The Project Gutenberg eBook, Little Visits with Great Americans, Vol. II (of 2), Edited by Orison Swett Marden

LITTLE VISITS WITH GREAT AMERICANS

JOYS OF HOME

LITTLE VISITS
WITH GREAT
AMERICANS

OR
SUCCESS
IDEALS AND
HOW TO
ATTAIN THEM
EDITED BY
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
AUTHOR OF “PUSHING TO THE FRONT,” ETC., ETC., ETC.
———————
THE SUCCESS COMPANY
NEW YORK
1905

Copyright, 1903
By
THE SUCCESS COMPANY
New York
———
Copyright, 1904
By
THE SUCCESS COMPANY
New York
———
All Rights Reserved

XXXIV
A “Printer’s Devil” Whose Perseverance Wins Him Well-Earned Reputation as a Fun-Maker.

THE felicity of F. Opper’s caricatures is marvelous. His drawings for the Dinkelspiel stories, by George V. Hobart, in the New York “Morning Journal” have drawn to him the pleased attention of those whom he has caused to laugh at the happy expressions of his characters,—at the ridiculous expressions of the characters,—during Mr. Dinkelspiel’s “gonversationings,” particularly at Mr. Dinkelspiel’s earnest look.

He is a caricaturist of the “first water,” and in this connection I may say that a caricature too carefully drawn often loses its humor. Still Mr. Opper has proved his ability to finish a drawing smoothly. Those familiar with the back numbers of “Puck” will concede this and much more.

His life is an example of determination. I called, by appointment, at his house in Bensonhurst (near Bath Beach), a pretty suburb within the precincts of Greater New York. We stepped into his library.

He drew my attention to the pictures on the four walls of the room. “Those are all ‘originals,’ by contemporaries,” he said, “and there is one by poor Mike Woolf. We were intimate friends, and I attended his funeral.”

STUDIES OUT HIS IDEAS.

The conversation turned toward Mr. Opper himself, and I asked:—

“How is it you can conceive so many ridiculous ideas and predicaments?”

“It is a matter of study,” he replied. “I work methodically certain hours of the day, but very seldom at night. We will say it is a political cartoon on a certain occurrence that I am to draw. I deliberately sit down and study out my idea. When it is formed, I begin to draw. I never commence to draw without a conception of what I am going to do.”

“And when did you first put pencil to paper?” I asked.

“Almost as soon as I could creep. I was born in Madison, Ohio, in 1857, and as far back as I can remember, I had a determination to become an artist. My path often swerved from my ambition, on account of necessity, but my determination was back of me, and whenever an obstacle was removed I advanced thus much farther toward my goal.

“I went to the village school till I was fourteen years of age, and then I went to work in the village store. Both at school and in the store, every spare moment found me with pencil and paper, sketching something comical; so much so, indeed, that I became known for it.”

A PRINTER’S DEVIL.

“I remained in the store for a few months, and then went to work on the weekly paper, and acted the part of a ‘printer’s devil.’ Afterward, I set type. In about a year, the idea firmly possessed me that I could draw, and I decided that it was best to go to New York. But my self-esteem was not so great as to rate myself a full-fledged artist. My idea was to obtain a position as a compositor in New York, to draw between times, and gradually to land myself where my hopes all centered. So my disappointment was great when, on arriving in the city, I discovered that, to become a compositor, I must serve an apprenticeship of three years. I was in New York, in an artistic environment, and had burned my bridges; accordingly I looked for a place, and obtained one in a store. One of my duties there was to make window cards, to advertise the whole line, or a particular lot of goods. I decorated them in my best fashion.”

GOOD USE OF LEISURE TIME.

“All the leisure I had to myself, evenings and holidays, I spent in making comic sketches, and I took them to the comic papers,—to the ‘Phunny Phellow,’ and ‘Wild Oats.’ I just submitted rough sketches. Soon the editors permitted me to draw the sketches also, which was great encouragement. I met Frank Beard, and called on him, by request, and he proposed that I come into his office. So I left the store, after having been there eight or nine months, and ceased drawing show-cards for the windows. I drew for ‘Wild Oats,’ ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ ‘Frank Leslie’s,’ and the ‘Century,’ which at that time was Scribner’s publication; and later for ‘St. Nicholas.’”

It was then that Mr. Opper had an offer from “Leslie’s” to work on the staff at a salary, which he accepted.

“I was only a little over twenty years of age,” he continued. “I was a humorous draughtsman, and a special artist, also; going where I was directed to make sketches of incidents, people and scenes.”

Six years before, Mr. Opper had left the village school with a burning determination to become an artist. It can be seen how well he sailed his bark,—tacking and drifting, and finally beating home with the wind full on the sails. This shows what determination will do.

HIS CONNECTION WITH “PUCK.”

“Three years later,” said Mr. Opper, “I had an offer from the publishers of ‘Puck’ to work for them,—a connection which I severed not long ago, although I still hold stock in the company. I not only made my own drawings, but furnished ideas for others. I have always furnished my own captions, inscriptions and headings. Indeed, they are a part of a cartoon, or other humorous work. I think that I may say that ‘Puck’ owes some of its success to me, for I labored conscientiously.”

Mr. Opper walked over to a mantelpiece for two books of sketches, which he handed me to look at. They contained sketches of the country places he had visited on his summer wanderings.

“And you use these?” I asked.

“Yes; if I want a farmer leaning over a fence with a cow in the distance. I can use that barnyard scene And that bit of a country road can be made useful. So can that corncrib with the tin pans turned upside down on the posts supporting it, to keep the rats off. That old hay-wagon, and that farmer with a rake and a large straw hat can all be worked in. I always carry a sketch-book with me, no matter where I go.”

THE “SUBURBAN RESIDENT.”

On “Puck,” Mr. Opper was the originator of the “suburban resident,” who has since been the subject of much innocent merriment,—the gentleman with the high silk hat, side whiskers, glasses, an anxious expression, and bundles, and always on the rush for a train.

“I enjoyed those,” said Mr. Opper, with a laugh, “before I became a suburban myself.”

XXXV
“A Square Man in a Round Hole” Rejects $5,000 a Year and Becomes a Sculptor.

“MY LIFE?” repeated F. Wellington Ruckstuhl, one of the foremost sculptors of America, as we sat in his studio looking up at his huge figure of “Force.” “When did I begin to sculpture? As a child I was forever whittling, but I did not have dreams then of becoming a sculptor. It was not till I was thirty-two years of age. And love,—disappointment in my first love played a prominent part.”

“But as a boy, Mr. Ruckstuhl?”

“I was a poet. Every sculptor or artist is necessarily a poet. I was always reaching out and seeking the beautiful. My father was a foreman in a St. Louis machine shop. He came to this country in a sailing ship from Alsace, by way of the Gulf, to St. Louis, when I was but six years old. He was a very pious man and a deacon in a church. One time, Moody and Sankey came to town, and my father made me attend the meetings. I think he hoped that I would become a minister. But I decided that ‘many are called, but few are chosen.’ Between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, I worked in a photographic supply store; wrote one hundred poems, and read incessantly. I enlarged a view of the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square, London, into a ‘plaster sketch,’ ten times as large as the picture, but still I did not know my path. I began the study of philosophy, and kept up my reading for ten years. My friends thought I would become a literary man. I wrote for the papers, and belonged to a prominent literary club. I tried to analyze myself. ‘I am a man,’ I said, ‘but what am I good for? What am I to make of this life?’ I drifted from one position to another. Every one was sorry to part with my services, for I always did my duties as well as they can be done. When I was twenty-five years of age, the girl to whom I was attached was forced by her mother to marry a wealthy man. She died a year afterward, and I ‘pulled up stakes,’ and started on a haphazard, reckless career. I went to Colorado, drifted into Arizona, prospected, mined and worked on a ranch. I went to California, and at one time thought of shipping for China. My experiences would fill a book. Again I reached St. Louis. For a year I could not find a thing to do, and became desperate.”

MADE HIS FIRST SKETCH AT TWENTY-FIVE.

“And you had done nothing at art so far?” I asked.

