Chapter III (8)

“Major, do you know Mr. Beecher real well; I mean well enough to ask a favor? I want to get a seat on the stage to-night to hear him and Parnell, and it’s too late to think of securing a ticket.”

“Do I _know_ him?” I said.

Just then I saw Mr. Beecher coming up Broadway toward us. Our eyes met, but each pretended not to see the other, and we came together co-chunk! We squared off at each other, and so stood a few seconds, to the surprise of passers-by. Then came Mr. Beecher’s laugh of recognition, and I said:

“Mr. Beecher, to my surprise, _this man_, P. S. Gilmore, says he never met you and asks if I know you well enough to introduce him to you.”

“Well,” said Mr. Beecher, “I know Mr. Gilmore, but it’s quite evident that a man of his fair reputation and fame doesn’t know the company he is in.”

Mr. Beecher invited Mr. Gilmore to “come over early with Pond and take dinner, and if I get into the Academy you will.” So we were there at the great Parnell meeting, and Mr. Gilmore heard Mr. Beecher at his best, for that meeting is on record as an event in Mr. Beecher’s life.

I went home with Mr. Beecher, and he and I sat in his dining-room for some time over a light supper, I listening to his conversation on the topic of the evening just past. I left him at about eleven o’clock for my home at the Everett House, New York. Mr. Gilmore then resided in New York, at 61 West 12th Street. On my way home it occurred to me that possibly Mr. Gilmore had not yet finished his bottle of champagne, and so I rang his bell. It was just twelve o’clock. The colored boy opened the door and I asked if Mr. Gilmore were still up. He said, “Yes.” I walked back to the dining room, and there he stood, telling Mrs. Gilmore about his experiences of the evening. He turned to me, saying:

“Major, I’m glad you came in. I am telling Mrs. Gilmore that this evening has been the greatest of my life; that Mr. Beecher’s speech to-night should be carved in letters of gold and placed in every schoolroom throughout the entire land.”

Mr. Gilmore and I were fast friends up to the time of his death. He had many eccentricities, some of which retarded his success. He was the man and the only man who should have had the direction of the musical features at the Chicago Exposition. He was ignored, and the whole affair turned out a diabolical failure, as everybody at all versed in the management of musical affairs knew and felt at that time. It broke Mr. Gilmore’s heart to see so great an opportunity lost, and I believe that was one of the causes that hastened his death.

He left one of the finest musical libraries ever collected. I do not know who has it now. He had no successor. We have Sousa and his incomparable band, that is up to date and in keeping with the requirements of the time, but the two great leaders are not alike.

Gilmore, often seen plodding in the mud through the streets of Boston at the head of a score of musicians, then conceiving and carrying to successful termination the greatest musical jubilee ever known, and making Puritan Boston bow the knee to him, Irishman and Catholic though he was.

Sousa, an enlisted musician in the Marine Band at Washington, becoming its leader, then, through Mr. Gilmore’s former manager, starred with a band of his own, and rising year after year, through the popularity of his own compositions and charming personnel as a conductor, to the highest place as a musician, bandmaster, and composer--not like Gilmore, but like what he is, and no one else can be--Sousa.

Elbert Hubbard, editor of _The Philistine_, founder and owner of the Roycroft Shop in East Aurora, New York, is the most recent and unique development in the lecture field.

I wish that I were able to write of Mr. Hubbard as I should like, but as I cannot, I shall say nothing. He says it himself. I have read so many nice things of him in _The Philistine_, a few of them reprints from other papers, that I think the entire eulogistic field is exhausted. I am one of the subscribers who pay for those puffs that he prints about himself.

Notwithstanding all that, he is doing a mighty good work, and he is also letting the public into the secret about himself for a consideration. Not long ago he wrote me: “If I get down to business here and cut off all distractions, I can make a name equal to John Ruskin’s or Thomas Carlyle’s. _I can do it_, but I must keep out of sight in order to succeed. To merely talk is not to succeed, and the public is only a devil that takes a man to the top of the mountain and then casts him on the stones beneath. So make no more lecture engagements for me.” And so the lecture-going public will never know what it has lost.

Good luck to you, Elbert! A high ambition is the chief spur to success.

Mr. Hubbard has received great praise for many of his “Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous People,” and many of them are truly delightful; but, of course, visiting so many of these, he has been obliged to travel in all sorts of weather and at all seasons of the year. He must have visited the home of Robert Burns just at the breaking up of a hard winter or the opening up of spring, else his tracks could never have thrown up so much mud.

The proportionate success of Hubbard to some of the other men of the platform may be inferred from _The Philistine_ for April, 1900, where he says:

“The week before I was in Des Moines, Dean Stubbs exploited an audience in the same church. Stubbs had one hundred people; I had a thousand, with just $500 in the box office, that’s all. About an hour after the lecture the chairman of the committee snipped a clove, and declared that Stubbs wasn’t in it with me--a proposition I did not argue.”

In a later number of _The Philistine_ Mr. Hubbard went on to say:

“I see that Dean Stubbs of Ely is out with a letter in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, denying that he ever said that Major Pond was the original David Harum. In this letter the Dean takes occasion to say his regard for the Major is very great, and further, that he fully endorses Hall Caine’s project of placing in Westminster Abbey a memorial tablet to Major Pond. The leading literary men of England and several American authors also have made contributions for the purpose mentioned. All those who contribute will have their names on the tablet, too, and beneath will be these words, ‘It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves.’”

