The courage and moral uprightness,
Of men who prefer to do right.
On July thirty-first, I had a letter from my sister Alethia who was staying a few weeks at Castletown in the Isle of Man. In this letter she told me she had been with a marble cutter to Kirk Malew churchyard and had had Captain Thomas Huddleston’s grave stone cleaned and all the moss and lichen removed from the lettering. My readers may remember that he was captain of the Great Harry and was bringing home troops from America, when his ship was wrecked on Scarlet Rocks, every one on board perishing. And she told me, that when the stone was cleaned, she noticed that this tragedy occurred on the twenty-ninth of March, so that Captain Thomas Henry Huddleston and his son Henry died on the day that I was born.
Early in August I finished “The King’s Highway” and began to try to dramatize “The Bow of Orange Ribbon.” I did not stop for anything except to visit Mr. Hearst’s Children’s Republic near Haverstraw, and to write an article about it. I finished the play in September, and Mr. Frohman was so far pleased with it that he promised to find a playwright who understood stage business to work with me. On the twenty-fourth, he introduced me to Mr. August Thomas, who agreed to direct the work as soon as I came to the city for the winter.
October was a very busy month. I wrote half a dozen articles for Dr. Klopsch, and on the twentieth I went to Princeton to attend a great anniversary. I stayed with my old pupil, Professor William Libbey, and Professor Wheeler of the California University, the author of a fascinating “Life of Alexander the Great,” was there with me. Professor Jacobus and Mrs. Jacobus were also there, and at night I went to a college concert with Mrs. Libbey. On the twenty-first I went to Alexander Hall with Mrs. Libbey and heard Henry Van Dyke deliver a splendid poem written by himself called “The Builders.” After it, I was unable to decide whether he was greater as an orator, or a poet. On the twenty-second I saw the degrees given, heard Mr. Cleveland speak, and then went to a reception at President Patton’s. On the third of the following March, I had a letter from Moses Coit Tyler in which he says:
My dear Mrs. Barr:
I had from my colleague Wheeler a faithful account of his talk with you at Princeton last fall, and of your kind message to me. I’m sorry that I can’t send you a portrait of the literary editor of the Christian Union as he looked twenty-four years ago, when he was that great man. So I must ask you to accept this his latest portrait, which may tell you that these years which have crowned you with laurels, have crowned him with gray hairs. All the same he is
Yours faithfully,
Moses Coit Tyler.
March 30, 1897.
On the twenty-fourth I was at home and wrote an article for Dr. Klopsch on the Armenian question, and on the twenty-sixth I went to a great meeting in Carnegie Hall, called to sympathize with the persecuted Armenian Christians. This meeting was chiefly memorable to me, because I met there Dr. Burrell. He made the great speech of the occasion, and as I sat beside him on the platform I heard and enjoyed every word of it. As an orator, I do not think he has many equals, and his voice is very fine and resonant, and his gestures expressive and pleasing.
During all the month I had been working as I found opportunity on the “Prisoners of Conscience” enlarging it for the Century Company, but I also wrote an article for the Advance on the “Four Champions of Justification by Faith”—Paul, St. Augustine, Luther and John Wesley. At the close of October I saw Mr. Frohman again, and he told me Mr. Thomas wanted one thousand dollars to go over the play, and he would not give it. He was most kind and gentlemanly, but I think this disappointment wearied him. I knew how he felt, because I also was weary of work that wouldn’t be manageable, and I laid it aside without any regret, and returned gladly to “Prisoners of Conscience.”