“At that time I saw a clay sketch. I said to myself, ‘I can do as well as that,’ and I copied it. My second sketch admitted me to the St. Louis Sketch Club. I told my friends that I would be a sculptor. They laughed and ridiculed me. I had secured a position in a store, and at odd times worked at what I had always loved, but had only half realized it. Notices appeared in the papers about me, for I was popular in the community. I entered the competition for a statue of General Frank R. Blair. I received the first prize, but when the committee discovered that I was only a bill clerk in a store, they argued that I was not competent to carry out the work, although I was given the first prize medal and the one hundred and fifty dollars accompanying it.”

“But that inspired you?”

“Yes, but my father and mother put every obstacle in the way possible. I was driven from room to room. I was not even allowed to work in the attic.” Here Mr. Ruckstuhl laughed. “You see what genius has to contend with. I was advanced in position in the store, till I became assistant manager at two thousand dollars a year. When I told the proprietor that I had decided to be a sculptor, he gazed at me in blank astonishment. ‘A sculptor?’ he queried, incredulously, and made a few very discouraging remarks, emphasized with dashes. ‘Why, young man, are you going to throw up the chance of a lifetime? I will give you five thousand dollars a year, and promote you to be manager if you will remain with me.’”

HE GAVE UP A LARGE SALARY TO PURSUE ART.

“But I had found my life’s work,” said Mr. Ruckstuhl, turning to me. “I knew it would be a struggle through poverty, till I attained fame. But I was confident in myself, which is half of the battle.”

“And you went abroad?”

“Yes, with but two hundred and fifty dollars,” he replied. “I traveled through Europe for five months, and visited the French Salon. I said to myself, ‘I can do that, and that,’ and my confidence grew. But there was some work that completely ‘beat’ me. I returned to America penniless, but with a greater insight into art. I determined that I would retrace my steps to Paris, and study there for three years, and thought that would be sufficient to fully develop me. My family and friends laughed me to scorn, and I was discouraged by everyone. In four months, in St. Louis, I secured seven orders for busts, at two hundred dollars each, to be done after my return from France. That shows that some persons had confidence in me and in my talent.

“O, the student life in Paris! How I look back with pleasure upon those struggling, yet happy days! In two months, I started on my female figure of ‘Evening,’ in the nude, that now is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I finished it in nine months, and positively sweat blood in my work. I sent it to the Salon, and went to Italy. When I returned to Paris, I saw my name in the paper, with honorable mention. I suppose you can realize my feelings; I experienced the first flush of victory. I brought it to America, and exposed it in St. Louis. Strange to say, I rose in the estimation of even my family. My father actually congratulated me. A wealthy man in St. Louis gave me three thousand dollars to have my ‘Evening’ put into marble. I returned with it to Paris, and in a month and a quarter it was exhibited in the Salon. At the world’s Fair at Chicago, it had the place of honor, and received one of the eleven grand medals given to American sculptors. In 1892, I came to New York. This statue of ‘Force’ will be erected, with my statue of ‘Wisdom,’ on the new Hall of Records in New York.”

We gazed at it, seated and clothed in partial armor, of the old Roman type, and holding a sword across its knees. The great muscles spoke of strength and force, and yet with it all there was an almost benign look upon the military visage.

“There is force and real action there, withal, although there is repose,” I said in admiration.

THE INSPIRATION THAT COUNTS.

“Oh,” said Mr. Ruckstuhl, “that’s it, and that is what it is so hard to get! That is what every sculptor strives for; and, unless he attains it, his work, from my point of view is worthless. There must be life in a statue; it must almost breathe. In repose there must be dormant action that speaks for itself.”

“Is most of your work done under inspiration?” I asked.

“There is nothing, and a great deal, in so-called inspiration. I firmly believe that we mortals are merely tools, mediums, at work here on earth. I peg away and bend all my energies to my task. I simply accomplish nothing. Suddenly, after considerable preparatory toil, the mist clears away; I see things clearly; everything is outlined for me. I believe there is a conscious and a subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is the one that does original work; it cannot be affected by the mind that is conscious to all our petty environments. When the conscious mind is lulled and silenced, the subconscious one begins to work. That I call inspiration.”

“Are you ever discouraged?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Continually,” replied Mr. Ruckstuhl, looking down at his hands, soiled with the working clay. “Some days I will be satisfied with what I have done. It will strike me as simply fine. I will be as happy as a bird, and leave simply joyous. The following morning, when the cloths are removed, I look at my precious toil, and consider it vile. I ask myself: ‘Are you a sculptor or not? Do you think that you ever will be one? Do you consider that art?’ So it is, till your task is accomplished. You are your own critic, and are continually distressed at your inability to create your ideals.”

Mr. F. Wellington Ruckstuhl is fifty years of age; neither short nor tall; a brilliant man, with wonderful powers of endurance, for his work is more exacting and tedious than is generally supposed.

“I have simply worked a month and a quarter on that statue,” he said. “Certain work dissatisfied me, and I obliterated it. I have raised that head three times. My eyes get weary, and I become physically tired. On such occasions I sit down and smoke a little to distract my thoughts, and to clear my mind. Then my subconscious mind comes into play again,” he concluded with a smile.

Mr. Ruckstuhl’s best known works are: “Mercury Teasing the Eagle of Jupiter,” which is of bronze, nine feet high, which he made in Paris; a seven-foot statue of Solon, erected in the Congressional Library at Washington; busts of Franklin, Goethe and Macaulay, on the front of the same library; and the eleven-foot statue of bronze of “Victory,” for the Jamaica soldiers’ and sailors’ monument. In competition, he won the contract for an equestrian statue of General John F. Hartranft, ex-Governor of Pennsylvania, which he also made in Paris. It is considered the finest piece of work of its kind in America. Besides this labor, he has made a number of medallions and busts.

“Art was in me as a child,” he said; “I was discouraged whenever it beckoned me, but finally it claimed me. I surrendered a good position to follow it, whether it led through a thorny road or not. A sculptor is an artist, a musician, a poet, a writer, a dramatist, to throw action, breath and life, music and a soul into his creation. I can pick up an instrument and learn it instantly; I can sing, and act, so I am in touch with the sympathies of the beings that I endeavor to create. You will find most sculptors and artists of my composite nature.

“There,” said Mr. Ruckstuhl, and he stretched out his arm, with his palm downward, and moved it through the air, as he gazed into distance, “you strive to create the imagination of your mind, and it comes to you as if sent from another world.

“You strive. That is the way to success.”

XXXVI
During Leisure Hours He “Found Himself” and Abandoned the Law for Art.

THERE is a charming lesson in the way Henry Merwin Shrady, the sculptor, “found himself.” A few years ago, this talented artist, whose splendid buffalo and moose ornamented the entrance of the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, was employed as an assistant manager in the match business of his brother-in-law, Edwin Gould. It was by attempts at self-improvement through painting in oil, during leisure hours, that he discovered his capacity for art, and, finally, for sculpture of a high order of merit.

“I always secretly wished,” he said modestly, “to become a great painter, and, with that in view, dabbled in oils from childhood. My family wished me to study medicine, but my nature revolted at the cutting of flesh; so, after a course at Columbia University, I studied law. An attack of typhoid fever, caught at a Yale-Harvard boat race, after my graduation, incapacitated me for work for a year. Then I went into the match business, instead of practicing law.

“After business hours and on holidays, I taught myself painting. I have never taken a lesson in drawing, in painting, or in sculpture, in my life. I joined the Bronx Zoölogical Society, that I might the better study animals, and it was at these gardens that I made the sketches for my buffalo and moose.”

Mr. Shrady taught himself the art of mixing oils, and then, in spare hours, called on William H. Beard, at his studio, for the delineator of “The Bulls and Bears of Wall Street” to criticise his sketches. Once Mr. Beard said, prophetically, “Some day you will forsake all for art.”

A PET DOG HIS FIRST PAINTING.

