Memoirs

So they kept it up and down alternately like see-sawing, to an intonation; and be it remarked, by the way, that in French such a monotonous bore is known as a scie or saw, as may be read in my romance in the French tongue entitled Le Lutin du Château, which was, I regret to say, refused by Hachette the publisher on account of its freedom from strait-laced, blue-nosed, Puritanical conventionalism, albeit he praised its literary merit and style, as did sundry other French scholars, if I may say it—who should not!

I saw that something must be done; so, rising, I waved my glove, and there was dead silence.  Then I began at the top of my voice, in impassioned style in German, an address about matters and things in general, intermingled with insane quotations from Latin, Slavonian, anything.  A change came o’er the spirit of the dream of my auditors, till at last they “took,” and gave me three cheers.  I had sold the house!

There was in the Rue de la Harpe a house called the Hôtel de Luxembourg.  It was the fragment of a very old palace which had borne that name.  It had still a magnificent Renaissance staircase, which bore witness to its former glory.  Washington Irving, in one of his earlier tales, describes this very house and the rooms which I occupied in it so accurately, that I think he must have dwelt there.  He tells that a student once, during the Revolution, finding a young lady in the street, took her home with him to that house.  She had a black ribbon round her neck.  He twitched it away, when—off fell her head.  She had been guillotined, and revived by sorcery.

At last the ball opened.  There was the great banquet, and the muttering storm, and angry mobs, and small émeutes.  There is a mere alley—I forget its name—on the right bank, which runs down to the Seine, in which it is said that every Paris revolution has broken out.  Standing at its entrance, I saw three or four shots fired and dark forms with guns moving in the alley, and then came General Changarnier with his cavalry and made a charge, before which I fled.  I had to dodge more than one of these charges during the day.  Before dark the rioting was general, and barricades were going up.  The great storm-bell of Nôtre Dame rung all night long.

I forgot to say that on the previous day I had witnessed a marvellously dramatic scene in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, by the market-house.  There was across it an immense barricade, made of literally everything—old beds, waggons, stones, and rubbish—and it was guarded by a dense crowd of insurgents, armed or unarmed, of whom I was one.  All around were at least three thousand people singing the Marseillaise and the Chant des Girondins.  There was a charge of infantry, a discharge of muskets, and fifteen fell dead, some almost touching me, while the mob around never ceased their singing, and the sounds of that tremendous and terrible chorus mingled with the dying groans and cries of the victims and the great roar of the bell of Notre Dame.  It was like a scene in the opera.  This very barricade has been described by Victor Hugo in detail, but not all which took place there, the whole scene being, in fact, far more dramatic or picturesque than he supposed it to have been.

It seemed to be predestined that I should see every great event in that drama, from the charge of Changarnier down to the very end, and I hereby declare that on my honour I set forth exactly what I saw with my own eyes, without a shade of colour off the truth.

Returning down the Rue de la Harpe before our house my landlady exclaimed to me in alarm, “Hide your pistols! there is a mouchard (spy of the police) following you.”  I believe that I, my blood being up, said something to the effect that if she would point him out I would shoot him forthwith, but the mouchard had vanished.  We had all got into cool earnestness by that time as regards shooting, having been in it constantly for three days.

Over the barricade came sprawling a tall ungainly red-haired Yankee, a student of medicine, whom I had met before, and who began to question me as to what I was doing.  To which I replied, “What the devil do you want here, anyhow?” not being in a mood to be trifled with.  To which he replied, “Nawthin’, only a kinder lookin’ reound.  But what on airth—”  “But are you for us, or against?” I cried.  “Wäll, I ain’t on no side.”  “See here!” I cried in a rage; “those who are not for us are against us.  Any one of those fellows you see round here would shoot you at once if I told him to, and if you don’t clear out in double quick time, by God I will!”  And at this he made himself scarce forthwith, “nor does he come again into this story.”

Then I went down the street, and as a large supply of ammunition came to us from our friends, with the aid of a student of the Ecole Polytechnique, I distributed it to the mob.  I had principally boxes of percussion-caps to give.  I mention this because that young man has gone into history for it, and I have as good a right to a share in this extremely small exploit as he.  Besides, though not wounded by the foe, I got a bad cut on my hand from a sharp paving-stone, and its scar lasted for many years.

