Charles A.B. Shepard (Signature)
In 1855 Mr. Shepard conceived the idea of starting in business for himself, and formed a co-partnership which was known to the trade as Shepard, Clark and Brown. It flourished until the panic of 1857 swept over the country. Reverses came, and the house was forced to give up.
In 1862, as I have said, the firm of Lee and Shepard was started in business, with no other capital save that of brain and muscle. The two partners had long and favorably known one another. While strangely dissimilar in tastes, they yet exhibited many points in common. At the start, both were financially poor men; they possessed no funds, but, by virtue of their well known integrity and ability to succeed, could readily command the little which they required to begin life anew. Mr. Shepard, as well as Mr. Lee, had made himself indispensable to every firm with which he had been connected. Each had a wide circle of friends, and each was trusted by his friends. Both men had been generous in prosperity, and their good deeds, though known only to their intimate friends and the objects of their benevolence, were not trumpeted for worldly admiration. Both enjoyed a wide acquaintanceship with authors, and with books, with dealers, and with the public, and both had strong likes and dislikes, which made them as radical in politics as they were in personal affairs. In the firm, each has always had his own duties to perform, on the wise plan of a fitting division of labor. Yet while each partner seems exclusively to occupy his own field, independent of and unrestricted by the other, it rarely happens that there are any cross-purposes between them. The wheels of progress move on with unswerving and unerring progress; the law of compensation which is dominant in the establishment is always working aright.
Strangers who are for the first time brought in contract with these men, whether socially or on matters of business, invariably detect the strong points of conservatism which each exhibits. Mr. Lee gives one the impression of being a well-read man, as, in fact, he is. The faculty which he possesses of curiously gleaning the salient bits of knowledge out of current thought and expression, is something remarkable. The by-paths of literature are peculiarly his stamping-ground; and yet, upon almost every subject of important character, he will chat for hours intelligently and interestingly.
Mr. Shepard shows many of the same qualities. His brain is exceedingly fertile of ideas, his memory perfectly marvelous, his language pointed, easy-flowing and abounding in wit and humor. He exhibits singular quickness at repartee; he is fond of a joke, and will give and take with the keenest sense of enjoyment. His familiarity with standard literature serves him many a good turn; he makes it a duty to read thoroughly or to "dip into" every new book that is talked about. He fortifies himself, whether for daily life or for social intercourse, with all the intellectual weapons, so to speak, that can ever be called into play. Still, he moves along the pathway of life thoroughly without affectation; a "liberal education" seems to have been his by inheritance, and he can make better use of it than most college men with whom he is brought in contact.
It is as impossible for Mr. Shepard not to quote poetry as it is for him to fly through the air and his facility in so doing would alone make him a marked man. His whole soul is full of poesy, ever restless and exuberant. I am not aware that he ever molded a rhyme, or sung a measure of song in all his life. And yet so tenacious is his memory, so wonderful his talent in applying the epigrammatic utterances of the leading writers, both old and new, that a person, on being made cognizant of the fact, finds himself puzzled. Poetry enters into even the driest details of Mr. Shepard's business life. The signature to a check is often audibly accompanied by some melodic couplet. Anywhere and everywhere, and for everything that happens or may happen, the poetic spice is rarely wanting. Mr. Shepard does not deliberately intend this to be so; the gift rallies into utterance before he is aware of it, and he can no more suppress it than he can turn back the roaring waters of Niagara.
Possessed of such qualities as these, Mr. Shepard very easily finds friends and is the centre of their attraction. Outspoken, sometimes even to bluntness, a bitter hater of duplicity and meanness, a keen detector of counterfeit character, on the one hand; on the other, warm in his affections, generous to a fault, faithful to those whom he admires,—such is the man of whom I write. No one is ever at a loss to discover whether Mr. Shepard is his friend or his enemy.
Mr. Shepard has been intimately connected with the politics of his time. He began as a thorough, out-and-out abolitionist; during the war he was a stanch Republican, and a firm admirer of Charles Sumner. When the great Senator forsook his party, Mr. Shepard chose the same course, and to-day finds him enrolled upon the Democratic side, although, for some years back, he has taken no active interest in any political movement of the day.
Such, in brief, is Charles A.B. Shepard, a man better known, perhaps, than any other among the book trade of this country, everywhere popular, and nowhere more truly so than among those who are brought daily in contact with him and who know him best.