The young artist had, at his home, a fox-terrier, of which he was very fond. He painted a picture of the dog, and his wife, thinking it an excellent piece of work, offered it clandestinely for exhibition at the National Academy of Design. It was accepted. Great was his astonishment when he recognized it there. It was sold for fifty dollars. His next serious attempt was caused by a little rivalry. His sister brought from abroad an expensive painting of some French kittens. He instantly took a dislike to the kittens, and said he would paint her some Angora ones. To make satisfactory sketches, he carried a sketch-book in his pocket, on his walks to and from his office, pausing on the pavements before the different fanciers’ windows to sketch the kittens within. This picture was also accepted by the National Academy of Design. But he refused an offer to sell it, as he had promised it to his sister, Mrs. Gould, for a Christmas present.

“It was on account of the almost impossible feat of getting colorings at night,” he said, “that I turned to modeling in clay. I wanted to do something to improve as well as amuse me. I modeled a battery going into action, but did not finish it till persuaded to do so by Alvin S. Southworth, a special correspondent of a New York paper in the Crimean War, and friend of my father, Dr. Shrady. It was to gratify him that I finished it. A photograph of it, reproduced in ‘The Journalist,’ attracted a gentleman in the employ of the firm of Theodore B. Starr. He called upon me, and encouraged me to have it made in Russian bronze. That house purchased it, and advised me to enter the field, as they saw prospects for American military pieces.”

Mr. Shrady sketched the gun-carriage and harness for his battery in the Seventh Regiment armory, to which regiment he has belonged for seven years; and his own saddle horse was his model for the horses of the battery.

One day Carl Bitter, the sculptor, dropped in at Starr’s, while Mr. Shrady was there. He noticed the small bronzes,—the buffalo and the moose. “I think we can use them at the Buffalo Exposition,” he said. Mr. Bitter offered the sculptor the use of his studio, in Hoboken, and, in six weeks, by rising at half past five in the morning, and working ten hours a day, he enlarged his buffalo to eight feet in height, and his moose, a larger animal, to nine feet. Then glue molds were taken of both of them, with the greatest care.

“I had never enlarged, or worked in plaster of Paris before,” said Mr. Shrady. “They gave me the tools and plaster, and told me to go to work. I didn’t know how to proceed, at first, but eventually learned all right. I think I could do such work with more ease now,” he added, “for that was practical experience I could not get in an art school.”

Since then, Mr. Shrady has made a realistic cavalry piece, “Saving the Colors,”—of two horsemen, one shot and falling, and the other snatching the colors; also, “The Empty Saddle,”—of a cavalry horse, saddled and bridled, and quietly grazing at a distance from the scene of the death of his rider. This was exhibited at the Academy of American Artists. The Academy of Fine Arts, of Philadelphia, requested Mr. Shrady to exhibit at its exhibition in January, 1902.

The youthful sculptor has the gift of giving life, expression and feeling to his animals, which, some say, is unsurpassed.

A UNIQUE EXPERIMENT WITH A HORSE.

“I do not believe,” said he, “in working from an anatomical figure, or in covering a horse with skin and hair after you have laid in his muscles. You are apt to make prominent muscles which are not really prominent. Once I soaked a horse with water, and took photographs of him, to make a record of the muscles and tendons that really show. They are practically few, except when in active use. In an art school you learn little about a horse. The way which I approve is to place a horse before you, study him and know him, and work till you have reproduced him. No master, standing over your shoulder, can teach you more than you can observe, if you have the soul. Corot took his easel into the woods, and studied close to nature, till he painted truthfully a landscape. Angelo’s best work was that done to suit his personal view.

“Talent may be born, but it depends upon your own efforts whether it comes to much. I believe that if your hobby, desire, or talent, whichever you wish to call it, is to paint or model, you can teach yourself better than you can be taught, providing you really love your work, as I do.”

Thus did Mr. Shrady desert a mechanical life he disliked, and start on a promising career. He is still young, slight, and with delicate features. His heart is tender toward animals, and he refuses to hunt. His chief delight is in riding the horse which has figured so prominently in his work. His success proves two things: the value of leisure moments, and the wisdom of turning a hobby into a career.

XXXVII
Deformed in Body, His Cheerful Spirit Makes Him the Entertainer of Princes.

A SCORE of years ago, seated on a bench in Bryant Park, a hungry lad wept copious tears over his failure to gain a supper or a night’s lodging. A peddler’s outfit lay beside him. Not a sale had he made that day. His curiously diminutive body was neatly clad, but his heart was heavy. He was dreadfully hungry, as only a boy can be.

“Oh, see the funny little man!” exclaimed a quartet of little girls, as they trooped past the shrinking figure. “Mamma! Come and buy something from him!”

Down the steps of a brown stone mansion came a young matron, curiosity shining out of her handsome eyes. The boy looked up and smiled. The lady did not buy anything, but her mother’s heart was touched, and before she hurried home with her little girls, she gave him five cents.

Last winter, two members of the Lamb’s Club were about to part on the club steps. One was “The Prince of Entertainers and the Entertainer of Princes,” Marshall P. Wilder. The other was a distinguished lawyer.

“Come and dine with me to-night, Mr. Wilder,” said the latter. “You have never accepted my hospitality, but you have no engagements for to-night, so come along.”

Ten minutes later, the great entertainer was presented to the wife of his host and to four beautiful young women.

A curious thrill passed over the guest as he looked into those charming faces. They seemed familiar. A flash of memory carried him back to that scene in the park. He turned to the hostess:—

“Do you remember,”—his voice trembled,—“a little chap in the park years ago, to whom you were kind,—‘a funny little man,’ the children called him, and you gave him five cents?”

“Yes, yes, I do remember that,—and you—?”

“I am the funny little man.”

It was indeed true. The hungry boy had not forgotten it, though wealth and fame had come to him in the meanwhile. In a little private diary that no one sees but himself, he has five new birth dates marked, those of the mother and her four daughters. “Just to remember those who have been kind to me,” is the only explanation on the cover of the book.

What a brightly interesting story is Wilder’s, anyway! Who else in all this great, broad land has made such a record,—from a peddler’s pack to a fortune of one hundred thousand dollars,—and all because he is merry and bright and gay in spite of his physical drawbacks. His nurse dropped him when he was an infant, but for years the injury did not manifest itself. At three he was a bright baby, the pride of the dear old father, Doctor Wilder, who still survives to enjoy his son’s popularity in the world of amusement-makers. It was no fault of the doctor that Marshall was obliged to go hungry in New York. Doctor Wilder lived and practiced in Hartford, where his son ought to have stayed, but he didn’t. At five he was handsome and well formed, but at twelve he stopped growing. The boys began to tease him about his diminutive stature.

“I don’t think I’ve grown very much since,—except in experience,” he said the other day in the course of a morning chat in his handsome bachelor apartments. “I thought, by leaving home, I might at least grow up with the country.”

“But you didn’t grow, after all?”

“No, I haven’t found the country yet that can make me grow up with it. I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with being a plain expansionist.” [Mr. Wilder is nearly as broad as he is long.]

“How did you happen to choose the amusement profession?” I asked.

NATURE’S LAW OF COMPENSATION.

“I was always a good mimic,” he replied, “and I found my talents lay in that direction. I created a new business, that of story-teller, imitator of celebrated people, and of sleight-of-hand performer, all without the aid of costumes, depending solely on my facial expression to give point to the humor. Nature had certainly tried to make amends for her frowns by giving me facial power,—the power to smile away dull care. There is a niche in life for everyone, a place where one belongs. Society is like a pack of cards. Some members of it are kings and others are knaves, while I,—I discovered that I was the little joker.”

Mr. Wilder is a bubbling fountain of wit, whose whimsicalities are no less entertaining to himself than to his hearers. As he quaintly expresses it, they are “ripples from the ocean of my moods which have touched the shore of my life.” His disposition is so cheery that children and dogs come to him instantly. Eugene Field has the same trait.

HOW HE TOOK JOSEPH JEFFERSON’S LIFE.

