and stone-mason, as well as a
creditable mathematician, and his foreman in all such work is a clever
laborer who can neither read nor write. Like many left-handed men, he
is skilful in the use of tools, and his mechanical capacity was tested
recently when, having taken out a complete system of American plumbing,
including a kitchen boiler, he could find no workmen who understood
such appliances, and so put them all in himself, with the help of two
or three plumbers whose knowledge did not extend beyond soldering
a joint. When the job was done everything worked perfectly, to his
justifiable satisfaction. As he is a very fair classical scholar and
an excellent linguist, he could easily support himself as a tutor if
it were necessary, or he might even attain to the awful dignity of a
high-class courier.
His study or workroom at Villa Crawford is on the top of the house,
by the tower, and opens upon a flat roof, after the Italian fashion.
There are windows on three sides, as it is often important to be able
to shut out the sun without losing too much light; the walls are simply
white-washed, and the floor is of green and white tiles. In the middle
there is a very large table, with a shelf at the back on which stand
in a row a number of engravings and etchings, most of which were given
him by his wife, prominent among them being “The Knight, Death, and the
Devil,” by Dürer, mentioned in the beginning of “A Rose of Yesterday.”
A small revolving bookcase full of books of reference has its place
close to his hand, and his writing chair is of the most ordinary
American pattern. The large plain brick fireplace projects into the
room, and on the broad mantel-shelf stands a replica of his father
Thomas Crawford’s Peri, a winged figure, fully draped, gazing sadly
toward the forfeited paradise. On one wall hangs an engraving by Van
Dalen after a portrait of Giorgione by Titian, of which the original
has been destroyed, and on another a large photograph of Giorgione’s
Knight of Malta, and small ones of his pilot-schooner as she looked
when he crossed the ocean in her, and as she appears now, transformed
into the yacht Alda, and refitted so that his wife and children may
accompany him on the cruises which form his usual vacations. The
effect of the room as a whole is severe and simple, but the view from
its windows is most beautiful and varied. To the south lie olive-clad
hills, with white houses dotted here and there among orange-groves, and
with the craggy mass of Monte Sant’ Angelo, rising higher than Vesuvius
itself, for a background; westward one looks over Sant’ Agnello and the
neighboring townships, and to the northeast, across the shining bay,
the curved white line of Naples stretches far along the shore, while
Vesuvius broods fatefully over the villages at its feet.
Mr. Crawford is an early riser, being usually at his writing-table
between six and seven o’clock. If it is winter he lights his own fire,
and in any season begins the day, like most people who have lived much
in southern countries, with a small cup of black coffee and a pipe.
About nine o’clock he goes down-stairs to spend an hour with his wife
and children, and then returns to his study and works uninterruptedly
until luncheon, which in summer is an early dinner. In warm weather the
household goes to sleep immediately after this meal, to re-assemble
toward five o’clock; but the author often works straight through this
time, always, however, giving the late afternoon and evening to his
family. The common impression that the south of Italy is unbearably hot
in summer is due to the fact that the guide-books in general use are
written by Germans or Englishmen, whose blood boils at what seems to
us a very tolerable temperature. Inland cities like Milan and Florence
often suffer from oppressive heat, but records show that neither at
Naples nor at Palermo does the thermometer mark so high as in New York,
and at Sorrento it rarely goes above 84°. On Sundays, after early
church, parents and children go off in a boat to some one of the many
lovely spots which are to be found among the rocks along the shore,
taking with them fire-wood, a kettle, and all that is necessary for a
“macaronata,” or macaroni picnic. The sailors do the cooking, while
the children look on or go in swimming with their father, and when the
simple feast is over the rest of the afternoon is spent in sailing over
the bay, perhaps as far as Capri if the breeze holds.
While every one acknowledges Marion Crawford’s talent as a
story-teller, he is sometimes reproached with inventing impossible
situations, or at least straining probability, which is only another
illustration of the old saying about fact and fiction, for in each of
the cases usually referred to he has set down what actually happened.
