CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
But the most eminent of Cleveland's people belong to the literary or political class rather than to the strictly professional. The earliest of the writers who spread Cleveland's fame and his own was Artemus Ward. It was a short career enough which Artemus Ward had, and its Cleveland part covered only two years, but while it lasted it bore one of Cleveland's daily papers round the world on the wings of his wit. One cannot forget that here lived and wrote John Hay, beloved as among the best of men as well as honored as the most efficient of Secretaries of State. James Ford Rhodes here fitted himself while engaged in business to begin his career as a fascinating writer of later American history. Constance Fenimore Woolson was a Cleveland child, although not born here, and the Great Lakes are the scenes of her stories. Mrs. Sarah Knowles Bolton, writer of useful and pleasing biographies and other books, divides her residence between Boston and Cleveland. Charles W. Chesnutt, too, is esteemed not only for his sketches but also for a distinct charm of character. Cleveland would like to claim that rare poet and great soul, Edward Rowland Sill, for his home was only a few miles away, and in Cleveland he died, in 1887. One should not decline to say that books written by college professors may not only be the material for literature but also literature itself. Such books, written in Cleveland, are neither few nor barren.
The eminence in politics of the Cleveland man belongs rather to the present than to the past. If one should name the gentlemen who have served the city in the national Congress the names would to most prove to be without significance. The name of Senator Payne—and he had been long associated with the life of the city—one recalls, but no name has the meaning of the name of Wade or of Giddings, who came from the little town of Jefferson, a few miles east of Cleveland, or of Sherman, who came from the south. Hayes, Garfield and McKinley might be called citizens of the Greater Cleveland. At the present time, however, in both the Senate and the House the city is not without able and significant representation.
[GARFIELD MEMORIAL, CLEVELAND.]
![[GARFIELD MEMORIAL, CLEVELAND.]](#5548097350089155992_illo_094.jpg.id-780089872786254068.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Like a piece of music the chapter returns upon itself. It began with the argument that Cleveland is so pleasant. From the breakwater which the Government builds to keep Cleveland great and to make it greater, along the avenues of residence or of trade, even through its smoky and sooty atmosphere,—sign of prosperity,—out mile after mile to the city of the dead where the well-beloved Garfield sleeps in nobly wrought sepulchre, in all and through all, Cleveland is pleasant. Pleasant to live in, pleasant to work in, I know, and pleasant to go to heaven from, I hope, is Cleveland.
