Turns about Town

by Robert Cortes Holliday

But about that book I saw some time ago. You, of course, remember that prayer in "Tom Sawyer" (or somewhere else in Mark Twain) where the great-hearted minister called upon the Lord to bless the President of the United States, the President's Cabinet, the Senate of the United States, the governors of each of the states, and their legislatures, the mayors of all the cities, and all the towns, of the United States, and the inhabitants—grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and wives, husbands and fathers, sons and daughters, bachelors and little children—of every hamlet, town and city of the United States, also of all the countryside thereof. Well, this book of which I am speaking,—this minister in the august range and compass of his prayer had nothing on its dedication. It was published, as I recollect, by the author; printed on very woody wood-pulp paper by a job press, and had a coarse screen frontispiece portrait of the author, whose name has long since left me. What it was about I do not remember. That is a little matter. It lives in my mind, and should live in the memory of the world, by its dedication; which, I recall, in part was: "To the Sultan of Turkey—the Emperor of Japan—the Czar of Russia—the Emperor of Germany—the President of France—the King of England—the President of the United States—and to God."

But it was in an elder day that they really knew how to write sonorous dedications. If I should write a book (and the idea of having one to dedicate tempts me greatly) I'd pick out some important personage, such as Benjamin De Casseres, or Frank Crowinshield, or Charles Hanson Towne, or somebody like that. Then I would take as the model for my dedication that one, say, of Boswell's to Sir Joshua Reynolds. I am afraid you have not read it lately. And so, for the joy the meeting of it again will give you, I will copy it out. It goes as follows:

My Dear Sir,—Every liberal motive that can actuate an Authour in the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as the person to whom the following Work should be inscribed.

If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity not altogether inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find one, in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation gratify those feelings? Your excellence not only in the Art over which you have long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in Philosophy and elegant Literature, is well known to the present, and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal and placid temper, your variety of conversation, your true politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common centre of union for the great and accomplished, the learned, and the ingenious; all these qualities I can, in perfect confidence of not being accused of flattery, ascribe to you.

If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known to the world, that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a person of the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose company has been universally courted, I am justified in availing myself of the usual privilege of a Dedication, when I mention that there has been a long and uninterrupted friendship between us.

If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have this opportunity, my dear Sir, most sincerely to thank you for the many happy hours which I owe to your kindness,—for the cordiality with which you have at all times been pleased to welcome me,—for the number of valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced me,—for the noctes cænæque Deûm, which I have enjoyed under your roof.

If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety, dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved friend of that great man; the friend, whom he declared to be "the most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse." You, my dear Sir, studied him, and knew him well: you venerated and admired him. Yet, luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus. Your very warm commendation of the specimen which I gave in my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," of my being able to preserve his conversation in an authentik and lively manner, which opinion the Publik has confirmed, was the best encouragement for me to persevere in my purpose of producing the whole of my stores....

I am, my dear Sir,
Your much obliged friend,
And faithful humble servant,
London, April 20, 1791. James Boswell.

In a more modern style of composition the epistolary form of dedication is still employed. I wish I had not (one time when I was moving) lost that copy I had, English edition, of George Moore's book "The Lake." I have a feeling that the dedicatory letter there, in French, was an admirable example of its kind of thing. If you happen to have a copy of the book, why don't you look it up?

When poems are written as dedications an established convention is followed. You affect at the beginning (in this formula) to be very humble in spirit, deeply modest in your conception of your powers. You speak, if your book is verse, of your "fragile rhyme," or (with Patmore) you "drag a rumbling wain." Again perhaps you speak (in the words of Burns) of your "wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble," or you call Southwell to witness that: