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[Illustration: (cover)]

[Illustration: George Cary Eggleston]






RECOLLECTIONS OF A VARIED LIFE

BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON

[Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
  1910

  Copyright, 1910
  BY
  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

_Published March, 1910_


TO MARION MY WIFE

  I DEDICATE THESE RECOLLECTIONS
  OF A LIFE THAT SHE HAS LOYALLY
  SHARED, ENCOURAGED, AND INSPIRED




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

  I.       Introductory                                               1

  II.      The Country as I First Knew It--Intensity of Its
           Americanism--The Lure of New Orleans                       2

  III.     Provincialism--A Travel Center--Road Conditions--
           Mails--The Estrangement of Communities and Other
           Isolating Conditions                                       4

  IV.      The Composite West--Dialect--The Intellectual Class        7

  V.       The Sturdy Kentuckians and Their Influence                 9

  VI.      A Poor Boy's Career                                       13

  VII.     "Shooting Stock"                                          14

  VIII.    A Limitless Hospitality                                   16

  IX.      Industrial Independence and Thrift                        18

  X.       Early Railroads--A Precocious Skeptic--Religious
           Restriction of Culture                                    20

  XI.      Culture by Stealth                                        24

  XII.     Civilization on Wheels                                    26

  XIII.    A Breakfast Revolution                                    28

  XIV.     A Bathroom Episode                                        30

  XV.      Western School Methods                                    32

  XVI.     "The Hoosier Schoolmaster"--A Bit of Literary History     34

  XVII.    The Biggest Boy--A Vigorous Volunteer
           Monitor--Charley Grebe                                    38

  XVIII.   What's in a Name?                                         42

  XIX.     A Buttermilk Poet                                         43

  XX.      Removal to Virginia--Impressions of Life There--The
           Contradiction of the Critics in Their Creative
           Incredulity                                               45

  XXI.     The Virginian Life                                        48

  XXII.    The Virginian Attitude Toward Money--Parson J----'s
           Checks--The Charm of Leisureliness                        49

  XXIII.   The Courtesy of the Virginians--Sex and
           Education--Reading Habits--Virginia Women's Voices        55

  XXIV.    The Story of the West Wing--A Challenge to the
           Ghosts--The Yellow-Gray Light--And Breakfast              60

  XXV.     Authors in Richmond--G. P. R. James, John Esten Cooke,
           Mrs. Mowatt Ritchie, John R. Thompson, etc.--John Esten
           Cooke, Gentleman--How Jeb Stuart Made Him a Major         66

  XXVI.    The Old Life in the Old Dominion and the New--An
           Old Fogy's Doubts and Questionings                        72

  XXVII.   Under Jeb Stuart's Command--The Legend of the
           Mamelukes--The Life of the Cavaliers--Tristram
           Shandy Does Bible Duty--The Delights of the War
           Game and the Inspiration of It                            76

  XXVIII.  Fitz Lee and an Adventure--A Friendly Old Foe             81

  XXIX.    Pestilence                                                86

  XXX.     Left Behind--A Gratuitous Law Practice Under
           Difficulties--The Story of Tom Collins--A Death-Bed
           Repentance and Its Prompt Recall                          87

  XXXI.    Sharp-Shooter Service--Mortar Service at
           Petersburg--The Outcome of a Strange Story                93

  XXXII.   The Beginning of Newspaper Life--Theodore Tilton
           and Charles F. Briggs                                     99

  XXXIII.  Theodore Tilton                                          107

  XXXIV.   Further Reminiscences of Tilton                          111

  XXXV.    The Tilton-Beecher Controversy--A Story as Yet Untold    115

  XXXVI.   My First Libel Suit                                      116

  XXXVII.  Libel Suit Experiences--The Queerest of Libel
           Suits--John Y. McKane's Case                             119

  XXXVIII. Early Newspaper Experiences--Two Interviews with
           President Grant--Grant's Method                          123

  XXXIX.   Charlton T. Lewis                                        129

  XL.      Hearth and Home--Mary Mapes Dodge--Frank R.
           Stockton--A Whimsical View of Plagiary                   131

  XLI.     Some Plagiarists I Have Known--A Peculiar Case of
           Plagiary--A Borrower from Stedman                        139

  XLII.    The "Hoosier Schoolmaster's" Influence--Hearth and
           Home Friendships and Literary Acquaintance--My First
           Book--Mr. Howells and "A Rebel's Recollections"--My
           First After-Dinner Speech--Mr. Howells, Mark Twain,
           and Mr. Sanborn to the Rescue                            145

  XLIII.   A Novelist by Accident--"A Man of Honor" and the
           Plagiarists of Its Title--A "Warlock" on the Warpath
           and a Lot of Fun Lost                                    151

  XLIV.    John Hay and the Pike County Ballads--His Own Story
           of Them and of Incidents Connected with Them             157

  XLV.     A Disappointed Author--George Ripley's Collection
           of Applications for His Discharge--Joe Harper's
           Masterpiece--Manuscripts and Their Authors--Mr. George
           P. Putnam's Story                                        166

  XLVI.    Joaquin Miller--Dress Reform a la Stedman                172

  XLVII.   Beginnings of Newspaper Illustration--Accident's Part
           in the Literary Life--My First Boys' Book--How One
           Thing Leads to Another                                   179