His first appearance on any stage was made in “Rip Van Winkle,” when he was a boy. Joseph Jefferson carried him on his back as a dwarf. The great “Rip” has remained his steadfast friend ever since. Only a few years ago, Wilder left New York to fulfil a church entertainment engagement in Utica. He got there at three in the afternoon. Mr. Jefferson’s private car was on the track, containing himself, William J. Florence, Mrs. John Drew, Viola Allen, and Otis Skinner. They hailed him instantly and induced him to pass the afternoon in the car and to take dinner with them. His church engagement was over at half past eight, and at Mr. Jefferson’s invitation he occupied a box at the opera house. The house happened to be a small one, while the church had been crowded to the doors. After the theater, the Jefferson party again entertained the humorist in the car, keeping him until his train left, half an hour after midnight. As Mr. Wilder was leaving, Mr. Jefferson pretended to get very angry and said: “What do you think, my friends? Here we have entertained this ungrateful young scamp all the afternoon, and invited him to dinner. Then he goes up to town and plays to a big audience, leaving me only a very poor house. Then he comes down here, partakes of our hospitality again, and before leaving takes my life!” Suiting the action to the word, Mr. Jefferson handed the young man a copy of his “Life and Recollections.”

His first attempt at wit was at a little church in New York, where he was one of the audience. A tableau was being given of “Mary, Queen of Scots,” and in order to make it realistic they had obtained a genuine butcher’s block and a cleaver. As the executioner stood by, the lights all turned low, and his dreadful work in progress, a shrill voice arose from the darkened house:—

“Save me a spare-rib.”

His readiness in an emergency was shown at Flint, Michigan, when he was before an unresponsive audience. As luck would have it, the gas suddenly went out.

“Never mind the gas,” he called to the stage manager. “They can see the points just as well in the dark.” After that he was en rapport.

The greatest gift God ever made to man, he admitted to me in strict confidence, is the ability to laugh and to make his fellowmen laugh. This more than compensates, he adds, for the reception he gets from some of the cold audiences in New Jersey.

I asked him what was the funniest experience he had ever had.

“In a lodge room one night with Nat Goodwin,” he replied. “It was, or ought to have been, a solemn occasion, but there was a German present who couldn’t repeat the obligation backward. Nat stuffed his handkerchief into his mouth. I bit my lip trying to keep from laughing. I knew what an awful breach of decorum it would be if we ever gave way to our feelings. We had almost gained perfect control of ourselves, and the beautiful and impressive ceremony was half over, when that confounded Dutchman was asked once more to repeat the oath backward. He made such work of it that I yelled right out, while Nat had a spasm and rolled on the floor. Did they put us out? Well, I guess they did. It took seven or eight apologies to get us back into that lodge.”

Equally funny was his experience in London. It was on the occasion of the visit of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, of Boston. A big dinner was to be given, and the American ambassador and the Prince of Wales were to be there. I asked Wilder to tell me the story of his visit.

“I received an invitation,” he began, “through my friend, B. F. Keith, who was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, and who happened to be in London. The uniforms were something gorgeous. The members stood in two long lines, awaiting the coming of the prince, who is always punctual. I was dressed in my usual boy-size clothes, a small American flag stuck in my Tuxedo coat. I walked around restlessly. The major-domo was a very grand personage, with a bearskin hat on one end and long boots on the other. He must have been eight or ten feet high. He chased me to the rear of the room several times,—evidently not knowing who I was,—but every time he turned his back I would bob out again, sometimes between his legs. The prince came, and almost the first thing he did was to walk across the floor to me and say: ‘Hullo, little chap. I am very glad to see you.’ I had met him before. Then Henry Irving bore down on me and shook my hand, and so did Mr. Depew and others. By this time the major-domo had shrunk in size.

“Who the Dickens is that little chap, anyway?” he asked.

“‘Sh! He belongs to the American army,’ was the answer. ‘He’s a great marshal or something over there!’”

Wilder is big-hearted. “The biggest fee I ever received,” he stated in reply to my inquiry, “was the satisfaction I saw depicted on a poor man’s face. It was on a railway train. A life-prisoner was being taken, after a long man-hunt in Europe and America, out to Kansas City. I never saw so dejected a face. I devoted four or five hours to brightening him up, and when I left he was smiling all over. I had succeeded in making him forget his misery for at least four hours!”

A wealthy gentleman of New York pays Mr. Wilder a stated sum every year to “cheer up” the inmates of hospitals and similar institutions.

XXXVIII
Energy and Earnestness Win an Actor Fame.

“WHO will play the part?” asked A. M. Palmer, anxiously, looking over the members of his “Parisian Romance” company one night when the actor who had been playing ‘Baron Cheval’ failed to appear.

“I will,” spoke up an obscure young player, a serious, earnest man who had been “utility” for the company only a short time.

It was Richard Mansfield, and the part was given him. It had not been a conspicuous part up to that hour, but that night Mr. Mansfield made it a leading one. He saw in it opportunities for a deeper dramatic portrayal, for an expression of intense earnestness, and for that finished acting which ennobles any part in a play, however humble. Before the performance was over, he had opened the eyes of the company and the public to the fact that a new actor of great talent had come to the front at a bound.

In his beautiful home in New York, the other day, I found him surrounded by the evidences of wealth and artistic taste.

“So you represent Success,” he exclaimed. “Well, I am pleased to have you call. Success pays few calls, you know. Ordinarily, we have to pursue it and make great efforts to keep it from eluding us.”

Mr. Mansfield made this remark with a quizzical, yet half-tired smile, as if he had himself found the chase exhausting.

HOW TO FIND SUCCESS.

“Yes,” he went on, “success is a most fleet-footed—almost a phantom—goddess. You pursue her eagerly and seem to grasp her, and then you see her speeding on in front again. This is, of course, because one is rarely satisfied with present success. There is always something yet to be attained. To speak personally, I never worked harder in my life than I am working now. If I should relax, I fear that the structure which I have built up would come tumbling about my ears. It is my desire to advance my standard every year,—to plant it higher up on the hill, and to never yield a foot of ground. This requires constant effort. I find my reward, not in financial returns, for these are hardly commensurate with the outlay of labor; nor in the applause of others, for this is not always discriminative or judicious; but in the practice of my art. This suggests what, it seems to me, is the true secret of success.

“Love your work; then you will do it well. It is its own reward, though it brings others. If a young man would rather be an actor than anything else, and he knows what he is about, let him, by all means, be an actor. He will probably become a good one. It is the same, of course, in many occupations. If you like your work, hold on to it, and eventually you are likely to win. If you don’t like it, you can’t be too quick in getting into something that suits you better.”

HE BEGAN AS A DRY GOODS CLERK.

“I began as a dry goods clerk in Boston, and was a very mediocre clerk. Afterward I became a painter in London, and was starving at that. Finally, like water, I found my level in dramatic art.”

The thing about Mr. Mansfield which most inspires those who come in contact with him is his wonderful store of nervous energy. It communicates itself to others and makes them keen for work.

“I cannot talk with him five minutes,” said his business representative, “before I want to grab my hat and ‘hustle’ out and do about three days’ work without stopping. For persons who have not, or cannot absorb, some of his own electric spirit, he has little use. He is a living embodiment of contagious energy.”

His performances before audiences constitute a comparatively small portion of his work. It is in his elaborate and painstaking preparation that the labor is involved, and it is to this—to the minute preliminary care that he gives to every detail of a production,—that his fine effects and achievements before the footlights are, in considerable measure, due.

HE GIVES INFINITE ATTENTION TO DETAIL.

The rehearsals are a vital part of the preparatory work, and to them Mr. Mansfield has devoted a great deal of time. For weeks, between the hours of eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon, he remains on the stage with his company, seated in a line four or five deep on either side of him, like boys and girls at school, deeply engrossed in impressing upon the minds of individual members of the company his own ideas of the interpretation and presentation of the various parts. Again and again, until one would think he himself would become utterly weary of the repetition, he would have an actor repeat a sentence. Not until it is exactly right is Mr. Mansfield satisfied. Nothing escapes his scrutiny. At dress rehearsals he may see, to mention a typical case, a tall man and a small one of no special importance in the play standing together, and the tall one may be made up to have a sallow complexion and beard. Mr. Mansfield glances at them quickly. Something is wrong. He hastens up to the smaller one and suggests that, for the sake of contrast, he make himself up to look stout and to have a smooth face. The improvement is quite noticeable. Mr. Mansfield carefully notes the effect of light and shadow on the scenery; and sometimes, at the last moment, will seize the brush and add, here and there, a heightening or a softening touch.

