Without knowing what Dobson had said, the old man whispered in the
child’s ear, “It is a privilege you will be glad to remember that you
have met such a man as Austin Dobson. Except for Salisbury’s desire
to demean the post of poet laureate, Dobson would hold that position
today. Never forget that you have met Austin Dobson.”
A few months after our return to America, Garnett died, and Dobson sent
me the following lines. I have never known of their publication:
_RICHARD GARNETT_
Sit tibi terra levis
_Of him we may say justly: Here was one
Who knew of most things more than any other,--
Who loved all Learning underneath the sun,
And looked on every Learner as a brother._
_Nor was this all. For those who knew him, knew,
However far his love’s domain extended,
It held its quiet “poet’s corner,” too,
Where Mirth, and Song, and Irony, were blended._
[Illustration: _Autograph Poem by Austin Dobson_]
Garnett was a rare spirit, and the British Museum has never seemed
the same since he retired in 1899. Entrance to his private office was
cleverly concealed by a door made up of shelf-backs of books, but
once within the sanctum the genial host placed at the disposal of his
guest, in a matter-of-fact way, such consummate knowledge as to stagger
comprehension. But, far beyond this, the charm of his personality will
always linger in the minds of those who knew him, and genuine affection
for the man will rival the admiration for his scholarship.
One afternoon at Ealing, after tennis on the lawn behind the Dobson
house, we gathered for tea. Our little party included Hugh Thomson,
the artist who so charmingly illustrated much of Dobson’s work, Mr. and
Mrs. Dobson, and one of his sons. The poet was in his most genial mood,
and the conversation led us into mutually confidential channels.
“I envy you your novel writing,” he said. “Fiction gives one so much
wider scope, and prose is so much more satisfactory as a medium than
poetry. I have always wanted to write a novel. Mrs. Dobson would never
have it. But she is always right,” he added; “had I persisted I should
undoubtedly have lost what little reputation I have.”
He was particularly impressed by the fact that I wrote novels as
an avocation. It seemed to him such a far cry from the executive
responsibility of a large business, and he persisted in questioning
me as to my methods. I explained that I devoted a great deal of time
to creating mentally the characters who would later demand my pen;
that with the general outline of the plot I intended to develop, I
approached it exactly as a theatrical manager approaches a play he is
about to produce, spending much time in selecting my cast, adding,
discarding, changing, just so far as seemed to me necessary to secure
the actors best suited to the parts I planned to have them play. He
expressed surprise when I told him that I had long since discarded the
idea of working out a definite scenario, depending rather upon creating
interesting characters, and having them sufficiently alive so that
when placed together under interesting circumstances they are bound to
produce interesting dialogue and action.
“Of course my problem, writing essays and poetry, is quite different
from yours as a novelist,” he said; “but I do try to assume a relation
toward my work that is objective and impersonal. In a way, I go farther
than you do.”
Then he went on to say that not only did he plan the outline of what
he had to write, whether triolet or poem, wholly in his head, but (in
the case of the poetry) even composed the lines and made the necessary
changes before having recourse to pen and paper.
“When I actually begin to write,” he said, “I can see the lines clearly
before me, even to the interlinear corrections, and it is a simple
matter for me to copy them out in letter-perfect form.”
Dobson’s handwriting and his signature were absolutely dissimilar.
Unless one had actually seen him transcribe the text of a letter or
the lines of a poem in that beautiful designed script, he would think
it the work of some one other than the writer of the flowing autograph
beneath.
* * * * *
Posterity is now deciding whether Mark Twain’s fame will rest upon
his humor or his philosophy, yet his continuing popularity would seem
to have settled this much-mooted question. Humor is fleeting unless
based upon real substance. In life the passing quip that produces a
smile serves its purpose, but to bring to the surface such human notes
as dominate Mark Twain’s stories, a writer must possess extraordinary
powers of observation and a complete understanding of his fellow-man.
Neither Tom Sawyer nor Huckleberry Finn is a fictional character, but
is rather the personification of that leaven which makes life worth
living.