All at once we heard a terrible outcry down the street.  There was a tremendous massing of soldiers there, and to defend that barricade meant death to all defenders.  I confess that I hesitated one instant, and than rushed headlong to join the fight.  Merciful God! the troops had fraternised with us, and they were handing over their muskets to the mob, who were firing them in the air.

The scene was terribly moving.  My men, who a minute before had expected to be shot, rushed up, embraced and kissed the soldiers, wept like children—in short, everybody kissed and embraced everybody else, and all my warriors got guns, and therewith I dismissed them, for I knew that the war was now about at an end.

There was a German-French student named Lenoir, and he, with Field and I, hearing that there was sharp work at the Tuileries, started thither in haste.  And truly enough, when we got there, the very devil was loose, with guns firing and the guard-house all in a blaze.  The door was burst open, and Field and I were among the very first who entered.  We behaved very well, and did not steal anything.  I remember that there was a great pile of plate and jewellery soon laid by the door.

I went into the throne-room.  There was a great silver inkstand on the table, paper and pens, and we wrote, “Respect Property!”  “Liberty for Italy and Hungary!” and hung the papers up around the room.  I wrote one or two myself, and touched the inkstand for luck, in case I should ever write about the event.

Let me dwell an instant on some minor incidents.  Many of the insurgents had been all night without food.  The royal dinner was cooking in the kitchen, and it was droll to see the men helping themselves and walking off with the chickens and joints on their bayonets.  I had never seen a royal kitchen before.  Soon all along the street loafers were seen with jars of preserved cherries, &c., emptying them into their caps.  I went into the burning guard-house.  A savage fellow offered me a great tin pail, containing about two gallons of wine, which he offered me to drink.  I was very thirsty, but I had a scruple against plunder.  Grasping his sword, he cried, “Buvez, citoyen; c’est du vin royal.”  Not wishing to have a duel à l’outrance with a fellow-patriot, and, as I said, being thirsty, I took a good long pull.  We mutually winked and smiled.  He took a pull also to my health and Liberty.  We both “pulled.”

Some of the blackguards in the mob drew out the royal carriages, set fire to them, and rolled them gaily along the quai.

A noble-looking very old gentleman in military costume spoke to me before the Tuileries, and saying that he had seen all of the old Revolution and Napoleon’s wars, actually with tears in his eyes implored me to use my influence to prevent any plundering.  “Respectez la properté.”  There were very few gentlemen indeed among the insurgents.  I only observed two or three in our quarter, and they were all from our hotel, or rather lodgings.  But the next day every swell in Paris came out as an insurgent.  They had all worked at barricades—so they said.  I certainly had not seen any of them at work.

That afternoon I strolled about with Field.  We came to a barricade.  A very pretty girl guarded it with a sword.  She sternly demanded the parole or countersign.  I caught hold of her and kissed her, and showed my pistols.  She laughed.  As I was armed with dirk and pistols, wore a sash, and was unmistakably a Latin Quarter étudiant, as shown by long hair, rakish cap on one side, red neck-tie, and single eyeglass, I was everywhere treated as a man and brother, friend and equal, warrior, and—by the girls—almost like a first-cousin.  Field shared the glory, of course.  And we made a great deal out of it, and were thought all the more of in consequence.  Vive la jeunesse!

The day before, one insurgent had offered me a beautiful old silver-mounted sword for one of my pistols, fire-arms being so much in demand, but I declined the offer.

The day after, I went into a café.  There were some students there who had laid their arms on a table.  There was a very notorious little lorette, known as Pochardinette, who was so called because she was always half-tipsy.  She was even noted in a popular song as—

“La Pochardinette,
Qui ne sait refuser
Ni la ponche a pleine verre,
Ni sa bouohe à baiser.”

Pochardinette picked up a horse-pistol, when its owner cried, “Let that be!  That is not the kind of weapon which you are accustomed to manage!”  I stared at him with respect, for he had actually translated into French an epigram by Jacopo Sannazar, word for word!

