Thomas Nelson Page first came into national prominence seventeen years
ago through the publication by _The Century Magazine_ of the short
story called "Marse Chan." He received eighty dollars for the story.
A few years ago, in conversation with Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, the
author related the incidents which led to the writing of "Marse Chan."
At the bottom was a letter which a friend had shown him. "This letter,"
said Mr. Page, "was from an illiterate girl in Georgia to her soldier
sweetheart. The letter was poorly written and poorly spelled, but full
of pathos. The girl had, it seems, trifled with the man, but after
he had left for the war she had realized her great love for him and
written to him. She wrote: 'I know I have treated you mean. I ain't
never done right with you all the time. When you asked me to marry you,
I laughed, and said I wouldn't have you, and it makes me cry to think
you are gone away to the war. Now, I want you to know that I love you,
and I want you to git a furlow and come home and I'll marry you.' With
a few words of affection the letter closed, but a postscript was added:
'Don't come home without a furlow, for unless you come home honorable
I won't marry you.' This letter was received by the soldier only a
few days before the battle of Seven Pines, and after he was shot it
was found in his breast pocket, just over his heart. The pathos of it
struck me so forcibly that out of it came the story of 'Marse Chan.'"
Thomas Nelson Page was thirty-one when "Marse Chan" appeared, and
at that time his shingle was new outside his office in Richmond. Mr.
Page was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on April 23, 1853, and is
consequently now in his forty-ninth year. A description of the house
in which he was born--Oakland, it was called--may be found in "Two
Little Confederates." On both sides he is a lineal descendant of Gen.
Thomas Nelson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
It has been said that there is scarcely an old family in all Virginia
to which the author is not related in some degree. One of his cousins
is the Princess Troubetskoy, Amélie Rives before her marriage, whose
first husband was John Armstrong Chanler. At the time of the birth of
Thomas the Pages were comparatively wealthy, but later, during the war,
they lost most of their wealth. Thomas's first reading lessons, in
the Waverley novels, were given him by an aunt, who also taught him
to read the Episcopal prayer-book. His education was interrupted by
the outbreak of the war, for his father accepted a commission in the
Confederate army. Occasionally the boy visited his father in camp, when
the troops were on the road from Oakland to Richmond. Once he witnessed
a bombardment. Happily, he was old enough to appreciate the gossip of
the war which passed around the negro cabins.
Like all the slaveholders, the Pages were much reduced in riches when
the war ended, but, nevertheless, at the age of sixteen, Thomas was
sent to Washington and Lee University. Of his college days he once said:
"My standing was not high. I don't know that I had much ambition to be
one of the first honor men. At any rate, I got no medals of any kind. I
suppose I was a fair average student, but I hear that I devoted myself
more to outside reading than to my studies. I was a member of the
literary society, and for a time was the editor of the college paper.
Contrary to the usual custom, I wrote short articles instead of long
essays, and from this got the nick-name of 'The Short-Article Editor.'
I wrote, I suppose, much for the pleasure of seeing myself in print.
I was very bashful in those days, and I know that I trembled when I
first got up to speak in the literary society. I had a chum at college
who is now one of the most famous lawyers of the country. He excels as
a debater. He was also bashful, and during our college days he joined
with me in a method of improving our oratorical powers. We would get
together in a room, and, having closed the doors, would debate with
each other, upon some question. One would stand on one side of the
table and one on the other and we would declaim away, each having a
fifteen minutes' speech and a like time for answers. This practice
helped me materially in my work as a lawyer."
After his graduation from Washington and Lee University, Mr. Page
secured employment as a teacher in a private school in Kentucky, not
far from Louisville. There he taught for a year, and he says that he
enjoyed it very much. He kept his pen at work steadily. The influential
paper in the part of the country where he was teaching, was, of course,
_The Louisville Courier-Journal_. The young teacher was intensely
interested in Ik Marvel's books, and he wrote some essays in imitation
of Marvel and sent them to the _Courier-Journal_. They were rejected.
From what he has said since, their rejection was not a source of much
discouragement to him.
At the end of a year the rebuffed essayist returned to his home in
Virginia, and, soon after, deciding to study law, he entered the law
school of the University of Virginia. Greatly to his credit, he got
his degree in a year. Meantime, however, he kept up his interest in
literature. While at the University of Virginia he contributed to the
college paper. It was also his habit, while at home, to write stories
on slates for the entertainment of his friends, and erase the stories
after he had read them. At school, too, he began to write stories in
the negro dialect, and he continued this practice in his law office
in Richmond. At his office he wrote the first of his works accepted
by the magazines, a poem called "Unc' Gabe's White Folks," which was
published in _Scribner's_ in 1876. He received fifteen dollars for
it. He was very proud of that unpretentious check. Later he wrote
a historical article relating to the centennial celebration in old
Yorktown, and then he sent out his first story, "Marse Chan." It was
paid for promptly, but, like many another story sent to the magazines,
particularly stories from unknown authors, it remained unpublished for
several years. Finally, overcome by impatience, the author wrote to
ascertain what had become of it, and shortly afterward he received a
proof of it. With its publication in 1884 came instant popularity.
