have heard from Flu, and she will have given you some notion of what our
life here is. I hope, however, to write once in every week to you. I
wrote last from New York, before my first lecture. I was badly heard,
and many people were much disappointed; but they remained to the end,
were perfectly civil and attentive, and applauded me when I had done. It
made me doubtful about going on with the lecturing, however, as I felt I
could not maintain a louder pitch of voice than I did in Chickering
Hall, where I lectured, and some of the American halls are much larger.
There is a good deal to be learned as to the management of the voice,
however, and I have set myself to learn it, though I am old to begin;
the kindness of the people here makes everything easier, as they are
determined to like one. The strength of the feeling about papa, here in
New England, especially, would gratify you; and they have been diligent
readers of my books for years. The number of people whom, somehow or
other, I reach here is what surprises me. Imagine General Grant calling
at the _Tribune_ office to thank them for their good report of the main
points of my lecture, as he had thought the line taken so very
important, but had heard imperfectly! Now I should not have suspected
Grant of either knowing or caring anything whatever about me and my
productions.
“Your ever affectionate
“M. A.”
* * * * *
[Illustration]
John Boyle O’Reilly, the poet, editor of the Boston
_Pilot_, the leading Roman Catholic newspaper of New
England, and the first weekly devoted to Catholic and
Irish interests ever published in this country, was at the time
of his death the most popular lecturer of his time with Catholic
societies. Boyle O’Reilly had passed an eventful life.
Very early in his young manhood
he became identified
with the Fenian Brotherhood,
under James Stevens, the
Irish leader who came so
nearly organizing a successful
rebellion against British rule
that it is a matter of record
that at one time there was a
Fenian Council organized in
nearly every regiment in the
British army that permitted
Irish recruits, as well as in a
large majority of all British
ships of war. O’Reilly entered
the Ninth Hussars in
order to learn military life
and skill. He became sergeant-major,
the highest warrant position obtainable in the
rank and file. He was so completely trusted that the Secret
Service detective kept on duty in the regiment made him his
confidant. The regiment was on duty at Dublin Castle when
James Stevens was captured and brought there a prisoner.
Besides the Ninth Hussars, there was also a Highland regiment
in the garrison. Stevens escaped, aided by the Fenians
under O’Reilly and his regimental associates. The young
sergeant held high command in the brotherhood. A great
commotion followed, and the Highlanders were put on guard
with orders to hold every Irishman within the bounds. Before
this was made public, O’Reilly attempted to leave, carrying
the despatch bag often entrusted to him. He was stopped
at the Castle gates, an act which was apologized for at the
time. Before night fell it was known that a Fenian Council
was in existence there. Its membership was almost defined,
but its leader’s name still remained a secret. An order for
summary execution of all was promulgated, martial law being
in force, unless this name was given. Boyle O’Reilly, to save
his associates from this fate, made the announcement himself.
His action being treasonable, the penalty was death, and Sergeant
O’Reilly was tried at once, found guilty, and condemned.
This sentence was commuted to penal transportation for life,
and the young soldier was sent to Western Australia, the last
of British convict settlements. He remained five years before
making his escape and reaching America in safety. The quality
of manhood that Boyle O’Reilly possessed was displayed
not only in the reckless courage and daring shown in the Fenian
incidents, and in the patient, manly endurance exhibited
in his years of prison servitude, but it reached a higher plane by
far when he settled down to the life of a freeman and citizen
in the metropolis of New England. With the maturity of his
intellectual life intensified and deepened by the strange experiences
through which he had passed, there came to him the
conviction that conspiracy was personally demoralizing as well
as futile as a policy. He felt that any genuine and sincere
agitation could be best achieved in a free community by close
adherence to the open ways that equal citizenship afforded.
He never assumed, then, any other rôle than that of an American,
while faithful always to the better interests of his own
people. Boyle O’Reilly easily became one of the most popular
men and scholars of Boston. He took an active part in
all public affairs, social and political, and soon became as “to
the manor born.” He was successful as a lecturer from the
outset, for he had the genius of the poet, and the wit and
warmth of an Irishman--qualities that, with a most attractive
presence, made him popular always. But he cared more for
his home, his newspaper, and his library than for the platform.