I was so elated to hear that the Dean had made nice mention of me, that I wrote to him, asking him to send me a copy of the _Pall Mall_, and here is his reply:

“Of course I did not write a letter to the _Pall Mall_ at all--on that or any other subject. I have not written a line about my American impressions in any English papers since my return, nor do I intend to do so.”

With this letter from the Dean of Ely, how am I to realize my blasted hopes of being immortalized in Westminster Abbey?

I travelled with Mr. Hubbard on a little starring tour last spring (March, 1900). Everywhere we went he had something nice to say to the porters, to the baggagemen, the hackmen, the street-car conductors, and the waiters in the hotels. He seemed incapable of hurting any one’s feelings. Everybody was in love with him. His is a remarkable personality. But when he gets set down by himself with that caustic pen of his, the words of Scripture seem to take possession of him, and “Whom he loveth he chasteneth.”

I like the atmosphere of East Aurora and frequently visit the Roycroft Shop. It is an object lesson in industry, frugality, and nice manners. A common friend, writing from St. Louis, expresses a wonder that a man who naturally elicits so much adulation does not become conceited!

Hubbard had the largest money audience of any “one-man show” in New York last winter, and the readers of _The Philistine_ have been told all about it. That was his first New York audience.

When the Dean of Ely gave a course of five lectures in the Lyceum Theatre, New York, the first one was not very largely attended. The second audience was larger; the third larger still; and at the fifth, the capacity of the house was reached. This information I give here, as my friend Hubbard has never been furnished with box-office statements of that business. Yet, of the two, from a business standpoint, I would prefer the Roycroft man for a series of one-night stands over the country in cities where he has _never_ before appeared--and there are many such towns left.

Mr. Hubbard’s love of water and cleanliness is remarkable. Not satisfied with his daily morning baths, he wants them all through the day. As soon as he arrives at a hotel he must have his bath, and before starting out sight-seeing he wants another. Then on his return for luncheon he will take out his watch, and if there happens to be fifteen minutes to spare, he says, “Just time for a bath before luncheon,” and off he goes for his tub.

At the Roycroft Shop he has had a number of bathrooms built for the convenience of the employees. At first there was but one, and when Mr. Hubbard announced that any one could be excused from work, at any time, long enough to take a bath, the capacity of this one room was soon reached and the employees were found waiting in line for their turn. So this permission had to be withdrawn until additional bathrooms could be added. The supply of bathrooms is now adequate and appreciated, as well as remunerative, for it adds vigor and energy to the workers, and increases their earning capacity.

In a sequestered bend of the brook, a few hundred yards from the back door of the Roycroft Shop, is the Roycroft swimming hole, which reminds the passer-by of a frog pond on a spring day, for the male Roycrofters, old and young, can be seen and heard jumping into the water for the time being, until the curious visitor has passed beyond the range of view.

“Cleanliness is godliness,” says Hubbard. “This is part of our system of education.”

Mr. Hubbard is without question the most amphibious man I ever knew--a sort of human sea lion--and I must say that when I saw him plunging around in the swimming hole at East Aurora, I was struck with the resemblance of his eyes to the beautiful, large, mild, liquid eyes of the California sea lion.

AUTHOR READERS

_COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY F. GUTEKUNST, PINX._

EDWIN ARNOLD]

Sir Edwin Arnold is only one of many notable people with whom I have enjoyed relations of a kindly and personal character, but the enduring friendship with which he has honored me has been one of the pleasantest features of my whole life.

Now that his public activity, in a personal sense, has ceased, one may measure his notable career by the large pathway it has blazed. He has had always the honors usually attendant upon an English literary career. Educated at two of the endowed schools, which in England are called “public,” and of a legal family, he won a scholarship to University College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1854, taking in 1852 the Newdigate prize for an English poem. He was a second master in King Edward VI. School at Birmingham, but was soon appointed Principal of the Government Sanscrit College at Roona, in the Bombay Presidency, and was also made a Fellow of the Bombay University. He remained until 1861, serving also as an editorial correspondent of English papers, when he returned to London as chief of the editorial staff of the London _Telegraph_, a position that he still holds (1900).

It is certainly true, and I have had many evidences of it, that Sir Edwin Arnold has been and still is a political writer, a power to be counted with in British affairs. To him, perhaps, as political writer and Asiatic scholar and poet, is far more due the beginnings of present British Imperialism as a political condition than to either Chamberlain, as statesman, or Kipling, as singer of the “Greater Englanders.” The leading articles of the _Telegraph_ have been a unique feature of that powerful journal, as much for the wide knowledge shown of imperial affairs as for the peculiarly rich and refulgent literary merit they display. English editorials, though keen and incisive in logic, are usually colorless as to rhetoric and illustration. Arnold’s leaders have been and continue the reverse of that.

His literary work and industry have also been as marked and extensive. His writings make a rich library, which covers much of Asiatic life. There are ten volumes dealing with Sanscrit, Hindoo, and Persian subjects. His output has not only been splendid, but great in quantity, and one wonders how, with his unremitting daily labors on the _Telegraph_ for the last forty years, he has been able to accomplish so much of permanent form and value.

