



Produced by Katherine Ward, Juliet Sutherland, and the
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McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

VOL. I    JUNE, 1893    No. 1

  S. S. McCLURE, Limited
  NEW YORK AND LONDON
  1893


Copyright, 1893, by S. S. McClure, Limited. All rights reserved.

  Press of J. J. Little & Co.
  Astor Place, New York




Table of Contents

                                                                  PAGE
  A Dialogue between William Dean Howells and Hjalmar Hjorth
      Boyesen. Recorded By Mr. Boyesen.                              3
  The Nymph of the Eddy. By Gilbert Parker.                         12
  Human Documents. An Introduction by Sarah Orne Jewett.            16
  How They Are Captured, Transported, Trained, and Sold. By
      Raymond Blathwayt.                                            26
  Under Sentence of the Law. By Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson.        34
  Unsolved Problems that Edison Is Studying. By E. J. Edwards.      37
  From "Locksley Hall". By Alfred, Lord Tennyson.                   43
  A Day With Gladstone. By H. W. Massingham.                        44
  Where Man Got His Ears. By Henry Drummond.                        52
  James Parton's Rules of Biography.                                59
  Europe at the Present Moment. By Mr. De Blowitz.                  63
  The Comedy of War. By Joel Chandler Harris.                       69
  The Rose Is Such a Lady. By Gertrude Hall.                        82
  The Count de Lesseps of To-day. By R. H. Sherard.                 83




Illustrations

  Professor Boyesen in His Study.                                    4
  The Birthplace of W. D. Howells at Martins Ferry, Ohio.            5
  The Giustiniani Palace.                                            6
  W. D. Howells, After His Return From Venice.                       7
  W. D. Howells, in Cambridge in 1868.                               8
  W. D. Howells' Summer Home at Belmont in 1878.                     9
  The Author of "Annie Kilburn."                                    10
  General Lew Wallace.                                              19
  William Dean Howells.                                             20
  Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen.                                           22
  Alphonse Daudet.                                                  24
  Hawarden Castle.                                                  46
  The Library.                                                      47
  The Gladstone Family.                                             51
  "Balanoglossus", and Large Sea Lamprey.                           53
  Embryos Showing Gill-slits.                                       53
  Adult Shark.                                                      54
  Marble Head of Satyr.                                             55
  Head of Satyr in Group of Marsyas and Apollo.                     55
  Faun.                                                             55
  Form of the Ear in Baby Outang.                                   55
  Horned Sheep and Goat with Cervical Auricles.                     55
  Ear of Barbary Ape, Chimpanzee, and Man.                          57
  James Parton in 1852.                                             59
  James Parton in 1891.                                             62
  The Chateau de La Chesnaye.                                       84
  Count de Lesseps in 1869.                                         85
  Madame de Lesseps in 1880.                                        88
  Count de Lesseps in 1880.                                         89
  Count de Lesseps in 1892.                                         90




REAL CONVERSATIONS.--I.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS AND HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN.

RECORDED BY MR. BOYESEN.


When I was requested to furnish a dramatic biography of Mr. Howells, I
was confronted with what seemed an insuperable difficulty. The more I
thought of William Dean Howells, the less dramatic did he seem to me.
The only way that occurred to me of introducing a dramatic element
into our proposed interview was for me to assault him with tongue or
pen, in the hope that he might take energetic measures to resent my
intrusion; but as, notwithstanding his unvarying kindness to me, and
many unforgotten benefits, I cherished only the friendliest feelings
for him, I could not persuade myself to procure dramatic interest at
such a price.

My second objection, I am bound to confess, arose from my own sense of
dignity which rebelled against the _role_ of an interviewer, and it
was not until my conscience was made easy on this point that I agreed
to undertake the present article. I was reminded that it was an
ancient and highly dignified form of literature I was about to revive;
and that my precedent was to be sought not in the modern newspaper
interview, but in the Platonic dialogue. By the friction of two
kindred minds, sparks of thought may flash forth which owe their
origin solely to the friendly collision. We have a far more vivid
portrait of Socrates in the beautiful conversational turns of "The
Symposium" and the first book of "The Republic," than in the purely
objective account of Xenophon in his "Memorabilia." And Howells,
though he may not know it, has this trait in common with Socrates,
that he can portray himself, unconsciously, better than I or anybody
else could do it for him.

If I needed any further encouragement, I found it in the assurance that
what I was expected to furnish was to be in the nature of "an exchange
of confidences between two friends with a view to publication." It
was understood, of course, that Mr. Howells was to be more confiding
than myself, and that his reminiscences were to predominate; for an
author, however unheroic he may appear to his own modesty, is bound
to be the hero of his biography. What made the subject so alluring to
me, apart from the personal charm which inheres in the man and all
that appertains to him, was the consciousness that our friendship was of
twenty-two years' standing, and that during all that time not a
single jarring note had been introduced to mar the harmony of our
relation.

Equipped, accordingly, with a good conscience and a lead pencil
(which remained undisturbed in my breast-pocket), I set out to
"exchange confidences" with the author of "Silas Lapham" and "A Modern
Instance." I reached the enormous human hive on Fifty-ninth Street
where my subject, for the present, occupies a dozen most comfortable
and ornamental cells, and was promptly hoisted up to the fourth floor
and deposited in front of his door. It is a house full of electric
wires and tubes--literally honeycombed with modern conveniences. But
in spite of all these, I made my way triumphantly to Mr. Howells's
den, and after a proper prelude began the novel task assigned to me.

[Illustration: PROFESSOR BOYESEN IN HIS STUDY AT COLUMBIA COLLEGE.]