It was a droll fact that I had, the year before, at Heidelberg, drawn a picture of myself as an insurgent at a barricade, and written under it, “The Boy of the Barricades.”  I had long had a strange presentiment as to this event.  I gave the picture to Peter A. Porter, then a student, and owner of a singular piece of property—that is, Niagara Falls, or at least Goat Island and more or less of the American side.  Some time after the 24th he showed me this picture in Paris.  He himself, I have heard, died fighting bravely in our Civil War.  His men were so much attached to him that they made, to recover his body, a special sally, in which twelve of them were killed.  He was bon compagnon, very pleasant, and gifted with a very original, quaint humour.

Of course all these proceedings put an end to lectures and study for the time.  Then Mr. Goodrich, our Consul, as I have before said, organised a deputation of Americans in Paris to go and congratulate the new Gouvernement Provisoire on the new Republic, of which I was one, and we saw all the great men, and Arago made us a speech.  Unfortunately all the bankers stopped paying money, and I had to live principally on credit, or sailed rather close to it, until I could write to my father and get a draft on London.

So I went to Rouen and saw the cathedral and churches—it was a very quaint old town then—and thence to Havre, where I took passage on a steamboat for London.  The captain had a very curious old Gnostic-Egyptian ring, with a gem on which were four animal heads in one, or a chimæra.  I explained what it was, and that it meant the year.  But the captain could not rest till he had got the opinion of a fussy old Frenchman, who, as a doctor, was of course supposed to know more than I.  He looked at it, and, with a great air, remarked, “C’est grecque!”  Then the captain was quite satisfied.  It was Greek!

One night Colquhoun and I went to Drury Lane, and, after hearing Grisi, Mario, and Lablache together, saw the great pas de quatre which became a historical marvel.  For it was danced by Taglioni, Cerito, Carlotta Grisi, and Lucile Grahn.  In after years, when I talked with Taglioni about it, she assured me that night I had witnessed what the world had never seen since, the greatest and most perfect execution conceivable.  For the four great artists, moved by rivalry, were inspired to do their best before such an audience as was seldom seen.  Colquhoun kept pointing out one celebrity after another to me; I verily believe that I saw most of the great men and women of the time.  And afterwards I saw a great number in Parliament.

There was a rather distinguished-looking Frenchman very much about town in London while I was there.  He was always alone, and always dressed in a long, light overcoat.  Wherever I went, to Cremorne or the Park, there he was.  When Louis Napoleon came up in the world and I saw his photograph, I at once recognised my Frenchman.

I was invited by a young friend named Hunt (a son of the great Chartist), who had been a friend of mine in Heidelberg, where he had taken his degree as doctor of Philosophy, to pass a week in the country at a charming old Elizabethan place, said to have been the original Bleak House.  Everything there was perfectly delightful.  There were two or three charming young ladies.  I remember among them a Miss Oliphaunt.  There was a glorious picnic, to which I and all walked eight miles and back.  I admired on this occasion for the first time the pedestrian powers of English girls.

I visited Verulamium and St. Alban’s Abbey, not then “restored,” and other beautiful places.  It all seemed like a fairy-tale, for the charm of my early reading came over me like enchantment.  One night Hunt and I went into a little wayside inn.  There were assembled a number of peasants—hedgers and ditchers, or such like.  We treated them to ale, and they sang many strange old songs.  Then I was called on, and I sang “Sir Patrick Spens,” which was well received.

Mr. Birch was a man of literary culture, and we went deeply into books.  The next day he sent me a charming work which he had written on the religious belief of Shakespeare, in which it was fairly proved that the immortal bard had none.  And I was so well pleased with England, that I liked it better than any country I had ever visited.

In 1870, when I came to London, and found my character of “Hans Breitmann” on three stages at once, I received, of course, a great deal of attention.  Somebody said to me, “Oh, of course; you come here well known, and are made a great deal of.”  I replied, “Twenty years ago I came to London without a single letter of introduction, and had only two or three student friends, and received just as much kind hospitality.”  I think that like generally finds its like, so long as it is honest and can pay its bills.