The poet-editor, like all notable workers I have known, has orderly habits and hours. His editorial room at the _Telegraph_ office, Fleet Street, London, was a modest one, furnished in light oak and with walls of a soft gray tint. Sir Edwin has kept but few books there, because he needed them little for reference, his wonderful memory having always placed dates and facts at command.

Arnold has a contempt for fussiness and keeps the newspaper man’s faculty of being able to prepare copy under any circumstances. He was always at work during the period of my personal knowledge. When on his Japanese “vacation” he told me that he had “written some sixty-two columns in letters to the _Telegraph_, composed an epic poem longer than ‘The Light of Asia,’ and furnished articles besides for _Scribner’s Magazine_ that made a volume, learned to speak colloquial Japanese, and to write the Kata Kara character.” He added, “I was not so very idle, you will see, Major.” “The Light of the World” went to press without his reading the last proofs, and the correctness of copy this shows is characteristic of all his work. His editorial “leaders” went to the printer’s hand as he dropped his pen or ceased dictation.

He once said: “I do not at any time force poetry. I must be thoroughly in the mood. These moods come imperatively, but very irregularly. My method is this: either I write first, and roughly, on scraps of paper, or my daughter takes it down from my dictation--she is the only one who can do so for me--as I walk up and down the room and smoke. I put the rough notes in my pocket until the next day. Then I read the verse over and over, correct and copy all out myself, altering it very much, and filling it up. These scraps I enter into a sort of day book or ledger until the work is nearly finished. I treat the matter thus compiled as the rough draft. I go over it myself, polish it, and transcribe it into a second book, which may be called the poem itself, but still in a rough state. Then I copy it out again, and finally, in a fair manuscript for the printer. Every line of the poem, therefore, passes through my mind three or four times. Sometimes the lines are importunate and _will_ be at once registered. Reading, smoking, driving, dressing for dinner--it does not matter how I may be then engaged, the verses will haunt and fascinate me, dance before my imagination, demanding to be fixed; and I must catch them then and there or they will go. Sometimes the right ideas will come as suddenly as if by electric message.”

The popularity of Sir Edwin Arnold as a poet was more widespread in the United States than in his own country when, in 1886, I first approached him with the proposition to make a reading tour on this side of the Atlantic. It is quite singular to note how little personal and popular knowledge there is in Great Britain of the men who really mould intellectual thought. If we Americans do not personally know a man who has written books and sung poems for us, we do at least strive to know his face, by wide possession of a “counterfeit presentment.” In our land John G. Whittier’s portrait hangs on the walls of many thousands of what the English call “middle-class” homes; yet no English poet of equal rank finds such recognition in his own land. Tennyson and Browning are far more widely known among us by their pictures than they are in England. It was a constant surprise to Sir Edwin Arnold to find himself recognized and his poems so extensively known in the United States. When he left our shores for Japan, and later resumed his editorial and literary labors at home, he was not only better known and appreciated as a poet than he was when he came to us, but he was personally better known to more thousands of cultivated people here than he was to scores in England.

My earliest attempt to secure him for a lecture tour in this country was unsuccessful, as the following quotation from his first letter to me shows:

* * * * *

“42 DENMARK VILLA, WEST BRIGHTON, “December 31, 1886.

“I thank you for the compliment conveyed in your letter of the 25th, and it is my wish and intention to visit America. It would, however, be impossible for me to go there now.”

* * * * *

The poet-editor was familiar enough with the United States, by marriage tie and several visits here, to understand our lecture platform and audiences, as well as our habits of travel and our needs. Mrs. Arnold was a Miss Channing of Boston. The present Lady Arnold is a member of a prominent and cultured Japanese family, who has become one of the most popular hostesses in London.

After Stanley’s return to England at the conclusion of his most remarkable lecture tour (1890-91), the proposition to secure Sir Edwin was again broached, and was fully discussed between us, the Stanleys taking a very friendly interest in the matter and declaring that they would do all in their power to influence the poet’s decision. The accompanying letters show how thoroughly the great explorer fulfilled his promise, for under date of June 26, 1891, after writing relative to his pending lecture tour in Australia, he referred as follows to the Anglo-Indian poet, with whom I was then corresponding in relation to the proposed tour:

* * * * *

“I had Edwin Arnold to lunch the other day and we all did our best to induce him to make you his agent, but I find he has already engaged himself to another man--if he lectures, of which he is not assured yet.”

* * * * *

This was not very encouraging, but I am not easily discomfited. The negotiations proceeded, and an agreement was reached between the poet and myself. Stanley’s generous and constant interest is shown by this letter, written September 30, 1891:

* * * * *

“Yesterday Sir Edwin Arnold took tea with us, and naturally we talked of you and of his approaching departure for America. I do not think you need have any fear that he will fail. He has an unusually flexible voice, which is entirely at his command, admirably suited for the drawing-room or for the platform. It is at its best to-day. The way he manages it to attract, soothe, or excite, proves that were he not a first-class poet, he would make a first-class actor.