  XLVIII.  The First Time I Was Ever Robbed--The _Evening
           Post_ Under Mr. Bryant--An Old-Fashioned Newspaper--Its
           Distinguished Outside Staff--Its Regard for
           Literature--Newspaper Literary Criticism and the
           Critics of That Time--Thomas Bailey Aldrich's Idea
           of New York as a Place of Residence--My Own
           Appointment and the Strange Manner of It                 186

  XLIX.    A Study of Mr. Bryant--The Irving Incident               194

  L.       Mr. Bryant's Tenderness Towards Poets--A Cover
           Commendation--How I Grieved a Poet--Anonymous
           Literary Criticism                                       199

  LI.      A Thrifty Poet's Plan--Mr. Bryant and the Poe
           Article--The Longfellow Incident--The Tupper
           Embarrassment                                            205

  LII.     Mr Bryant's _Index Expurgatorius_--An Effective
           Blunder in English--Mr. Bryant's Dignified
           Democracy--Mr. Cleveland's Coarser Method--Mr.
           Bryant and British Snobbery                              209

  LIII.    The Newspaper Critic's Function--A Literary News
           "Beat"--Mr. Bryant and Contemporary Poets--Concerning
           Genius--The True Story of "Thanatopsis"                  217

  LIV.     An Extraordinary Case of Heterophemy--The Demolition
           of a Critic                                              222

  LV.      Parke Godwin--"A Lion in a Den of Daniels"--The
           Literary Shop Again--Literary Piracy--British
           and American                                             227

  LVI.     The Way of Washington Officials--A Historical
           Discovery--A Period Out of Place--A Futile Effort
           to Make Peace--The "Intelligent Compositor" at His
           Worst--Loring Pacha--War Correspondents--The Tourist
           Correspondent--Loring's Story of Experience              234

  LVII.    "A Stranded Gold Bug"--Results of a Bit of Humor         247

  LVIII.   Mrs. Custer's "Boots and Saddles"--The Success
           and Failure of Books                                     252

  LIX.     Letters of Introduction--The Disappointment of Lily
           Browneyes--Mark Twain's Method--Some Dangerous Letters
           of Introduction--Moses and My Green Spectacles           255

  LX.      English Literary Visitors--Mr. Edmund Gosse's
           Visit--His Amusing Misconceptions--A Question of
           Provincialism--A Literary Vandal                         265

  LXI.     The Founding of the Authors' Club--Reminiscences
           of Early Club Life--John Hay and Edwin Booth on
           Dime Novels                                              272

  LXII.    The Authors Club--Its Ways and Its Work--Watch-Night
           Frolics--Max O'Rell and Mark Twain--The Reckless
           Injustice of the Humorists--Bishop Potter's
           Opinion--The Club's Contribution of Statesmen and
           Diplomats--The Delight of the Authors Club "After
           the Authors Have Gone Home"--"Liber Scriptorum,"
           the Club's Successful Publishing Venture                 277

  LXIII.   In Newspaper Life Again--Editing the _Commercial
           Advertiser_--John Bigelow's Discouraging
           Opinion--Henry Marquand and Some of My
           Brilliant "Cubs"--Men Who Have Made Place and
           Name for Themselves--The Dread Task of the
           Editor-in-Chief--Yachting with Marquand and the
           Men I Met on Deck--Parke Godwin--Recollections of
           a Great and Good Man--A Mystery of Forgetting            286

  LXIV.    Newspapers Then and Now--The Pulitzer Revolution--The
           Lure of the _World_--A Little Dinner to James R.
           Osgood                                                   300

  LXV.     Service on the _World_--John A. Cockerill--An
           Editorial Perplexity--Editorial Emergencies--In
           Praise of the Printers--Donn Piatt--"A Syndicate
           of Blackguards"--An Unmeant Crime                        307

  LXVI.    First Acquaintance with Joseph Pulitzer--His
           Hospitality, Courtesy, Kindliness, and Generosity--His
           Intellectual Methods--The Maynard Case--Bryan's
           Message and Mr. Pulitzer's Answer--Extraordinary
           Political Foresight                                      319

  LXVII.   A Napoleonic Conception--A Challenge to the
           Government--The Power of the Press                       327

  LXVIII.  Recollections of Carl Schurz                             333

  LXIX.    The End of Newspaper Life                                337

  LXX.     My Working Ways--Extemporary Writing--The Strange
           Perversity of the People in Fiction--The Novelist's
           Sorest Perplexity--Working Hours and Working Ways--My
           Two Rules as to Literary Style                           339




RECOLLECTIONS OF A VARIED LIFE




I


Mr. Howells once said to me: "Every man's life is interesting--to
himself."

I suppose that is true, though in the cases of some men it seems
a difficult thing to understand.

At any rate it is not because of personal interest in my own life that
I am writing this book. I was perfectly sincere in wanting to call these
chapters "The Autobiography of an Unimportant Man," but on reflection
I remembered Franklin's wise saying that whenever he saw the phrase
"without vanity I may say," some peculiarly vain thing was sure to
follow.

I am seventy years old. My life has been one of unusually varied
activity. It has covered half the period embraced in the republic's
existence. It has afforded me opportunity to see and share that
development of physical, intellectual, and moral life conditions, which
has been perhaps the most marvelous recorded in the history of mankind.

Incidentally to the varied activities and accidents of my life, I have
been brought into contact with many interesting men, and into relation
with many interesting events. It is of these chiefly that I wish to
write, and if I were minded to offer an excuse for this book's
existence, this would be the marrow of it. But a book that needs excuse
is inexcusable. I make no apology. I am writing of the men and