There was on the vessel in which I sailed, among the few passengers, Mrs. and Mr. John Gilbert, a well-known dramatic couple, who were extremely agreeable and genial, the husband abounding in droll reminiscences of the stage; a merry little German musician named Kreutzer, son of the great composer; and a young Englishwoman with a younger brother.  I rather doubted the “solidity” of this young lady.  By-and-bye it was developed that the captain was in love with her.  Out of this, I have heard, came a dreadful tragedy; for the love drove him mad, the insanity developing itself on the return voyage.  The captain had to be imprisoned in his own state-room, where he committed suicide in a terrible manner by tearing his throat open with the point of a candlestick or sconce.  The second mate, who was as coarse a brute as a common sailor could be, took command, and as he at once got drunk, and kept so, the passengers rose, confined him, and gave the command to the third, who was very young.

“Thus woman is the cause of fearful deeds.”

One day I saw a few rudder-fish playing about the stern.  They weigh perhaps some six or seven pounds; so, standing on velvet cushions in the cabin, I fished out of the stern-window.  Then came a bite, and in a second I had my fish flapping about on the carpet under the table, to the great amazement of the steward, who had probably never had a live fish jump so promptly before into his hands.  And we had it for dinner.  One day a ship made to us a signal of distress, and sent a boat, saying that they were completely out of fuel; also that their passengers consisted entirely of the celebrated Ravel troupe of acrobats and actors.  It would have been an experience to have crossed in that packet with their chief, Gabriel!

Gabriel Ravel—it is one of my brother’s published tales—was a good boxer as well as a marvellous acrobat, and he could look like what he pleased.  One morning a muscular and vain New York swell saw in a gymnasium one whom he supposed to be a very verdant New Jersey rustic gaping about.  The swell exhibited with great pride his skill on the parallel bars, horizontal pole, et cetera, and seeing the countryman absolutely dumbfounded with astonishment, proposed to the latter to put on the gloves.  “Jersey” hardly seemed to know what gloves were, but with much trouble he was got into form and set to milling.  But though he was as awkward as a blind cow, the swell pugilist could not for a very long time get in a blow.  Jersey dodged every hit “somehow” in a manner which seemed to be miraculous.  At last one told on his chest, and it appeared to be a stunner, for it knocked him into the air, where he turned a double somersault, and then fell on his feet.  And it seemed as if, during this flight, he had been suddenly inspired with a knowledge of the manly art, for on descending, he went at the swell and knocked him from time.  It was Gabriel Ravel.

Home—Studying law with John Cadwallader—Philadelphia as I found it—Richard B. Kimball—“Fusang”—Literal reporting in German—First experiences in magazines and newspapers—Father Matthew—Dr. Rufus Griswold—Engaged to be married—A journey North—Colonel Cotl and pistol-practice with him—Alfred Jaell—Editor of Barnum’s Illustrated News—Dr. Griswold and his MS.—Bixby’s—Mr. Barnum—My first books—New York society in the early Fifties—Alice and Phœbe Carey—Washington Irving—Bayard Taylor—N. P. Willis—J. G. Saxe—H. C. Carey—Emily Schaumberg—I become assistant-editor of the Bulletin—George H. Boker—Cremation—Editorial life—Paternal enterprise—My father renews his fortune—I am married—The Republican Convention—First great dissension with the South—Translating Heine—The lady in the burning hotel—The writing of “Hans Breitmann’s Barty”—Change to New York—Appletons’ Cyclopædia—G. W. Ripley and Charles A. Dana—Foreign editing of New York Times—“Vanity Fair”—The Bohemians—Artemus Ward—Lincoln’s election—The Civil War—My political work in the Knickerbocker—Emancipation—I become sole editor of the Continental Magazine—What I did in 1862 and 1863 in aid of the Union cause.

My father had removed to another house in Walnut Street, below Twelfth Street.  After this he only changed dwellings once more before his death.  This constant change from one rented house to another, like the changes from school to school, is very unfortunate, as I have before said, for any family.  It destroys all the feeling and unity of character which grow up in a settled home.

I pass over the joy of again seeing my parents, the dear sisters, and brother Henry.  I was soon settled down, soon visiting friends, going to evening parties, making morning or afternoon calls, and after a little while was entered as a law-student in the office of John Cadwallader in Fourth Street.

My father’s resources became about this time limited, and I, in fact, realised that he had taxed himself more than I had supposed to maintain me abroad.  His Congress Hall property did not pay much rent.  For my position in the world, friends, studies, and society, I found myself very much and very often in great need of money.  As at that time we were supposed to be much richer than we really were, this was an additional source of trial.  I began to see clearly that in the law, as in all business or professions, I should have to wait for years ere I could make a living.  For the instances are very few and far between in which a young man, who has not inherited or grown up to a practice, can make one himself at once.