Nevertheless, he was able to do a good deal of lecturing,
where the distances would permit, without neglecting his
other duties.
John Boyle O’Reilly, an Irishman and a Catholic, has been
President of the Papyrus Club in Boston, a chair occupied by
Webster, Lowell, Emerson, Whittier, and Oliver Wendell
Holmes, and has a memorial niche in the new Public Library
of Boston, where is to be found the finest collection of Irish
literature in America. The accompanying picture he signed
for me only a short time before his death.
Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie, associate editor of _The
Outlook_, and author of several books that rank among
the finer literature of our land, is one of our very best public
speakers. He is one of the first called upon to deliver addresses
on nearly all of
the most important occasions,
and his literary
lectures are also in great
demand.
[Illustration]
If the mantle of Edward
Everett has fallen
upon any man of this
generation, that man is
Mr. Mabie. As an orator
he is popular in the
same sense that Mr
Everett was. He possesses
more humor than
Everett. But in his
self command, in his
reserve force, in the
purity of his language,
in his quiet intensity and refinement of appearance on the
platform, he belongs to the same school, and to-day heads it.
In dignity of bearing, in clearness of expression, in the finish
of his sentences, in the charm of his manner, Mr. Mabie is
a model for all public speakers.
Each season on the lecture platform has more firmly established
his position as one of the foremost essayists, critics, and
orators of this country. He has addressed and delighted the
most cultivated audiences wherever he has appeared, and recalls
have been numerous. His lectures have been received
with special favor before colleges, literary clubs, and wherever
substance and form of the very highest order are appreciated.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a favorite of the lyceum
for nearly forty years. He had finished his lecturing
career when I took up the business, but his memory was very
green to all lecture committees that thronged our office in
Boston year after year, and many urgent applications were
made for him to appear after
he had retired to his home
at Concord.
[Illustration]
One morning Mrs. Mary
A. Livermore came into our
office in Boston, somewhat
disturbed by the fact that
the newspapers that morning
had announced that the
publishers of the Boston
_Herald_ had obtained an option
on the Old South Meeting
House, and that it was
to be torn down, as the
society was going to build a
new church on the Back
Bay and were to sell the old
structure. At that time the
Redpath Lyceum Bureau was a sort of rendezvous for the
leading men and women of letters. Very soon Mrs. Julia
Ward Howe came in, accompanied by Father Neil, a patriarchal
minister of the Baptist profession, whose great white
beard hung down to the skirts of his garments. There was a
general feeling of indignation expressed by every one present
that this great pile was to be desecrated or demolished. Mr.
Redpath came in late, and about the first word he uttered was:
“Do you see the Old South Church is to go? It is sold to
the _Herald_ company.”
There was more indignation generally expressed, and Mr.
Redpath went out to see the parties and to ascertain if the
report was true. When he returned he reported that it was
a fact that the parties had the option for sixty days, but were
willing to release it if the citizens wished to preserve it.
Then and there was an organization formed or talked of for
the preservation of the church, and it was decided to get up
an entertainment.
Before the day was over some ladies came in and announced
to Mr. Redpath that they were going to make the attempt to
preserve the old pile, and thought of giving an entertainment
in the church as soon as possible in order to start a fund for
its preservation. What could the Redpath Bureau furnish
that would draw a crowd that would pay a good price? We
thought it all over, and it was decided to try Mr. Emerson, as
he had not lectured in Boston for a number of years.
It was my fortune to be sent to Concord, at Mr. Redpath’s
suggestion, to see if Mr. Emerson would come in and give us
a lecture. I went out and met the dear old man at the Manse
House. He greeted me very cordially and gladly accepted
the invitation to come in and lecture. The date was fixed; it
was advertised in the newspapers; tickets were put out at from
one to three dollars, and many of the Boston ladies sold them.
The afternoon for the lecture came. The Old South was filled
with as choice an audience of the blue blood of Boston as has
ever assembled in that old chapel. Mr. Emerson came in and
was introduced by Father Neil. As he began reading his lecture
the audience was very attentive. After a few moments
he lost his place, and his grand-daughter, sitting in the front
row of seats, gently stepped toward him and reminded him
that he was lecturing. He saw at once that he was wandering,
and with the most charming, characteristic, apologetic bow he
resumed his place--an incident that seemed to affect the audience
more than anything that could possibly have occurred.