"I am afraid," I remarked quite _en passant_, "that I shall be
embarrassed not by my ignorance, but by my knowledge concerning your
life. For it is difficult to ask with good grace about what you
already know. I am aware, for instance, that you were born at Martin's
Ferry, Ohio, March 11, 1837; that you removed thence to Dayton, and a
few years later to Jefferson, Ashtabula County; that your father
edited, published, and printed a country newspaper of Republican
complexion, and that you spent a good part of your early years in the
printing office. Nevertheless, I have some difficulty in realizing the
environment of your boyhood."

_Howells._ If you have read my "Boy's Town," which is in all
essentials autobiographical, you know as much as I could tell you. The
environment of my early life was exactly as there described.

_Boyesen._ Your father, I should judge, then, was not a strict
disciplinarian?

_Howells._ No. He was the gentlest of men--a friend and companion to
his sons. He guided us in an unobtrusive way without our suspecting
it. He was continually putting books into my hands, and they were
always good books; many of them became events in my life. I had no end
of such literary passions during my boyhood. Among the first was
Goldsmith, then came Cervantes and Irving.

_Boyesen._ Then there was a good deal of literary atmosphere about
your childhood?

_Howells._ Yes. I can scarcely remember the time when books did not
play a great part in my life. Father was by his culture and his
interests rather isolated from the community in which we lived, and
this made him and all of us rejoice the more in a new author, in whose
world we would live for weeks and months, and who  our thoughts
and conversation.

[Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF W. D. HOWELLS AT MARTINS FERRY, OHIO.]

_Boyesen._ It has always been a matter of wonder to me that, with so
little regular schooling, you stepped full-fledged into literature
with such an exquisite and wholly individual style.

_Howells._ If you accuse me of that kind of thing, I must leave you to
account for it. I had always a passion for literature, and to a boy
with a mind and a desire to learn, a printing office is not a bad
school.

_Boyesen._ How old were you when you left Jefferson, and went to
Columbus?

_Howells._ I was nineteen years old when I went to the capital and
wrote legislative reports for Cincinnati and Cleveland papers;
afterwards I became one of the editors of the "Ohio State Journal." My
duties gradually took a wide range, and I edited the literary column
and wrote many of the leading articles. I was then in the midst of my
enthusiasm for Heine, and was so impregnated with his spirit, that a
poem which I sent to the "Atlantic Monthly" was mistaken by Mr. Lowell
for a translation from the German poet. When he had satisfied himself,
however, that it was not a translation, he accepted and printed it.

_Boyesen._ Tell me how you happened to publish your first volume,
"Poems by Two Friends," in partnership with John J. Piatt.

_Howells._ I had known Piatt as a young printer; afterwards when he
began to write poems, I read them and was delighted with them. When he
came to Columbus I made his acquaintance, and we became friends. By
this time we were both contributors to the "Atlantic Monthly." I may
as well tell you that his contributions to our joint volume were far
superior to mine.

_Boyesen._ Did Lowell share that opinion?

_Howells._ That I don't know. He wrote me a very charming letter, in
which he said many encouraging things, and he briefly reviewed the
book in the "Atlantic."

_Boyesen._ What was the condition of society in Columbus during those
days?

_Howells._ There were many delightful and cultivated people there,
and society was charming; the North and South were both represented,
and their characteristics united in a kind of informal Western
hospitality, warm and cordial in its tone, which gave of its very
best without stint. Salmon P. Chase, later Secretary of the Treasury,
and Chief Justice of the United States, was then Governor of Ohio.
He had a charming family, and made us young editors welcome at his
house. All winter long there was a round of parties at the different
houses; the houses were large and we always danced. These parties were
brilliant affairs, socially, but besides, we young people had many
informal gayeties. The old Starling Medical College, which was
defunct as an educational institution, except for some vivisection
and experiments on hapless cats and dogs that went on in some
out-of-the-way corners, was used as a boarding-house; and there was
a large circular room in which we often improvised dances. We young
fellows who lodged in the place were half a dozen journalists,
lawyers, and law-students; one was, like myself, a writer for the
"Atlantic," and we saw life with joyous eyes. We read the new
books, and talked them over with the young ladies whom we seem to
have been always calling upon. I remember those years in Columbus
as among the happiest years of my life.

_Boyesen._ From Columbus you went as consul to Venice, did not you?

[Illustration: THE GIUSTINIANI PALACE, HOWELLS' HOME IN VENICE.]

_Howells._ Yes. You remember I had written a campaign "Life of
Lincoln." I was, like my father, an ardent Anti-slavery man. I went
myself to Washington soon after President Lincoln's inauguration. I
was first offered the consulate to Rome; but as it depended entirely
upon perquisites, which amounted only to three or four hundred dollars
a year, I declined it, and they gave me Venice. The salary was raised
to fifteen hundred dollars, which seemed to me quite beyond the dreams
of avarice.

_Boyesen._ Do not you regard that Venetian experience as a very
valuable one?

_Howells._ Oh, of course. In the first place, it gave me four years of
almost uninterrupted leisure for study and literary work. There was,
to be sure, occasionally an invoice to be verified, but that did not
take much time. Secondly, it gave me a wider outlook upon the world
than I had hitherto had. Without much study of a systematic kind, I
had acquired a notion of English, French, German, and Spanish
literature. I had been an eager and constant reader, always guided in
my choice of books by my own inclination. I had learned German. Now,
my first task was to learn Italian; and one of my early teachers was a
Venetian priest, whom I read Dante with. This priest in certain ways
suggested Don Ippolito in "A Foregone Conclusion."

_Boyesen._ Then he took snuff, and had a supernumerary calico
handkerchief?

_Howells._ Yes. But