“Now, Mr. Leland, can you repeat accurately word for word what Mr. Dimpfel said?” I replied:

“Yes.  Der Herr Dimpfel lässt sich grüssen und meldet das er Montag kommen wird um halb drei.  Und er sagt weiter . . . ”

“That will do,” cried Mr. Cadwallader; “you must give it in English.”

“I beg your pardon,” was my grave reply, “but you asked for his very words.”

I began to write for publication in 1849.  Mr. John Sartain, a great engraver, established a magazine, to which I contributed several articles on art subjects, subsequently many more on all subjects, and finally every month a certain number of pages of humorous matter.  A man named Manuel Cooke established in Philadelphia a Drawing-Room Journal.  For this I wrote a great deal for a year or two.  It paid me no money, but gave me free admission to theatres, operas, etc., and I learned a great deal as to the practical management of a newspaper.

“O’er an old ruined doorway
   Philosophus hung,
And madly his bell-cap
   And bauble he swung.”

It was a wild mixture of cosmopolitanism and Hamletism, and it indicates accurately the true state of my cor cordium at that time.  Earnest thought, or a yearning for truth, and worldly folly, were playing a game of battledore and shuttlecock, and I was the feathered cork.  There is a song without words by Mendelssohn, which sets forth as clearly as Shakespeare or Heine could have done in words, deep melancholy or unavoidable suffering expressing itself merrily and gaily in a manner which is both touching and beautiful, or sweet and sad.  Without any self-consciousness or display of sentimentalism, I find deep traces of this in many little poems or sketches which I wrote at that time, and which have now been forgotten.  I had been in Arcadia; I was now in a very pleasant sunny Philistia; but I could not forget the past.  And I never forgot it.  Once in Paris, in the opera, I used in jest emphatically the Russian word harrascho, “good,” when a Russian stranger in the next box smiled joyously, and rising, waved his glove to me.  Once in a brilliant soirée in Philadelphia there was a Hungarian Count, an exile, and talking with him in English, I let fall for a joke “Bassama terem-tete!”  He grasped my hand, and, forgetting all around, entered into a long conversation.  It was like the American who, on finding an American cent in the streets in Paris, burst into tears.  So from time to time something recalled Europe to me.

There were not many linguists on the American press in those days, and my reviews of works in half-a-dozen languages induced some one to pay a high compliment to the editor.  It was Bayard Taylor, I believe, who, hearing this, declared honestly, and as a friend, that I alone deserved the credit.  This was repeated by some one to Dr. Griswold in such a form that he thought I had been talking against him, though I had never spoken to a soul about it.  The result was that the Doctor promptly dismissed me, and I felt hurt.  Mr. Kimball met me and laughed, saying, “The next time you meet the Doctor just go resolutely at him and replace yourself.  Don’t allow him a word.”  So, meeting Dr. Griswold a few days after in Philadelphia, I went boldly up and said, “You must come at once with me and take a drink—immediately!”  The Doctor went like a lamb—not to the slaughter, but to its milk—and when he had drunk a comforting grog, I attacked him boldly, and declared that I had never spoken a word to a living soul as to the authorship of the reviews—which was perfectly true, for I never broke the golden rule of “contributorial anonymity.”  So the Doctor put me on the staff again.  But to the end of his life I was always with him a privileged character, and could take, if I chose, the most extraordinary liberties, though he was one of the most irritable and vindictive men I ever met, if he fancied that he was in any way too familiarly treated.

There lived in Philadelphia a gentleman named Rodney Fisher.  He had been for many years a partner in an English house in Canton, and also lived in England.  He had long been an intimate friend of Russel Sturgis, subsequently of “Baring Brothers.”  He was a grand-nephew of Cæsar Rodney, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a son of Judge Fisher, of Delaware.  He was a man of refined and agreeable manners and an admirable relater of his innumerable experiences in Europe and the East.  His wife had been celebrated for her beauty.  When I first met her in her own house she seemed to me to be hardly thirty years of age, and I believed at first she was one of her own daughters.  She was without exception the most amiable, I may say lovable person whom I ever met, and I never had a nuance or shade of difference of opinion with her, or know an instant during which I was not devoted to her.  I visited his house and fell in love with his daughter Belle, to whom I became, after about a year, engaged.  We were not, however, married till five years after.  Thackeray, whom I knew well, said to a Mr. Curtis Raymond, of Boston, not long before leaving for England, that she was the most beautiful woman whom he had seen in America.  I cannot help recording this.