When an author has achieved the dignity of having written “works”
rather than books, he has placed himself in the hands of his friends
in all his varying moods. A single volume is but the fragment of any
writer’s personality. I have laughed over _Innocents Abroad_, and
other volumes which helped to make Mark Twain’s reputation, but when I
seek a volume to recall the author as I knew him best it is _Joan of
Arc_ that I always take down from the shelf. This book really shows
the side of Mark Twain, the man, as his friends knew him, yet it was
necessary to publish the volume anonymously in order to secure for it
consideration from the reading public as a serious story.
[Illustration: MARK TWAIN, 1835-1910
_At the Villa di Quarto, Florence_
From a Snap-shot]
“No one will ever accept it seriously, over my signature,” Mark Twain
said. “People always want to laugh over what I write. This is a serious
book. It means more to me than anything I have ever undertaken.”
Mark Twain was far more the humorist when off guard than when on
parade. The originality of what he did, combined with what he said,
produced the maximum expression of himself. At one time he and his
family occupied the Villa di Quarto in Florence (_page 172_), and
while in Italy Mrs. Orcutt and I were invited to have tea with them.
The villa is located, as its name suggests, in the four-mile radius
from the center of the town. It was a large, unattractive building,
perhaps fifty feet wide and four times as long. The location was
superb, looking out over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the Chianti
hills.
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN
With Snap-shot of Villa di Quarto]
In greeting us, Mark Twain gave the impression of having planned out
exactly what he was going to say. I had noticed the same thing on other
occasions. He knew that people expected him to say something humorous
or unusual, and he tried not to disappoint them.
“Welcome to the barracks,” he exclaimed. “Looks like a hotel, doesn’t
it? You’d think with twenty bedrooms on the top floor and only four in
my family there would be a chance to put up a friend or two, wouldn’t
you? But there isn’t any one I think so little of as to be willing to
stuff him into one of those cells.”
We had tea out of doors. Miss Clara Clemens, who later became Mrs.
Gabrilowitch, served as hostess, as Mrs. Clemens was confined to her
bed by the heart trouble that had brought the family to Italy. As we
sipped our tea and nibbled at the delicious Italian cakes, Mark Twain
continued his comments on the villa, explaining that it was alleged
to have been built by the first Cosimo de’ Medici (“If it was, he had
a bum architect,” Mark Twain interjected); later it was occupied by
the King of Württemberg (“He was the genius who put in the Pullman
staircase”); and still later by a Russian Princess (“She is responsible
for that green majolica stove in the hall. When I first saw it I
thought it was a church for children”); and then it fell into the hands
of his landlady (“Less said about her the better. You never heard such
profanity as is expressed by the furniture and the carpets she put in
to complete the misery. I’m always thankful when darkness comes on to
stop the swearing”).
The garden was beautiful, but oppressive,--due probably to the tall
cypresses (always funereal in their aspect), which kept out the sun,
and produced a mouldy luxuriance. The marble seats and statues were
covered with green moss, and the ivy ran riot over everything. One felt
the antiquity unpleasantly, and, in a way, it seemed an unfortunate
atmosphere for an invalid. But so far as the garden was concerned, it
made little difference to Mrs. Clemens,--the patient, long-suffering
“Livy” of Mark Twain’s life,--for she never left her sick chamber, and
died three days later.
After tea, Mr. Clemens offered me a cigar and watched me while I
lighted it.
“Hard to get good cigars over here,” he remarked. “I’m curious to know
what you think of that one.”
I should have been sorry to tell him what my opinion really was, but I
continued to smoke it with as cheerful an expression as possible.
“What kind of cigars do you smoke while in Europe?” he inquired.
I told him that I was still smoking a brand I had brought over from
America, and at the same time I offered him one, which he promptly
accepted, throwing away the one he had just lighted. He puffed with
considerable satisfaction, and then asked,
“How do you like that cigar I gave you?”
It seemed a matter of courtesy to express more enthusiasm than I really
felt.
“Clara,” he called across to where the ladies were talking, “Mr. Orcutt
likes these cigars of mine, and he’s a judge of good cigars.”
Then turning to me he continued, “Clara says they’re rotten!”
He relapsed into silence for a moment.
“How many of those cigars of yours have you on your person at the
present time?”
I opened my cigar case, and disclosed four.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said suddenly. “You like my cigars and
I like yours. I’ll swap you even!”