“I have often heard him make after-dinner speeches, wherein he is different from most men. He always contrives to express graceful sentiments appropriate to the occasion, uttered in those benevolent tones which leave you most kindly disposed toward him. You find his speech seemingly unstudied--and spoken right on, pleasing to the ear, as his expression charms the eye. He appears to be following a cue, which is to make every one feel pleasant and agreeable, and bereave them of unkindness toward one another. At a dinner, for instance, you never detect in him a consciousness that he has something to say which must be said, and that he bides his time to say it, meantime silently revolving the subject. No, his speech drops sweetly on the hearing, smooth, bland, and the guests look up wistful for more, for it is so apt, so rich in thought and charity. His memory is stored with the flowers of literature and the sweetest blossoms of poesy, and they are presented to his hearers with the grace that marks the learned gentleman.

“From this rapid sketch of Sir Edwin you have enough to measure him by. While he is in America he will only deem what is best in it worthy of his regard. He cannot forget that human nature is weak and vain, but he has a knack of shutting out observation of failings.”

* * * * *

It will be remembered, in passing, that Henry M. Stanley was sent to Africa by Sir Edwin’s paper, the London _Daily Telegraph_, and by the New York _Herald_.

I copy the last letter received from Sir Edwin before he sailed for America, as evidence of the spirit in which he came:

* * * * *

“DAILY TELEGRAPH OFFICE, “September 23, 1891.

“MY DEAR MAJOR POND:

“I have just received your kind and pleasant letter, and rejoice at your renewed health. I replied to it by a telegram indicating that although I cannot write anything new in the way of lectures, it will be very easy to put together from my prose and verse interesting discourses with poetical illustrations of ancient and modern India, Japan, etc. I enclose a rough sketch of the topics I would treat in this way. You need have no fear but that I shall hold and please your audiences.

“Best thanks for your very hospitable invitations as regards Miss Arnold. But I shall come quite alone, and shall put up at the Everett House, and always when we travel, as far as possible, at hotels. I have written to accept the very courteous invitation of the Lotos Club, but, as far as possible, I wish in America to preserve my time free from social interruption, and I shall ask you to help me in this.

“Kindly arrange that we may commence as soon as possible. But all these matters I gladly leave in your good hands.

“There will be just time, I think, for you to send me before I start some little sketch of what you have already planned.

“Yours always sincerely, “EDWIN ARNOLD.”

* * * * *

The engagement was for fifty “readings,” a descriptive word inadequate to express what he gave. The term “lecture” certainly does not apply to the delightful entertainment that Sir Edwin Arnold presented. The descriptive talk which accompanied each reading was so fresh and varied, and so full of the charm of scene and intimate knowledge, that it had almost the air of personal and fireside talks with his varied and delighted audiences. The man was felt so in it all--as traveller, observer, teacher, and poet--that you realized the atmosphere in which he had written, as well as the spirit of the poems which were its product.

As he appeared to American audiences, Sir Edwin Arnold was of large frame and good stature, with an open face, strong features, expansive brow, and a broad, full, and well-rounded head, thickly covered with iron gray hair. His complexion was fair, his eyes blue, mild, and courteous in expression. His general air was one of kindness and good breeding. He was in personal manner quite free from self-consciousness, and on the platform was always absorbed in his task and by his audience. His speaking voice was melodious, excellent in compass and timbre. It was, in fact, among the very best for use and wear that the lecture audiences had heard during twenty years. He has shown himself the respect of securing a careful training for his voice, and he knows how to take care of it. It has much of the high-bred gentleness in it that made George William Curtis so great a favorite. In personal speech his English intonation was apparent, but when he read, it seemed as though the language lifted him above all such peculiarities. The modulation was perfect, and was indeed sometimes thrilling. He is one of the few poets that can both read and declaim their own poems. I was constantly reminded of Stanley’s expression that if Arnold had not been a great writer and poet, he would most assuredly have been a great actor, for at fitting times the delivery became animated and dramatic.

He usually held the book of selections in his hand, but seldom did more than glance at it; sometimes he laid it aside entirely, so that he could use gesture more freely. Occasionally he read from manuscript, but ordinarily he recited. The first line was enough to call up the entire poem from his phenomenal memory. He could repeat perfectly any poem that he had once heard. One evening in my library Sir Edwin was reclining on a lounge. I was holding a rare volume of Shakespeare, which he had been admiring and passed to me. “Now, Major,” said he, “give the first line from any scene at random, and I’ll give you the whole scene.” I gave him a line from one of the least known of the plays, and, to my astonishment, he recited the entire scene. He told me afterward that he could recite Shakespeare from beginning to end. I believe it. It was this gift that made his readings so complete, for no public reader has ever been a more complete success, personally and artistically, than Sir Edwin Arnold. No better description of the poet as a reader, or of his charm of voice and manner as a speaker, could be given than Stanley’s words convey. I felt certain on reading them that our tour would be a success, as it indeed proved to be. How heartily the poet entered on his delightful task!

It was, after all, a campaign of careful preparation and hard work, done assiduously and with the most distinct apprehension on his part of what was due to the cordial audiences which were to give him such hearty welcome and earnest attention. He was a model to those who were to follow him. Beginning November 4, 1891, the tour closed February 15, 1892. For seven weeks he filled completely the demands of the situation, working with unremitting patience and assiduity to make a complete success.