An incident of his early youth will tend to illustrate his spirit of self-reliance. His mother was an eminent singer who frequently appeared before royal families in Europe, and usually had little Richard with her. On one occasion, after her own performance before royalty in Germany, the little Crown Prince, who was about the same age as Richard, and an accomplished boy, played a selection on the piano, and played it well. When he had left the piano, the company was very much surprised to see Master Richard Mansfield take his place, without an invitation, and play the same music, but in a considerably better manner than had the Crown Prince. When the boy had become a youth, he was compelled to support himself; and, having come to this country, he obtained a position as a clerk in the Jordan & Marsh establishment in Boston. Meanwhile, he was devoting all his spare time to studying painting. He afterward tried to make a living at it in London, and failed. He was finally given an opportunity as a comedian in “Pinafore.” He had the small part of Joseph. It was but a short time afterward when he entered the employ of Mr. Palmer and got the chance of his lifetime.

XXXIX
A Father’s Common Sense Gives America a Great Bandmaster.

KIPLING essayed to write verses at thirteen, and John Philip Sousa entered his apprenticeship in a military band at the age of twelve. The circumstances, which he related to me during a recent conversation, make it clear, however, that it was not exactly the realization of any youthful ambition. “When I was a youngster of twelve,” said the bandmaster, “I could play the violin fairly well. It was in this memorable year that a circus came to Washington, D. C., where I then lived, and remained for two days. During the morning of the first day, one of the showmen passed the house and heard me playing. He rang the bell, and when I answered it, asked if I would not like to join the show. I was at the age when it is the height of every boy’s ambition to join a circus, and was so delighted that I readily agreed to his instructions that I was to take my violin, and, without telling anyone, go quietly to the show grounds late the next evening.

“I couldn’t, however, keep this stroke of good fortune entirely to myself, so I confided it to my chum, who lived next door. The effect was entirely unanticipated. He straightway became so jealous at the thought that I would have an opportunity to witness the circus performance free that he told his mother, and that good woman promptly laid the whole matter before my father.”

IN THE MARINE BAND.

“At the time I was, of course, ignorant of this turn of affairs; but early the next morning my father, without a word of explanation, told me to put on my best clothes, and, without ceremony, bundled me down to the office of the Marine Band, where he entered me as an apprentice. The age limit at which admission could be gained to the band corps was fourteen years, and I have always retained the two years which my father unceremoniously added to my age at that time.”

Sousa is of Spanish descent, his father having emigrated from Spain to Portugal by reason of political entanglements. Thence came the strange fact that, during the recent war, American troops marched forward to attack Spaniards to the music of marches written by this descendant of their race. The director’s remark that his family was one of the oldest in Spain was supplementary to an amused denial of that pretty story which has been so widely circulated to the effect that the bandmaster’s name was originally John Philipso, and that when, after entering the Marine Band, he signed it with the “U. S. A.” appended, some intelligent clerk divided it into John Philip Sousa.

HIS FIRST SUCCESSFUL WORK.

In discussing his opera, “El Capitan,” which, when produced by De Wolf Hopper several seasons ago, achieved such instantaneous success, the composer remarked that it was the sixth opera he had written, the others never reaching the dignity of a production.

As Sousa is preëminently a man of action, so his career and characteristics are best outlined by incidents. One in connection with his operatic composition strikingly illustrates his pluck and determination. Before he attained any great degree of prominence in the musical world, Sousa submitted an opera to Francis Wilson, offering to sell it outright for one thousand five hundred dollars. Wilson liked the opera, but the composer was not fortified by a great name, so he declined to pay more than one thousand dollars for the piece. The composer replied that he had spent the best part of a year on the work, and felt that he could not take less than his original demand. Wilson was obdurate, and Sousa ruefully put the manuscript back into his portfolio.

Some time afterward a march which the bandmaster sent to a well-known publishing house caught the public favor. The publishers demanded another at once. The composer had none at hand, but suddenly thought of the march in his discarded opera, and forwarded it without waiting to select a name.

While he was pondering thoughtfully on the subject of a title, Sousa and a friend one evening went to the Auditorium in Chicago, where “America” was then being presented. When the mammoth drop curtain, with the painted representation of the Liberty Bell was lowered, the bandmaster’s companion said, with the suddenness of an inspiration: “There is a name for your new march.” That night it was sent on to the publishers.

Up to date, this one selection from the opera for which Francis Wilson refused to pay fifteen hundred dollars has netted its composer thirty-five thousand dollars.

A MAN WHO NEVER RESTS.

Sousa has practically no vacations. Throughout the greater part of the autumn, winter and spring, his band is en tour through this country and Canada, giving, as a rule, two concerts each day, usually in different towns. During the summer, his time is occupied with daily concerts at Manhattan Beach, near New York. Despite all this, he finds time to write several marches or other musical selections each year, and for several years past has averaged each year an operatic production. Any person who is at all conversant with the subject knows that the composition of the opera itself is only the beginning of the composer’s labor, and Sousa has invariably directed the rehearsals with all the thoroughness and attention to detail that might be expected from a less busy man.

The bandmaster is a late riser, and in that, as in other details, the routine of his daily life is the embodiment of regularity and punctuality. In reply to my question as to what produces his never-failing good health, he said: “Absolute regularity of life, plenty of sleep, and good, plain, substantial food.”

His idea of the most valuable aids, if not essentials to success, may be imagined. They are “persistence and hard work.” The “March King” believes that it is only worry, and not hard work, that kills people, and he also has confidence that if there be no literal truth in the assertion that genius is simply another name for hard work, there is at least much of wisdom in the saying.

Many persons who have seen Sousa direct his organization make the assertion that the orders conveyed by his baton are non-essential,—that the band would be equally well-off without Sousa. This never received a fuller refutation than during a recent concert in an eastern city. Two small boys in seats near the front of the hall were tittering, but so quietly that it would hardly seem possible that it could be noticed on the stage, especially by the bandmaster, whose back was, of course, toward the audience. Suddenly, in the middle of a bar, his baton fell. Instantly, every sound ceased, not a note having been sounded after the signal, which could not have been anticipated, was given. Wheeling quickly, the leader ordered the troublesome youngsters to leave the hall, and almost before the audience had realized what had happened, the great organization had resumed the rendition of the selection, without the loss of a chord.

HOW SOUSA WORKS.

In answer to my inquiry as to his methods of work, the director of America’s foremost band said:—

“I think that any musical composer must essentially find his periods of work governed largely by inspiration. A march or a waltz depends perhaps upon some strain that has sufficient melody to carry the entire composition, and it is the waiting to catch this embryo note that is sometimes long.

“Take my experience with ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.’ I worked for weeks on the strain that I think will impress most persons as the prettiest in the march. I carried it in my mind all that time, but I could not get the idea transferred to paper just as I wanted. When I did accomplish it, there was comparatively little delay with the remainder.”

When I asked him about his future work, Mr. Sousa said:—

“I of course have commissions to write several operas, and I am at work on a musical composition which I hope to make the best thing that I have ever attempted.”

His temperament is well illustrated by an incident on a western railroad. The Sousa organization, which had been playing in one of the larger cities, desired to reach a small town in time for a matinée performance, but, owing to the narrow policy of the railway officials, the bandmaster was obliged to engage a special train, at a cost of $175.

In the railway yard stood the private coach of the president of the system, and just before the Sousa train pulled out, the discovery was made that the regular train, to which it had been intended to attach the president’s car, was three hours late. A request was made of the bandmaster that he allow the car to be attached to his train; but Sousa, with that twinkle in his eye which every person who has seen him must have noticed, simply smiled, and, with the most extravagant politeness, replied: “I am sorry, gentlemen, but, having chartered this train for my especial use, I am afraid I shall have to limit its use to that purpose.”

XL
Blind, Deaf, and Dumb, Patient Effort Wins for Her Culture and Rare Womanhood.

“I AM trying to prove that the sum of the areas of two similar polygons, constructed on the two legs of a right triangle, is equal to the area of a similar polygon constructed on the hypotenuse. It is a very difficult demonstration,” she added, and her expressive face, on which every passing emotion is plainly written, looked serious for a moment, as she laid her hand upon the work about which I had asked.

