LITERARY AT-HOMES AND LITERARY CLUBS
THE literary at-home is an American institution. It may not have been
invented there, but it has certainly flowered there. I did not visualise
the literary at-home at all until I attended the Sunday evenings of my
dear old friend, Louise Chandler Moulton, the author of _Swallow
Flights_, at Boston. Her house was the centre of literary society there.
She knew every one who was worth knowing in literary circles in England
and America, and she had a passion for collecting them on Sunday nights.
There I learnt the essential simplicity and common-sensibleness of
American entertainments. No one went for the refreshments; there were
none except coffee and various kinds of cakes. It was, in fact,
afternoon tea, with coffee instead of the drink which cheers without
inebriating, held at 9 p.m. instead of 5. Her evenings were crowded.
When I went to New York I found the New York literary people collected
every Sunday night in the hospitable home of Edmund Clarence Stedman,
the chief literary biographer of his day. Laurence Hutton, too, the
author of _Literary Landmarks in London_, and editor of certain pages of
_Harper’s Magazine_, had a few people on Sunday nights. There was always
the same simplicity about eating and drinking, and the same absence of
any entertainment, except being introduced to American celebrities, or
occasionally listening spellbound while one of them told a humorous
story in the inimitable American way.
Charles de Kay, the chief art critic in New York of that day, was one of
the few people who gave big afternoon teas in the English style. De Kay
belonged to one of the oldest literary families in New York, for he was
the grandson of Joseph Rodman Drake.
These were the private literary at-homes. They yielded in importance to
the story-tellers’ nights of the various clubs, generally Saturday
nights. Sometimes there was a large house dinner at the Club, sometimes
nothing happened until the reception began, about nine, but in any case,
the procedure was the same. First of all, the most brilliant men of the
day told anecdotes, and then the assemblage broke up into small groups,
when the introduction of strangers to each other was the feature of the
evening. It was in this way that I came to know nearly every important
American writer of that day. Sometimes two good anecdote-tellers would
be put up to banter each other, and the encounters would be very witty.
I remember one encounter in particular between a Bostonian and a
professor of the University of Chicago. The professor alluded most
feelingly to the departed glories of Boston—Boston which considered
itself the hub of the universe—and dilated upon the new era which was
dawning for Chicago. The Bostonian got up and agreed with every word he
said.
“I am surprised at my friend’s agreeing with this,” said the professor.
“Not at all,” said the Bostonian. “I speak as one of the owners of
Chicago.”
The audience rocked with laughter, recalling the fact that this
Bostonian had turned a respectable fortune into millions by buying up a
large area in Chicago when it was ruined by the great fire.
At another such evening Mark Twain said the circumstance which gave him
the greatest satisfaction in his life was the fact that Darwin, for a
year before his death, read nothing but his works. Darwin’s doctors, he
added, had warned him that he would get softening of the brain if he
read anything but absolute drivel.
Sometimes there were discussions at these evenings, and one of them was
about the merits of a certain Society poetess, whose poems enjoyed an
unbounded sale without meeting with the approbation of the critics. “Do
you not admit,” asked one of the lady’s admirers of the editor of the
_Century Magazine_, “that Miss Van —— is the poetess of passion?”
“Yes,” said the editor, “Miss Van —— is the poetess of passion—of
boarding-house passion.”
I never came away from one of these evenings without feeling that I had
been partaking of intellectual champagne.
When I was in America Eugene Field edited one of the great Chicago
dailies, and was the principal author of the West. My first meeting with
him was a characteristic one. I was at an at-home in New York, talking
to the editress of a fashion paper, who had also written books of
twaddly gush about travel. The hostess brought up Field, and introduced
him to the editress.
“Very glad to meet you, ma’am,” he said. “I think I may say that I have
read all your books with the greatest interest.”
“Are you a writer, Mr. Field?” she asked. “I am sorry to say that I have
never heard of you.”
“Nor I you, ma’am; but you might have pretended, same as I did.”
There used to be very large at-homes every Sunday night at the flat of a
wealthy old lady who owned an important newspaper. Her guests were
mostly authors and artists, and she hardly knew any of them by sight,
and never gave any of them commissions to work for her paper. Sometimes
she did not even put in an appearance at her at-homes, which went on
just the same, as if she had been there. Her guests came to meet each
other, not her. She was not at all literary; her only ambition was like
Queen Elizabeth’s—to be taken for a young and beautiful woman. She was
no longer either, but she dressed the part. Young America used openly to
make fun of her weakness on these occasions, and I well remember the
editor of _Puck_ (a New York comic paper), to whom she was showing a
beautiful copy of Canova’s nude statue of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline
Borghese, gravely pretending that he thought it was a statue of herself,
and complimenting her on the likeness which the sculptor had achieved.
His impudence carried him through; his delighted hostess believed that
he believed it, and explained, with genuine colour coming into her
rouged cheeks, that in spite of the likeness, it was not her, but
“Princess Pauline.”
As the refreshments at this house were on a very liberal scale, it was a
good place to meet the section of the Press which is not satisfied with
a mere feast of reason and flow of soul. One also met fame-hunters, like
the sculptor whom I will call Vermont, who came to cultivate the Press.
I was introduced to him at this house, and I hoped that I should never
see him again, because he was such a colossal egotist. One day, a few
years afterwards, to my dismay, I met him in Fleet Street. I said, “How
do you do, Mr. Vermont?”
He said at once, “Can you do something for me?” which was his invariable
habit.
I said “yes” cheerfully, meaning to wriggle out of it, for I did not
want to do it. I was under no obligation to him, because I had been
careful not to give him the opportunity of offering me any hospitalities
while I was over there. He said, “I have never been in England before.
Can you tell me if I ought to use a letter-writer?”
I said, “I think so; what is it—a new kind of typewriter?”
He said, “No, it is a book which tells you the proper ways for writing
letters.”
Remembering that the last letter I had received from him began, “Mr.
Douglas Sladen, Esq., Dear Sir,” I said I thought he ought, and as we
were in Fleet Street, recommended him to go to Hatchard’s in Piccadilly.
I was interested to know the kind of impression he would make on Arthur
Humphreys, to whom I sent him with my card. I carefully gave him a card
without an address in the hope that I should not see him any more. But
he got my address from Humphreys, and came to see me the next day. It
appeared that he had brought a large group of statuary with him, which
he wished to present to the City of London. Could I help him in this? he
wished to know. I said yes. I gave him an introduction to the Lord
Mayor, and to the editor of the _Illustrated London News_, to both of
whom I was a total stranger. He went away very pleased with himself. The
next time I met him was at the Lord Mayor’s Day banquet at the Mansion
House. I asked him how he had got on, and he said that he owed more to
me than any one he had ever met. The Lord Mayor had accepted the
sculpture, and given orders for it to be erected somewhere in the
Guildhall Library until its final position could be decided on, and the
editor of the _Illustrated London News_ was going to give the front page
of his next number to a reproduction of the immortal work. After this I
met him at every important function to which I received an invitation.
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