The 21st of October, 1891, when he reached New York, was not an auspicious day for his landing in America--wind and rain all day. Yet he appeared in excellent health and very jolly. My office was the scene of another remarkable interview. Representatives from all the daily papers were there, and never has there been a more fascinated lot of reporters than this crowd about Sir Edwin. For two hours he interested them, answering every conceivable question as promptly as though he had been prepared for it. He was interrogated upon all subjects, from the Whitechapel murders to the effect of the death of Parnell upon the status of the Irish factions. He discussed Kipling, “who has the magic secret of style”; James Russell Lowell, “the best judge of literature that he ever knew”; and Emerson, “the ablest American writer.” He discussed Japan and theosophy. The only subject he refused to touch upon was English politics. Richard Watson Gilder, who was there, asked Sir Edwin if he had any favorite American poem. He replied, “‘Airs from Arcady,’ but I do not know who is the author of it.” Mr. Gilder and Mr. Robert U. Johnson, his colleague, were much pleased with his answer, for the author was their friend, H. C. Bunner, editor of _Puck_.

When I went with Sir Edwin to Sarony’s to sit for pictures, Sarony was in his element, for he found in Sir Edwin a critic who thoroughly appreciated art. It was an interesting scene in that studio: the exhibition of Sarony’s fine black and white drawings and the intelligent discussion of them. We next visited Tiffany’s, and there Sir Edwin was again at home with Mr. George Kunz, the gem expert. I had to leave the two critics, scholars, and experts for two hours and return to my work.

A few days later Sir Edwin Arnold dined at our house, and after dinner entertained us with a reading from his “Light of the World,” and made a great hit. My predictions of success were again confirmed. He is one of the most lovable and entertaining men, always even-minded and agreeable; his tact is as invariable as his good humor, and both grow from temperament and quality rather than from habit or policy. On this occasion he presented Mrs. Pond with a copy of “The Light of the World,” bound in white seal, gold clasped, telling her that he had two copies bound alike, and that he had presented the other one to his queen. The inscription in the book reads:

“To Mrs. Pond, with warm regards of the author.”

Before beginning the series of public appearances, he gave several other private readings that were most enjoyable. One evening he read a chapter from “The Light of the World” in the Everett House dining-rooms, before a select circle of friends. On another day Joseph Jefferson, W. J. Florence, St. Clair McKelway, Murat Halsted, Sir Edwin Arnold, and some of our personal friends dined with us at our house in Brooklyn. Jefferson and Florence were playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that week, and in order that we might have plenty of time, and that they should not miss their usual afternoon nap before going to the theatre, we had dinner at noon. We had a good time together. Sir Edwin was at his best. He read selections from “Saadi in the Garden,” and some unpublished poems, to the delight of the two comedians, who enthusiastically declared that they had never enjoyed anything more in their lives. It was after six when they left us--no sleep that afternoon. In the evening our entire party were in the theatre to see Jefferson and Florence in “The Rivals.”

The Lotos Club, on the 31st of October, honored Sir Edwin and its own members, by giving a dinner which, from the number participating and the high character of the addresses made, was generally conceded never to have been surpassed in brilliancy in the history of the club. President Frank R. Lawrence occupied the chair, with the guest of honor on his right, and President Seth Low of Columbia College on his left. Among the other guests of the evening were George W. Childs, Richard Henry Stoddard, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Gen. Horace Porter, Paul Dana, Murat Halsted, E. B. Harper, W. H. McElroy, Arthur F. Bowers, Robert Edwin Bonner, Ballard Smith, Walter P. Phillips, H. L. Ensign, Col. Thomas W. Knox, William Winter, Gen. C. H. Collis, Richard Watson Gilder, Max O’Rell, St. Clair McKelway, and Col. E. C. James.

The walls and alcoves were hung with emblems indicative of the honors borne by the club’s distinguished guest. Siamese and Japanese flags predominated. On the wall at the poet’s right hung a full-sized portrait of himself, done in crayon by Sarony, and over the doorway which separated the parlors was draped a banneret showing the “Order of the White Elephant”--a Siamese decoration which had been conferred upon only four English-speaking persons: Queen Victoria, Sir Edwin Arnold, Gen. J. A. Halderman, and Col. Thomas W. Knox (the latter two, as it happened, being both members of the Lotos and present.) Sir Edwin wore on his breast his decorations, among which this order was conspicuous. Letters of regret were read from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles A. Dana, John G. Whittier, W. D. Howells, the Rev. John Hall, and George William Curtis.

President Lawrence, in presenting the guest of the evening, referred to his many titles to distinction. “If there be one thing more than another,” he said, in proposing Sir Edwin’s health, “which is worth preserving in connection with the Lotos Club, it is our boast, for more than a score of years, to strive to be among the first to welcome to New York men of genius from foreign lands. This joyous custom has brought to our club many happy moments--none more so than the present one. And so, when it became known that Sir Edwin Arnold was to visit our shores, it followed that the Lotos Club was to welcome him. As to his eminent graces of mind and heart, I need not remind you or any other English-speaking people thereof.

