CHAPTER XXXIV
AS A WRITER
His Rapid Method of Working. A Popular Biographical Writer. The Books
He Has Written.
Still the minutes are not full. The man who learned five languages while going to and from his business on the street cars of Boston finds time always to crowd in one thing more. Despite his multitude of other cares, Dr. Conwell's pen is not idle. It started to write in his boyhood days and it has been writing ever since.
His best known works are his biographies. Charles A. Dana, the famous editor and publisher of the New York "Sun," just before his death, wrote to Harper Brothers recommending that Mr. Conwell be secured to write a series of books for an "American Biographical Library," and in his letter said:
"I write the above of my own notion, as I have seldom met Mr. Conwell; but as a writer of biographies he has no superior. Indeed, I can say considerately, that he is one of America's greatest men. He never advertises himself, never saves a newspaper clipping concerning himself, never keeps a sermon of his own, and will not seek applause. You must go after him if you want him. He will not apply to you. His personal history is as fascinating as it is exceptional. He took himself as a poor back country lad, created out of the crude material the orator which often combines a Webster with Gough, and made himself a scholar of the first rank. He created from nothing a powerful university of high rank in Philadelphia, especially for the common people. He created a great and influential church out of a small unknown parish. He has assisted more men in securing an education than any other American. He has created a hospital of the first order and extent. He has fed the poor and housed large numbers of orphans. He has written many books and has addressed more people than any other living man. To do this without writing or dictating a line to advertise himself is nothing else than the victory of a great genius. He is a gem worth your seeking, valuable anywhere. I say again that I regard Russell H. Conwell, of Philadelphia, as America's greatest man in the best form. I cannot do your work; he can."
His most successful biography, his "Life of Charles H. Spurgeon," was written in a little more than two weeks. In fact, it was not written at all, it was dictated while on a lecturing trip. When Spurgeon died, a publisher telegraphed Dr. Conwell if he would write a biography of the great London preacher. Dr. Conwell was traveling at the time in the West, lecturing. He wired an affirmative, and sent for his private secretary. It was during the building of the College when great financial responsibilities were resting on him, and he was lecturing every night to raise money for the college building fund. His secretary accompanied him on the lecture trip. Dr. Conwell dictated the book on the train during the day, the secretary copied it from his notes at night while Dr. Conwell lectured. At the end of two weeks the book of six hundred pages was nearly completed. It had a sale of 125,000 copies in four months. And all the royalties were given to a struggling mission of Grace Baptist Church.
[Illustration: TEMPLE COLLEGE]
His biography of Elaine was written almost as rapidly. In a few hours after Blaine was nominated as candidate of the Republican party for the presidency. Dr. and Mrs. Conwell boarded a train and started for Augusta, Maine. In three weeks the book was completed.
He has worked at times from four o'clock in the morning until twelve at night when work pressed and time was short.
His life of Bayard Taylor was also written quickly. He had traveled with Taylor through Europe and long been an intimate friend, so that he was particularly well fitted for the work. The book was begun after Taylor's death, December 19, 1878, in Germany, and completed before the body arrived in America. Five thousand copies were sold before the funeral.
Dr. Conwell presided at the memorial service held in Tremont Temple, Boston. Many years after, in a sermon preached at The Temple, he thus described the occasion:
"When Bayard Taylor, the traveler and poet, died, great sorrow was felt and exhibited by the people of this nation. I remember well the sadness which was noticed in the city of Boston. The spontaneous desire to give some expression to the respect in which Hr. Taylor's name was held, pressed the literary people of Boston, both writers and readers, forward to a public memorial in the great hall of Tremont Temple. As a friend of Mr. Taylor's I was called upon to preside at that memorial gathering. That audience of the scholarly classes was a wonderful tribute to a remarkable man, and one for which. I feel still a keen sense of gratitude. I remember asking Mr. Longfellow to write a poem, and to read it, and standing on the broad step at his front door, in Cambridge, he replied to my suggestion with the sweet expression: 'The universal sorrow is almost too sacred to touch with a pen.'
"But when the evening came, although Professor Longfellow was too ill to be present, his poem was there. The great hall was crowded with the most cultivated people of Boston. On the platform sat many of the poets, orators and philosophers, who have since passed into the Beyond. When, after several speeches had been made, I arose to introduce Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the pressure of the crowd was too great for me to reach my chair again, and I took for a time the seat which Dr. Holmes had just left, and next to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Never were words of poet listened to with a silence more respectfully profound than were the words of Professor Longfellow's poem as they were so touchingly and beautifully read by Dr. Holmes:
"'Dead he lay among his books,
The peace of God was in his looks!
* * * * *
Let the lifeless body rest,
He is gone who was its guest.—
Gone as travelers haste to leave
An inn, nor tarry until eve!
Traveler, in what realms afar,
In what planet, in what star,
In what vast, aerial space,
Shines the light upon thy face?
In what gardens of delight
Rest thy weary feet to-night—'
* * * * *
"Before Dr. Holmes resumed his seat, Mr. Emerson whispered in my ear, in his epigrammatic style, 'This is holy Sabbath time.'"
Among the books which Dr. Conwell has written are:
"Lessons of Travel."
"Why and How Chinese Emigrate."
"Nature's Aristocracy."
"History of the Great Fire in Boston."
"The Life of Gen. U.S. Grant."
"Woman and the Law."
"The life of Rutherford B. Hayes."
"History of the Great Fire in St. Johns."
"The Life of Bayard Taylor."
"The Life, Speeches, and Public Service of James A. Garfield."
"Little Bo."
"Joshua Gianavello."
"The Life of James G. Blaine."
"Acres of Diamonds."
"Gleams of Grace."
"The Life of Charles H. Spurgeon."
"The New Day."
The manuscript which he prepared most carefully was the "Life of
Daniel Manin," which was destroyed by fire when his home at Newton
Centre was burned. He had spent much time and labor collecting data on
Italian history for it, and the loss was irreparable.
"Joshua Gianavello" is a biographical story of the great Waldensian chieftain who loved religions liberty and feared neither inquisition nor death. It is dedicated to "the many believers in the divine principle that every person should have the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; and to the heroic warriors who are still contending for religious freedom in the yet unfinished battle."
The same powerful imagination that pictures so realistically to his lecture and church audiences the scenes and people he is describing, makes them live in his books. His style holds the reader by its vividness of description, its powerful delineation of character and emotion.
His latest book, "The New Day," is an amplification of his great lecture, "Acres of Diamonds." It is not only delightful reading but it is full of practical help for the affairs of everyday life. For no matter in what field Dr. Conwell works, this great desire of his life—to help his brother man—shines out.