A few moments later he took a piece of manuscript in his
hand, and turning around with it, laid it on a side table.
Just then one of the audience said to me (I think it was
Mrs. Livermore or Mrs. Howe), “Please have the audience
pass right out,” and rushing up to Mr. Emerson, said, “Thank
you so much for that delightful lecture,” then turning around,
waved the audience to go out.
He probably had been speaking about fifteen minutes. The
audience passed out, many of them in tears. It was one of
the most pathetic sights that I ever witnessed. It did not attract
very much attention just then, and I never read any
account of it in the newspapers. I suppose it was out of love
and veneration for the dear man that the incident did not
receive public mention, but there must be a great many still
alive who were witnesses of that memorable scene. It was
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s last public appearance.
[Illustration: WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS]
William Dean Howells, Mark Twain always insisted,
would be a success on the platform if he would
ever consent to go lecturing, and on that recommendation,
more than my love for his books, few of which I have ever
read, I have used my persuasive eloquence on him more than
on any other American author. I had other reasons for importuning
Mr. Howells. One was because so many applications
had come to me, year after year, from lyceums in all
parts of the country, urging me to secure him and expressing
wonder that he should refuse. Another was that every visit
to the popular novelist increased my faith in the ultimate success
of my object. He was always cordial and polite and
seemingly pleased that there was so much of a desire on the
part of the public to see and hear him, not knowing whether
he could entertain them or not. He always seemed to reason
very encouragingly from a business standpoint, going into details
of probable results from a tour of from fifty to one hundred
lectures, as compared with what he could earn by writing during
the same length of time. He would like to try it, but
there was the risk of health, and of giving up a certainty for
what seemed to him an uncertainty. He felt sure that he
could prepare a lecture that would please the people and give
much information concerning the mysteries of his craft that
he could not impart so well in any other way. He was more
or less pessimistic concerning himself.
Finally there was some prospective change at _Harper’s
Weekly_, to which he had regularly contributed so long, and to
my delight, in the spring of 1899, he informed me that he would
accept my offer, and that I might book fifty engagements for
him to lecture, not more than four times a week, and not to
go farther west than Kansas or Iowa. I think I never made
an announcement that gave me more real inward satisfaction,
for in all the years of my pursual of him I had come to learn
his painstaking habit of devotion to his work, and that whatever
he attempted would be sure of success.
When Mark Twain learned that Mr. Howells had at last
consented to undertake a lecture tour, he wrote me:
* * * * *
“I am glad you have corralled Howells. He’s a most sinful
man, and I always knew God would send him to the platform
if he didn’t behave.”
* * * * *
He went to his country place in Maine to prepare his lectures.
I received frequent letters from him telling me that
he was taking easily to the work, and that I might feel satisfied
that his lecture would meet the public approval. His
first lecture, “The Heroes and Heroines of Fiction,” was
given at my house.
His first public lecture was in Ypsilanti, Mich., for I had
planned to make the long rides and distant cities before cold
weather set in. Prevented by sickness from accompanying
him myself, I sent another gentleman with him in my stead,
and together they made a tour of the principal cities of the
middle West. The newspaper criticisms of Mr. Howells’ lectures
were fine, and everywhere that he went he found large and
enthusiastic audiences. He endeared himself to his hearers.
A gentleman in Des Moines, Ia., after Mr. Howells’ lecture
there, sat down and wrote me a letter, from which I quote:
* * * * *
“DEAR MR. POND:
“I am led to address you in this familiar way out of the enthusiastic
pleasure which I have enjoyed over the visit of Mr. Howells, and I have
thought it would be pleasing to you to know that his reception here was
enthusiastic and appreciative. It was my good fortune to have him, with
President McLean of the State University, and Major Byers of this city,
at a little one o’clock lunch at my home on Wednesday, 1st inst., and
his stay there will always be remembered by us as a delight. He is one
of the sweetest tempered and most lovable men that I have ever known.