Helen Keller, the deaf and blind girl, whose intellectual attainments have excited the wonder and admiration of our most prominent educators, is well known to all readers, but Helen Keller, the blithesome, rosy-cheeked, light-hearted maiden of nineteen, whose smile is a benediction, and whose ringing laugh is fresh and joyous as that of a child, is not, perhaps, so familiar.

HELEN KELLER AT HOME.

By kind permission of her teacher, Miss Sullivan, I was granted the privilege of an interview with Miss Keller at her residence on Newbury street, Boston, where she was busily at work preparing for the entrance examinations to Radcliffe College.

After a cordial greeting, Miss Sullivan, whose gracious, kindly manner makes the visitor feel perfectly at home, introduced me to her pupil. Seated on a low rocking-chair, in a large, sunny bay-window, the young girl, fresh as the morning, in her dainty pink shirt-waist over a dress of plain, dark material, with the sunshine glinting through her waving brown hair, and kissing her broad white forehead and pink cheeks, made a picture which one will not willingly forget. On her lap was a small red cushion, to which wires, representing the geometrical figures included in the problem on which she was engaged, were fastened. Laying this aside at a touch from Miss Sullivan, she arose, and, stretching out her hand, pronounced my name softly, with a peculiar intonation, which at first makes it a little difficult to understand her words, but to which the listener soon becomes accustomed. Of course, her teacher acted as an interpreter during our conversation, though much of what Helen says is perfectly intelligible even to the untrained ear.

“Yes,” she said, “it is a very difficult problem, but I have a little light on it now.”

HER AMBITION.

“What will your ambition be when your college course is completed?” I asked.

“I think I should like to write,—for children. I tell stories to my little friends a great deal of the time now, but they are not original,—not yet. Most of them are translations from the Greek, and I think no one can write anything prettier for the young. Charles Kingsley has written some equally good things, like ‘Water Babies,’ for instance. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is a fine story, too, but none of them can surpass the Greek tales.”

Many of our advanced thinkers are fond of advancing the theory that the medium of communication in the future will not be spoken words, but the more subtle and genuine, if mute, language of the face, the eyes, the whole body. Sarah Bernhardt forcibly illustrates the effectiveness of this method, for even those who do not understand a word of French derive nearly as much pleasure from the great actress’s performances as those who are thoroughly familiar with the language. Helen Keller’s dramatic power of expression is equally telling.

She is enthusiastic in her admiration of everything Greek. The language, the literature, the arts, the history of the classic land fascinate and enthrall her imagination.

“Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, eagerly, in answer to my query if she expected to go to Greece sometime, “it is one of my air castles. Ever since I was as tall as that,” (she held her hand a short distance from the floor) “I have dreamed about it.”

“Do you believe the dream will some day become a reality?”

“I hope so, but I dare not be too sure,”—and the sober words of wisdom that followed sounded oddly enough on the girlish lips,—“the world is full of disappointments and vicissitudes, and I have to be a little conservative.”

“Which of your studies interest you most?”

“Latin and Greek. I am reading now Virgil’s ‘Eclogues,’ Cicero’s ‘Orations,’ Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey,’” she said, and ran rapidly over a list of classic books which she likes.

Her readiness to perceive a joke and her quickness to detect the least carelessness in language are distinguishing traits, which she illustrated even during our brief conversation. Commenting on her love of everything pertaining to Greece, I remarked that a believer in the doctrine of metempsychosis might imagine that she possessed the soul of an old Greek. Instantly she noticed the little slip, and, laughing gayly, cried: “Oh, no, not the soul of an old Greek, the soul of a young Greek.”

Helen’s merriment was infectious, and we all joined heartily in the laugh, Miss Sullivan saying, “She caught you there,” as I was endeavoring to explain that, of course, I meant the soul of an ancient Greek.

While taking so deep an interest in matters intellectual, and living in a world of her own, penetrated by no outward sight or sound, Miss Keller’s tastes are as normal as those of any girl of nineteen. She is full of animal spirit, dearly loves a practical joke, is fond of dancing, enjoys outside exercise and sport, and has the natural desire of every healthy young maiden to wear pretty things and look her best.

In answer to a question on this latter subject, she said:—

“I used to be very fond of dress, but now I am not particularly so; it is such a bother. We ought to like dress, though, and wear pretty things, just as the flowers put on beautiful colors. It would be fine,” she continued, laughing gleefully, “if we were made with feathers and wings, like the birds. Then we would have no trouble about dress, and we could fly where we pleased.”

“You would fly to Greece, first, I suppose?”

“No,” she replied, and her laughing face took on a tender, wistful look, “I should go home first, to see my loved ones.”

HEREDITY AND CHILDHOOD.

Miss Keller’s home is at Tuscumbia, Alabama, where she was born on June 27, 1880. Some of the best blood of both the north and the south flows in her veins, and it is probable that her uncommon mental powers are in no small degree due to heredity. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, a polished southern gentleman, with a large, chivalrous nature, fine intelligence and attractive manners, was the descendant of a family of Swiss origin, which had settled in Virginia and mixed with some of the oldest families in that state. He served as a captain in the Confederate army during the Civil War, and, at the time of Helen’s birth, was the owner and editor of a paper published at Tuscumbia. On the maternal side she is descended from one of the Adams families of Massachusetts, and the same stock of Everetts from which Edward Everett and Reverend Edward Everett Hale sprang.

Helen Keller was not born deaf and blind, although, at the age of eighteen months, when a violent fit of convulsions deprived her of the faculties of seeing and hearing, she had not attempted to speak. When a child, she was as notable for her stubbornness and resistance to authority as she is to-day for her gentleness and amiability. Indeed, it was owing to an exhibition of what seemed a very mischievous spirit that her parents sought a special instructor for her. Having discovered the use of a key, she locked her mother into a pantry in a distant part of the house, where, her hammering on the door not being heard by the servants, she remained imprisoned for several hours. Helen, seated on the floor outside, felt the knocking on the door, and seemed to be enjoying the situation intensely when at length jailer and prisoner were found. She was then about six years old, and, after this escapade, Mr. and Mrs. Keller felt that the child’s moral nature must be reached and her mental powers cultivated, if possible.

HELEN’S FIRST TEACHER.

On the recommendation of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, Michael Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind at South Boston, sent Miss Annie Mansfield Sullivan to Tuscumbia to undertake the difficult task of piercing the veil behind which the intelligence of the little girl lay sleeping. How well this noble and devoted teacher has succeeded in her work is amply evidenced by the brilliancy and thoroughness of her pupil’s attainments.

Miss Sullivan’s method of instruction was similar to that adopted by Dr. Samuel G. Howe in teaching Laura Bridgman. She used the manual alphabet, and cards bearing, in raised letters, the names of objects. At first, the pupil violently resisted the teacher’s efforts to instruct her, and so determined was her opposition, Miss Sullivan declares, that, if she had not exercised physical force and a determination even more strenuous than that of her refractory pupil, she would never have succeeded in teaching her anything. Night and day she was at her side, watching for the first gleam of conscious mind; and at length, after seven weeks of what she says was the hardest work she had ever done, the faithful teacher received her reward in the sudden dawning of the child’s intelligence. All at once, the light seemed to burst in upon her wondering soul; she understood then that the raised letters which she felt on the cards and the groups of manual signs on her hands, represented words, or the names of familiar objects. The delight of the pupil and teacher was unbounded, and from that moment Helen’s education, though still demanding the greatest patience and loving care on the part of her teacher, was a comparatively easy matter.

With the awakening of her intellectual faculties, she seemed literally to have been “born again.” The stubborn, headstrong, self-willed, almost unmanageable child became patient, gentle and obedient; and, instead of resisting instruction, her eagerness to learn was so great that it had to be restrained. So rapid was her progress that, in a few weeks, anyone who knew the manual alphabet could easily communicate with her, and in July, 1887, less than a year from the time Miss Sullivan first saw her, she could write an intelligent letter.

PREPARING FOR COLLEGE.