In the course of the afternoon Mark Twain told of a dinner that Andrew
Carnegie had given in his New York home, at which Mr. Clemens had been
a guest. He related with much detail how the various speakers had
stammered and halted, and seemed to find themselves almost tongue-tied.
His explanation of this was their feeling of embarrassment because of
the presence of only one woman, Mrs. Carnegie.
Sir Sidney Lee, who was lecturing on Shakesperian subjects in America
at the time, was the guest of honor. When dinner was announced,
Carnegie sent for Archie, the piper, an important feature in the
Carnegie _ménage_, who appeared in full kilts, and led the
procession into the dining-room, playing on the pipes. Carnegie,
holding Sir Sidney’s hand, followed directly after, giving an imitation
of a Scotch dance, while the other guests fell in behind, matching the
steps of their leader as closely as possible. Mark Twain gave John
Burroughs credit for being the most successful in this attempt.
Some weeks later, at a dinner which Sir Sidney Lee gave in our honor
in London, we heard an echo of this incident. Sir Sidney included the
story of Mark Twain’s speech on that occasion, which had been omitted
in the earlier narrative. When called upon, Mr. Clemens had said,
“I’m not going to make a speech,--I’m just going to reminisce. I’m
going to tell you something about our host here when he didn’t have as
much money as he has now. At that time I was the editor of a paper in
a small town in Connecticut, and one day, when I was sitting in the
editorial sanctum, the door opened and who should come in but Andrew
Carnegie. Do you remember that day, Andy?” he inquired, turning to his
host; “wasn’t it a scorcher?”
Carnegie nodded, and said he remembered it perfectly.
“Well,” Mark Twain continued, “Andrew took off his hat, mopped his
brow, and sat down in a chair, looking most disconsolate.
“‘What’s the matter?’ I inquired. ‘What makes you so melancholy?’--Do
you remember that, Andy?” he again appealed to his host.
“Oh, yes,” Carnegie replied, smiling broadly; “I remember it as if it
were yesterday.”
“‘I am so sad,’ Andy answered, ‘because I want to found some libraries,
and I haven’t any money. I came in to see if you could lend me a
million or two.’ I looked in the drawer and found that I could let
him have the cash just as well as not, so I gave him a couple of
million.--Do you remember that, Andy?”
“No!” Carnegie answered vehemently; “I don’t remember that at all!”
“That’s just the point,” Mark Twain continued, shaking his finger
emphatically. “I have never received one cent on that loan, interest or
principal!”
I wonder if so extraordinary an assemblage of literary personages was
ever before gathered together as at the seventieth anniversary birthday
dinner given to Mark Twain by Colonel George Harvey at Delmonico’s
in New York! Seated at the various tables were such celebrities as
William Dean Howells, George W. Cable, Brander Matthews, Richard
Watson Gilder, Kate Douglas Wiggin, F. Hopkinson Smith, Agnes Repplier,
Andrew Carnegie, and Hamilton W. Mabie.
It was a long dinner. Every one present would have been glad to express
his affection and admiration for America’s greatest man-of-letters,
and those who must be heard were so numerous that it was nearly two
o’clock in the morning before Mark Twain’s turn arrived to respond.
As he rose, the entire company rose with him, each standing on his
chair and waving his napkin enthusiastically. Mark Twain was visibly
affected by the outburst of enthusiasm. When the excitement subsided, I
could see the tears streaming down his cheeks, and all thought of the
set speech he had prepared and sent to the press for publication was
entirely forgotten. Realizing that the following quotation differs from
the official report of the event, I venture to rely upon the notes I
personally made during the dinner. Regaining control of himself, Mark
Twain began his remarks with words to this effect:
_When I think of my first birthday and compare it with this
celebration,--just a bare room; no one present but my mother
and one other woman; no flowers, no wine, no cigars, no
enthusiasm,--I am filled with indignation!_
* * * * *
Charles Eliot Norton is a case in point in my contention that to
secure the maximum from a college course a man should take two years
at eighteen and the remaining two after he has reached forty. I was
not unique among the Harvard undergraduates flocking to attend his
courses in Art who failed utterly to understand or appreciate him. The
ideals expressed in his lectures were far over our heads. The estimate
of Carlyle, Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold, that Mr. Norton was foremost
among American thinkers, scholars, and men of culture, put us on the
defensive, for to have writers such as these include Norton as one of
themselves placed him entirely outside the pale of our undergraduate
understanding. He seemed to us a link connecting our generation with
the distant past. As I look back upon it, this was not so much because
he appeared old as it was that what he said seemed to our untrained
minds the vagaries of age. Perhaps we were somewhat in awe of him,
as we knew him to be the intimate of Oliver Wendell Holmes and James
Russell Lowell, as he had been of Longfellow and George William Curtis,
and thus the last of the Cambridge Immortals. I have always wished that
others might have corrected their false impressions by learning to know
Norton, the man, as I came to know him, and have enjoyed the inspiring
friendship that I was so fortunate in having him, in later years,
extend to me.