The trait which, perhaps, first becomes noticeable when you have met him
is his absolute honesty and faithfulness to the truth, and he carried
out this principle in his lecture by making it not alone an effort to
please, but by giving us an hour of the most valuable instruction. It
is not necessary for me to enlarge upon the importance of this in a day
so prolific of novels, and when it is so important that our novel
reading should be well directed. Mr. Howells created a splendid
impression in Des Moines, and has left the literary life of our city
decidedly the better for his presence.”
* * * * *
The cordiality of the people he met throughout those middle Western
States was almost too much for Mr. Howells. He wrote me from Emporia,
Kansas:
* * * * *
“I had a great house--1,300 or 1,400--last night here, and only less
quick and keen than in Topeka, where it was perfect. But I cannot stand
the racket. I cannot sleep without drugs, and I will ask you not to make
any more dates for me after Hamilton, if you can get me there; for I
cannot promise to fill these; and I don’t want to disappoint people. It
is the _kindness_ (as I foresaw) that kills. I _cannot_ refuse people’s
hospitality, and it is simply disastrous.”
* * * * *
On his return to New York he brought up the subject again, by writing
me:
* * * * *
“The trouble with lecturing is the social side, which is essentially a
part of it, and a very pleasant part. If I could lecture every night
(which I cannot) and arrive every day too late for an afternoon
reception, and get away as soon as I read my paper, it would be fine,
but that is impossible.”
* * * * *
This tour, I believe, brought a great deal of pleasure and profit to the
novel-reading public (and whom does that term not include?) who had
their first opportunity to hear the greatest realist in American fiction
explain the technique of his profession. It seems, too, that some of the
experiences were an education to Mr. Howells, who wrote me:
* * * * *
“Grinnell was my first glimpse of the real West, and it is simply
stupendous. The beauty and richness of the country are marvellous.
Co-education is the true thing for the West. I have never met brighter
minds than among the women members of the faculty. What charming people,
all!”
* * * * *
But he got homesick for New York and his desk, and some weeks before the
tour was completed, he countermanded his request to make engagements
for him only every other day, and asked me to crowd in all the dates
possible in November, so as to let him off early in December.
Although in haste to escape from what he termed “the worst slavery I
ever imagined,” and to get back to his writing, he called a halt at
Hamilton, Ohio, the town of his early boyhood. How much human nature and
“boy” nature the following few words reveal:
* * * * *
“Hamilton is my ‘Boy’s Town’ and I wish to go there on almost any terms.
I could lecture there the night after Cincinnati, and I should like a
day off there afterward.”
* * * * *
He did stop off there, and preceding his regular lecture on “The Novel
and Novel Writing,” he delighted the people of Hamilton with some of his
autobiographical reminiscences. The town was proud of him, if one may
judge from the extended reports that appeared in the local papers.
I have since made several attempts to induce Mr. Howells to fill lecture
engagements and thus give pleasure to the many people who are constantly
applying to me for him, but his prejudice against the platform seems
adamantine. Here is a record of one such futile attempt:
* * * * *
(Dict.) “May 24, 1900.
“MY DEAR MR. HOWELLS:
“Will you go to Wilmington, Del., and lecture for $350? I should think
it would be splendid recreation for you. There are a great many people
who have died for the want of platform ozone.”
“Sincerely yours,
“J. B. POND.”
“Mr. W. D. Howells, 40 West 59th St., N. Y.”
* * * * *
“40 WEST 59TH ST., May 24, 1900.”
“MY DEAR MAJOR:”
“I am not quite hungry enough yet. But I appreciate your kindness, and I
wonder at Wilmington.”
“Yours truly,
“W. D. HOWELLS.”
* * * * *
I wanted to say something of Mr. Howells--better than I
knew how to write--so I asked my friend, Mr. George W.
Cable, to write it for me, and here is what he has to say:
* * * * *
Nearly twenty years ago, Mr. Thomas Sargent Perry wrote
of Mr. Howells: “He has made over the American novel,
taught it gracefulness and compactness, and has given it a
place in literature along with the best of modern work.”