The triple tragedy in “Greifenstein” was a terrible fact in a noble
German family before the middle of the present century, and the son
of the house, the last of his race, entered the Church and died a
Cardinal. In “Casa Braccio,” the elopement of the nun and the burning
of the substituted body took place in South America exactly as
described, and the story was told to the author by a person who had
met the real Gloria. The incident of Don Teodoro in “Taquisara,” who,
although not ordained, acted as a priest for many years, occurred in
the neighborhood of Rome, and there have been two well-known cases in
which priests kept the secret of the confessional as Don Ippolito does
in “Corleone,” but with the difference that they were both convicted
of crimes which they had not committed, one being sent to the mines of
Siberia, the other to a French penal colony.
The impression, quite generally entertained, that Mr. Crawford throws
off one book after another as fast as he can write them down, is based
upon a misapprehension of his method of working. For months, or even
for several years, a subject is constantly in his mind, and he spares
no study to improve his rendering of it. Travellers in Arabia, for
instance, have commended the “local color” of his “Khaled,” which,
however, is quite as much due to patient reading as to imagination,
for he has never been there. The actual writing of his stories is done
quickly, partly because few authors have had such large experience of
all the mechanical work connected with literature. From early manhood
he has been entirely dependent on his own resources, and during his
two years’ editorship of an Indian newspaper he practically wrote it
all every day, correcting the proof into the bargain. After his return
to America, and before writing “Mr. Isaacs,” he supported himself by
any literary work that he could get, during which time, by the way, he
was a frequent contributor to _The Critic_. The man so often called “a
born story-teller” is also a careful student, especially reverent of
the precious inheritance of our language, and some of his works are
now used as class-books for the study of modern English literature
throughout this country, a fact which may easily escape the knowledge
of the novel-reading public which owes him so much pleasure.
Mr. Crawford has made a success at play-writing as well as at novel
writing. His “In the Palace of the King,” which has been played so
successfully by Miss Viola Allen, was a play before he turned it into
a novel, and he has recently written a drama founded on a new version
of the story of Francesca and Paola, which Madame Sarah Bernhardt has
produced with great success.
WILLIAM BOND.
[Illustration]
PAUL LEICESTER FORD
PAUL LEICESTER FORD
THE MAN OF AFFAIRS AND THE MAN OF LETTERS
Long-suffering prominence, among its numerous woes, has at times to
subject itself to snap-shot portraiture; but occasionally a friendly
and amateurish zeal, seeking honest results, brings the person of
note to the advantage of a long exposure, and then perchance educes
finenesses and personalities neglected by the swifter method. I should
like, if I may, to use the slower and truer means in a sketch of Mr.
Paul Leicester Ford, who has of late, by reason of an unquestioned
reputation, been compelled to stand from behind the vanguard of his
books and show himself as a notability. In contrast therefore to
various pen views which have presented Mr. Ford as all sorts and
conditions of a man, it ought to be possible for a friendly candor
to delineate his life and purposes without passing just limitations.
Paraphrasing his own playfully bold title, I seek to portray “The True
Mr. Ford,” entertaining the while that proportionate sense of demerit
which I am sure restrained him as he limned the outlines of Washington.
The accrediting of unusual ability to heredity and environment alone
fails to satisfy; for what we most wish to understand is the actual
and not the probable resultant. Nevertheless it will never do to
omit from the reckoning Mr. Ford’s innate tendencies and the slowly
formed impulses made upon him and upon his equally remarkable brother,
Worthington Chauncey Ford, by their father’s superb library, of which
in a manner, but in a different degree, each is the incarnation.
Puritan stock, absolutely pure, except where there is a crossing of the
Huguenot on the paternal side--there is no choicer graft than that--a
temperament stimulated by the nervous excitations of the cosmopolitan
life of New York, and a scholarship sound yet unacademic and not held
by the leash of college traditions--these, as I see them, are the
factors, any of which taken from him would have made Mr. Ford quite
other than he is. Yet the aggregate of such components most assuredly
does not constitute his genius; for genius as distinguished from marked
ability he undoubtedly possesses. It has before now been told that on
his mother’s side he is the grandson of Professor Fowler of Amherst,
the great-grandson of Noah Webster, and the grandson four times removed
of President Charles Chauncey of Harvard College, and of Governor
Bradford; and from this last worthy ancestor he comes honestly by his
fondness for a manuscript. This is good blood to run through one’s
veins, even in a remote generation. There is an added vigor from his
mother, who, early expanded under favoring influences, had the native
mental strength and moral sureness of a cultivated New England woman.