When the summer came I joined Mr. Fisher and his two daughters—the second was named Mary—in a tour.  We went to New York, thence up the Hudson, and eastward to Boston.  After a day’s travel we came to a town on the frontier line, where we had to stop for two hours.  Mr. Fisher and I, being very thirsty and fatigued, went into a saloon in which were two bars or counters.  Advancing to the second of these, I asked for brandy.  “We don’t sell no brandy here,” replied the man.  “This is in Massachusetts: go to the other bar—that is in New York.”  In an instant we left New England for the Middle States, and refreshed ourselves.  Thence we went to Springfield and saw the armoury, where guns are made.  Thence to Boston, where we stopped at a hotel.  I went with Miss Belle Fisher for a day’s excursion to Dedham, where my mother and sisters were on a visit.  It was very pleasant.

As I spoke German, I became intimate with Jaell.  He could not sing at all.  Once I suggested to him that he should compose variations on an air, a German popular song.  For a day or two he hummed it as well as he could.  On the third morning he took me into a room where there was a piano, and asked me to sing while he played accompaniments.  All at once he said, “Stop! I have got it!” and then he played the air with marvellously beautiful variations.  He was a great genius, but I never heard him play in public as he played then.  He was in a “high hour.”  It was wonderful.  I may here say that in after years, while living at a hotel, I became well acquainted with Thalberg, and especially with Ole Bull, the violinist, who told me much about Heine.

So time rolled on for three years.  I passed my examination and took an office in Third Street, with a sign proclaiming that I was attorney-at-law and Avokat.  During six months I had two clients and made exactly three pounds.  Then, the house being wanted, I left and gave up law.  This was a very disheartening time for me.  I had a great many friends who could easily have put collecting and other business in my hands, but none of them did it.  I felt this very keenly.  Quite apart from a young man’s pushing himself, despite every obstacle, there is the great truth that sometimes the obstacles or bad luck become insuperable.  Mine did at this time.

The author of “Gossip of the Century” has well remarked that “it has been said that however quickly a clever lad may have run up the ladder, whether of fame or fortune, it will always be found that he was lucky enough to find some one who put his foot on the first rung.”  Which is perfectly true, as I soon found, if not in law, at least in literature.

Then work began for me in tremendous earnest.  Let the reader imagine such a paper as the London Illustrated News with one editor and one assistant!  Three men could not have read our exchanges, and I was expected to do that and all the minor casual writing for cuts, or cutting down and occasional outside work.  And yet even Mr. Barnum, who should have had more sense, one day, on coming in, expressed his amazement on seeing about a cartload of country exchanges which I had not opened.  But there was something in Philadelphia which made all work seem play to me, and I long laboured from ten in the morning till midnight.  My assiduity attracted attention.

And it is, moreover, cruel that a man, because he has been a poet or genius or artist, must needs have every weakness (real or conjectured) in his life served up and grinned at and chatted over, as if he forsooth were a clergyman or some kind of make-believe saint.  However, the more vulgar a nature is the more it will gloat on gossip; and herein the most pretentious of the higher classes show themselves no better than the basest.

Apropos of this small affair, I can recall a droll scene, de eodem genere, which I witnessed within a week of the other.  There was a rather first-class saloon, bar, and restaurant on Broadway, kept by a good-looking pugilistic-associated individual named George Shurragar.  As he had black eyes, and was a shoulder-hitter, and as the name in Romany means “a captain,” I daresay he was partly gypsy.  And, when weary with editorial work, I sometimes dropped in there for refreshment.  One night an elderly, vulgar individual, greatly exalted by many brandies, became disorderly, and drawing a knife, made a grand Malay charge on all present, à la mok.  George Shurragar promptly settled him with a blow, disarmed him, and “fired him out” into outer darkness.  Then George exhibited the knife.  It was such a dirty, disreputable-looking “pig-sticker,” that we were all disgusted, and George cast it with contempt into the street.  Does the reader remember the scene in “The Bohemian Girl” in which the dandy Count examines the nasty knife left behind by the gypsy Devilshoof?  It was the very counterpart of this, the difference being that in this case it was the gypsy who despised the instrument.