“He is, perhaps, best known to us as a poet. I should not say ‘perhaps,’ but that his many estimable qualities confuse me. He, more than any other man, has brought us near Asia--that Asia of which we know so little. We hear it said that the Laureate is in his declining days. We hear it asked, ‘Who is to succeed him?’ Yet we know that the high standard of English poetry will not die while the author of ‘The Light of Asia’ lives.

“But, gentlemen, it is not alone as a poet that we meet and greet him to-night; it is as a journalist as well. Well do we remember his services as a moulder of public opinion in England. It was he, on behalf of the London _Daily Telegraph_ and in connection with one of our own good Americans, who sent Stanley in search of Livingstone--all honor to that humane undertaking. As a poet, as a journalist, and as a scholar; as one who might talk to us, if he chose, in many mystical tongues, we welcome and we greet Sir Edwin Arnold.”

The health of the club’s guest was drunk, everybody rising and cheering. He showed the deep impression made upon him as he gracefully bowed in acknowledgment of the cheers. His speech was one long to be remembered, both for the pleasing manner of delivery and for the apt and eloquent appropriateness of its matter. He said in part:

“In rising to return my sincere thanks for the high honor done to me by this magnificent banquet, by its lavish opulence of welcome, by its goodly company, by the English so far too flattering which has been employed by the president, and by the generous warmth with which you have received my name, I should be wholly unable to sustain the heavy burden of my gratitude, but for a consideration of which I will presently speak. To-night must always be for me, indeed, a memorable occasion. Many a time and oft during the seven lustrums composing my life, I have had personal reason to rejoice at the splendid mistake committed by Christopher Columbus in discovering your now famous and powerful country.

“I have good reason to greet his name in memory owing, as I do, to him the prodigious debt of a dear American wife, now with God, of children, half American and half English, of countless friends, of a large part of my literary reputation, and, to crown all, this memorable evening, _Nox coenaque Deum_, which, of itself, would be enough to reward me for more than I have done, and to encourage me in a much more arduous task than even that which I have undertaken.”

Referring to America, he quoted the old poet, who sang:

“Her likeness and brightness do shine in such splendor,
That none but the stars are thought fit to attend her.”

He spoke of the recent passage of our international copyright law, and half humorously suggested:

“Personally I was nearer a fanatic on the matter. I have always rather had a tenderness for those buccaneers of the ocean of books who, in nefarious bottoms, carried my poetical goods far and wide without any charge for freight.”

Two of the most striking portions of his speech were his eloquent references to our common language, and to the feeling of kinship and unity between the great branches of the English-speaking race. “Let us all try,” he said, “to keep in speech and in writing as close as we can to the pure English that Shakespeare and Milton, and in these later times Longfellow, Emerson, Whitman, and Hawthorne have fixed. It will not be easy. Lord Tennyson recently expressed similar opinions to me when he said: It is bad for us that English will always be a spoken speech, since that means that it will always be changing. The time will come when you and I will be as hard to read for the common people as Chaucer is to-day.’ He then quoted Artemus Ward on Chaucer, ‘The admirable poet, but as a spellist a decided failure.’

“To the treasure house of that noble tongue, the United States has splendidly contributed. It would be far poorer to-day without the tender care of Longfellow, the serene and philosophic pages of Emerson, the convincing wit and clear criticism of my illustrious departed friend, James Russell Lowell, the Catullus-like perfection of the lyrics of Edgar Allan Poe, and the glorious, large-tempered dithyrambics of Walt Whitman.”

As he closed his speech, he said:

“Between the two majestic sisters of the Saxon blood the hatchet of war is, please God, forever buried. We have no longer to prove to each other or to the world that Englishmen and Americans are high-spirited and fearless; that Englishmen and Americans alike will do justice, and will have justice, and will put up with nothing else from each other and from the nations at large. Heartily, gratefully, and with a mind from which the memory of this glorious evening will never be effaced, I thank you for the very friendly and favorable omens of this banquet.”

E. C. Stedman followed, paying a fine and appreciative tribute to his brother poet. President Seth Low referred to the connection of the guest of the evening with the cause of education, he having been at one time a college president. Paul Dana responded for the press. General Porter spoke as the all-round man of the world, soldier, statesman, and orator, in a speech full of wit, humor, anecdote, and hearty appreciation of the guest. St. Clair McKelway made one of his brilliant speeches, carrying the audience with him to the height of feeling and amusement rarely equalled. At the close of the banquet, Sir Edwin Arnold read his now-famous poem of “Potiphar’s Wife,” the manuscript of which he gave to the club as a souvenir of his visit. It is framed and hangs with his picture on the wall of the club house. This banquet will remain in the history of the literary events of New York one of the most notable; and as one of the brightest pages to be recorded in the annals of the Lotos Club.

When we went to Philadelphia we were met at the Lafayette Hotel by John Russell Young, Henry Guy Carleton, and a number of newspaper men, among whom was Clark Davis, editor of the _Public Ledger_. It was an interesting evening. Sir Edwin read several poems, to the delight of reporters and friends present.