In September, 1896, accompanied by her teacher, Miss Keller entered the Cambridge School for Girls, to prepare for Radcliffe College, and in June, 1897, passed the examinations of the first preparatory year successfully in every subject, taking “honors” in English and German. The director of the school, Arthur Gilman, in an article in “American Annals of the Deaf,” says: “I think that I may say that no candidate in Harvard or Radcliffe College was graduated higher than Helen in English. The result is remarkable, especially when we consider that she had been studying on strictly college preparatory lines for one year only. She had, it is true, long and careful instruction, and she has had always the loving ministration of Miss Sullivan, in addition to the inestimable advantage of a concentration that the rest of us never know. No other, man or woman,” he adds, “has ever, in my experience, got ready for those examinations in so brief a time.”

Mr. Gilman, in the same article, pays the following well-deserved tribute to Miss Sullivan, whose work is as worthy of admiration as that of her pupil:—

“Miss Sullivan sat at Helen’s side in the classes (in the Cambridge School), interpreting to her, with infinite patience, the instruction of every teacher. In study hours, Miss Sullivan’s labors were even more arduous, for she was obliged to read everything that Helen had to learn, excepting what was prepared in Braille; she searched the lexicons and encyclopedias, and gave Helen the benefit of it all. When Helen went home, Miss Sullivan went with her, and it was hers to satisfy the busy, unintermitting demands of the intensely active brain; for, although others gladly helped, there were many matters which could be treated only by the one teacher who had awakened the activity and had followed its development from the first. Now, it was a German grammar which had to be read, now a French story, and then some passage from ‘Cæsar’s Commentaries.’ It looked like drudgery, and drudgery it would certainly have been had not love shed its benign influence over all, lightening each step and turning hardship into pleasure.”

Miss Keller is very patriotic, but large and liberal in her ideas, which soar far beyond all narrow, partisan or political prejudices. Her sympathies are with the masses, the burden-bearers, and, like all friends of the people and of universal progress, she was intensely interested in the Peace Congress.

Speaking on the subject, she said: “I hope the nations will carry out the project of disarmament. I wonder which nation will be brave enough to lay down its arms first!”

“Don’t you hope it will be America?”

“Yes, I hope so, but I do not think it will. We are only just beginning to fight now,” she went on, sagely, “and I am afraid we like it. I think it will be one of the old, experienced nations, that has had enough of war.”

HER IDEAL OF A SUCCESSFUL CAREER.

I asked Miss Keller what she considers most essential to a successful career.

She thought a moment, and then replied, slowly, “Patience, perseverance and fidelity.”

“And what do you look upon as the most desirable thing in life?”

“Friends,” was the prompt reply to this broad general question; and, as she uttered the word, she nestled closely to the friend who has so long been all in all to her.

“What about material possessions?” I asked; “for instance, which would you place first,—wealth or education?”

“Education. A good education is a stepping-stone to wealth. But that does not imply that I want wealth. It is such a care. It would be worse than dressing. ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me contentment,’” she quoted, with a smile.

The future of this most interesting girl will be followed with closest attention by educators, psychologists, and the public generally. There is little doubt that the time and care spent on her education will be amply justified; and that she will personally illustrate her own ideal of a successful career,—“To live nobly; to be true to one’s best aspirations,”—is the belief of all who know her.

XLI
Jay Gould’s Chum Chooses “High Thinking, not Money Making,” and Wins Success Without Riches.

WHEN I visited the hill-top retreat of John Burroughs, the distinguished lover of nature, at West Park, New York, it was with the feeling that all success is not material; that mere dollars are nothing, and that the influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor. John Burroughs is unquestionably both influential and poor. On the wooden porch of his little bark-covered cabin I waited, one June afternoon, until he should come back from the woods and fields, where he had gone for a ramble. It was so still that the sound of my rocker moving to and fro on the rough boards of the little porch seemed to shock the perfect quiet. From afar off came the plaintive cry of a wood-dove, and then all was still again. Presently the interpreter of out-door life appeared in the distance, and, seeing a stranger at his door, hurried homeward. He was without coat or vest, and looked cool in his white outing shirt and large straw hat. After some formalities of introduction, we reached the subject which I had called to discuss, and he said:—

“It is not customary to interview men of my vocation concerning success.”

“Any one who has made a lasting impression on the minds of his contemporaries,” I began, “and influenced men and women——”

“Do you refer to me?” he interrupted, naively.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF BEING SUCCESSFUL.

I nodded and he laughed. “I have not endowed a university nor made a fortune, nor conquered an enemy in battle,” he said.

“And those who have done such things have not written ‘Locusts and Wild Honey’ and ‘Wake, Robin.’”

“I recognize,” he said, quietly, “that success is not always where people think it is. There are many ways of being successful, and I do not approve of the mistake which causes many to consider that a great fortune acquired means a great success achieved. On the contrary, our greatest men need very little money to accomplish the greatest work.”

“I thought that anyone leading a life so wholly at variance with the ordinary ideas and customs would see success in life from a different point of view,” I observed. “Money is really no object with you?”

“The subject of wealth never disturbs me.”

“You lead a very simple life here?”

“Such as you see.”

The sight would impress anyone. So far is this disciple of nature away from the ordinary mode of the world that his little cabin, set in the cup-shaped top of a hill, is practically bare of luxuries and the so-called comforts of life. His surroundings are of the rudest, the very rocks and bushes encroaching upon his back door. All about, the crest of the hill encircles him, and shuts out the world. Only the birds of the air venture to invade his retreat from the various sides of the mountain, and there is only a straggling, narrow path, which branches off a dozen times before it takes the true direction. In his house are no decorations but such as can be hung upon the exposed wood. The fireplace is of brick, and quite wide; the floor, rough boards scrubbed white; the ceiling, a rough array of exposed rafters, and his bed a rudely constructed work of the hand. Very few and very simple chairs, a plain table and some shelves for books made the wealth of the retreat and serve for his ordinary use.

“Many people think,” I said, “that your method of living is an ideal example of the way people ought to live.”

“There is nothing remarkable in that. A great many people are very weary of the way they think themselves compelled to live. They are mistaken in believing that the disagreeable things they find themselves doing, are the things they ought to do. A great many take their idea of a proper aim in life from what other people say and do. Consequently, they are unhappy, and an independent existence such as mine strikes them as ideal. As a matter of fact, it is very natural.”

A WORTHY AIM IN LIFE.

“Would you say that to work so as to be able to live like this should be the aim of a young man?”

“By no means. On the contrary, his aim should be to live in such a way as will give his mind the greatest freedom and peace. This can be very often obtained by wanting less of material things and more of intellectual ones. A man who achieved such an aim would be as well off as the most distinguished man in any field. Money-getting is half a mania, and some other ‘getting’ propensities are manias also. The man who gets content comes nearest to being reasonable.”

“I should like,” I said, “to illustrate your point of view from the details of your own life.”

“Students of nature do not, as a rule, have eventful lives. I was born in Roxbury, New York, in 1837. That was a time when conditions were rather primitive. My father was a farmer, and I was raised among the woods and fields. I came from an uncultivated, unreading class of society, and grew up amid surroundings the least calculated to awaken the literary faculty. Yet I have no doubt that daily contact with the woods and fields awakened my interest in the wonders of nature, and gave me a bent toward investigation in that direction.”

“Did you begin early to make notes and write upon nature?” I questioned.

“Not before I was sixteen or seventeen. Earlier than that, the art of composition had anything but charms for me. I remember that while at school, at the age of fourteen, I was required, like other students, to write ‘compositions’ at stated times, but I usually evaded the duty one way or another. On one occasion, I copied something from a comic almanac, and unblushingly handed it in as my own. But the teacher detected the fraud, and ordered me to produce a twelve-line composition before I left school. I remember I racked my brain in vain, and the short winter day was almost closing when Jay Gould, who sat in the seat behind me, wrote twelve lines of doggerel on his slate and passed it slyly over to me. I had so little taste for writing that I coolly copied that, and handed it in as my own.”

JAY GOULD WAS HIS CHUM.

“You were friendly with Gould then?”