But at no time previous to his moving to Washington was literature
first in Page's mind. In the beginning, at Richmond, he wrote only at
night, when his day's work was done; and for a time he actually ceased
writing fiction entirely lest it might interfere with the practice of
his profession. For, as a matter of fact, he has been a very successful
lawyer. Six months after he had settled down in Richmond he was
able to support himself with his earnings at the bar, and during the
eighteen years which followed, that is, up to the time of his settling
down in Washington, his income was chiefly from law.
So, it was some time before "Marse Chan" was succeeded by "Meh Lady,"
"Unc' Edinburg's Drowndin'," "Polly" and "Ole 'Stracted." It was said
in those days that the stories were like variations on a single theme;
but we are inclined to agree with the critic who said: "For this we
feel no disposition to quarrel with Mr. Page, being eager to hear the
tale as often as he may find ways to tell it, and grateful to him for
such beautiful and faithful pictures of a society now become portion
and parcel of the irrevocable past." To Mr. Page and his equally
delightful contemporary, Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, the reading public
is indebted for no small number of the most charming features of
American literature.
It may please those who enjoy particulars to know that the popular
writer regards "Unc' Edinburgh Drowndin'," which was first to follow
"Marse Chan," as his best picture of Virginia life. Mr. Page, in
1886, married Miss Anne Seddon Bruce, the daughter of Charles Bruce
of Charlotte County, Virginia, largely for whose entertainment he had
written his early stories; and before the death of Mrs. Page in 1888
Mr. Page had written "Meh Lady" and had published "In Ole Virginia," a
collection of his works, all in dialect.
In those days, by the way, his work was often compared by the critics
with the work of Mr. Harris. Perhaps the fairest comparison was made by
Mr. Coleman, who admired the two authors quite equally.
"Mr. Page," said the critic, "enjoys the reputation of having written
the most exquisite story of the war that has yet appeared ("Marse
Chan"). In comparison with the works of Joel Chandler Harris, though
both authors deal with the negro, the one in no wise interferes with
the proper appreciation of the other. In Uncle Remus Mr. Harris has
given us the truer insight into the character of the type to which he
belongs, while the venerable family servant is somewhat idealized by
Mr. Page, and, moreover, is made to tell a story possessing a value and
interest of its own not entirely dependent upon the personality of the
narrator and his race peculiarities. In the matter of dialect, Mr. Page
has the advantage, though this may be due, in part, to the difference
between the Virginia negro and his brother of Georgia."
The Virginian has portrayed the sweeter side of the old slavery days,
in direct contrast to Mrs. Stowe's picture of the harsher side. In the
master he has delineated forbearance, confidence, protection; in the
slave, respect, devotion and fidelity. Without a scruple he has felt
constrained to make one of his characters say of the days before the
war: "Dem wuz good ole times, marster--de bes' Sam ever see! De wuz, in
fac'! Niggers did n' hed nothin' 't all to do--jes' hed to 'ten' to de
feedin' an' cleanin' de hosses, an' doin' what de marster tell 'em to
do; an' when dey wuz sick, dey had things sent 'em out de house, an' de
same doctor came to see 'em whar 'ten' to de white folks when dey wuz
po'ly. Dyah war n' no trouble nor nuthin."
A few years ago Mr. Page was asked if he wrote rapidly. "Yes and no,"
he replied. "I write the first draft as rapidly as I can and then go
over it very carefully in the revision. I try to simplify my writings
as much as possible. The more simple it is, I think, the better it is.
I find, however, that the revision often takes away the spirit from the
first draft. I lay away the manuscript, and looking at it several weeks
later, I can see that the first draft is truer to nature than the more
stilted revision. I think I do more careful work now than I have done
in the past. My ideal is far above anything I have ever done, and I
sometimes despair of approaching it. There is one thing I do, however,
which I think is a good plan for any writer. That is, I always give
the best I have in me to the story which I am writing. I do not save
anything which I think might perhaps be of use to me in the future. The
cream, if you could use that expression, always goes to the present."
In 1891 the author of "Marse Chan" left Richmond and went to New York
to succeed Charles Dudley Warner in the conduct of "The Drawer" in
_Harper's Monthly_, Mr. Warner succeeding Mr. Howells, who at that time
left _Harper's_ for the _Cosmopolitan_, in the conduct of "The Study."
That same year Mr. Page appeared as a public reader. Two years later
he married Mrs. Henry Field of Chicago, a granddaughter of Governor
Barbour of Virginia, and since then, for the most part, he has lived
and worked in Washington. By far his most ambitious work is "Red Rock,"
a novel which has done much to affect favorably the old attitude of the
North toward the South.
Not many of our writers rest their fame on fewer works.
[Illustration: RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.]