The following day Sir Edwin Arnold, John Russell Young, and I went to Camden to call on the picturesque old poet Walt Whitman, who was living there in his own house. We were shown up a flight of stairs by the mistress of the house, to the bare front room, where, in the midst of a heap of newspapers, magazines, books, kindling wood, lamps, and old pictures, from one to six feet deep, the poet sat, in a high-backed chair, over which was thrown a goatskin robe, once white. The long hair of the poet and of the robe, and his great wide open shirt collar, made a picture unique beyond description. Back of his chair was a heap of newspapers which suggested the pile of cornstalks at an old-fashioned husking, where, when you husked the corn, the stalks and husks were thrown back over your shoulders until they formed a big stack. Walt had been accustomed to reading his morning papers and then throwing them back on this stack, until they had accumulated in this enormous mass fully as high as the back of his chair. That pile must have been the accumulation of several years.

There was a different scene when the two poets, already known to each other by correspondence, exchanged greetings. They plunged into animated conversation at once, though the “good gray poet” was quite feeble. But his was a grand personality indeed, as he leaned back against the deep back of his huge old rush-bottomed, wide-armed chair. Something was said of Whitman’s poems, and Arnold took down “Walt Whitman’s Complete Poems and Prose,” a large octavo volume, from a nearby shelf. The volume was uncut, and Whitman began looking for a paper-knife, saying, “Let me get you something to cut the leaves with.”

“No, no. Never mind, Walt Whitman,” replied Arnold. “I have no need to cut these leaves. I can see the first lines in the index. What poem would you like to hear?”

A poem was named, and immediately the rich voice gave it vocal form, and that, too, with a perfection of rhythmic tone and shade which indicated the perfect mastery of a most difficult subject. We spent an hour and a half, Sir Edwin and Walt quoting and commenting. It was a great day.

In the afternoon we went to Bryn Mawr, and to Mr. George W. Childs’ home, where we dined and Sir Edwin planted a tree. Here we met Mr. Clark Davis of _The Ledger_, Mr. McAllister of Drexel Institute, Miss Thomas, dean of Bryn Mawr College, and Mrs. Childs. We then returned to the city, where the Penn Club gave Sir Edwin a grand reception.

In the Philadelphia Academy of Music Sir Edwin Arnold made his first appearance on any stage. Although it was the evening of a hotly contested election, and there were bonfires and bands of music outside, and the streets were packed with crowds of excited people, we had a large house. The gross receipts were $1,317. The readings were a great success; the audience was delighted. Arnold read two and a half hours, and held them all that time.

The Philadelphia papers were enthusiastic. One critic wrote: “A grace of manner, genial presence, and a mellow, full voice are notable characteristics of the poet-scholar; and the familiar poems which are not less known and loved in this country than in the poet’s home, acquired new beauty from the author’s wonderful reading of them. Without striving in the hackneyed way, Sir Edwin, by his expressive face and voice of many modulations, recites tales of love, pathos, or tragedy in a manner which many a trained actor might envy.”

The first New York reading, in Carnegie Hall, November 4th, was a tremendous success. I cannot recollect having ever before seen so large an audience in that hall and, for a reading, held so spellbound. The enthusiasm knew no limit. There had been a great demand for tickets for this performance, and as the house was sold for the benefit of St. Mark’s Hospital, Mr. A. B. de Frece, the vice-president of that association, decided upon an auction sale of seats and boxes, which occurred in the hall on October 26th. Twenty-six boxes brought about $1,500 premium. The great desire both to honor and to meet the poet was shown not alone in the sale of tickets, but even more in the eagerness of many people to be members of the committee of reception, which occupied seats on the platform. Such distinguished representatives of learning and of letters were present as Edmund Clarence Stedman, Richard H. Stoddard, Richard Watson Gilder, William Winter, William Dean Howells, George William Curtis, Brander Matthews, the Hon. Seth Low, President of Columbia University, and many others.

Chauncey M. Depew, as chairman, made one of his happy speeches, referring to the event as of international significance, for “an English audience applauding James Russell Lowell, and an American audience cheering Sir Edwin Arnold, present the unity in essentials of these great empires, and the possibilities which are before English-speaking peoples. Our language is conquering the earth. It is destined in the future to be for the East more than Buddha, ‘the Light of Asia,’ and to diffuse around the globe ‘The Light of the World.’

The genial orator, always himself a luminous personality, made other appropriate remarks, and when the poet rose from the remarkable group of celebrities who crowded the platform, he was cordially welcomed. His presence was a fine one for just such an occasion, and as he briefly thanked the introductory speaker, he expressed the wish that the audience would do him the honor of encouraging the ancient and classic custom of a poet’s reading selections from works of his own creation. Thus, from the first words, his appearance was a triumph. More than that, he was a delight. Remembering other “readers” I had known, Sir Edwin Arnold’s closing of the book he held in his hands, after one long and almost rapt glance at it, was, perhaps, the most delightful episode of the evening to me. He did not once refer to the book after that. He knew his own poems and was always accurate to the letter. He knew, too, the poems of other poets. His memory is remarkable, but his mastery of the words was no more complete than his absolute possession of the rhythm. His recitation was music itself. You felt the meaning in all the varying shades of that perfect modulation and intonation. I make no pretence to criticism, yet I think myself able to comprehend the capacity of a human voice. Sir Edwin Arnold’s voice was, for his purpose, a perfect instrument. The marvel was that only once before had he read in public.