His father, the late Gordon L. Ford, though known and honored as a
successful lawyer and man of affairs, was, to those who had the closer
knowledge of him, an idealist of the type which does not readily pursue
other than the highest ends, and which cannot throw open the reserves
of its nature.
There is then in his make-up a curious balance of conservative
tendencies and a due share of remonstrance and even of headlong
radicalism. To a superb mental equipment is to be added a physical
constitution strong enough to have pulled him through an infancy and
childhood full of peril and no doubt of suffering, and to have landed
him in manhood’s estate with a vivacious and courageous disposition,
a master of his fate. He is also endowed with an almost superhuman
capacity for work. It may be that, conscious of hidden frailties of
tenure, the impulse is within him to burn his candle of life fiercely;
but I am disposed the rather to think that in his case this use of
energy is mainly a question of superior “horse power”--he is able to
work more than most of us, and therefore he does. But great capacity
does not always so express itself; and it would be unjust, unless
one chose to regard Mr. Ford as precocious in youth and phenomenal at
all times, not to recognize that the fate which distributes gifts to
mortals gave him Opportunity. Free, if he so wished, to follow his own
devices and to take the joys of life without undue exertion, he was
wise enough, at an age when most youth sows an unprofitable crop on
stony ground, to plant in the fertile furrows which a farseeing father
had sedulously made ready for him. As for education and the discipline
of school life, so wholesome for the most of us, there was for him
literally none of it. His nursery, his primary school, and his college
all may be found within the four walls of his father’s library. The
books held within the quiet residence in Clark Street, Brooklyn, must
now be nearer 100,000 than 50,000 in number. They fill all parts of
the large house fashioned in the manner of fifty years ago, but their
headquarters are in the library proper, a room at the rear, over fifty
feet square, and reached from the main floor by a short flight of
steps. This room is well but not glaringly lighted by a lantern at the
top, while the sides, with the exception of a few small windows of no
great utility owing to the tallness of surrounding buildings, are fully
taken up with books to the height of eight feet. The floor is covered
in part by large rugs; the walls and ceilings are of serious tint; a
fireplace is opposite the entrance; while sofas of most dissimilar
pattern and meant seemingly to hold any burden but a human one, are
placed “disposedly” about; chairs, easy but not seductive, are in
plenty, but like the sofas give notice that here is a government not of
men but of books--here there is no library built for the lust of the
flesh and pride of the eye, but for books and for those who use them. I
cannot suppose that those smitten of bibliophily would thrill over the
Ford library, since it exists for the practical and virile, although it
is, in parts, exceedingly choice. Roughly classified to suit the easy
memories of the owners, it presents an appearance urbane and unprecise
rather than military and commanding. At irregular intervals loom huge
masses of books, pamphlets, papers, proof-sheets, and engravings in
cataclysmic disorder and apparently suspended in mid-air like the
coffin of the False Prophet, but in fact resting on tables well hidden
by the superincumbent piles. In this room the father slowly accumulated
this priceless treasure mostly illustrative of American history and
its adjuncts, thereby gratifying his own accurate tastes and hoping,
as we may suppose, that his children would ultimately profit by
his foresight. Nor was he disappointed; for the two brothers, Paul
and Worthington, drew their milk, historically speaking, from this
exhaustless fount, and it is thus impossible to disconnect the labors
and successes of these two unusual men from their association with
this library. Not in books alone, but in many choice autograph letters,
rare portraits and plates, and much unpublished material consists the
value of the collection.
One who did not know Mr. Ford, on entering the room and beholding for
the first time the Sierras of books, fronted by foot-hills and drumlins
of unfinished work, sale catalogues, letters, and other detritus, might
well suppose him to be the most careless of mortals. This would be to
misjudge; for though no one else could fathom his methods, Mr. Ford
turns readily to what he wants, and given the right haystack, finds his
needle with astonishing ease. Like many another man of ability, he does
not enslave himself to organization, but uses method only in proportion
to direct needs.
The secret of his astonishing capacity for work and production is not
far to seek. He is by nature and by predilection a man of affairs and
of business. The accident of life has directed his energies toward
books and letters. But he is not a literary man in the sense that
he is to be identified with a class, for in the best sense he is
_déclassé_. So far as there may be genius burning within him, it must
express itself during moments of inspiration; but the between-times are
not spent in dreams or vain imaginings, but in an almost relentless
absorption in some historical or editorial task, requiring fidelity and
energy rather than fitful moods.