“Oh, yes; ‘chummy,’ they call it now. His father’s farm was only a little way from ours, and we were fast friends, going home together every night.”

“His view of life must have been considerably different from yours.”

“It was. I always looked upon success as being a matter of mind, not money; but Jay wanted the material appearances. I remember that once we had a wrestling match, and as we were about even in strength, we agreed to abide by certain rules,—taking what we called ‘holts’ in the beginning and not breaking them until one or the other was thrown. I kept to this in the struggle, but when Jay realized that he was in danger of losing the contest, he broke the ‘holt’ and threw me. When I remarked that he had broken his agreement, he only laughed and said, ‘I threw you, didn’t I?’ And to every objection I made, he made the same answer. The fact of having won (it did not matter how), was pleasing to him. It satisfied him, although it wouldn’t have contented me.”

“Did you ever talk over success in life with him?”

“Yes; quite often. He was bent on making money and did considerable trading among us schoolboys,—sold me some of his books. I felt then that my view of life was more satisfactory to me than his would have been. I wanted to obtain a competence, and then devote myself to high thinking instead of to money-making.”

“How did you plan to attain this end?”

HE BEGAN WRITING AT SIXTEEN.

“By study. I began in my sixteenth or seventeenth year to try to express myself on paper, and when, after I had left the country school, I attended the seminary at Ashland and at Cooperstown, I often received the highest marks in composition, though only standing about the average in general scholarship. My taste ran to essays, and I picked up the great works in that field at a bookstore, from time to time, and filled my mind with the essay idea. I bought the whole of Dr. Johnson’s works at a second-hand bookstore in New York, because, on looking into them, I found his essays appeared to be of solid literature, which I thought was just the thing. Almost my first literary attempts were moral reflections, somewhat in the Johnsonian style.”

“You were supporting yourself during these years?”

“I taught six months and ‘boarded round’ before I went to the seminary. That put fifty dollars into my pocket, and the fifty paid my way at the seminary. Working on the farm, studying and teaching filled up the years until 1863, when I went to Washington and found employment in the Treasury Department.”

“You were connected with the Treasury, then?”

“Oh, yes; for nearly nine years. I left the department in 1872, to become receiver of a bank, and subsequently for several years performed the work of a bank examiner. I considered it only as an opportunity to earn and save up a little money on which I could retire. I managed to do that, and came back to this region, where I bought a fruit farm. I worked that into a paying condition, and then gave all my time to the pursuit of the studies I like.”

“Had you abandoned your interest in nature during your Washington life?”

“No; I gave as much time to the study of nature and literature as I had to spare. When I was twenty-three, I wrote an essay on ‘Expression,’ and sent it to the ‘Atlantic.’ It was so Emersonian in style, owing to my enthusiasm for Emerson at that time, that the editor thought some one was trying to palm off on him an early essay of Emerson’s which he had not seen. He found that Emerson had not published any such paper, however, and printed it, though it had not much merit. I wrote off and on for the magazines.”

The editor in question was James Russell Lowell, who, instead of considering it without merit, often expressed afterward the delight with which he read this contribution from an unknown hand, and the swift impression of the author’s future distinction which came to him with that reading.

WHAT NATURE STUDY REALLY MEANS.

“Your successful work, then, has been in what direction?” I said.

“In studying nature. It has all come by living close to the plants and animals of the woods and fields, and coming to understand them. There I have been successful. Men who, like myself, are deficient in self-assertion, or whose personalities are flexible and yielding, make a poor show in business, but in certain other fields these defects become advantages. Certainly it is so in my case. I can succeed with bird or beast, for I have cultivated my ability in that direction. I can look in the eye of an ugly dog or cow and win, but with an ugly man I have less success.

“I consider the desire which most individuals have for the luxuries which money can buy, an error of mind,” he added. “Those things do not mean anything except a lack of higher tastes. Such wants are not necessary wants, nor honorable wants. If you cannot get wealth with a noble purpose, it is better to abandon it and get something else. Peace of mind is one of the best things to seek, and finer tastes and feelings. The man who gets these, and maintains himself comfortably, is much more admirable and successful than the man who gets money and neglects these. The realm of power has no fascination for me. I would rather have my seclusion and peace of mind. This log hut, with its bare floors, is sufficient. I am set down among the beauties of nature, and in no danger of losing the riches that are scattered all about. No one will take my walks or my brook away from me. The flowers, birds and animals are plentifully provided. I have enough to eat and wear, and time to see how beautiful the world is, and to enjoy it. The entire world is after your money, or the things you have bought with your money. It is trying to keep them that makes them seem so precious. I live to broaden and enjoy my own life, believing that in so doing I do what is best for everyone. If I ran after birds only to write about them, I should never have written anything that anyone else would have cared to read. I must write from sympathy and love,—that is, from enjoyment,—or not at all. I come gradually to have a feeling that I want to write upon a given theme. Whenever the subject recurs to me, it awakens a warm, personal response. My confidence that I ought to write comes from the feeling or attraction which some subjects exercise over me. The work is pleasure, and the result gives pleasure.”

“And your work as a naturalist is what?”

“Climbing trees to study birds, lying by the waterside to watch the fishes, sitting still in the grass for hours to study the insects, and tramping here and there, always to observe and study whatever is common to the woods and fields.”

“Men think you have done a great work,” I said.

“I have done a pleasant work,” he said, modestly.

“And the achievements of your schoolmate Gould do not appeal to you as having anything in them worth aiming for?” I questioned.

“Not for me. I think my life is better for having escaped such vast and difficult interests.”

The gentle, light-hearted naturalist and recluse came down the long hillside with me, “to put me right” on the main road. I watched him as he retraced his steps up the steep, dark path, lantern in hand. His sixty years sat lightly upon him, and as he ascended I heard him singing. Long after the light melody had died away, I saw the serene little light bobbing up and down in his hand, disappearing and reappearing, as the lone philosopher repaired to his hut and his couch of content.

WHY HE IS RICH WITHOUT MONEY.

It must not be inferred that Mr. Burroughs has no money. As an author, he has given us such delightful books, dear to every lover of nature, as “Wake, Robin,” “Winter Sunshine,” “Locusts and Wild Honey,” “Fresh Fields,” “Indoor Studies,” “Birds and Poets,” “Pepacton,” “Signs and Seasons,” “Riverby,” “Whitman,” and “The Light of Day,” published by Houghton, Mifflin & Company.

His writings produce goodly sums, while his vineyards and gardens produce as much as he needs; but the charm of it all is, he knows not the unrest of eagerly seeking it. His is one of the very infrequent instances in which a man knows when he has enough, and really and truthfully does not care for more. Nor is he a “hayseed” in the popular application of that expressive term. When he goes to the city, as he occasionally does (just to reassure himself that he prefers life in the country), he is not met at the station by gentlemen in loud checked suits; he carries no air of the rustic with him. As an Irish wit recently put it, “When in Paris, he does as the parasites do,” and he conducts himself and clothes himself as a well regulated citizen should.

So John Burroughs is rich, not in money, but in thought, in simplicity, in the knowledge that he is making the best of life. He has found out that money is not everything, that all the money in the world will not buy a light heart, or a good name,—that there is a place for every one, and in that place alone can a man be of service to himself or others,—that there alone can he be successful; there only can he be “rich without money!”

XLII
A Millionaire’s Daughter Makes Inherited Wealth a Blessing to Thousands.

MISS HELEN MILLER GOULD has won a place for herself in the hearts of Americans such as few people of great wealth ever gain. She is, indeed, one of the best known and most popular young women of New York, if not in the world. Her strong character, common sense, and high ideals, have made her respected by all, while her munificence and kindness have won her the love of many.

Her personality is charming. Upon my arrival at her Tarrytown home, I was made to feel that I was welcome, and everyone who enters her presence feels the same. The grand mansion, standing high on the hills overlooking the Hudson, has a home-like appearance that takes away any awe that may come over the visitor who looks upon so much beauty for the first time.

Chickens play around the little stone cottage at the grand entrance, and the grounds are not unlike those of any other country house, with trees in abundance, and beautiful lawns. There are large beds of flowers, and in the gardens all the summer vegetables were growing.