Hawthorne used to stay at Bixby’s.  He was a moody man, who sat by the stove and spoke to no one.  Bixby had been a publisher, and was proud that he had first issued Hayward’s “Faust” in America.  He was also proud that his hotel was much frequented by literary men and naval officers.  He was very kind to me.  Once when I complained to the clerk that the price of my rooms was too high, he replied, “Mr. Leland, the prices of all the rooms in the house, excepting yours, were raised long ago, and Mr. Bixby charged me strictly not to let you know it.”  Uncle Daniel was a gentleman, and belonged to my club—the Century.  When he grew older he lived on an annuity, and was a great and privileged favourite among actresses and singers.  Thirty years later I called with him in New York on Ada Cavendish.

After a fortnight or so, Dr. Griswold began to be very erratic.  He had a divorce case going on in Philadelphia.  He went off, assuring me that everything was in order, and never returned.  The foreman came to me saying that there was no copy, and nothing ready, and everything needed.  Here was indeed a pretty kettle of fish!  For I at that time absolutely distrusted my own ability to do all the work.  I flew to Kimball, who said, “Just put it through by strong will, and you’ll succeed.”

So the paper was brought out after all.  I had great trouble for some time to learn to write editorials.  I used to go to the office of a Sunday morn, and sit sometimes from ten till two turning over the exchanges, and seeking for ideas.  It was a dreadful ordeal.  In fact, in after times it was several years before I could seize a pen, rattle up a subject and dash off a leader.  Now I can write far more easily than I can talk.  And it is a curious fact that soon after I became really skilled at such extempore work in the opinion of the best judges, such as Raymond, I no longer had any opportunity to practice it.

I had before leaving Philadelphia published two books.  One was “The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams,” which I dedicated to my fiancée, Miss Belle Fisher.  The other was an odd mélange, which had appeared in chapters in the Knickerbocker Magazine.  It was titled Meister Karl’s Sketch-Book.  It had no great success beyond attaining to a second edition long after; yet Washington Irving praised it to everybody, and wrote to me that he liked it so much that he kept it by him to nibble ever and anon, like a Stilton cheese or a paté de foie gras; and here and there I have known men, like the late Nicolas Trübner or E. L. Bulwer, who found a strange attraction in it, but it was emphatically caviare to the general reader.  It had at least a style of its own, which found a few imitators.  It ranks, I think, about pari passu with Coryatt’s “Crudities,” or lower.

There were two or three salons in New York where there were weekly literary receptions, and where one could meet the principal writers of the time.  I often saw at Kimball’s and other places the Misses Wetherell, who wrote the “Wide, Wide World” and “Queechy.”  They were elderly, and had so very little of the “world” in their ways, that they occurred to me as an example of the fact that people generally write most on what they know least about.  Thus a Lowell factory-girl likes to write a tale of ducal society in England; and when a Scotchman has less intelligence of “jocks” and “wut” than any of his countrymen, he compiles, and comments on, American humorists.

At that time very hospitable or genial hosts used to place a bottle of brandy and glass in the gentlemen’s dressing-room at an evening’s reception, and I remember it was considered a scandalous thing when a certain old retired naval officer once emptied the whole bottle single-handed.

Of course I was very intimate with Clark of the Knickerbocker, Fred Cozzens, John Godfrey Saxe, and all the company of gay and festive humorists who circled about that merry magazine.  There was never anything quite like the Knickerbocker, and there never will be again.  It required a sunny, genial social atmosphere, such as we had before the war, and never after; an easy writing of gay and cultivated men for one another, and not painfully elaborating jocosities or seriosities for the million as in—But never mind.  It sparkled through its summer-time, and oh! how its readers loved it!  I sometimes think that I would like to hunt up the old title-plate with Diedrich Knickerbocker and his pipe, and issue it again every month to a few dozen subscribers who loved quaint odds and ends, till I too should pass away!