In the classroom, sitting on a small, raised platform, with as many
students gathered before him as the largest room in Massachusetts Hall
could accommodate, he took Art as a text and discussed every subject
beneath the sun. His voice, though low, had a musical quality which
carried to the most distant corner. As he spoke he leaned forward
on his elbows with slouching shoulders, with his keen eyes passing
constantly from one part of the room to another, seeking, no doubt,
some gleam of understanding from his hearers. He told me afterwards
that it was not art he sought to teach, nor ethics, nor philosophy, but
that he would count it success if he instilled in the hearts of even a
limited number of his pupils a desire to seek the truth.
As I think of the Norton I came to know in the years that followed,
he seems to be a distinctly different personality, yet of course the
difference was in me. Even at the time when Senator Hoar made his
terrific attack upon him for his public utterances against the Spanish
War, I knew that he was acting true to his high convictions, even
though at variance with public opinion. I differed from him, but by
that time I understood him.
“Shady Hill,” his home in Norton’s Woods on the outskirts of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, exuded the personality of its owner more than any
house I was ever in. There was a restful dignity and stately culture,
a courtly hospitality that reflected the individuality of the host.
The library was the inner shrine. Each volume was selected for its
own special purpose, each picture was illustrative of some special
epoch, each piece of furniture performed its exact function. Here,
unconsciously, while discussing subjects far afield, I acquired from
Mr. Norton a love of Italy which later was fanned into flame by my
Tuscan friend, Doctor Guido Biagi, the accomplished librarian of the
Laurenziana Library, in Florence, to whom I have already frequently
referred.
Our real friendship began when I returned from Italy in 1902, and told
him of my plans to design a type based upon the wonderful humanistic
volumes. As we went over the photographs and sketches I brought home
with me, and he realized that a fragment of the fifteenth century,
during which period hand lettering had reached its highest point of
perfection, had actually been overlooked by other type designers (see
_page 16_), he displayed an excitement I had never associated
with his personality. I was somewhat excited, too, in being able to
tell him something which had not previously come to his attention,--of
the struggle of the Royal patrons, who tried to thwart the newborn art
of printing by showing what a miserable thing a printed book was when
compared with the beauty of the hand letters; and that these humanistic
volumes, whose pages I had photographed, were the actual books which
these patrons had ordered the scribes to produce, regardless of
expense, to accomplish their purpose.
The romance that surrounded the whole undertaking brought out from
him comments and discussion in which he demonstrated his many-sided
personality. The library at “Shady Hill” became a veritable Florentine
rostrum. Mr. Norton’s sage comments were expressed with the vigor
and originality of Politian; when he spoke of the tyranny of the old
Florentine despots and compared them with certain political characters
in our own America, he might have been Machiavelli uttering his famous
diatribes against the State. Lorenzo de’ Medici himself could not have
thrilled me more with his fascinating expression of the beautiful or
the exhibition of his exquisite taste.
Each step in the development of the Humanistic type was followed by Mr.
Norton with the deepest interest. When the first copy of Petrarch’s
_Triumphs_ came through the bindery I took it to “Shady Hill,” and
we went over it page by page, from cover to cover. As we closed the
volume he looked up with that smile his friends so loved,--that smile
Ruskin called “the sweetest I ever saw on any face (unless perhaps a
nun’s when she has some grave kindness to do),”--and then I knew that
my goal had been attained (_page 32_).
While the Humanistic type was being cut, Doctor Biagi came to America
as the official representative from Italy to the St. Louis Exposition.