This was far from the first word of praise and appreciation
evoked by Mr. Howells, who, as editor of a leading literary
magazine, as poet and as novelist, had already firmly established
himself in the ranks of the writers of to-day. And
since his name first became known it has grown constantly
more familiar and more loved, until to-day it is regarded as
that of the most typically American of American writers,
without a rival in his particular field of work.
This field of work has been the subject of more or less discussion
among his readers, regarding its merits and demerits.
But however much discussion there may be, as to the subject
he has chosen, there can be absolutely no doubt as to the excellency
of his treatment of it. He has chosen, as Thomas
Wentworth Higginson tells us: “To look away from great
passions, and rather to elevate the commonplace by minute
touches.” He began by throwing aside all the meaningless
conventionalities that then hung around the novel, boldly asserting
that, “As for him, he was a snapper-up of unconsidered
trifles--an observer and a portrayer of the trivial commonplaces
of life.” Yet in truth he is far more than this;
to quote Mr. Perry again, Mr. Howells touches the reader’s
shoulder and points out the beauty hidden in simple actions,
the pathos lurking beneath seemingly indifferent words--in
short, the humanity of life.”
To “paint the thing as he sees it” has been and is ever Mr.
Howells’s chief aim in his work. And because of his patient,
conscientious adherence to this principle, he gives us life, his
characters are not puppets, conjured from a wild imagination
and moved mechanically by strings, but living, human men
and women, such as we meet any and every day--very ordinary,
perhaps, and at times even uninteresting, except that,
as Browning has it:
“We’re made so that we love
First when we see them painted, things we’ve passed
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see.”
It is as the leading exponent of realism in art that Mr. Howells stands
to-day--for realism as opposed to romanticism, for living interest in
the world around us instead of a vague, fanciful dreaming about the
past. Mr. Howells himself has told us that we cannot have romanticism
back because we live now in an age of hopeful doing and striving, not of
mere dreaming. “Like Tolstoi and Ibsen,” some one has written of him,
“his types are drawn directly from the reality he knows, and have no
prototypes in fiction. All romantic traditions are discarded and the
story moves on, not only with the strictest regard for probability, but
with the inevitableness of life itself.”
His “heavenly scorn” for conventions and traditions, for all that is
second hand or sham, and his conscientious desire to set forth the truth
and to show us life as he knows it, are the fundamental bases of his
success. Yet I think he has become endeared to the American people even
more through his pure, unqualified Americanism--his
“contemporaneousness,” as Boyesen calls it, when he says, “That
good-natured disrespect toward the past, that humorous tolerance of
amusing shams, that large-hearted sympathy and kindliness toward all
humanity, which are the most characteristic qualities of the American
people, have never before found so typical a representative in American
literature.” His men and women are not only real men and women of
to-day, they are American men and women; and if he has been censured for
giving us frivolous, inconsequent, nervously silly women, it is, as some
one has said, because, “the vain and weak women intrude themselves a
good deal in real life, while the Olive Hallecks and Penelope Laphams
are content to keep a post of quiet observation farther back.” His
fine, pure, unselfish women are not wanting any more than are his
strong, noble men. He is too keen an observer to fail to recognize their
existence even in the “everyday world” that he depicts, but his
all-pervading humor ferrets out weakness and inconsequence and folly,
exposing them, not in an unfriendly way, but with a generous,
sympathetic smile that makes even his victims smile with him.
Still, even this kindly humor is far less noticeable in his later work
than in his early writing. It has rather broadened into a large human
sympathy, a genial love of his kind, and a keen appreciation of their
merits as well as of their faults. When he moralizes, as he sometimes
does, it is, as some one has said, in an “open and fearless treatment of
the living problems of the hour.... Underlying each of his later works
is the thought of a perfect brotherhood.”
To quote Thomas Sargent Perry again, than whose appreciation of Mr.
Howells I know of none finer: “That he has delighted us all, we all
know. He has shown us how genuine, how full of romance, is the life
about us which seems sordid and has a fine reputation for sordidness. It
is the tone of the author’s mind that makes the mark upon that of the
reader, and who that knows Mr. Howells’s work does not feel that he
learns new sympathies and gentler judgment from his generosity and
careful study?”