Curtis returned from Europe in 1850, handsome, attractive, accomplished, ambitious of literary distinction. He instantly plunged into the whirl of life in New York, obtained a place on the staff of the Tribune, entered the field as a popular lecturer, set himself to work on a volume published in the spring of 1851, under the title of Nile Notes of a Howadji, and became a favourite in society. He wrote much for Putnam’s Magazine, of which he was associate editor; and a number of volumes, composed of essays written for that publication and for Harper’s Monthly, came in rapid succession from his pen. The chief of these were the Potiphar Papers (1853), a satire on the fashionable society of the day; and Prue and I (1856), a pleasantly sentimental, fancifully tender and humorous study of life. In 1855 he married Miss Anna Shaw. Not long after his marriage he became, through no fault of his own, deeply involved in debt owing to the failure of Putnam’s Magazine; and his high sense of honour compelled him to devote the greater part of his earnings for many years to the discharge of obligations for which he had become only by accident responsible, and from which he might have freed himself by legal process. In the period just preceding the Civil War other interests became subordinate to those of national concern. Curtis made his first important speech on the questions of the day at Wesleyan University in 1856; he engaged actively in the presidential campaign of that year, and was soon recognized not only as an effective public speaker, but also as one of the ablest, most high-minded, and most trustworthy leaders of public opinion. In 1863 he became the political editor of Harper’s Weekly, and no other journal exercised during the war and after it a more important part in shaping public opinion. His writing was always clear, direct, forcible; his fairness of mind and sweetness of temper were invincible. He never became a mere partisan, and never failed to apply the test of moral principle to political measures. From month to month he contributed to Harper’s Monthly, under the title of “The Easy Chair,” brief essays on topics of social and literary interest, charming in style, touched with delicate humour and instinct with generous spirit. His service to the Republican party was such, that more than once he was offered nominations to office of high distinction, and might have been sent as minister to England; but he refused all offers of the kind, feeling that he could render more essential service to the country as editor and public speaker.
In 1871 he was appointed by President Grant chairman of the commission to report on the reform of the civil service. The report which he wrote was the foundation of every effort since made for the purification and regulation of the service and for the destruction of political patronage. From that time till his death Curtis was the leader in this reform, and to his sound judgment, his vigorous presentation of the evils of the corrupt prevailing system, and his untiring efforts, the progress of the reform is mainly due. He was president of the National Civil Service Reform League and of the New York Civil Service Reform Association. In 1884 he refused to support the nomination of James G. Blaine as candidate for the presidency, and thus broke with the Republican party, of which he had been one of the founders and leaders. From that time he stood as the typical independent in politics. In April 1892 he delivered at Baltimore his eleventh annual address as president of the National Civil Service Reform League, and in May he appeared for the last time in public, to repeat in New York an admirable address on James Russell Lowell, which he had first delivered in Brooklyn on the 22nd of the preceding February, the anniversary of Lowell’s birth. On the 31st of the following August he died. He was a man of consistent virtue, whose face and figure corresponded with the traits and stature of his soul. The grace and charm of his manner were the expression of his nature. Of the Americans of his time few were more widely beloved, and the respect in which he was held was universal.
See George William Curtis, by Edward Cary, in the “American Men of Letters” series (Boston, 1894), an excellent biography; “An Epistle to George William Curtis,” by James Russell Lowell (1874-1887), in Lowell’s Poems; George William Curtis, a Commemorative Address delivered before The Century Association, 17th December 1892, by Parke Godwin (New York, 1893); Orations and Addresses by George William Curtis, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (3 vols. New York, 1894).
(C. E. N.)
CURTIUS, ERNST (1814-1896), German archaeologist and historian, was born at Lübeck on the 2nd of September 1814. On completing his university studies he was chosen by C. A. Brandis to accompany him on a journey to Greece for the prosecution of archaeological researches. Curtius then became Otfried Müller’s companion in his exploration of the Peloponnese, and on Müller’s death in 1840 returned to Germany. In 1844 he became an extraordinary professor at the university of Berlin, and in the same year was appointed tutor to Prince Frederick William (afterwards the Emperor Frederick III.)—a post which he held till 1850. After holding a professorship at Göttingen and undertaking a further journey to Greece in 1862, Curtius was appointed (in 1863) ordinary professor at Berlin. In 1874 he was sent to Athens by the German government, and concluded an agreement by which the excavations at Olympia (q.v.) were entrusted exclusively to Germany. Curtius died at Berlin on the 11th of July 1896. His best-known work is his History of Greece (1857-1867, 6th ed. 1887-1888; Eng. trans. by A. W. Ward, 1868-1873). It presented in an attractive style what were then the latest results of scholarly research, but was criticized as wanting in erudition. It is now superseded (see [Greece]: History, Ancient, § Bibliography). His other writings are chiefly archaeological. The most important are: Die Akropolis von Athen (1844); Naxos (1846); Peloponnesos, eine historisch-geographische Beschreibung der Halbinsel (1851); Olympia (1852); Die Ionier vor der ionischen Wanderung (1855); Attische Studien (1862-1865); Ephesos (1874); Die Ausgrabungen zu Olympia (1877, &c.); Olympia und Umgegend (edited by Curtius and F. Adler, 1882); Olympia; Die Ergebnisse der von dem deutschen Reich veranstalteten Ausgrabung (with F. Adler, 1890-1898); Die Stadtgeschichte von Athen (1891); Gesammelte Abhandlungen (1894). His collected speeches and lectures were published under the title of Altertum und Gegenwart (5th ed., 1903 foll.), to which a third volume was added under the title of Unter drei Kaisern (2nd ed., 1895).
A full list of his writings will be found in L. Gurlitt, Erinnerungen an Ernst Curtius (Berlin, 1902); see also article by O. Kern in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xlvii. (1903), to which may be added Ernst Curtius. Ein Lebensbild in Briefen, by F. Curtius (1903); T. Hodgkin, Ernest Curtius (1905).
His brother, Georg Curtius (1820-1885), philologist, was born at Lübeck on the 16th of April 1820. After an education at Bonn and Berlin he was for three years a schoolmaster in Dresden, until (in 1845) he returned to Berlin University as privat-docent. In 1849 he was placed in charge of the Philological Seminary at Prague, and two years later was appointed professor of classical philology in Prague University. In 1854 he removed from Prague to a similar appointment at Kiel, and again in 1862 from Kiel to Leipzig. He died at Hermsdorf on the 12th of August 1885. His philological theories exercised a widespread influence. The more important of his publications are: Die Sprachvergleichung in ihrem Verhältniss zur classischen Philologie (1845; Eng. trans. by F. H. Trithen, 1851); Sprachvergleichende Beiträge zur griechischen und lateinischen Grammatik (1846); Grundzüge der griechischen Etymologie (1858-1862, 5th ed. 1879); Das Verbum der griechischen Sprache (1873). The last two works have been translated into English by A. S. Wilkins and E. B. England. From 1878 till his death Curtius was general editor of the Leipziger Studien zur classischen Philologie. His Griechische Schulgrammatik, first published in 1852, has passed through more than twenty editions, and has been edited in English. In his last work, Zur Kritik der neuesten Sprachforschung (1885), he attacks the views of the “new” school of philology.
Opuscula of Georg Curtius were edited after his death by E. Windisch (Kleine Schriften von E. C., 1886-1887). For further information consult articles by R. Meister in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xlvii. (1903), and by E. Windisch in C. Bursian’s Biographisches Jahrbuch für Alterthumskunde (1886).