Later, when he visited me in Boston, I took him to “Shady Hill” to
see Mr. Norton. It was an historic meeting. The Italian had brought
to America original, unpublished letters of Michelangelo, and at my
suggestion he took them with him to Cambridge. Mr. Norton read several
of these letters with the keenest interest and urged their publication,
but Biagi was too heavily engaged with his manifold duties as librarian
of the Laurenziana and Riccardi libraries, as custodian of the
Buonarroti and the da Vinci archives, and with his extensive literary
work, to keep the promise he made us that day.
The conversation naturally turned upon Dante, Biagi’s rank in his own
country as interpreter of the great poet being even greater than was
Norton’s in America. Beyond this they spoke of books, of art, of
music, of history, of science. Norton’s knowledge of Italy was profound
and exact; Biagi had lived what Norton had acquired. No matter what
the subject, their comments, although simply made, were expressions of
prodigious study and absolute knowledge; of complete familiarity, such
as one ordinarily has in every-day affairs, with subjects upon which
even the well-educated man looks as reserved for profound discussion.
Norton and Biagi were the two most cultured men I ever met. In
listening to their conversation I discovered that a perfectly trained
mind under absolute control is the most beautiful thing in the world.
* * * * *
Climbing the circular stairway in the old, ramshackle Harper plant at
Franklin Square, New York, I used to find William Dean Howells in his
sanctum.
“Take this chair,” he said one day after a cordial greeting; “the only
Easy Chair we have is in the _Magazine_.”
Howells loved the smell of printer’s ink. “They are forever talking
about getting away from here,” he would say, referring to the long
desire at Harpers’--at last gratified--to divorce the printing from the
publishing and to move uptown. “Here things are so mixed up that you
can’t tell whether you’re a printer or a writer, and I like it.”
Our acquaintance began after the publication by the Harpers in 1906 of
a novel of mine entitled _The Spell_, the scene of which is laid
in Florence. After reading it, Howells wrote asking me to look him up
the next time I was in the Harper offices.
“We have three reasons to become friends,” he said smiling, after
studying me for a moment with eyes that seemed probably more piercing
and intent than they really were: “you live in Boston, you love Italy,
and you are a printer. Now we must make up for lost time.”
After this introduction I made it a habit to “drop up” to his sanctum
whenever I had occasion to go to Franklin Square to discuss printing
or publishing problems with Major Leigh or Mr. Duneka. Howells always
seemed to have time to discuss one of the three topics named in his
original analysis, yet curiously enough it was rarely that any mention
of books came into our conversation.
[Illustration: Autograph Letter from William Dean Howells]
Of Boston and Cambridge he was always happily reminiscent: of
entertaining Mr. and Mrs. John Hay while on their wedding journey,
and later Bret Harte, in the small reception room in the Berkeley
Street house, where the tiny “library” on the north side was without
heat or sunlight when Howells wrote his _Venetian Days_ there in
1870; of early visits with Mark Twain before the great fireplace in
“the Cabin” at his Belmont home, over the door of which was inscribed
the quotation from _The Merchant of Venice_, “From Venice as far
as Belmont.”--“In these words,” Howells said, “lies the history of my
married life”;--of the move from Belmont to Boston as his material
resources increased.
“There was a time when people used to think I didn’t like Boston,” he
would chuckle, evidently enjoying the recollections that came to him;
“but I always loved it. The town did take itself seriously,” he added
a moment later; “but it had a right to. That was what made it Boston.
Sometimes, when we know a place or a person through and through, the
fine characteristics may be assumed, and we may chaff a little over the
harmless foibles. That is what I did to Boston.”
He chided me good-naturedly because I preferred Florence to Venice.
“Italy,” he quoted, “is the face of Europe, and Venice is the eye
of Italy. But, after all, what difference does it make?” he asked.
“We are both talking of the same wonderful country, and perhaps the
intellectual atmosphere of antiquity makes up for the glory of the
Adriatic.”
Then he told me a story which I afterwards heard Hamilton Mabie repeat
at the seventy-fifth birthday anniversary banquet given Howells at
Sherry’s by Colonel George Harvey in 1912.
Two American women met in Florence on the Ponte Vecchio. One of them
said to the other, “Please tell me whether this is Florence or Venice.”