The following evening Sir Edwin read in the Brooklyn Academy of Music before a magnificent audience, to which he was introduced by the Rev. Dr. Storrs. A Brooklyn critic wrote thus of his power of improvisation:

“Sir Edwin was not restrained by any idea of slavish fidelity to his own printed page. He gave himself up to the spirit of his poems and to the music of his verse, and his eyes were upon the audience rather than upon the book which he held. If one followed him in the text, it soon became evident that he had not prepared himself by committing the poems. There were hardly half a dozen lines in which the language was not varied. Once or twice he used a striking phrase too soon, and had to omit a line or two to avoid obvious repetitions. As he read, one wondered how a man could make the substitution he was making without breaking the rhythm or the sense, but he avoided any more serious entanglement than that of once or twice repeating a phrase.”

Our next point was Boston. Reporters of all the papers met us at the Parker House at about ten in the forenoon, and Sir Edwin entertained them with a delightful chat about Japan and India, closing the interview by reading a poem. He took well, and his reception by the Boston press was, in short, simply a repetition of the scenes in Philadelphia and New York, though enhanced, if possible.

Distinguished callers were constantly coming in, among whom were President Eliot of Harvard University, Edward Everett Hale, Oliver Wendell Homes, T. W. Higginson, John Holmes of the _Herald_, and Editor Clement of the _Transcript_. Dr. Edward Everett Hale introduced him at his first reading in Music Hall, and Col. T. W. Higginson at the second.

The _Herald_ critic grasped the true spirit of the occasion when he wrote:

“The acts and tricks of the trained elocutionist were lacking, but in their place were a divine earnestness, a sincerity and force which would be lacking in an elocutionist.”

The _Transcript_, at the end of a column and a half review, said:

“The audience was simply held entranced and spellbound by the recital of that impassioned ballad, ‘He and She,’ whose closing stanzas are:

“‘The utmost wonder is this: I hear
And see you, and love you, and kiss you, dear,

And am your angel who was your bride,
And know, though dead, I have never died.’

“The charm of presence is an especial gift of Sir Edwin’s, and the entertainment was one of the most delightful ever enjoyed in this city.”

His readiness, his anxiety even, to vary and brighten his programme is shown in the following letter, which I received after I left Boston. It illustrates his conscientious spirit and sincere desire to meet all proper demands--a spirit which, like Sir Henry M. Stanley, he had to a marked degree:

* * * * *

“PARKER HOUSE, Boston, Nov. 10, 1891.

“MY DEAR MAJOR POND:

“I miss you very much indeed, but Mr. Angleman is all that can be desired in the way of obliging and active friendship, and we had a splendid time in the City Hall, Springfield (see _Republican_). To-morrow I go at 10:15 A.M. to Wellesley College, having just arranged this with one of the ladies; and at night, to Smith College.

“It is very difficult to devise a programme which does not shut out something too good to lose. You see I must not quite fall into being merely a reciter of songs and ballads! I am a serious and solid poet, and the people themselves like some of my graver writings. Still, I know you are right about these mixed audiences, that pieces too long waste time and strength; so I have greatly cut down such items. The poems that always take are:

“1. ‘He and She.’

“2. ‘Egyptian Slippers.’

“3. ‘Rajput Nurse.’

“And the little beautiful Nume from ‘Pearls of the Faith.’ I will write on the other side my programme for to-night, and that for Wellesley College.

“For your unbounded kindness and dear Mrs. Pond’s, my grateful thanks. I am too much a Bohemian, I fear, ever to settle down again.

“Yours always, “EDWIN ARNOLD.”

* * * * *

As will be seen from the letter that I have just quoted, Sir Edwin lectured in Springfield on the evening of November 9th. A Springfield reporter wrote this striking review:

“When he [the poet] speaks in his own proper person, in preface to his poems, directly addressing his audience, the Englishman is recognized in his intonations; but as soon as he begins to recite, he renders the English language in very beautiful modulation, with fitness to the characters who are introduced, and with rare dramatic expression. It is seldom that a reader like him is heard. The tricks of elocution are not his; he often hesitates and pauses for a moment to recall the phrase, either from memory or from his text, but he puts the life of his deepest feeling into the recital, and the hearer drinks in the meaning with unalloyed content. The fervor of his declamation in certain passages of the talk of Pontius Pilate was thrilling; a better reading of tragedy than he gave to the story of the Rajput Nurse could hardly be expected, and perhaps above these would be put the picture of ‘Shah Jehan,’ when he resists the temptation of the flesh through his faithfulness to Arjuna, for whom he built the Taj-Mahal.”

Before returning to New York, Arnold lectured with great success in Cambridgeport, Lowell, Hartford, New Haven, Utica, and Syracuse.

One of the most effective descriptions appeared in a Syracuse daily, where the reporter said:

“The speaker uttered the more powerful passages with his head thrown back, his body erect, and his chest heaving. The book was held in the left hand, the right, and occasionally both, being used for gestures. When he spoke of sorrow, his voice was pathetic almost to tears; of joy, it thrilled with rapture; of power and victory, it rang like a clarion; and in poetic description, it was as when ‘the dewdrop slips into the shining sea.’”

I give these bits of evidence from time to time as proof of Stanley’s keenness of judgment, and in support of my own declaration that Sir Edwin Arnold was by far the best of author-readers that England has given for our delight. America has yet to produce his equal.